Bloody Pontifex Necromancer Build Guide

Exceptional boss damage.

10-15k Ward depending on the quality of Strands of Souls equipped.

Decent all-rounder for Monoliths, Arena and Dungeons (except Sanctum, see cons).

More interactive than most pure-minion builds, as you'll be using Sacrifice for added damage.

Circumvents many bugs associated with minion builds by constantly re-summoning minions.

200+ minions at peak mana efficiency, 80-100 minions during monoliths.

Extremely vulnerable during the first 10-15 seconds of any map; prone to being sniped by spires in high-corruption monoliths.

Sacrifice occasionally bugs out, forcing the player to restart the game once every 1-3 hours (see the Gameplay/Mechanics section)

Demands constant attention on part of the player.

Mana usage is random and dependent on Awakening Presence and Cycle of Putrescence, potentially leading to stalls in the hands of inexperienced players.

Rapidly switching timelines on the Temporal Sanctum can cause minions to become stuck.

Resource-intensive and will cause lag on all but the most powerful gaming PCs.

The Bloody Pontifex is a limitless summoning engine, and you are its conductor. It is your job to direct the engine and feed it fuel (mana) so it does not stall out and leave you stranded in the middle of Void City. This takes a great deal of practice on part of the player, but your first steps when you enter any map should always look something like this:

1. Summon new minions via Summon Skeleton until you hit negative mana or you reach your minion cap.
2. Cast Drain Life on your new minions until you reach maximum mana.
3. Once you begin casting Drain Life, you cannot stop for the remainder of the map. If you take your finger off the key, you will go into mana debt and the build will stall out.
4. Begin casting Sacrifice on the minions around you to kickstart the Blood Spectre summoning process while continuing to cast Drain Life.
5. When you have a comfortable number of Blood Spectres and ward, sally forth and destroy.

The player cannot immediately cast Drain Life on old minions, because minions have damage immunity for the first 10-15 seconds after entering any new map. The engine demands fresh blood.

As you move around the map, use Sacrifice to control the engine and Summon Skeletons to target clusters of enemies. If you have too much mana, manually cast Sacrifice on your skeletons to create new Blood Spectres. If you have too little, ease off and try to be more accurate with your Drain Life casts. Target where your main mass of Blood Spectres is and where it will be, so that you can get the greatest "bang-for-your-buck". Each cast of Drain Life costs 60-70 mana; make it count!

Dealing Damage

This build employs a two-pronged approach to damage dealing. Sacrifice is used to take out chaff minions, while the bleed damage from Blood Spectres (3-4 stacks per minion hit thanks to affixes, passives and the +200% gained from Blood Weaver 5/5) is used to eliminate bosses and rare enemies. Learning to use Sacrifice efficiently takes a bit of effort but is quite rewarding when mastered. My advice is to cast Summon Skeleton in the middle of a cluster of enemies, and then cast Sacrifice by Transplanting onto the minion or manually. As for bosses, use Sacrifice to support your minions and insta-kill the boss via Transplant when they reach 15% HP.

So How Does it All Work Anyway?

The build follows a simple four-step skill chain to summon Blood Spectres.

1. A Zombie from Summon Volatile Zombie dies.
2. The Zombie casts Vile Force, summoning two corpse parasites, and then it casts Sacrifice via Grand Sacrifice.
3. Grand Sacrifice casts three times thanks to Catalyst of Horror and ideally hits the two corpse parasites and one other minion, summoning three Blood Spectres guaranteed through Crimson Horror.
4. The Zombie is resurrected multiple times, first via the 2x Cycle of Putrescence, and later through Awakening Presence once the Blood Spectres die.

This process provides the player with potentially infinite minions, but it is extremely mana-intensive. This is why the player must constantly use Drain Life to drain mana from their own minions. Blood Spectres are cheap, infinite in number and only last ~10 seconds, so there's no detriment associated with damaging them via Drain Life. The player must however take care not to deal too much damage with Drain Life, as it runs the risk of wiping out Vile Force's Corpse Parasites before they can be sacrificed.

Bugs Associated with this Build

There are two bugs associated with this build, one minor sound bug caused by Drain Life and one mechanical bug associated with Sacrifice. The former occurs as a consequence of rapidly casting Drain Life over and over, and leads to the "drain life" sound effect playing even when you're not using the skill. This can be resolved by restarting the game.

The latter mechanical bug causes Sacrifice to only cast once instead of multiple times when entering a new map. It is possible to test this issue by manually casting Sacrifice on one of your minions, but the symptom is usually clearly evident during play: the player cannot increase their number of Blood Spectres beyond 25-30. To resolve this issue, simply leave the game and log back in.

You can start leveling with this build as soon as you get the 2x Cycle of Putrescence, but it will not achiever peak defensibility until you are able to acquire a Strands of Souls with 100%+ "Mana Spent Gained as Ward" affix. Reach Empowered Monoliths and begin farming Fall of the Outcasts ASAP.

I personally consider 500 corruption to be the endgame in Last Epoch, but if you want to push this build further, there are two paths you can choose.

The Sacri-mancer

Best undertaken with a Lich due to their spell damage buffs, the Sacrimancer is a version of this build that goes all-out on Sacrifice. The player divests themselves of all DoT and minion damage buffs in favour of minion health and physical/spell damage. This build uses Pact Severance with SuffixPhysical Penetration and Minion Physical Penetration and PrefixPhysical Damage affixes to maximize Sacrifice damage. Keep in mind that increasing spell damage will also increase Drain Life damage, potentially breaking the 4-step skill cycle mentioned in the gameplay section. If the Drain Life damage grows too great, consider investing in aJulra's Obsession with the SuffixNecrotic Resistance affix. Orchirian's Petals is also a good bet if you're willing to sacrifice the utility of Ambitions of an Erased Acolyte.

The DoT Spectremancer

Best undertaken with a Necromancer thanks to their minion damage buffs, the Spectremancer doubles down on minion DoT damage with the intention of creating a more classical minion build. Taking advantage of the +poison damage on their 2x Cycle of Putrescence, the player allocates passive points into Lasting Stench, Rotting Army and Dominion of Rot. Beast King and Ravens' Rise can enhance their minions further while reducing player damage taken.