Last Epoch is one of theanticipated ARPGsin the genre, particularly after the lackluster performance ofDiablo 4. Striking a good balance between complexity andaccessibility, the developers at Eleventh Hour Games have tried to make a game that’s both easy to get into and complex enough to hold your interest for thousands of hours. It’s not an easy ask, but Last Epoch is the best attempt we’ve seen at it.
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Despite its inherently approachable nature, new players to Last Epoch will still want some tips on how to approach their first campaign run in the game and the pitfalls to avoid falling into. To cover that, we’ve compiled a list of all the best advice we could think of for a brand-new player just jumping into the world of Eterra. Here’s what you need to know.
Last Epoch
10Focus On Damage
Defense Should Take A Backseat
Unlike some otherARPGs, Last Epoch values damage over defense nine times out of ten. Your goal, especially in the early game, is to increase your DPS as much as possible to be able to take out annoying monsters quickly and efficiently. This decision-making should be reflected in your build, gear choices, and skill specializations.
The enemy types don’t really come into play all that much until much later in the game. Focusing on your damage output lets you chew through monsters and helps clear the screen in one or two clicks, depending on your build choices. Sentinels are the obvious exception to this rule, as their whole existence revolves around being a tank.
9Don’t Rush
Take It Slow
One of the most overlooked aspects of Last Epoch is its excellent world-building andengaging storyline. If this is your first time going through the campaign, take a beat and read through the dialogues and the storylines and how it all ties together. These things can only be properly appreciated on your first playthrough.
The other benefit of taking it slow is it allows you to experiment with build choices and get familiar with the mechanics, mainly the crafting and loot system. Figure out what items are worth picking up and which aren’t, and just get a feel for the game. Rushing to the end-game will have you scrambling at every turn, forced to look up guides for every small decision the game throws at you.
8Ask Questions
Global Chat Is There To Help
As you play through Last Epoch, small questions about one mechanic or the other will constantly pop up. Maybe you’re confused about whether or not buying from a vendor is worth it, or maybe you’re wondering what the rune of chaos does, or maybe you’re not sure what attunement means. All these questions and more can be answered by someone in the Global chat.
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you’re able to both ask questions in chat or message someone directly by hovering over their avatar or clicking on their chat message. Don’t be afraid to ask beginner questions; someone will likely respond sooner rather than later and it’s not something to be ashamed of.
7Experiment With Builds
Any Skill Can Work
One of the best features of Last Epoch is how accessible the game is. Most builds revolve around buffing and synergizing around one or two skills, and the best thing about it is that almost all skills in the game can be customized as the core of a build as a perfectly viable option. The game is designed from the ground up to be digestible, even for someone who has never played an ARPG before.
As you level up, you’ll unlock more and more skills related to your class and mastery. Get in the habit of swapping to new skills as they unlock and run with them for a couple of maps. If you like the feel of a skill, you can easily make it one of the primary skills your build is focused on. Then, you tinker around the upgrade tree for that skill and make it your own. It’s an easy system to get a hang of once you get into the flow of things.
6Don’t Respec Skills Early
Penalties Are Harsh
One of the only caveats to experimenting with new builds in Last Epoch is the penalty you get for respeccing skills in the early game. If you don’t know, the way the system works is that if you specialize in a skill, that skill’s levels go up by the experience you gain by leveling. If you go to respec that skill, you lose all that experience, and the next skill you specialize in will start off from zero, at least in the early game.
Once you start leveling up, the catch-up mechanics come into play. This makes it so that even if you respec a skill completely, the next skill you specialize in will have a base amount of points that can be invested right from the start (this value goes up the more you level). And you get accelerated XP for low-level skills when your character is of a higher level.
5Capping Resistances Is For Late Game
Damage First, Defense Second
A common mistake new players often make is taking lessons learned from other ARPGs and applying them to this game. Resistances inPath of Exile, for example, are practically a requirement for tackling combat. This is simply not the case here.
Resistances only become relevant in the end-game when you’re ready to start finalizing your build and are working on getting all T5 items for every slot. And even then, having a fully capped 75% resistance set is not vastly more effective than a 65% resistance set.
4Don’t Sell, Shatter
Use Rune Of Shattering
Rune of Shattering allows you to take trash weapons and use them to get useful materials called Shards. Shards are essentially custom modifiers that you can take and apply to any weapon that has an empty slot for a new modifier (called affixes and suffixes).
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Say you find a two-handed weapon that you can’t use because you’re running a bow build. However, this two-handed weapon has attributes that are valuable to you, and you want them. Open up the forge, put the weapon in there alongside a rune of shattering, and press Shatter.
3Avoid Gambling
A Waste Of Gold
Gambling in Last Epoch is quite simple. You go to a vendor called the Gambler (available in all towns) and buy items with hidden attributes. The only thing you know about these items is what type of weapon they are. Everything else is hidden. But, it is much, much easier to farm for weapons and gear by simply killing monsters. If you go for the Gambler, you’ll be wasting a ton of gold for no good reason.
The only time I’d recommend gambling is if you’ve joined one of the factions in Chapter 9 and are firmly in the end game. At this point, it’s likely that you’ll want to find some good bases to build your end-game weapons and armor. For these purposes, gambling on items for their implicits (inherent stats) can be worth it as it gives you a very good starting point to craft better affixes.
2Start Crafting Early
It’s Easier Than It Looks
The Crafting system in this game is one of the strongest points in its favor. It kicks in right at the start of the game, encouraging players to dive right in and experiment, and it only gets better from there. The biggest mistake I made when starting out with Last Epoch was avoiding crafting during my first run for fear of having to invest a ton of time into it. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
You’ll find shards, runes, and glyphs by simply playing the game, and having them sit there in your stash tab for no good reason is a big mistake. Open up the forge tab (F), throw in weapons and gear you won’t miss, and start experimenting. The UI is intuitive, and the materials are plentiful. Don’t hesitate to dive in.
1Use Loot Filters
Never See A White Piece Again
Loot Filters are a built-in mechanic in Last Epoch and one that’s easy to miss. A Loot filter can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. And it’s iterative, so you can build on top of a loot filter with more and more modifiers and amendments as you progress through the game.
To start, I’d suggest simply creating a Loot Filter to ‘not show’ any white items. Once applied, you’ll immediately see a difference on your screen when you defeat a monster. Where once you’d have 20 items on your screen, now you only have 6. Then, you may further customize and iterate on this loot filter to make the items that show up on your screen more and more suited for your build in particular.
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