With the release of Last Epoch 1.1, Harbingers of Ruin, players have been treated to some fantastic new challenges and game mechanics. From the introduction of an Evade Skill that all classes can make use of to the addition of new "Harbinger" bosses and Nemesis encounters, there's a lot of new content to explore.
This guide will break down the new features added by Last Epoch: Harbingers of Ruin and provide a full explanation of how the new game mechanics work, to help you get started in this new cycle. This update also includes several changes to skills and passives along with adjustments to both of the Item Factions. For full details on all the small changes, you should take a look at the official patch notes, which are viewable on the Last Epoch Forums.
New Features
New Cycle Changes
As of 11am on June 9th, Last Epoch has officially begun a new cycle. This means that all existing characters you've created will now be classed as "Legacy" characters. This means that any shared stashes connected to those characters are also moved to Legacy, where the items within can be pulled out by any character who has the same optional challenge settings. These stashes are now remove-only, allowing you to retrieve the items from them but not deposit new items into them.
Essentially, characters from the previous Cycle will retain access to everything they had, but are now moved to "Legacy", necessitating the creation of a new character to participate in the current cycle. Solo Character Found Characters who abandon the challenge will gain access to their stash as a remove-only stash too, functioning in the same way.
To clarify, your legacy characters still have a normal stash that they can use to deposit and withdraw items, it is only the stash associated with their optional challenge settings from the previous cycle that becomes remove-only.
Harbingers of Ruin (& The Forgotten Knight Faction)
The namesake of the new update, the Harbingers of Ruin are new enemies that will spawn when you defeat timeline bosses in any of the 10 Monolith Timelines. These powerful foes will absorb abilities from the boss that spawns them and drop "Harbinger Eyes" when defeated (guaranteed on first defeat of each Harbinger, and then a smaller chance to drop after that.) It is important to note that Harbingers can be toggled off in the Boss Rewards Echo Panel, should you wish to face bosses without dealing with them.
The First Harbinger will spawn after killing the Timeline Boss in the final Level 90 Normal Monolith Timeline, with subsequent Harbingers spawning when killing bosses in Empowered Monolith Timelines (at increasingly high corruption levels.) Once a Harbinger has been killed it will continue to spawn in the same timeline it was first encountered in, after defeating that Timeline's boss, unless you toggle them off.
The Harbinger Eyes that they drop are used to access the new "Pinnacle Boss." To reach the Pinnacle Boss you'll need to defeat all 10 Harbingers, completing the Harbinger Questline. After doing this you can spend 1 Harbinger Eye to challenge the Pinnacle Boss whenever you want. This Harbinger Questline begins after you kill your first Harbinger and requires you to speak to a new NPC called the "Forgotten Knight." Speaking to this NPC will unlock the Forgotten Knight Faction, which offers rewards for defeating the Harbingers and progressing through the new content.
The Forgotten Knight Faction's rewards include drop chance boosts for Harbinger Uniques and a new Crafting Material (Glyph of Envy), along with Lucky Blessing Rolls.
As for the Pinnacle Boss itself, Aberroth's boss fight will take you across all four Eras (introducing unique mechanics for each) and serves as the ultimate challenge of this update. To ensure that there is time for the boss to be experienced and learned through natural progression, Aberroth will only be available initially to current online cycle characters. Once someone beats Aberroth, they will become available to legacy and offline characters on the following business day. (According to the "What's New" page)
Nemesis Encounters
Another new enemy type players will encounter in Harbingers of Ruin is the "Nemesis." These are first found as armor floating and circling around the corpse of someone slain by a Harbinger and can be found throughout the Campaign and the Monolith of Fate. When you interact with the remains you'll be shown a window containing the loot you can get from this Nemesis and will be presented with three options. You can banish the Nemesis (getting rid of this Nemesis and the items it offers), you can Challenge the Nemesis (triggering a fight and getting all the items displayed when it's dead), or you can Empower the Nemesis (which still triggers the fight but has it escape afterwards.)
Of the three, that third option is likely the most confusing, so here's why you might want to Empower a Nemesis: Empowering a Nemesis means that you will encounter the same Nemesis the next time you find one (it will appear as a time rift instead of a corpse surrounded by floating armor) and the loot it can give you will be given increased Affix Tiers, Forging Potential, or Legendary Potential. This can also cause the loot to gain new affixes, including non-experimental sealed affixes, and upgrade non-experimental sealed affixes up to rank 6 or 7 (which was not possible before.) You are able to Empower a Nemesis twice before challenging it for the loot.
A Nemesis can also sometimes offer the "Egg of the Forgotten" as loot. This will change into a random Loot Item when dropped or if the Nemesis is empowered, but you can also replace it with one of your own unique items that lacks Legendary potential. Doing this will then allow you to empower that item via the Nemesis, turning it into a legendary or granting it legendary potential.
Evade
The new Evade Skill allows your character to dash a short distance in one direction, which can be helpful for getting out of the way of certain attacks or traversing the world. It is important to note that you do not get any invincibility frames while using evade, since it is not intended to replace existing evasion options and skills. You get two charges of evade with an initial cooldown of 4 seconds, though the cooldown speed will lower as your character's level increases. There is no skill tree for evade, but certain uniques can modify or outright replace it with new mechanics (summoning a crab was mentioned in particular and a pair of boots that add an extra evade charge was shown in a screenshot.)
General Gameplay Changes
Boss Changes
The variable Damage Reduction that bosses used to receive based on the speed they were taking damage has been replaced with Ward Breakpoints. Each boss has a number of breakpoints on their health bar that, once reached, cause the boss to gain Ward based on their maximum health. This ward decreases over time based on how long it has been since they gained it, but otherwise functions the same as Ward for players. Most bosses have two Ward Breakpoints, but certain major bosses will have more.
Bosses have also been given 50% more effective health against Stun and Freeze Effects. Freeze Chance now takes Ward into account.
Ward Changes
Player Wards now use a different formula to calculate decay, which aims to make builds that generate lower amounts of Ward more able to retain it, while curbing any outliers that generate huge amounts of Ward very quickly. The "Quality of Life" post on the official forums sums it up as "going from 40% of your ward per second to 20% of your ward per second plus 0.005% of your ward squared per second."
New Crafting Item: Glyph of Envy
This new crafting item, which can be obtained via the Forgotten Knight Faction, will destabilize an item and randomly change all properties of the item other than the affix currently being upgraded. The lost stability is channeled to the most recent Monolith Timeline you entered to increase its stability. It adds much more stability to timelines that you haven't finished yet and cannot change sealed affixes or result in affixes above Tier 5. The huge stability boost to timelines you haven't finished yet makes this useful for getting through timelines more quickly on Alt Characters.
System PC Platform(s) PC Released February 21, 2024 Developer(s) Eleventh Hour Games Developer Eleventh Hour Games (Video Game Company) Publisher(s) Eleventh Hour Games Publisher Eleventh Hour Games (Video Game Company) Genre(s) Action RPG How Long To Beat 18 Hours Expand See at Official Site
