Last Epoch Acolyte Build Guide for Leveling – Best Skills, Subclasses, & more!

The Acolyte is a caster class with a focus on death and decay as its theme. Leveing one is pretty easy due to the class's early game kit, but here's a digestible guide to ease you into the process if you're new to Last Epoch.

Last Epoch Acolyte Leveling Build

When leveling the Acolyte, you should focus on enhancing the class's AoE (Area of Effect) potential, as it gets access to significant AoE very early on if you take the right build. As such, the following leveling build focuses heavily on utilizing Rip Blood as its core.

Related: Last Epoch Sentinel Leveling Guide

Last Epoch Leveling Acolyte Passive Skills

The Acoyle's passive tree is largely focused on using minions to deal damage, but I've found that it is much faster to level by focusing on boosting the core stats of the class instead. The Passives above focus entirely on that, leaving out almost every minion Passive in the process.

• Forbidden Knowledge (8/8) - Supporting the concept of self-buffing, Forbidden Knowledge boosts your Intelligence Attribute per point spent, Intelligence is always a strong stat for this build, making this investment a long-term one.
• Blood Aura (8/8) - Provide a flat, unconditional boost to all of your damage, making it likely a Passive you'll want to keep regardless of the Mastery you decide to focus on later.
• Blood Pact (5/5) - Much like Blood Aura, this passive provides even more damage at the cost of health drain upon killing an enemy. This drain is ignorable, however.
• Crimson Gluttony (1/5) - This passive is taken only to bridge to a further talent; it isn't worth talking about as its value is effectively null for this build.
• Eye of Damnation (6/6) - Improves your overall Necrotic Damage and gives you a chance to apply the Damned DoT (Damage over Time) effect to enemies you hit. This provides an extra boost in damage while you're leveling.
• Veins of Power (2/6) - Provides a very solid boost to overall Physical Damage which improves your damage with Rip Blood and Bleed effects. 2 of 6 are taken due to the limitation of skill points, but feel free to max this passive out if you're planning to utilize Bleed in the future.

Last Epoch Leveling Acolyte Skills

For this build, you're going to want the following set of skills to level the fastest, as they provide the Acolyte the means to quickly clear rooms and move on to the next with very little delay in between.

• Rip Blood - This skill is your bread and butter, and what you'll be using to kill everything you encounter as you level. Eviscerate turns Rip Blood into a massive AoE skill and is mandatory for the build. Blood Catalyst causes Rip Blood to automatically cast again if your initial cast killed an enemy. These two skills together lead to kill chains that clear entire rooms. Finally, consider taking a few points into Gushing Wound for that extra Bleed DoT chance.
• Bone Curse - This debuff skill is added to the build to support Rip Blood directly by providing additional damage procs just by existing on an enemy. This helps Rip Blood kill groups more efficiently, as Bone Curse is also an AoE skill by default. The most important node to take for it is Conflation which massively increases the radius of Bone Curse. Crippling Anguish helps a bit with crowd control, but you shouldn't need it with solid positioning.
• Transplant - The final core skill for this leveling build, Transplant allows for instantaneous and long-distance movement, allowing for fast room transitions and repositioning. You do not need to specialize in this skill.

Related: How to make a Loot Filter in Last Epoch

How to play the Acolyte in Last Epoch

Your game plan is extraordinarily simple with the Acolyte. When you encounter a group of enemies, cast Bone Curse first for the debuff. Then, spam cast Rip Blood until everything in the group is dead. Use Transplant to move to the next area and/or dodge mechanics.

For bosses, nothing changes. Open with Bone Curse, spam cast Rip Blood until the boss runs out of health, and use Transplant to dodge its mechanics then move to the next area. Very simple and to the point.

Best items and affixes for Acolyte leveling in Last Epoch

Your gear largely does not matter much while leveling, but there are a few good items you can be on the lookout for as you progress.

• Swaddling of the Erased - These gloves provide a solid boost to your overall damage while also increasing all your Attributes and Cast Speed. They require Level 15, which means they can drop quite early for you if you're lucky.
• Any Gear with Physical Damage - Rip Blood is a Physical attack along with Bleeds, thus making Physical Damage a high priority on any gear pieces you have drop for you, including Idols.
• Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding - This belt gives you access to a whole inventory's worth of health potions to help you sustain yourself. It also provides a large boost to Physical Damage, which makes this whole package worth using even well into the mid-game. It requires Level 9 to equip, so you could get this super early into your Acolyle's lifespan.

Like with gear, the affixes you have don't matter all that much while leveling the Acolyte, but there are a couple that will help speed up the process.

• Physical Damage - Rip Blood is your main ability and it deals Physical Damage. This will just speed of your clearing.
• Spell Damage - Rip Blood is also a spell, thus this one also speeds up your clearing.
• Cast Speed - Allows you to cast Rip Blood faster, speeding up your clearing speed.

What Acolyte Mastery should you pick in Last Epoch?

Like every other class in Last Epoch, the Acolyte gets access to three unique sub-classes that all have distinct identities.

Necromancer Mastery in Last Epoch

Necromancers are Acolytes that focus their efforts on summoning the undead and making use of other horrific pets to destroy their foes. Its Passive tree buffs up these pets to sky-high levels, making this Mastery the go-to if you want to use the undead pets later in the game. Summon Skeletal Mage is a strong skill to build off of due to the volume to customization options available to it. Summon Wraith is also a strong core skill to craft a build from as well.

Lich Mastery in Last Epoch

Liches are Acolytes who sacrifice their health pools to boost their own personal damage. The more health they're missing, the more damage they do. Their Passive tree amplifies their abilities based on missing health and provides some health leech based on their damage, making this Mastery perfect for players who want to be glass cannons but still deal in death and decay. Drain Life is one of the Lich's most potent abilities due to it not having a travel time. Reaper Form is also a popular choice for building a Lich from scratch.

Warlock Mastery in Last Epoch

Warlocks are Acolytes that prioritize amplifying their Curses and DoT effects on enemies. The more active Curses on a target, the more damage they deal. Their Passive tree doubles down on DoT effects by improving their chance of inflicting, Duration, and Damage. Players who choose the Warlock aim to watch their foes rot away at their core. Chaos Bolts is a fast, spammable AoE that synergizes well with the Warlock's playstyle. Chthonic Fissure also is a strong option for builds due to its fire-and-forget cast ability.

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