Last Epoch 1.1 Best Build - Top 5 Best Cycle Starters in LE Harbingers of Ruin

Last Epoch is starting a new cycle or as we all know it season, the Harbingers of Ruin. This new season adds 30 plus unique LE 1.1 items along with some major skill reworks for all the classes. We’re introducing the top 5 best Last Epoch 1.1 builds for Harbingers of Ruin, including the gear, skills and nodes.

Last Epoch 1.1 Build Guide - Top 5 Best Builds For Harbingers of Ruin

In this Last Epoch Harbingers of Ruin build guide, we’ll check 5 new best builds that use brand new unique items and revamp skills. Have you ever wanted to dual-wield a shield in each hand? If so, you're in luck. The first build is a badass. The second-best LE 1.1 Cycle build is a true dark Samurai build that will more than likely end up dishing out a ridiculous amount of damage. The third-best Last Epoch 1.1 build is incredibly fun and with the potential to stack hundreds of poison stacks. Shaman has been struggling to have good builds in comparison to other masteries in Last Epoch. If you love Shaman, then the crazy Avalanche combo build is the best for you. Lastly, we bring you the most overpowered Fire Disintegrate Sorcerer. The Disintegrate skill is going to be nuts and no matter what you build it with it is going to be insanely fun to play.

No.1 Best LE 1.1 Build - Dual Wield Bash Build

Dual Wield Shield Bash Forgeguard is made possible with the new unique Monument of Protection which has all the stats of a shield and looks like a shield but is technically categorized as an axe. Adding a ton of flat melee damage for both Shield Bash and Shield Rush as well as a nice boost to endurance. You would get more damage from Shield Bash if you use two weapons and pick the note that makes Shield Bash not require a shield but that is nowhere near as badass as dual-wielding two shields and feeling like an absolute Juggernaut.

Skills:

Shield Bash is going to be our main ability and main source of damage. So be sure to pick up the node that removes the cooldown on it so you can spam it.

Shield Rush will be used for movement and will also take advantage of the flat melee damage from the unique.

We then spec into Multistrike as a filler with no mana cost. Finally, Ring of Shields and lastly Sigils of Hope both of which add some defensive ability to the build.

Gear

Weapon: Monument of Protection

Ring: Orian’s Sun Seal is a new unique ring added in 1.1 that will help maintain the up time of sigils and increase its effectiveness.

No.2 Last Epoch Best Patch 1.1 Build - Void/Lightning Samurai

The second best LE Harbingers of Ruin build is the  Void Lightning Lethal Samurai Blade Dancer. Using the Black Blade of Chaos, a new two-handed sword that turns Lethal Mirage into the Last Epoch version of the uliana 7id strike from Diablo 3's Monk class. Adding flat lightning and void damage with extra penetration chance to shock and apply time rot on hit. Most notably, you can also reset the cooldown of Lethal Mirage on melee hits almost instantaneously. So you will be running around spamming Lethal Mirage once you have this weapon.

Skills:

We specialize in Lethal Mirage and convert it to lightning. This is going to be our main source of damage once the Black Blade is acquired and will clear large packs of enemies relatively easily.

Puncture is a good filler, especially with the massive buff to the “Death's Imprint” node which now has a 200% chance to proc Shadow Blade up from 100%. When the skill is used directly, every second attack will now proc the shadow dagger hit for big single-target damage.

Then we spec into Explosive Trap and convert it to lightning. With the “Hold This” node, we can passively attach explosive traps with any melee attack including Lethal Mirage. This will add a ton more free burst damage.

Then we follow up with Smoke Bomb and Decoy for some defenses and utility.

Gear

Weapon - Black Blade of Chaos

3. Last Epoch 1.1 Best Cycle Starter - Toxic Serpent Sward Druid

Toxic Serpent Sward Druid has the potential to be the most fun and chaotic of them all. It utilizes the new spear Plague Dragon's Tongue, making it possible to summon an army of locusts with Serpent Strike and buff their offensive ability as well as increase to poison skills. Going up to as much as plus 5 level of all poison skills is going to be insane. The idea of this Last Epoch 1.10 Harbingers of Ruin best build is to have as many small pets out as possible to stack a ton of poison.

Skills:

Serpent Strike is the main damage skill in this Last Epoch Cycle build 1.1. Important nodes to grab are “Primal Serpent” for an additional minion and “Serpent Venom” which was buffed to deal 400 poison damage over 3 second seconds up from 300 before.

Swarm Blade Form is strictly used to buff our Locust that we can now summon with Serpent Strike using the unique spear. Pick all the nodes that buff Locus.

Summon Scorpion with “Venomous Maw” and “Maternal Instinct” allowing us to summon a bunch of baby scorpions to help spread even more stacks of poison.

Spec into Summon Spriggan which will max out our companion limit and will add some useful healing and utility.

Entangling Roots for the final skill. “Venom Sting” is a massively important note giving a chance to poison all minions caught within the wave of the roots. What makes this Last Epoch 1.1 starter even more powerful is the poison chance is tripled for serpents and scorpions, we are going to have a ton of baby scorpions running around just ramping poison damage.

No.4 Last Epoch Starter 1.1 - Avalanche Quake Shaman

Avalanche Quake Shaman has seen one of the largest reworks of all the skills in the 1.1 Harbingers of Ruin. Avalanche's base functionality has been reworked. It is no longer a channeled spell by default, costs 50 mana, and creates one large boulder at the Target location. Followed by 10 smaller boulders around the target area over 2 seconds. It is now always targetable and the boulders fall within a cycle instead of an extended rectangle in front of the player. Most importantly, it has no cool-down. This was an awesome change and aside from the looming mana issues that you're eventually going to run into. This makes the skill a lot more attractive to pick as a main damage source for Shaman. Avalanche also has a generous damage buff and can proc upheaval as well as Earthquake, making for some godly combos.

Skills:

Starting with Avalanche, the node we're going to need is “Crater” which is the new node for Avalanche and will make every third large boulder create an Earthquake on its impact. Followed by the node “Excavation”, this gives large boulders a 100% chance to cast upheaval when two points are invested. Next, we want to specialize in Upheaval and convert it to cold, so that we're utilizing those procs.

Spec into Earthquake and the necessary node to grab here is “Snowcrash”. Making Earthquake proc extra Avalanche boulders with the aftershocks from Earthquake will create a pretty crazy reverb type of combo chain of Earthquake and boulders procing off of each other.

The last two skills we will want to grab are Warcry and Maelstrom. Both of which we convert to cold and use to further buff the damage of Avalanche and the Upheaval Earthquake procs.

No.5 Last Epoch 1.1 Best Cycle Build - Fire Disintegrate Sorcerer

The fifth best Last Epoch build for Harbingers of Ruin is the Fire Disintegrate Sorcerer. Disintegrate got a nasty buff, not only from the changes to how channeling skills work but the damage as a whole. The damage of Disintegrate is now 24 per second and 480% increase in damage up from only 15 damage a second and a 300% damage increase in comparison. Similar to the Avalanche rework, multiple new nodes have been added to proc other skills in the Mage tree while channeling Disintegrate. To be clear, this is a full fire conversion build and all damage will ideally be fired.

Skills:

Starting with Disintegrate, we need to convert this to 100% fire with the “Infernal Ray” node, followed by two new nodes that make this build crazy. “Unleashed Power” will cast a volcanic orb every 3 seconds while channeling Disintegrate, guaranteed to proc because we converted to fire. The second new node to grab is “Flame Vent”, granting stacks of the vent while channeling Disintegrate up to a max of two stacks per point invested. When you stop channeling, a fireball is cast for each stack remaining.

The second and third specialized skills are Volcanic Orb and Fireball, both being proced from Disintegrate. It's your choice to lead into nodes for hit damage or damage over time depending on what you want to build.

We spec into Flame Ward for more damage and defenses.

Lastly, we spec into Focus for a burst of mana when needed.