Notable Passives:

1. Forbidden Knowledge - increases your Intelligence which is the core attribute in this build. It increases your Damage, Resistances, and Ward Retention so you want to stack it wherever possible
2. Blood Pact - grants very high bonus damage (60% at 5 points) but makes you lose Life over time which you need to recover via Leech
3. Unnatural Preservation - increases your Ward Retention and grants extra Necrotic and Poison Resistance

Lich Skill Tree (64 Points)

Notable Passives:

1. Crippling Insight - grants very high bonus Intelligence at the cost of reduced Life Regeneration. Again, we aim for the highest Intelligence possible
2. Dance with Death - grants very high bonus damage with tripled effect while you are on low life which works great with the Life degeneration this build is based on
3. Mind over Body - this is one of the core Passives in this build, however, we are yet to verify how troublesome the Life degeneration is going to be at higher levels and in the final version of Last Epoch
4. Soul Maw - grants very high Life Leech which is critical for this build and its' high Life degeneration
5. Apocrypha - again, for the extra Intelligence attribute
6. Other than that, this Skill Tree focused on Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier Passives, and Ward generation for extra defenses in single-target fights

Harvest - primary ability used in this build which deals AoE damage to all enemies in front of you. With the suggested Passives it has all its' damage dealt converted to Necrotic Damage, reduces enemies' Necrotic Protection and grants increased Movement Speed for better mobility.

Mind Harvest Passive also generates Ward with each hit against enemies Marked for Death. With high Attack Speed and extra Ward generated by Lich's Passives, this gets your Ward to very respectable levels

Transplant - used mainly for mobility. With the recommended Passives it will also grant Bone Armor which increases your Armor, cast Rip Blood on enemies upon "landing" and create additional temporary Minions to fight for you. Transplant also regenerates your Mana thanks to the Pale Blood Passive

Bone Curse - Bone Curse replaces Mark for Death as it's no longer a skill on its' own. Right now you have to apply it via Bone Curse. Thanks to the recommended Passives, you will be able to cast it once on an enemy, and then you will apply it with each Hit for the next 5 seconds, making it very convenient to use thanks to the Cursed Limbs. Also, Ruptured Corpse will cause affected enemies to explode, greatly increasing your clear speed.

Reaper - the core Ability used for this build. It allows you to turn into Reaper form which adds new abilities and boosts all your stats and damage. You will be unable to regenerate Life, but when it turns 0 you will simply revert back to your human form. You basically aim to keep your Reaper's uptime to the maximum and eventually, we will be trying to optimize this build to be as close to 100% (time will tell if that's even going to be possible)

The recommended Passives will prolong the Reaper by increasing your Ward Retention, Armor, and Resistances based on your Intelligence attribute (another reason why you want to stack it everywhere). You also aim to maximize your damage via Deathtouch Scythe and Executioner Passives.

Soul Feast - this skill has been completely reworked since our previous version of the build was released, but currently, it is even more useful for this build. You will basically Feast on the Souls of nearby enemies to generate tons of Ward and Mana. You will also debuff enemies with Damned, which increases the Necrotic Damage they take and reduces their Life regeneration

Stat priority:

This build is focused on swift Melee attacks that have 100% of damage converted to Necrotic Damage. It also utilizes high Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier for the Passives for greatly increased DPS. You should primarily focus the following stats on your rare equipment:

1. Intelligence
2. Melee and Necrotic Damage
3. Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier
4. Resistances (you are eventually looking to have 75% in each of them)
5. Melee Attack Speed

Optionally you can try to increase your Stun Avoidance or Dodge Rating for some extra defensive utility. This build can also be played with both One-handed weapon + Shield and Two-handers. The first setup will provide increased defenses and higher Ward generation via faster Attack Speed, however, Two-handed weapons will grant higher DPS and will benefit your Reaper form a bit more.

Recommended Unique Items:

Bone Harvester - two-handed Scythe which deals high Physical Damage and bonus Necrotic damage with each hit. Perfectly fits this build's theme, however, it gets useless on higher levels with its limited base DPS

Exsanguinous - the best Armor for this build which makes you lose Life every second but generates a lot of Ward as compensation for it. It also grants  very high bonus Attack Speed and Bleeding immunity while on Low life

Ward Trail - grants high Dodge Rating and generates extra Ward. I have used it with the Falcon for most of the time except Arenas, and these two items grant greatly increased clear speed when combined

Strands of Souls - the BiS Belt for this build. It generates a lot more Ward when compared to Ward Trail and grants increased Ward Retention. It's simply insane how fantastic it is for this Ward-based build

Boneclamor Barbute - the best end-game Helmet for this build currently available in the game. It grants tons of extra defensive Utility and generates Ward each second

END NOTE

This is an early beta Grim Reaper build for Last Epoch. This is a project that we hope to continue and update as soon as more skills become available and the game gets closer to release. It was an extremely fun build to play, and even if it's not the best end-game/meta stuff out there (at least for the moment), solely the build idea got us excited enough to make this our premiere Last Epoch build. Stay tuned for more updates and other Last Epoch builds