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

The Mage is a caster class with a focus on harnessing the raw elements of nature to utterly destroy your foes. Mages are incredibly strong in Last Epoch, so here's a leveling build to get you started with the class.

How to level as Mage in Last Epoch

When leveling the Mage, you should tie most of your focus into boosting up the class's incredible AoE (Area of Effect). The Mage starts the game with one of their strongest, spammable AoE spells (Lightning Blast) and this build focuses on empowering it. More on that soon. First, we need to talk about Passives.

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Best Mage Passive Skills for Leveling - Last Epoch

Since the Mage is all about elemental damage, we're going to focus on boosting that through Attribute bonuses and elemental damage increases in the passive tree. Specifically, Lightning damage is the core goal, as the build is centered around that core element.

• Elementalist (8/8) - Provides a flat, non-conditional boost to all your Elemental Damage, which naturally includes Lightning damage as well. Great to have for any Mage build.
• Arcanist (8/8) - Arcanist is being taken and capped due to each point granting a +1 to Intelligence, which is the Mage's most important stat.
• Arcane Current (6/6) - With the focus on Lightning Damage, taking this Passive provides a chance at an additional proc of Lightning Damage whenever a Lightning spell is cast.
• Preparation (8/10) - With no additional maintenance involved, this Passive grants all your spells a massive damage boost every three seconds, which is nice to have for instantly clearing groups in rooms.

Best Mage Skill Specializations for Leveling - Last Epoch

As previously mentioned, this build focuses on dealing Lightning Damage, so the skills chosen support that damage type while providing mobility for positioning.

• Lightning Blast - The bread and butter of this build, Lightning Blast provides a near costless, spammable Lightning Damage Skill that has major chaining capabilities which each cast. The Arcing Power node further improves the skill's chaining, turning it into an extremely capable room clearer in just a few clicks. Overcharge further boosts this effect by adding a chance for Lightning Blast to be double-cast every time you use the spell.
• Static - This is a unique ability that builds in power with your movement. It has a cooldown and gains in power over time, thus, it does not take away from your optimal Lightning Blast spam. High Voltage provides a significant boost to your mobility with more active charges; Forked Lightning provides Static with a similar benefit as Arcing Power, giving you more AoE.
• Teleport - Your core mobility skill, Teleport is to be used to move quickly to the next room and/or dodge enemy attacks. Take Comet Rush to reduce the cooldown of the skill so that it is practically always available. Unexpected Copy provides you with a double that will taunt enemies it is close by, giving you a bit of crowd control in a pinch.

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How to play the Mage in Last Epoch

As a Mage that has focused on dealing Lightning Damage, you want to always be moving and always be arcing Lightning through your foes like a living current. Lighting Blast is your core room clearer, as it can be cast extremely fast and will hit the entirety of most groups you encounter. When Static is at full charge, activate the skill to discharge the charges for extreme AoE damage. Against bosses, this should be done on cooldown. Use Teleport to generate mirror images to taunt enemies and keep them at bay. Taunted enemies with fixate on the images, allowing you to chain lightning through them with ease.

Best items and affixes for Mage in Last Epoch

For the most part, Mages this early in the game don't typically need to have specific unique or legendary items to be functional, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some pieces of gear you should keep an eye out for.

• Tome of the Elements - This unique relic grants you solid life leech based on elemental damage, while also increasing your chance to inflict all three elemental afflictions (Chill, Shock, Ignite). For leveling, not a bad item to have. It has a chance to drop from enemies the moment you start the game.
• Any Items with Elemental Damage - This build does nothing but Elemental Damage, so this is always a great stat to look out for while leveling.
• Any Items with Spell Damage - Mages deal all of their damage using Spells, so this is a no-brainer stat to look out for as well.
• Prism Wraps - This chest beast's main benefit is that it grants a solid boost to all of your Elemental Damage. It can drop as early as Level 5, so keep an eye out if a Unique suddenly pops up.

What Mage Mastery should you pick in Last Epoch?

As with all other classes in Last Epoch, the Mage has access to three different Masteries that you can choose from as you progress through the main story.

Sorcerer Mastery in Last Epoch

Sorcerers are Mages that favor casting big, powerful spells from a distance to destroy their foes. The more Mana their massive spells cost, the more damaging they are. They focus almost entirely on offense, but their damage is nearly unparalleled as a result. Sorcerers need to build carefully, as their defensive options are a bit more limited.

Static Orb is a popular skill for Sorcerers due to its spammy nature, while Meteor has many build options, even when considering Uniques to build off.

Spellblade Mastery in Last Epoch

Spellblades are Mages that focus on channeling their elemental spells into the tip of their melee weapons. They are melee-focused combatants that grant themselves large amounts of Ward when throwing out spells through their melee attacks. As such, Spellblades are rather tanky regardless of the build focus.

Flame Reave is a bread-and-butter choice for any aspiring Spellblade to build from. Shattering Strike is also a solid choice if ice is more your fancy.

Runemaster Mastery in Last Epoch

Runemasters are Mages that focus on delivering their elemental carnage through the conduit of runes. By infusing magic into them, Runemasters can invoke unique spells that differ in function from the Sorcerer or Spellblade. Players looking for a more unorthodox way to play an elemental spellcaster should consider the Runemaster as an option.

Runebolt offers several wacky customizations in its tree, allowing you to shape it exactly as you need it. Runic Invocation is what this class is most famous for due to its unique playstyle even amongst other Mage-related builds.

For more helpful guides and useful information relating to everything Last Epoch, check out All Last Epoch Blessings & where to get them right here on Pro Game Guides.