Terek has been playing Last Epoch consistently since 2020, along with streaming and creating videos on YouTube. He fell in love with Last Epoch after putting too many hours into PoE and D3, so much so that he decided to speedrun it! He has been consistently pushing boundaries of what is possible in Last Epoch through his speedruns and has established most of the leveling strategies used today.
Published on September 27th, 2022
Last updated on March 4th, 2023
Introduction
The Bladedancer flits in and out of shadows, each movement another deadly cut. She dashes out of the reach of her enemies easily, only to engage again at a time of her own choosing. When she does, she deals incredible melee damage and damage over time.
While the Rogue in general has fast paced gameplay, the Bladedancer specialization excels in assassin-like movement and blades, allowing you to move quickly from enemy pack to pack and cutting them to pieces. Together with this guide, you will quickly level a Bladedancer that can deal devastating damage to your foes from the shadows.
This leveling build centers around throwing spinning Umbral Blades, fast movement skills, and dealing damage over time by applying the Shadow Daggers ailment. Your dashes also throw additional Umbral Blades giving you a consistent source of damage even on the move. Despite your high damage, you can be a bit squishy so you need to rely on Decoy to Taunt enemies and Smoke Bomb to keep important defensive buffs up.
Early Campaign Gear Planner
Dancing Strikes
Shift
Umbral Blades
Smoke Bomb
Decoy
Check out the Campaign Guide for an in depth breakdown of the campaign.
Easy Gearing ✔ Fast and Mobile ✔ Massive Damage ✔ Powerful Supporting Skills ✔
❌ Delayed Damage ❌ Reactive Playstyle ❌ Has to Respec 1 Skill ❌ Can't Facetank Everything
Bladedancer Passives
Passives provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives in the first half of any Mastery regardless of the one you chose. Powerful skills and nodes are usually found in the masteries tree.
Don't spend any passive point past 20 points invested until you get your Mastery!
Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Passive Tree Progression
Skills
Puncture
Puncture is your first specialized skill before getting your mastery and respeccing it to Dancing Strikes. It gives you tons of Bleed chance through Bloodthirst. After you specialize in Umbral Blades, use it as a secondary damaging ability by applying Shadow Daggers with Death's Imprint.
Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression
Shift
Shift is your movement and second specialized skill. Use it to move around quickly and time it properly to become immune to incoming damage thanks to Shadowslip. This setup also provides a short Movement Speed buff.
Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression
Umbral Blades
Umbral Blades is your third specialized skill. It is used as a clearing and bossing ability dealing incredible single target damage. Shadow Daggers are applied when you use it, dealing massive damage due to the guaranteed Critical Strike and Added Damage Effectiveness multiplier at 450%.
Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression
Dancing Strikes
Once you get your mastery, respec Puncture for Dancing Strikes. It is used as a filler in between Umbral Blades casts. It revolves around boosting Shadow Daggers damage. Ideally we want to keep stacks Rhythm up at all times.
Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression
Smoke Bomb
Smoke Bomb is your fourth specialized skill and provides great offensive and defensive buffs. Smoke Blades gives you 400% increased damage for your Umbral Blades. Moonlight Bomb and Shrouded in Darkness gives you great defense.
Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression
Decoy
Decoy is your fifth specialized skill and a very powerful support skill. Aside from its multiple temporary buffs, it Taunts enemies, making it your best defensive tool.
Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression
Bladedancer Gear Progression
While we make recommendations for all items make sure you pay special attention to your weapon. Weapons are a core part of your character's power and getting a higher level base weapon increases your damage significantly. A good way to get better weapon bases is to buy them at the Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town and in the End of Time town. Upgrade or buy your next weapon each time you reach the appropriate level.
If you are lucky you might get a Rune of Ascendance while leveling. Use this first on a belt to get a unique belt such as Vipertail, Thorn Slinger, Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding or Legacy of the Quiet Forest.
You might also drop useful uniques for this build such as Zerrick's Ambition, Suloron's Step, Bastion of Honour, Li'raka's Claws, Mourningfrost, Bleeding Heart and Arboreal Circuit.
Gear Stats Priorities
Prefixes
Vitality to bump your health up. Getting your health pool as high as possible is very important.
Increased Shadow Daggers Effect is the biggest boosts possible to your damage.
Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed makes your experience smoother as it makes Decoy and Shift available more often.
Melee Physical Damage and Throwing Attack Damage are pretty substantial boost to your damage as they increase the base damage.
Critical Strike Multiplier and Critical Strike Multiplier while dual wieldingare also good boosts to your damage as they multiply your damage.
Physical Damage and Melee Damage are good to increase your clearing damage.
Level of Puncture, Level of Dancing Strikes, Level of Shift, Level of Umbral Blades, Level of Smoke Bomb and Level of Decoy are vey important as skill tree nodes provides a substantial boost to your character power.
Suffixes
Health, Health and Hybrid Health to bump your health up. Getting your health pool as high as possible is very important.
Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Physical Resistance, Necrotic Resistance and Void Resistance to get your resistances to 75%. This is your second layer of defense, getting it capped to 75% is not vital.
Dodge Rating and Armour are less important than health and resistances. This is your third layer of defense, getting some is useful, as you get 15% Dodge and Armour with little amount.
Chance to Chill on Hit, Chance to Slow on Hit and Chance to Apply Frailty on Hit are great secondary defensive stats.
Health Regen Per Second is a very effective way to regen health early, but it quickly falls off once you get other ways to regen.
Chance to Bleed on Hit, Chance to Poison on Hit and Chance to Ignite on Hit makes up most of your damage early in the campaign. Once you spec Umbral Blades, they loose all their value.
Level 2: Any Two Handed Weapon, two Jade Ring and Ruby Amulet.
Level 4: Venom Phial.
Level 6: Birch Bow and a Light Quiver, with Chance to Ignite on Hit, Chance to Bleed on Hit or Chance to Poison on Hit if possible.
Level 8: Refuge Boots
Level 11: Start equipping Idols with Vitality, any type of resistance, Health, Health on Kill, Chance To Bleed On Hit, Chance To Poison On Hit and Chance To Ignite On Hit.
Level 13: Salvaged Bow.
Level 19: Plated Belt.
Level 23: Weathered Coins, two Sacrificial Knife and Outcast Boots.
Level 25: Two Gold Ring.
Items at level 27
Level 27: Two Kris. You want the +(40-80)% Critical Strike Multiplier implicit to roll as high as possible and have Melee Damage Leeched as Health on at least one dagger. Melee Physical Damage and Critical Strike Multiplier are also very good.
Level 30: Brigandine Boots.
Starting from this level you can drop a Large Shadow Idol with Increased Shadow Daggers Effect. This is a huge damage boost so be on the lookout for it.
Level 44: Bronze Belt.
Level 45: Engraved Gauntlets and Heoborean Boots.
Level 58: Brigandine Armourand Bone Amulet.
Items at level 55
Important At this point, you have access to most of the best item bases in the game. Your upgrades will come from prefixes and suffixes on items instead of the implicits. At level 74 you can equip items with four Tier 5 affixes, making these upgrades even more important.
Here is a quick recap of the best item bases :
Helmet: Kelthan Mask, Exile Hat and Umbral Visage
Body Armour: Brigandine Armour
Belt: Bronze Belt
Boots: Heoborean Boots and Solarum Greaves
Gloves: Engraved Gauntlets
Amulet: Bone Amulet
Rings: Gold Ring
Relic: Weathered Coins and Antidote Vial
Items at level 70
Campaign Leveling
Key Leveling Notes
Keep your character at the area level by killing monsters.You need to maintain at most a 5 levels difference with the area. Press C to open the character sheet to find your level and TAB to find the area level.
If your inventory is full, stick extra gear in your stash. Don't sell your extra gear to a vendor. Instead, keep it to use later or destroy it with a Rune of Shattering or Rune of Removal.
Crafting is powerful and important for enhancing your gear. Press F and place your item in the crafting interface to level up the affixes and craft new ones! Adding health or vitality on a few empty affix slots can increase your HP by a significant amount!
Always get the best weapon you can. Weapons are a core part of your character's power and getting a higher level base weapon increases your damage significantly. You can buy them at the Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town and in the End of Time town.
Wait until the end (or near the end) of the campaign to dive into the Monolith of Fate.
If you need help with crafting, check the Beginner Crafting Guide. If it's not your first playthrough and you want to go a step further, you can check out the Speed Leveling Guide.
Campaign Step by Step
Chapter 1 - Divine Era
Chapter 2 - Ruined Era
Chapter 3 - Ruined Era
Chapter 4 - Imperial Era
Chapter 5 - Imperial Era
Chapter 6 - Imperial Era
Chapter 7 - Divine Era
Chapter 8 - Divine Era
Chapter 9 - Divine Era
Chapter 1 (level 1 to 4)
Skills
Flurry is your main damaging skill until level 5, then use Puncture.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters.
Once you get Puncture, open your skill panel by pressing "S" and specialize Puncture first.
Passive Tree
At level 3 open your passive tree, by pressing "P" and begin placing points.
Step 1
In the first area kill every monster and pick up all the loot.
Advance to the Travelers' Camp then loot the chest on the right side.
Talk to the Shop NPC, sell your items, and look for a two handed weapon. After that look for Jade Ring and Boots with Movement Speed.
The Shop NPC has this icon above his head and is located in the center of the area.
Continue forward until The Ulatry Cliffs.
At the end of the area kill Haruspex Orian and take the time rift to travel to the Ruined Era.
Chapter 2 (level 5 to 10)
Skills
Puncture is your main damaging skill.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters.
At level 8 spec into Shift.
Gearing
Use a Birch Bow and a Light Quiver for better clearing.
Step 1
Once you reach The Council Chambers gamble and equip a Birch Bow and a Light Quiver from the Gambler NPC.
The Gambler NPC has this icon above his head. You can find him on the left side of the area.
If you are low on gold, check the Shop NPC for those items. You can find him on the right side of the area.
Talk to Elder Erza and take the Erza Ledger side quest.
Get to Erza's Library by going west and complete the Erza Ledger side quest.
Continue to the Pannion's Study and kill Pannion's Void corrupted students.
Align the bosses to be more efficient with Puncture.
Portal to come back to Elder Erza in The Council Chambers to get Avarice.
Important: When you get back to town, do NOT talk to the Gambler NPC before getting your reward, otherwise you obtain Gambler's Fallacy instead of Avarice.
Step 2
Get to The Precipice by going north and kill the Idol of Loathing.
Avoid the waves of void balls the boss throws.
Take the time rift to get to The Ancient Cavern and take the time rift again at the end.
Go east to The Armoury and kill Voidfused Forge.
Don't get too close to the boss, as his lava melts your Health.
After killing him, go east and do the Armoury Aid side quest by talking to Surviving Guard and Quartermaster Manus.
Continue to The Lower District and kill The Husk of Elder Pannion.
Don't stand in his lightning bubble or his fire beam, which always rotates clockwise.
Portal back to The Council Chambers and complete all quests to unlock your first Idol slots and an extra Passive point.
Important Idols will now drop which are a large part of your character's power. If you want to know more about Idols check out the Gear Walkthrough.
Go to the Sheltered Woods by going east.
Chapter 3 (level 11 to 23)
Skills
Puncture is your main damaging skill.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters.
At 10 points in your passive tree, you unlock Decoy. Use it to get out of dangerous situations, as it taunts nearby monsters.
Advanced tip : To get more damage against bosses, use Flurry in combination with Puncture. Use Puncture until it generates 3 stacks of Bleeding Fury, then Flurry to apply the stacks of bleed faster. Use Puncture again to refresh the Bleeding Fury stacks.
At level 20 spec into Umbral Blades. Use it only after Lethal Darkness, Cacophony of Steel and Precision Cuts nodes are specced.
Passive Tree
Twin Blade is key to use Umbral Blades as it allows us to scale the Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades even higher.
Gearing
Look for a good Salvaged Bow that you can equip at level 13 to increase your damage.
In this chapter you want as much Physical Resistance and Void Resistance as possible. Void monsters like Festering Cultist, Void Horror and Void Prophet are a lot more dangerous than previous monsters. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
Continue to The Surface, then go east to The Forsaken Trail and The Cultist Camp.
Upon reaching The Cultist Camp, check your resistances by pressing "C". If your void and physical resistances are not at least at 20% teleport to The Council Chambers and shop or gamble items to get you there.
Once your resistances are fine, go to the southern area.
Get close to the chest in the bottom right, kill the Void Centipede and click on the chest.
Portal back to The Cultist Camp and go north to the Ruins of Welryn.
The next area is close to the entrance. Go east, then south to get to Welryn City.
Once there talk to The Last Imperial and kill the 3 soul repository.
Talk again to The Last Imperial, Portal back to The Cultist Camp and continue east to the Ritual Site.
Kill the Void Amalgamation and continue east to The Shattered Valley.
Important: Focus the summoned monsters as they deal a lot of damage.
Step 2
Go to the area close to the entrance in the north called The Abandoned Tunnel. Continue until you reach The Lost Refuge and open the chests on the bottom right of the area. Once done you get 2 extra Passive points.
Portal back to The Shattered Valley and take the time rift south.
At the end of the area kill the Primeval Dragon.
Sometimes the boss prepares a giant explosion which is indicated by a massive red circle around him. Get out of that circle as quickly as possible!
Open your map by pressing "M" and teleport to The Council Chambers.
Talk to Chronomancer Lerinne to complete An Ancient Hunt.
This NPC can be found on the right side, below the Shop NPC. She has a pink human head icon above her.
Step 3
Open your map and teleport to The Shattered Valley. Continue your journey by going east.
Get to the end of the next area and kill the Temple Guardian to get access to the Temple of Eterra.
Avoid standing in the red circle.
In the middle of the Temple of Eterra you need to kill 4 voidwing nests to remove the dark purple wall blocking the path.
In the next area, the Lotus Hall, go to the left until you cannot, then go up, interact with the quest objective and take the time rift. After the animation finishes, pick up the orb on the pedestal and Portal back.
Open your map and teleport to the Lotus Hall. Go on the right side this time and do the same thing.
After picking up the 2nd orb, use your Portal to get back to the Lotus Hall. Go forward and place the orb on each pedestal to activate the bridge to gain access to The Sanctum Bastille.
At the end of The Sanctum Bastille take the time rift.
Kill the Emperor's Remains and take the time rift.
Kill the Omen eyes when they are summoned to avoid being overwhelmed. Pay attention to the boss' health, it evolves and gains new abilities. One of these is a purple mist you should avoid that summons monsters from its center and deals massive damage.
Chapter 4 (level 24 to 30)
Skills
Use Umbral Blades as your main damaging skill and Dancing Strikes as a filler to boost the damage of Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters and generate extra Umbral Blades.
Use Decoy to get out of dangerous situations, as it taunts nearby monsters.
In the Shift skill tree, Lasting Presence generate a Shadow. When you use Umbral Blades, the Shadow also use Umbral Blades.
When you get your mastery, despecialize Puncture and spec Dancing Strikes instead.
Gearing
At level 27 switch to Kris. You want to craft Melee Damage Leeched as Health on them as your main source of recovery.
In this chapter you want as much Physical Resistance and Necrotic Resistance as possible. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
In The End of Time, gamble 2 Sacrificial Knife if you don't have any.
The Gambler NPC is located on the right side of the area.
Go to the second floor of the area by taking the stairs on the left side. Once there continue the main quest by talking with Elder Gaspar, choose Sorcerer as your mastery and take the time rift.
Very Important You cannot change your mastery afterward, so select the right one!
Step 2
Now that you are in The Outcast Camp, head straight to Welryn Outskirts.
After Welryn Outskirts go to the Imperial Welryn, then The Soul Warden's Road.
In The Soul Warden's Road, you are blocked by fences. Kill the waves of zombies to remove them.
Continue to The Risen Lake and take the time rift near the waypoint.
In The Corrupted Lake go left and hug the right wall to reach the two bosses called Prophet of Ruin and Idol of Ruin. They reward you with an extra Passive point and extra Idol slots.
Don't stand in the big purple circle on the ground.
Once the bosses are killed go left and click on the waypoint. Click on the button that says "TRAVEL" in the bottom left of the world map to teleport back to The Risen Lake.
Continue your journey by going left and look for a question mark on the minimap. Go there and talk to Outcast Seer who wants you to kill some monsters that spawned near her. Once it's done you get an extra Passive point.
Step 3
Continue to The Fallen Tower which is a really good area to farm experience especially after crossing the bridge, where many rare and magic skeleton monsters spawn.
Important You want to be at level 27 after this area. I recommend re login on your character to reset the area and farm it again, if that's not the case.
Continue to Imperial Thetima, you should be at level 27. Use your map to teleport to the end of time and gamble 2 Kris with good implicit rolls.
Important You want the +(40-80)% Critical Strike Multiplier implicit from Kris to roll as high as possible to get solid damage with the build.
If you get unlucky and all of the Kris have low implicit rolls, just equip the best ones you have. You'll notice a huge damage increase once you equip the 2 Kris, even if they don't have any affixes on them with low implicit rolls.
Continue to Imperial Thetima, then The Darkling Pier, then The Imperial Dreadnought and the Dreadnought's Deck.
Watch out for Wraith Binder. They cast Marked For Death on you, lowering all your resistances by 25%. They appear like skeletal mages and wield staves.
In the Dreadnought's Deck kill Admiral Harton and talk to Alric, then jump out of the boat.
The easiest way to kill Admiral Harton is to stay very close to him. If you go too far away he starts casting a lightning ability repeatedly until you close the distance.
Chapter 5 (level 31 to 36)
Skills
Use Umbral Blades as your main damaging skill and Dancing Strikes as a filler to boost the damage of Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters and generate extra Umbral Blades.
Use Decoy to get out of dangerous situations, as it taunts nearby monsters.
Use Smoke Bomb to boost your damage against bosses. When inside the Smoke Bomb, you generate up to 4 Smoke Blades, each giving you 100% increased damage for this build.
Umbral Blades now leaves behind an extra blade thanks to Umbral Remnant.
At level 35, spec into Smoke Bomb.
Gearing
In this chapter you want as much Physical Resistance and Necrotic Resistance as possible. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
Now you have reached The Shining Cove. Continue to The Majasan Desert and The Wraith Dunes.
In The Wraith Dunes hug the north border until you get to Argolos the Blessed, a scorpio miniboss that alternates between elemental types. Kill him and continue to the next area. This progresses the Hidden Gems side quest.
Don't stand close to him and avoid his attacks as much as possible. Kill all the other monsters before attacking him as it frees up some space to dodge his abilities.
Step 2
When you get to Maj'Elka, talk to the NPC in front of you and take his quest. This is Alric again.
Go south-east first and look at your minimap. Once you get to the objective, kill a few monsters and Alric should appear through a portal. Talk to him.
Continue to the east until you cross a small bridge to continue the Hiddden Gems side quest. Look at your minimap for a silver question mark nearby. Kill monsters in order to make the question mark gold and complete the quest. Once it's done you get an extra Passive point.
After that go north where the last quest objective is on the minimap and kill the rare lancer skeleton. This makes Alric appear through a portal. Talk to him.
Next go to the top right of the area which leads to The Sapphire Quarter.
Kill the quest objective monsters you see on the minimap and continue forward until you meet Alric again. Talk to him and take his portal.
You should be back to the previous area, Maj'Elka. Go east to The Oracle Abode.
Step 3
There take the side quest from the Shrine Maiden called The Sapphire Tablet. Open your map and teleport to the first chapter 5 area, called The Shining Cove.
Go east until you see stone walls. Approach them and they should open. Take the time rift.
This takes you to The Ruined Coast. Go to the end of the area and kill Ortra'ek the Survivor.
Once killed, take the tablet on the ground close to the next area and go to the next area.
This unlocks The Temporal Sanctum waypoint. Use your map and teleport back to The Oracle Abode.
Talk to the Shrine Maiden to complete The Sapphire Tablet and get an extra Passive point and extra Idol slots.
Step 4
Talk to The Oracle and continue north west to The Maj'elkan Catacombs, then Titan's Canyon.
At the end of Titan's Canyon, kill Spymaster Zerrick and continue to The Maj'elkan Waystation.
ImportantSpymaster Zerrick receives hit damage only when his head is outside his body. To make that happen, Spymaster Zerrick needs to have a target he can attack in melee range. Stay out of every poison pool while fighting him in close range. Watch out for the poison pools under his body as you get close to him. There is a small window where you can attack him in melee range without stepping in the pools.
In The Maj'elkan Waystation talk to Alric to get teleported to The Desert Waystation.
Chapter 6 (level 37 to 43)
Skills
Use Umbral Blades as your main damaging skill and Dancing Strikes as a filler to boost the damage of Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters and generate extra Umbral Blades.
Use Decoy to get out of dangerous situations, as it taunts nearby monsters.
Use Smoke Bomb to boost your damage against bosses. When inside the Smoke Bomb, you generate up to 4 Smoke Blades, each giving you 100% increased damage for this build.
Gearing
In this chapter you want as much Physical Resistance as possible. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
Now you have reached The Desert Waystation. Continue up until Yulia's Haven.
In Yulia's Haven, talk to Alric on the left and take Alric's Revenge side quest.
Go north to the Nests of the Fallen and kill all the bird-like monsters called "Osprix" on your way.
After killing most of them in the area it spawns a miniboss called Ulaca Maggot Tongue in the far left of the area. Kill him and portal back to Yulia's Haven.
Talk to Alric on the left to finish Alric's Revenge and get an extra Passive point. Go east to The Upper Necropolis.
Continue to The Citadel Sewer. Kill the 4 patrolling imperial watchers on your minimap.
Go to The Immortal Summit, then The immortal Citadel.
Talk to Yulia to initiate the boss fight. You need to fight Admiral Harton, Spymaster Zerrick and Pontifex Yulia.
Kill Pontifex Yulia first, then Admiral Harton and finally Spymaster Zerrick. The arena shrinks as you kill bosses.
Talk to Yulia again once it's done.
Chapter 7 (level 44 to 49)
Skills
Use Umbral Blades as your main damaging skill and Dancing Strikes as a filler to boost the damage of Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters and generate extra Umbral Blades.
Use Decoy to get out of dangerous situations, as it taunts nearby monsters.
Use Smoke Bomb to boost your damage against bosses. When inside the Smoke Bomb, you generate up to 4 Smoke Blades, each giving you 100% increased damage for this build.
Gearing
In this chapter you want as much Physical Resistance and Cold Resistance as possible. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
Now you have reached The Gates of Solarum. Continue up until The Scorched Grove.
Talk to Heorot, then Yulia.
Now that you are in Heoborea talk to Chieftan Yulia again, then take the quest from Medicine Man and go south-west to The Heoborean Forest.
Continue west up until The Wengari Fortress and take the quest from Nomad Leader called Liberating the Nomads.
In The Wengari Fortress you have 3 quest objectives to complete, first kill the Wengari Brute in the north-west, then the miniboss called Wengari Beastmaster in the north-east (don't forget to talk to the Captured Nomads after) and finally the Wengari Patriarch and Wengari Matriarch at the northernmost point.
Remember that you can see the quest objectives on your minimap.
When fighting the Wengari Patriarch and Wengari Matriarch, kill the Wengari Patriarch who wears a staff and casts cold boulder avalanches.
Step 2
Use your map and teleport to The Heoborean Forest and go north into The Ice Caverns.
Once you enter the area go to the room on the left and kill the big ice golem, Rime Giant, in the middle of the room. Then go north to The Tundra.
As soon as you enter the area, kill the mammoth-looking monster called Eber, then go north and interact with the Cliff Edge to open the ice bridge. Move north to The Temple of Heorot.
Kill the Spreading Frost boss and continue up until The Tomb of Morditas.
A reliable strategy for this boss is to put him in the middle of the arena and strafe in a circle around him. Avoid his cold beam.
Kill the The Frostroot Warden, interact with the frozen NPC and talk to Grael.
When playing close to the boss he throws his 2 front roots in the air and channels a massive ability in front of him. Take a few steps back for its duration and you’ll be fine.
Talk back to Chieftan Yulia, the Nomad Leader and Medicine Man. This unlocks a lot of extra Idol slots.
Chapter 8 (level 49 to 53)
Skills
Use Umbral Blades as your main damaging skill and Dancing Strikes as a filler to boost the damage of Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters and generate extra Umbral Blades.
Use Decoy to get out of dangerous situations, as it taunts nearby monsters.
Use Smoke Bomb to boost your damage against bosses. When inside the Smoke Bomb, you generate up to 4 Smoke Blades, each giving you 100% increased damage for this build.
At level 50 spec into Decoy.
Gearing
In this chapter you want as much Physical Resistance, Cold Resistance and Lightning Resistance as possible. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
Go east to The Scorched Grove, talk to Heorot, Grael and portal back to Heoborea.
Go south to The Northern Stream, then the Deep Harbor and finally east to The Burning Pier.
In The Burning Pier, don't talk to any NPCs, just kill the 2 quest objectives at the top (Commander cinderous) and bottom (Vatran the saboteur) of the area.
Portal back to Deep Harbor and talk to Harbard The Ferryman.
Step 2
This takes you to Lake Liath. Go north-west until you reach Thetima.
In Thetima talk to Yulia in front of you, then Captain Harton north-west of the area and go into the next area.
In Lagon's Isle go north to reach the Moonlight Shrine.
Then go west to The Strand of Storms and pick up the moon fragment on the coast located at the westernmost point of the area.
Go back to Moonlight Shrine and go east this time. You need to pick up another moon fragment located southeast of the area.
Once done, go back again to Moonlight Shrine and place the moon fragments on both pedestals. Then interact with the Pearl Altar to unlock the way forward.
Step 3
Continue up to the Sanctum of the Architect and kill Architect Liath.
Kill all the monsters before Architect Liath.
Avoid the lightning abilities on the ground and focus the summoned monster first.
Continue to the Seafloor Colosseum and kill all 3 phases of Lagon.
In the first phase, look at the movement of his eye to anticipate his abilities and dodge them.
In the second phase, kill the tentacles and focus the sharks that spawn. The waves spawn in a clockwise manner.
The last phase is similar to the first one.
Talk to Lagon and take the portal on the right to Thetima.
Go north of Thetima, talk to Yulia and take the path on her right.
Chapter 9 (level 53 to 57)
Skills
Use Umbral Blades as your main damaging skill and Dancing Strikes as a filler to boost the damage of Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades.
Spam Shift to move quickly through the chapters and generate extra Umbral Blades.
Use Decoy to get out of dangerous situations, as it taunts nearby monsters.
Use Smoke Bomb to boost your damage against bosses. When inside the Smoke Bomb, you generate up to 4 Smoke Blades, each giving you 100% increased damage for this build.
Gearing
In this chapter you want as much Physical Resistance, Poison Resistance, Fire Resistance and Lightning Resistance as possible. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
Now that you have reached Soreth'Ka, go north to The Crossroads and kill the monsters at the quest objective location.
Go back to Soreth'Ka, talk to Yulia and go east to The Dry River.
Continue to the Radiant Dunes, kill Scalebane Swarmkeeper, then talk to Zerrick and continue east to Maj'Elka Upper District.
Step 2
In Maj'Elka Upper District talk to the Nagasa Guard, then Zerrick and go to the top right to enter Maj'Elka Lower District.
Important: in Maj'Elka Lower District you encounter Scalebane Bodyguard who asks you for 100,000 gold . Refuse his demand and fight him, otherwise you lose up to 100,000 gold !
Continue to the Maj'Elka Slums, go to the top right hideout and kill the Scalebane Guild Leader.
Portal back to Maj'Elka Upper District, talk to Zerrick and go top left to The Oasis.
Important: Starting from here Exalted Items can drop. They appear with a purple name and have at least one drop exclusive affix at Tier 6. They are very powerful and can easily be crafted since they also have a high amount of Forging Potential. Later in areas level 90 and above you also drop Exalted Items with Tier 7 affixes!
Continue to the Crystal Mines, then The Osprix Warcamp and talk to Zerrick again.
At the end of The Osprix Warcamp kill the rare monster and talk again to Zerrick to gain access to the Majasan Heights on his left.
After killing a few monsters you are transported to the Temple Rooftops.
Step 3
Continue to The Upper Temple, kill the rare snake monster at the end and go to The Lower Temple.
Kill the waves of monsters to continue to the Majasa arena.
Kill Majasa.
Majasa is one of the hardest bosses in the game relative to your level. She is a defence check, but with the following stats you should be fine :
75% Physical Resistance
50% Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance and Poison Resistance
500 Armor and 0 Dodge or 200 Armor with 300 Dodge
At least 700 Health
Important: In the first phase before Majasa rips apart her human face and regens her health to full, avoid her abilities (especially the big red circle).
Monolith of Fate
You are now done with the campaign and are ready to conquer the endgame, the Monolith of Fate. It has 2 difficulties, Normal and Empowered. In the Empowered Monolith all Timelines are at level 100 and have 100 base corruption, which scales item rarity making farming end game items much easier.
Although this article guides you up to your 3rd Timeline called the Ending the Storm Timeline, your longer term goal is to unlock Empowered Monoliths. This is achieved by completing the Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter and The Last Ruin Timelines and then activating the beacon in the center.
Timelines are represented as big islands on the world map in the End of Time era.
As you want to gain stability fast, you need to rush the echo objective while killing monsters on your way. Until you unlock Empowered Monoliths, prioritize Exalted items and Uniques as completion reward when choosing echoes. If you die in an echo, you lose the completion bonus of that echo, so try not to. Also in your first Timeline prioritize the experience as it gives you a big boost in character power.
In the Fall of the Outcasts Timeline after killing Abomination, choose the level 66 Timeline. As a general rule when selecting Timelines, always choose the highest leveled one. This keeps you on the right-hand-side of the Monolith progression and provides more immediately relevant blessings as you progress through.
Echo Modifiers
If you feel like you are taking too much damage, avoid the following echo modifiers:
Increased damage of all types
Enemies have increased critical strike chance
Remember that you can farm items in the previous Timeline, if the current one is too hard.
Monolith's Gearing
In the Monolith of Fate you have more opportunities to acquire better gear. Max your resistances quickly and have as much health as possible before investing into damage on your gear (except for your weapon, which is exclusively for damage). At the very least, max your physical, necrotic and void resistances for the first Timeline.
Here are the recommended items for each slot :
Helmet : Kelthan Mask, Exile Hat and Umbral Visage
Body Armour : Brigandine Armour
Belt : Bronze Belt
Boots : Heoborean Boots and Solarum Greaves
Gloves : Engraved Gauntlets
Amulet : Bone Amulet
Rings : Gold Ring
Relic : Weathered Coins and Antidote Vial
Here is a list of all the affixes that are good for the Bladedancer leveling, starting with the the most important ones first :
Best Prefixes
Increased Shadow Daggers Effect
Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed
Level of Dancing Strikes, Level of Shift, Level of Umbral Blades, Level of Smoke Bomb and Level of Decoy
Melee Physical Damage
Throwing Damage and Reduced Mana Cost
Melee Damage Leeched as Health
Vitality
Critical Strike Multiplier
Critical Strike Multiplier while dual wielding
Physical Damage, Throwing Attack Damage and Melee Damage
Increased damage while wielding a dagger
Best Suffixes
Health
Hybrid Health
Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Necrotic Resistance and Void Resistance
Health
Chance to Apply Frailty on Hit
Chance to Slow on Hit
Chance to Chill on Hit
Dodge Rating
Loot Filter
Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Highlighting all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to your character's progression. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.
This Bladedancer leveling build is matchless in speed and damage. It kills bosses in seconds, makes you so fast that you barely see enemies and is super fun to play!
Use Umbral Blades with Dancing Strikes to kill monsters instantly.
Throw Decoy to distract your enemies. Take advantage of this to reposition and DPS.
Stack the Smoke Blades buff from Smoke Bomb before using Umbral Blades to destroy bosses.
Use Shift to move quickly through the chapters and generate extra Umbral Blades.
When you get your Mastery, despecialize Puncture for Dancing Strikes.
At level 27, look for Kris to get a massive damage increase.
Cap your Physical Resistance early to make the campaign look easy.
Get Melee Damage Leeched as Health to recover health instantly.
What's Next?
Congratulations, you completed the campaign and your first 3 Monoliths Timelines! What awaits you is unlocking Empowered Monolith after pushing through The Reigns of Dragons, Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter and The Last Ruin Timelines and activating the beacon on the middle of them. Then you can dive into dungeons, empower your character further and test your limits at the Arena leaderboard.
Check out our Bladedancer Guides and find the perfect Sentinel Endgame build for you.
Please visit our Monolith Beginner Guide for more information on how the Monolith of Fate system works.
Terek has been playing Last Epoch consistently since 2020, along with streaming and creating videos on YouTube. He fell in love with Last Epoch after putting too many hours into PoE and D3, so much so that he decided to speedrun it! He has been consistently pushing boundaries of what is possible in Last Epoch through his speedruns and has established most of the leveling strategies used today. 
Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town and in the End of Time town. Upgrade or buy your next weapon each time you reach the appropriate level.
above his head and is located in the center of the area.
, check the Shop NPC for those items. You can find him on the right side of the area.
Erza Ledger side quest. 
Idol slots and an extra 
Passive point.
