With Diablo 4 Season 5 still a month out, and Path of Exile 2 pushed back from its summer launch, Last Epoch is perfectly positioned to build on its incredible launch success with the arrival of patch 1.1 and the start of its second season. The Last Epoch Harbingers of Ruin update introduces a wealth of quality-of-life upgrades to the already excellent indie ARPG, as developer Eleventh Hour Games continues to build on its fantastic start.
It’s fair to say that Last Epoch already surpassed many of its better-known counterparts with the features included at its full launch. From its unique crafting system and some smart item design to one of the most robust and well-integrated loot filters ever to grace an action RPG, EHG pushed the genre forward and Blizzard has since been playing catch-up, adapting several of Last Epoch’s best new ideas into its Loot Reborn update.
It seems EHG is intent on staying one step ahead of the competition, however. Following its reveal of new Last Epoch Harbingers of Ruin features such as an evade mechanic and new random encounters, the developer unveils a wealth of new quality-of-life adjustments, skill changes, and tweaks to other systems such as its revolutionary item factions. This starts with a new leveling ladder tracking the race to 100 with timestamps for those that reach the max level.
A new blessing stash works much like Diablo 4’s legendary codex, allowing you to swap between any previously earned blessings at the highest rolls you’ve found on your character. In addition to this, alts can make use of blessings earned on other characters that they normally share a stash with, although they’ll be at their minimum possible values until you encounter a higher roll on that character.
Timelines in the endgame Monolith of Fate now have a search feature, along with some handy buttons allowing you to filter for some of the most common reward types. If you’re eager to chase after a specific drop, then, you’ll find it much faster to quickly navigate through the web of possible echoes in search of the optimal ones to tackle. Changes to the way the Gaze of Orobyss works means Corruption can also be increased faster than before.
The best-in-class loot filter is getting even better, too. You can now add more conditions to a single rule, along with two new filter options to look for Legendary Potential and Weaver’s Will. This should help you easily find items with the biggest potential to be crafted into the perfect endgame weapons for your best Last Epoch builds.
Progression on the game’s two item factions has been sped up, and the trade-focused Merchant’s Guild has its rewards reshuffled slightly. The Circle of Fortune, however, has some new bonuses for those who choose to side with them and boost their own drops. You’ll now get double the experimental items from Exiled Mages, and boss-specific rewards are dramatically more likely to appear.
One of the most powerful defensive tools, player-generated Ward values have been adjusted. It will now be easier to maintain your Ward when it’s below a total value of 4,000 but the decay will rapidly increase past that point, becoming especially dramatic once you pass the 10,000 mark. That makes Ward more broadly usable without the potential to create some nigh-unkillable builds.
Rounding out the list is a selection of class skill changes, with a focus on targeting “outdated” skills. In particular, channeled skills no longer prevent you from regenerating mana, but instead have the base mana regeneration amount included in their channeling cost. This should reward investing in mana regeneration, without dramatically punishing players who don’t.
The Last Epoch 1.1 Harbingers of Ruin update launches on Tuesday July 9 alongside the start of the game’s second seasonal cycle. You can read up on all the biggest item and skill changes courtesy of EHG via the official forums.
If that’s not sufficient to sate your loot compulsion, here are the best games like Diablo in 2024. You can also dip into the best free Steam games to fill the gap until Harbingers of Ruin arrives.
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