Welcome to this new build guide of Last Epoch 1.0. Today, I’m excited to introduce a new Mage Spellblade known as the king of Shatter Strike. This build can successfully progress from Level 1 to Level 92, aiming for 300 corruption. It now boasts the capability to face tank bosses and Shades of Orobyss with ease. So let's just dive in!

Skills & Specializations

Enchant Weapon: Upon activation, your character becomes stronger, attacks faster, and experiences a significant increase in damage output. To optimize its use, start by acquiring Frostbrand and Overloaded. Frostbrand enhances Mana management by providing a free attack with Enchant Weapon.

Next, prioritize longer duration, melee elemental damage, attack speed, and cleanse ailments. Obtain Frozen Sparks for additional damage boost and allocate the remaining points into Efficacy.

Flame Rush: Flame Rush provides damage reduction, enhancing survivability, while also granting frenzy for increased attack speed and ward generation. Its versatility allows conversion to cold damage, ensuring synergy with other skills. When utilizing Flame Rush, prioritize damage reduction first, followed by acquiring frenzy, speed, and range. Consider converting it to a cold skill for added utility, despite its primary role not being damage-focused.

Flame Ward: Flame Ward serves as one of your defensive abilities, functioning in its standard form. Begin by prioritizing the Astonish node, allowing automatic triggering when stunned. This makes it basically an automatic skill.

Ensuring Flame ward triggers automatically upon impact, signaled by an audible ding. Proceed to invest in Barrier and Prismatic Buffer for damage reduction. Conclude by allocating the remaining points into Dilation for extended duration.

Firebrand: Firebrand serves as the foundational skill for this build, essentially spammed in rotation with Shatter Strike. The sequence involves alternating between Firebrand and Shatter Strike while maneuvering. Enchant Weapon is reserved for moments requiring additional damage output.

To optimize Firebrand, prioritize acquiring the Illuminating Fire node for enhanced Shatter Strike potency. This ensures either a guaranteed crit or close to a guaranteed speed crit, significantly boosting damage. Invest in nodes that grant extra stacks per hit, reducing the number of required Firebrand attacks. Focus on maximizing attack speed. Any remaining points can be allocated towards bolstering survivability.

Shatter Strike: Begin by prioritizing the acquisition of area, Cold Penetration and critical multiplier nodes. These enhancements ensure nearly guaranteed critical strikes when paired with Firebrand, significantly amplifying damage output. Next, focus on obtaining damage and multiplicative damage nodes to facilitate swift clears, particularly noticeable against high health enemies.

Proceed to secure global cold damage and freeze rate multiplier, alongside additional multiplicative damage nodes, further augmenting damage potential. Finally, configure Shatter Strike to auto-cast with each use, resulting in double clicks and seamless execution. These skill optimizations are key components of the build's effectiveness.

Passive Trees

Let's dive into the passive tree. In the base Mage tree, we start with 33 points. We allocate 6 into Scholar and 8 into Arcanist. While prioritizing increased attack speed, you can adjust points to prioritize Mana and life if needed. To enhance our ward generation, we invest in Reactive Ward, Warden, and Silver Rune, crucial for sustaining survivability with 8 to 10,000 ward generation.

Sorcerer remains untouched. However, if Mana becomes an issue, consider investing in Mana Shell and Wisdom for support. Transitioning to Runemaster, we invest 8 points into Sphere of Protection, significantly boosting life and damage reduction, pivotal in fortifying our defenses.

Turning to Spellblade, we distribute 6 points into Elemental, focusing on amplifying damage with Frozen Steel and Infused Weapons, while also bolstering survivability through Arcane Shielding. You want to take as much attack speed and ward as possible. Integrating Mana Reaver aids in maintaining Mana sustain.

As Dual Wielding is the chosen approach, we focus on maximizing our potential with Prismic Blade and Blade Weaver. Blade Weaver synergizes seamlessly with Enchant Weapon and Firebrand, culminating in devastating Shatter Strike hits, evident in the staggering damage output. To round it off, we allocate the remaining 10 points into Mental Fortitude, augmenting intelligence and the ward for additional resilience.

Gear Setup

One notable aspect of this build is its low life configuration, a first since the Last Epoch 1.0. To achieve this, we incorporate Exsanguinous, Last Steps of the Living, and Eternal Gauntlets for health. It's worth noting that the Eternal Gauntlets gloves are exclusive to Exiled Mages.

We also incorporate the Shard of the Shattered Lance into our setup. This unique item provides a 20% multiplicative damage boost along with a 20% increase in movement speed. Its exceptional cold-related stats make it a highly desirable choice, and its availability makes it easily obtainable.

The build's current performance is optimized with low life mechanics. Since this setup isn't mandatory, you can decide which items you need based on your Last Epoch Gold reserves. The other gear choices are as follows:

• Helmet: Arcane Visage
• Amulet: Oracle amulet
• Weapon: Crystal Sword
• Rings: Gold Ring & Opal Ring
• Belt: Spidersilk Sash
• Relics: Warding Scroll

Idols & Blessings

Now, let's discuss blessings. We prioritize survivability by focusing on void resistance, Mana, crit avoidance, armor, and physical resistance. While these blessings provide a solid foundation, adjustments can be made based on the affixes present on your gear. However, this is the current setup that I really recommend:

• Grand Echo of Solarum
• Grand Light of the Moon
• Grand Resolve of Grael
• Grand Survival of Might
• Grand Body of Obsidian

As for idols, we choose 1 Grand Glass Idol, 3 Ornate Glass Idols, 2 Stout Lagonian Idols and 2 Small Lagonian Idols. Our selection now includes idols providing Mana, cold damage, Elemental melee cold damage, as well as life and Mana. While this setup may seem basic, its aesthetic appeal is undeniable.