• Slightly reduced the drop rate of Idols.
  
• Slightly improved performance in the Gates of Solarum.
  
• Improved the performance of magic/rare enemies, especially those with Rampancy.
  
• Improved the appearance of skill/passive node dropshadows.

• Fixed a bug where items that used to have old glancing blow affixes could get stuck in the crafting panel and prevent that character from being loaded. Characters affected by this bug can now be loaded.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some stash items to disappear when opening 0.7.6 for the first time. Unfortunately this won’t help players already affected.
  
• Fixed a bug where animations would not play and class info would not update when creating the first character on a fresh install of the game.
  
• Fixed a bug where minions could count towards your companion limit and prevent summoning additional companions. This was most noticeable with Wolves and Keeper’s Gloves.
  
• Fixed a bug where items were misaligned in the stash.
  
• In the crafting panel affixes already on the item (that are not at max tier) are once again always shown at the top of the shard list.
  
• In the crafting panel affixes that are compatible with the item are shown before incompatible affixes.
  
• Fixed a bug where Bees summoned by Keeper’s Gloves did not expire after a duration.
  
• Moved Captain Ansel in the Council Chambers to avoid quest UI becoming stuck open once camera movement happens.
  
• Fixed “g”s being cut off by the crafting window’s search bar.
  
• Fixed an incorrect loading screen displaying when the game is first started.
  
• Fixed some skill node tooltip errors.

Patch 0.7.6 is now live and introduces the brand new Idol system!

Idols are items featuring exciting stats and passives designed to further buildcrafting and the item hunt. Additionally, we are making a large number of improvements to the game, touching on areas including combat, character control, enemy scaling, crafting, and more.

The Patch Notes for this update are actually so long that they don't fit into this Steam post; so please check them out on our forum!

Our upcoming update, Patch 0.7.6, focuses on improving quality of life and addressing player feedback. Something we hadn't been ready to commit to being included in 0.7.6 at the time of the Patch Preview being posted was a change to the left mouse button ("LMB").

Currently, the LMB is used exclusively for movement so that characters will always respond intuitively to user input. We believe that this is a good choice to have for default behaviour. In Patch 0.7.6, we are implementing two alternative behaviours for the LMB.

The options which will be available are;

• Move Only
  
• Move or Break Destructible
  
• Move or Attack

Each of the options available has its own skill art, so it is always clear which behaviour the LMB is currently using. The specific art being used in Patch 0.7.6 may be revised in future.



Thank you for the feedback we have received from you regarding LMB's behaviour - and please do let us know both how you feel about the two options being added in Patch 0.7.6, and how they feel after the patch is released and you've had a chance to test them.

Welcome!

Patch Preview threads are where we spill the beans on upcoming updates so you know what to look forward to. Read on to see the details of our next patch, or view the same post on our official forum if you'd like to get more involved with the Last Epoch community.

With Patch 0.7.6 we are taking the opportunity to focus on community feedback and implement some changes which have been requested over both the short- and long-term.

We'll be posting the patch notes in their entirety when releasing the patch.

• This patch implements the previously-unannounced Idol system!
  
  • Idols are a brand new type of item. They are intended to facilitate further fine-tuning of builds with niche and, in some cases, class-exclusive affixes.
    
  • Idols are equipped in their own exclusive 4x4 grid in the inventory.
    
  • Idols come in a variety of sizes from 1x1 all the way to 4x1 or 2x2.
    
    • Larger Idols are more powerful than smaller ones.
  • Some Idol affixes are exclusive to specific base classes.

• We're adding three new Arena zones in this patch.
  
  • Disclaimer: Your safety in the new zones is not guaranteed.
• The Monolith of Fate will no longer offer modifiers which are already in effect.
  
• Five new modifiers are being added to the Monolith of Fate.
  
• The chest rewards from the Monolith of Fate will scale with the number of enemies killed.
  
  • Enemies are being weighted for this - a group of small, low-health enemies will contribute about as much to your rewards as an individual, larger enemy.

We are streamlining Chapters 1 and 2 to improve the new user experience.

One of the design goals with Chapter 1 had been to make repeated use of time travel due to it being a core part of Last Epoch. We also wanted to do this to introduce the player to the various eras in Eterra's history, and the different factions from those eras.

We have consistently seen feedback that the beginning of the story can be difficult to follow, and so we are reducing the number of time travel occurrences - for example, you no longer briefly visit the Imperial Era in Chapter 1 - and the number of enemies involved.

• It is now possible to move through your minions.
  
• This patch includes the Buy Back feature!
  
  • We've posted all of the details of how it works here.
• Improvements are being made to mousing-over creatures in Last Epoch, with the goal of making it easier to see the health bars of enemies who are obscured by minions.
  
• We are adding fly-out menus to the Modifier Item and Support Item sections of the crafting window which allow you to access your Runes and Glyphs, respectively.
  
• We are updating approximately half of our skills to make using them feel more responsive.
  • We have written a Developer Blog about these changes.
    
    • Additional skills have been updated since this was posted.

• We are improving the handling of peripherals to resolve cases where the game detects a controller (perhaps erroneously) and fails to accept input from mice and keyboards.
  
• We are resolving an issue where characters could continue taking damage for a short period of time when entering Time Rifts.

Patch 0.7.6 removes one source of stutter, improves the performance and appearance of Ambient Occlusion, and improves the performance of several skills and enemies.


We have already started working on Patch 0.7.7, which will be the next content patch.

Work is under way on Chapter 8, which is likely to be one of the first Phase 3 entries from our Early Access Forecast to be made available. Work continues on the remaining Phase 2 entries, such as the Character Introductions and the Mechanics Guide.

We're working on implementing Buy Back! This system is undergoing internal testing, and the expectation is that it will be included in our upcoming content patch, Patch 0.7.6.

So, let's take a look at how this feature will work in Last Epoch!

Vendors will remember the items you have recently sold, up to a maximum of 20 items. Items which are removed from this list through you continuing to sell additional items will be lost forever; buying back more recently sold items will not cause older ones to re-appear.

The Buy Back feature will persist across client restarts, and each of your characters will have their own list of up to 20 items. It will not be necessary to return to the specific vendor you originally sold the item to - and in addition to offering his usual services, Artem the Gambler will offer the Buy Back feature in both End of Time and The Council Chambers.

The list of items eligible for Buy Back will not be presented in any particular order. The price of items eligible for Buy Back will be the amount of gold you received when selling them.

We are in the process of updating skills to make them feel more responsive. This work has included changes to their animations - so before we explain the adjustments we'll be making, we'll be taking a brief look at the different phases of skill animations.


Each skill animation has three phases, which are;

• Anticipation
  
• Impact
  
• Follow Through

When looking at each of these, there'll be a GIF of my Mage - he's called Meatier, because of course he is - casting Fireball with the name shown during that phase of the animation. We've slowed down the GIFs so that each distinct phase of the animation is easier to see.


Anticipation

Anticipation is the part of the animation which occurs before the skill takes effect - which in the majority of cases is when a skill deals damage to an enemy or heals an ally.

This is often used in boss fights as a visual cue for dangerous abilities. An example of this featuring a player-controlled character is when the Mage pulls his hand behind his head, before dramatically throwing it forwards as he conjures Fireballs to unleash upon his foes.




Impact

Impact is the moment during the animation in which the skill takes effect; for example, the moment in which the Fireball skill's projectiles are created and begin moving forwards.




Follow Through

Follow Through consists of the character transitioning back to their regular standing pose. It is sometimes partially skipped so that characters can move sooner after activating a skill.





In Patch 0.7.6 we are updating many skills with some of the following changes;

• Some skills are having the duration of their anticipation reduced, and the duration of their follow through increased. What this does is allow the impact - when a skill deals damage or heals - to occur sooner, without changing the total animation time.
  
• The follow through part of an animation can be partially skipped, allowing characters to move (but not use skills) sooner after that skill is used. The proportion of follow through which allows you to move is different for each skill. We are reviewing the proportions for every skill, and many skills will allow you to begin moving sooner after their use. This prevents a character from being trapped in place for too long.
  
• Each skill has an 'ability time' which dictates how long a character must wait before using the next skill. We are shortening this for some abilities so there is less of a pause between skills. This change is being made to fewer skills than the previous two.

Here are the skills we will be updating;

ACOLYTE

• Hungering Souls
  
• Mark For Death
  
• Marrow Shards
  
• Rip Blood
  
• Sacrifice
  
• Summon Bone Golem
  
• Summon Skeleton

Necromancer

• Summon Skeleton Mage
  
• Summon Wraith

MAGE

• Elemental Nova
  
• Fireball
  
• Focus
  
• Glacier
  
• Lightning Blast
  
• Mana Strike
  
• Snap Freeze
  
• Static Orb

Sorcerer

• Black Hole
  
• Meteor
  
• Volcanic Orb

Spellblade

• Flame Reave
  
• Shatter Strike

PRIMALIST

• Maelstrom
  
• Summon Thorn Totem

Beastmaster

• Summon Frenzy Totem

Druid

• Entangling Roots
  
• Spriggan Form abilities
  
  • Root Wall
    
  • Vale Blast

Shaman

• Avalanche
  
• Summon Storm Totem
  
• Tornado

SENTINEL

• Shield Throw

Forge Guard

• Forge Strike

Paladin

• Healing Hands
  
• Judgement
  
• Sigils of Hope
  
• Smite

Void Knight

• Abyssal Echoes
  
• Devouring Orb

Hey everyone!

We're excited to announce that we're bringing Last Epoch to PAX South!

Members of our development team, our art team, our Creative Director, our Narrative Director, and our Game Director will be there - and we want to talk to you!

Whether you want to give us some feedback in person, ask us some questions about the game, or just jump on a computer and play it for a bit, make sure to pay us a visit.

We'll be there January 17th - 19th!

You can find the official PAX site here: https://south.paxsite.com/

If you plan on attending PAX South, make sure to follow us on Twitter and drop us a Like on Facebook so you don't miss any of our messages surrounding the event;

We can't wait to see you there!

• These changes are to compensate for the loss of a guaranteed stun on the Entangling Roots tree in 0.7.5, and make some balance adjustments.
  
• Mana cost reduced to 55 (from 70).
  
• Added damage effectiveness increased to 250% (from 200%).
  
• Added a new node that adds a guaranteed stun and a cooldown.
  
• Added a new node that increases stun duration and cooldown duration.
  
• Small changes have also been made to the requirements of some nodes.

• Added damage effectiveness increased to 200% (from 170%)
  
• Strength scaling changed to 5% increased melee damage (from 4% increased melee damage).

• Characters with Forge Strike specialized will receive a free respec for its tree
  
• Added a new node behind Put to the Sword that increases bleed effectiveness.
  
• Forged by Fire can have 4 points allocated (up from 3), and adds 10 fire damage per point (up from 7).
  
• Mass Production now adds a 5% chance to summon weapons (it previously stated 8% increased chance).
  
• Well Forged Weapons now grants 25% increased summoned weapon duration (it previously stated 20%) and can have 4 points allocated (down from 5).
  
• Removed the Patient Strike node as its damage increase was not working.
  
• Slightly adjusted connections and requirements

• Cyclone now prevents Maelstrom from freezing enemies, but also grants 5% increased global physical damage per stack of Maelstrom.

• Each Sigil grants 4 fire damage (down from 5)
  
• Each Sigil grants 25% increased health regen (up from 20%)
  
• Characters with Sigils of Hope specialized will receive a free respec for its tree.
  
• Iron Sigils grants 40 armour per point (down from 50).
  
• Meditation now doubles health regen from Sigils rather than providing 100% increased health regen per Sigil.
  
• Sigils of Despair no longer doubles the added damage, but now also grants 15% increased void damage per Sigil.
  
• Sign of the Guardian grants 1% block chance (from 2%) and 15 block protection (from 5).
  
• Adjusted some connections and requirements.

• The death screen now shows the type of damage that dealt the killing blow in addition to the name of the ability.
  
• Your skills are no longer put on cooldown when you transform back to human form. Cooldowns are tracked while transformed, so if a cooldown has 10 seconds remaining and then you transform for 8 seconds, that cooldown will have 2 seconds remaining.

• Improved Avalanche’s sound to be less jarring.
  
• Fixed Solar Auxiliary enemies not having impact sounds for their arrows.
  
• Fixed Wengari Raider enemies not having impact sounds for their melee attacks.
  
• Adjusted the volume levels of enemies in Chapter 7.

• Further reduced the damage of Fire Paladin’s Earthquake attack.
  
• Reduced the damage of Holy Fire Novas from Rare Osprix Vanguards by 12%.

• Improved the performance of Avalanche’s visuals.

• Fixed item tooltips getting stuck open in some situations.
  
• Fixed item tooltips displaying icons with incorrect colors if you had hovered over a shard beforehand.
  
• Fixed duplicate set items causing tooltip to show a higher tier set bonus.
  
• Fixed instability in tooltips not being shown when moving the mouse between items.
  
• Fixed the hybrid health leech affix having a tier 3 range of 70% to 20% leech, rather than 17% to 20%.
  
• Fixed being unable to use Shield Rush if you changed your weapon, which made it seem as if you no longer had a shield equipped.
  
• Fixed Flame Ward not granting 30% less damage taken as stated on the tooltip.
  
• Fixed a bug where "while channelling" stats did not work with Warpath.
  
• Fixed Flame Ward's Barrier node not granting less damage taken.
  
• Fixed bugs where Forge Strike’s Mass Production and Well Forged Weapons nodes had no effect.
  
• Fixed a bug where Forge Strike’s Put To The Sword node did not increase attack speed.
  
• Fixed Maelstrom’s Votex node increasing the damage of Maelstroms cast on yourself, rather than just those cast on your totems.
  
• Fixed various bugs with the buff display for Sigils of Hope.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Faith for Sigils of Hope triggered on every hit, rather than just hits that dealt more than 25% of your health.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Decree of Flame node for Sigils of Hope had no effect.
  
• Fixed a bug where respeccing the Sigils of Despair node for Sigils of Hope would have no effect until the character was reloaded.
  
• Fixed the poison chance granted by Skeleton Mage’s Putrid Essence node not being converted to ignite chance for Pyromancers or chill chance for Cryomancers.
  
• Fixed the Diode node for Static granting too much added crit chance.
  
• Fixed Storm Totem’s Stormrider node granting 30% movement speed per point rather than the stated 10%.
  
• Fixed the Paladin’s Shield Wall node granting 5% block chance per point, rather than the stated 3%.
  
• Fixed a chest being difficult to open in Maj’elka.
  
• Fixed Artem’s icon disappearing in the Council Chambers in some situations.

• Optimized the visuals for Abyssal Echoes, Bone Slam (Bone Golem), Blood Splatter, Detonate Corpse, and Glacier.

• Reduced the damage of Flame Paladins, Ice Weavers Osprix Vanguards, and Rime Giants.
  
• Increased the damage of Yrun.

• You can now right click on the modifier or support item slot to empty it.
  
• You can now swap out modifier and support items by right clicking, even if an item is already in the crafting window.

• Fixed Runes and Glyphs besides Rune of Removal and Glyph of Stability not appearing in the Crafting Items tab. The items themselves were not deleted, so you will have the correct amount of each type after updating to this patch.
  
• Fixed being unable to view comparison info and other data for items on the ground using modifier keys (alt and ctrl).
  
• Fixed Runes being deleted if they are in the crafting panel and then replaced by a Shard.
  
• Fixed Heoborea failing to load if you had loaded multiple characters in a single game session.
  
• Fixed a bug where Frozen Ire did not remove its per level bonus when unequipped.
  
• Added more failsafes for item loading and saving.
  
• Fixed being able to drag items while holding right click.
  
• Fixed the sound for dropping items also playing when items are picked up.
  
• Fixed the Mirage Staff base type not fitting in the hands of the player correctly.

• Now unlocks at Shaman level 10 (down from 15).

• Improved targeting on slopes.

• Damage that brings you out of Reaper Form now bleeds through to your regular health. If you have 500 max health, and 100 remaining health in Reaper Form, taking a 200 damage hit will leave you on 400 health, not 500).

• The Decree of Flame node can now have a maximum of 3 points allocated (down from 5). Characters with more than 3 points in this node will have the extra points respecced for free.

• Increased the gold value of staves and catalysts.

• Updated the appearance of bees summoned by the Keeper’s Gloves.

* Fixed an error with loading certain types of shards which prevented some characters from being loaded.
* Fixed exiting to character select and then loading another character causing a variety of odd behavior, including enemies idling in place after death and load screens getting stuck.
* Fixed a bug where an item's fractured status was not being saved correctly.
* Fixed some drop rates for Uniques being incorrect.
* Fixed a bug where shards would rarely fail to drop.
* Fixed a non-functional type of Rune dropping.
* Instability is no longer shown on the tooltips of items that can’t have instability.
* Fixed an oversight where Increased Elemental Damage could not roll on staves.
* Fixed Wandering Spirits’ Spectral Putrescence node not adding the poison tag to the skill.
* Fixed Flame Ward’s Selfless Sorcery node mentioning another node by the wrong name.
* Fixed a click sound being played multiple times when loading a character.
* Fixed Earthquake having a minion tag in its tooltip.
* Fixed ground affects unintentionally appearing on the Primal Sabertooth.

Runes and Glyphs besides Rune of Removal and Glyph of Stability are not present in the Crafting Items tab.

• We have found a fix for this issue which will be in a patch soon, and the items have not been deleted. This fix was found after the patch process had started for this release so we decided to get these fixes out first.