The 1.0 release of Last Epoch was yesterday!
An ARPG that's more complex than Diablo but less so than Path of Exile. Early Access reviews raved about it. There were ARPG veterans gleefully extolling the virtues of this new entry in the genre.
One of my friends jumped into the early access and loved it and tried to get my partner and I into it too, but we preferred to wait til the official release and the seasons that would come with it. At last, that day has come.
First of all, I am so stoked that they have a server in Australia. Almost no one bothers with us when they first release a game! We're usually stuck on North American 270ms-300ms servers, then the Australian interest dwindles down because our gameplay experience is so bad, and then the developers justify their lack of server because "Hurrrrr, no one from Australia plays anyway."
I WONDER WHY.
So I am so so so stoked that we have our own server. Wheeee!
There are several classes to choose from, each one with their future "Mastery". And I was eager to give the Acolyte a go, with intent of making her the best Necromancer ever!
Gameplay is identical to every other ARPG in existence so it's very easy to fall into and get playing.
Click to move, QWER for abilities, 1 to heal. You can, of course, change your keybinds if you really want to. I changed one of the abilities to my side mouse button.
There are traversal skills in the game, if you spec into them... I'm a little disappointed that they didn't add the spacebar dodge ability that has become so popular these days, to the extent that the olllddddd Grim Dawn actually released an update modernising their gameplay to include the spacebar dodge.
When you level up you get skill points, of course. The above screenshot is the Acolyte tree, yet untarnished by points.
I really like this style of skill tree! It really allows the freedom in choosing what you actually want to choose. I've been grabbing more health, armour, tonnes of minion damage, heaps of necrotic damage for both my minions and myself, and also chance to poison things, as one of my abilities does more damage to poisoned enemies.
Then, as you use your abilities, you get this added skill tree.
Every. Single. Ability. Has one of these skill trees!
You can improve upon every single ability, once more allowing you the freedom to build your build however you like by making even the most mundane-seeming ability stronger.
Finally, at the end of Act 3, we choose our Mastery!
At last, my Acolyte has become a full-fledged Necromancer.
With this Mastery, I can make my skeletons even stronger. So far I've gotten it so I can summon 7 skeleton warriors, and I turned my group of mages into one archmage.
I can make it so my archmage explodes the warriors to deal massive amounts of damage! But, unfortunately, I can't summon skeletons fast enough to use that to my advantage, just yet anyway.
I'm really enjoying the number of ways you can change your build around! Like, those skeleton warriors? I can have a group of archers, of rogues, a mix of all. I chose the warriors. You can have deathknights, cryomancers, pyromancers! So many different types of undead to supplement your build how you would like.
At the moment I've got them all dealing necrotic damage, boosted by poison damage, and then I summon wandering spirits to roam around and inflict moar poison! unto my enemies. And then my main use ability, haunting spirits, does extra damage because I have so many minions and all the enemies are poisoned.
Muahahahhahaa!
Overall, I'm really enjoying this game so far. I'm currently up to Act 5 in the campaign, AND, I heard rumours that if you create alt characters, you only have to do the campaign to Act 3 to unlock your Mastery, and then the world's your oyster!
I WISH PATH OF EXILE WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT SOOOO MUCH I HATE THE CAMPAIGN OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER...and over... and over... and over again, uggghghghhgghhg.
With Last Epoch, most of the negative reports I'm hearing are to do with the servers and loading screens. Which I entirely agree with BUT I also expected. It's day one of release, what else do you people expect? So many salty, entitled, arse-hats negative-bombing because oh boohoo, day one of release is buggered. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Last night, when logging in for the evening, I found myself in a very slow moving queue on the Australian servers. I was #5321 when I entered the queue and I was 5271 when I exited the queue an hour later.
I only exited the queue because I was on the Discord and some other Australian happened to mention something about logging on to the South East Asian server instantly, then changing it to Australia once in-game.
LO! IT WORKED. We have discovered a work around for long arse queue times xD
Anyway. I'm hopping back into it! I'm excited to see what endgame has to offer and how stupidly strong I can make my Necromancer. 😈
Until next time!! 🎮😁⚔️