Last Epoch – Rogue Zooming Build Shadow Daggers (Monolith Runs)

This build primarily targets Monolith runs. Its centered around achieving high movement speed to swiftly progress from one Monolith to the next, crushing enemies along the route. Surpassing 500 corruption easily, although I haven’t extensively tested it at 600 yet. It handles T4 bosses quite decent too.

Pro / Cons

All credit goes to Behelit !

Pros:

• Tanky if played corrently
• Satisfying movement speed and mobility
• Very good damage output
• Effective across all content

Cons:

• May getting out of hand when overwhelmed
• Requires some mana management
• Vulnerable when stationary
• Maxing the build necessitates acquiring unique items (LP just scales up dps).

Skills

Overview Umbral Blades:

We cast it through Shift with Umbral Remnant plus Lasting Presence and Dancing Shadows. Since we’re scaling Shadow Daggers damage and not Umbral Blades we can convert it to Cold for the Chill.

• I. Lethal Darkness
• II. Loathing
• III. Umbral Remnant
• IV. Coldsnap Strike
• V. Twilight Assault

After achieving these nodes your damage is already pretty good. Now we increase it even more by filling up Steel Torrent, Jagged Carvings and Dawnfall.

Overview Synchronized Strike:

When you use Synchronized Strike correctly, you can hit a single target with a lot of Shadow Daggers. Here’s how: First, use Perfect Coordination to increase the number of Shadows that hit the target. Then, quickly use Shift to trigger Shadow Cascade with each Shadow.

• I. Umbral Assassination
• II. Perfect Coordination
• III. Dark Allies
• IV. Crimson Storm

Now we put 2 points in Dynamics to lower the costs

Overview Shift:

Shift serves as your primary movement skill, enabling the casting of both Shadow Cascade and Umbral Blades, and offering an execution through Consumed by Shadow. Additionally, it grants brief invulnerability and dodge capabilities, effectively fulfilling roles in movement, offense, and defense.

• I. Dancing Shadows (3x Momentum on its way)
• II. Consumed by shadows
• III. Elusive

Put 3x Velocity in the beginning if you want to be quicker right away. Otherwise put the last point in the end.

Overview Smoke Bomb:

Smoke Bomb, usually a defensive utility skill, here serves our offense. Knives in the Dark continuously applies Shadow Daggers, while Eroding Fumes reduces armor. Smoke Blades grants a stacking damage buff while within the smoke, enhancing our offensive capabilities.

• I. Knifes in the Dark (fill up Swirling Fog right after)
• II. Moonlight Bomb
• III. Smokes Blades

Overview Shadow Cascade:

Avoid placing Shadow Cascade directly on your skill bar. Instead, equip unmodified Decoy and keep it as a panic button to Taunt enemies when needed. Shadow Cascade triggers automatically each time you use Shift, generating a significant number of Shadow Daggers stacks.

• I. Shadow Elegance
• II. Fight in the Shadows
• III. Daggerflow
• IV. Incapacitate

Last point goes into Dismantle to shred the armor of enemies even more.

Passive Points

The screenshot displays all allocated points. You can observe the precise order detailed below.

Rogue Passive Tree:

• Swift Assassin 8x
• Guile
• Evasion 5x
• Twin Blade
• Agility 5x

We are level 20 now and choose Bladedancer as Mastery. We start now putting points into that passive tree.

Bladedancer Passive Tree:

• Pursuit 5x
• Once 8x
• Cloak of Shadows 8x
• Shroud of Dusk 4x
• Blood Dance x5
• Argent Veil
• Shroud of Dusk x4
• Asuvons Pact
• Perfection
• Confidence
• Asuvons Pact x5
• Perfection
• Critical Eye
• Exuberance
• All in x5
• Perfection x3
• Confidence x4

The Bladedancer passive tree is done now. We are finishing up the rogue passive tree with the next 5 points into Dodge and Parry and 8 points into Steady Hand. This gives us Glacing Glow and a extra stack of dexterity, which makes the playstyle more forgivable.

Marksman Passive Tree:

• Focus Fire x8
• Assassin Quiver x2
• Missile Mastery
• Wound Maker x3
• Prolonged Demise x8

*The screenshot shows 7 points in Prolonged Demise as I only hit level 99 now. Last point will go into here as well. DoT can hit hard in higher corruption

Play Experience

• Keep moving and utilize Shift whenever it’s available.
• Use Synchronized Strike against elite enemies and packs.
• Use Smoke Bomb especially in boss fights to boost your damage from Smoke Blades and gain haste to make it easier to dodge attacks.
• Keep in mind that you always have a panic button called Decoy. It buys you time to reposition yourself and gain health again.
• Shift if you are on low Mana and use Synchronized Strike when its full [in boss fights].
• Mapping becomes easy as Umbral Blases and Shadow Cascade proccs everytime you use Shift which kills everything behind you. Leveling is insane fast that way and literally flying through Monolith. Keep an eye on the items that are getting dropped. As they die behind you, you might miss the one or another when you just keep going.

Gear + Blessings + Idols

My thumb of rules + goals for this build:

Getting near these stats already shows where we want to go with this build. You dont need to check every box here!

• Capping Resistances (around 75% is fine)
• Capped Critical Strike Avoidance
• 60% Endurance
• 2000 – 2500 Health
• 30% – 40%+ Dodge Chance
• 1000+ Armor
• 50%+ Armor Shred Chance
• 130+ Flat Phys Damage
• 96%+ Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers
• 120%+ Critical Strike Multiplier
• 50% – 65%+ Movement Speed (without any buffs) 45% already feels very good
• 30+% Increased Mana Regen
• 30+ Dexterity

Blessings:

• Grand Echo of Solarum – Void Resistance – The Black Sun
• Grand Survival of Might – Critical Strike Avoidance – Reign of Dragons
• Grand Embers of Immortality – Endurance – Spirits of Fire
• Grand Bulwark of the Tundra – increased Armor – The Age of Winter
• Grand Bastion of Divinity – Lightning Resistance – Ending the Storm

Idols:

• 4x Stout Lagonian Idol with increased + Health
• 1x Large Shadow Idol with Increased Health + Increased Shred Armor Effect
• 2x Large Shadow Idol with Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers + Increased Shred Armor Effect
• 1x Large Shadow Idol with Increased Health + Elemental Resistance

FAQ

How to unlock the Bee pet?

Press ‘H’ and click on the Tab “Refer a Friend” (the second one). Enter any referral code you can find anywhere and click confirm!

How to find Masochist Boots to increase difficulty?

To increase difficulty. Especially in early game which may bore veterans. The game used to have a masochist mode which is why I called them that.

What is the endgame like?

Currently there are normal and empowered monoliths. You access the empowered monoliths by completing the 3 highest level normal monoliths. Empowered monoliths are harder than normal monoliths at base and let you scale their difficulty and rewards further with special a mechanic called corruption. Each echo (Basically a map from PoE or a Rift from D3) has a objective and completing the objective without dying gives you extra loot that you choose before entering the map.

There are also 3 dungeons with unique mechanics and unique rewards. One dungeon is similar to delve from PoE and serves as a gold sink. Another dungeon makes you switch between Fire and Necrotic immunity and at the end lets you gamble the special currency you collected in the dungeon for Exalted and Unique items. Final dungeon makes you switch between timelines and lets you create the best items in LE. Each dungeon has a boss battle at the end and each boss has their own unique drops, each dungeon has 4 tiers and T4 dungeons are especially hard.

Finally there is the Arena with 4 tiers just like Dungeons which makes you fight a number of waves of enemies and a final boss battle for their unique drops. There is also an Endless mode where each build competes to push as far as possible and earn their place in the leaderboard.

How do I find the perfect build for me?

Build Finder Flow Chart is your answer.

Why can’t I respec my mastery?

There is no correct way to handle this, some people prefer their choices having consequences and others prefer easier respec. The developers opted for an easy passive and skill respec but permanent mastery choice. There are no plans to change this for now.

How to make gold in Last Epoch?

I would share some strategies and helpful info on how to otpimised the loot filters to make gold using the trade league in LE:

What is the difference between the permanent Legacy Cycle and temporary cycles?

Currently there is no difference, for a few cycles Legacy and temporary cycles will share the updates meaning new content can be played in both. This will not be the case at some point where new content will be temporary cycle exclusive. It should be noted, however, that the Legacy Cycle might get the new content at a later date.

How do you know if your build is good or not?

Nothing really standard atm for build planning afaik. If the build can get to 200+ corruption it’s absolutely a decent build but naturally that doesn’t help you beforehand.

For DPS it’s really a matter of if you have a decent source of shared %increased damage, at least some %more damage from somewhere (but not required, penetration counts) and uptime. Uptime is the most important imho, if half the time you spend fighting is waiting on cooldowns or trying to line up a bunch of buffs you’ll probably not do well on later bosses.

Defenses naturally you’ll need 75% all res in end-game (but not during most of campaign), and ideally a decent chunk of armor and/or ward. Extra evasion and secondary defences like Glancing Blows and Block are very helpful but not required for every build. Health scaling is also very important but it can be hit or miss depending on who you’re playing.

Also bear in mind these are guidelines, there are plenty of exceptions that can still work.

Can I swap difficulty of the game on the go?

There is no difficulty option in the game, in the endgame you scale difficulty through corruption. Similar to Rift level.

Does the game have Leagues or Seasons or are they planning on it?

There will be but for a few updates there won’t be any major theme with them. Just core mechanics being added to the game, just how PoE added strongboxes, shrines, harder mobs with nemesis etc. It took a while before the updates had themes to them.

Best affixes for Hit & Minion builds Infographics

I’ve reworked the hit based one to take feedback into account, created a minion one with two versions (one with just minion affixes and one with hero and minion) and am working on a dot one at the moment.

What is the best build?

There are many ‘good’ builds but every build can do endgame content to an extent. Play whatever seems interesting to you. Alternatively you can also check out the content creators for builds.