Melee Lich - Almost no options

[SrsBznz]

It feels like there's almost no choice when it comes to passives, at lvl 80 I already have everything even remotely useful. I could get some more vitality or perhaps the health drain reduction passive.

As for skills, Harvest, Bonecurse, Reaper Form and Transplant are all nobrainers. But there's not a single appealing fifth skill. Nothing with a significant buff/debuff or that scales well with my damage.

Options: Wandering Spirits, Spirit Plague and Drain Life.
I ended up choosing Wandering Spirits because it's fire and forget and deals okay damage with the curse & damned boost. I don't need more necrotic shred (harvest is more reliable).

-Spirit Plague could give me some extra ward on hit, but does less damage and more annoying to use.

-Drain Life turned into a cast skill could give me some leech, but I already have a lot of leech so wandering spirits with its higher damage might even win there.

I don't know how to access the new character saves, so can't import, but this is what I'm doing. Don't get me wrong, it's working fine, I just feel super limited as if I'm walking a straight path with no branching routes.
https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/zQq2KqPB

P.S. It sucks that there still aren't any necrotic melee affixes for weapons, like flat and % necrotic melee (like there is for everything else).

[Astasia]

Why haven't you considered Aura of Decay? I thought that was a pretty obvious choice for my melee lich.

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Why haven't you considered Aura of Decay? I thought that was a pretty obvious choice for my melee lich.

I'm playing a necrotic build, is there a unique or set item to change it into necrotic damage? Because my build stacks neither damage over time nor poison damage. The build is basically reaper form + bone curse to make Harvest hit super hard.

[Astasia]

Aura of Decay has armor shred and necrotic damage options in the passives, as well as other utility mechanics like cursing, slow, chill, and self healing. That said both reaper and harvest have synergies with the poison stacks, some even if you aren't using poison as a main damage type. For example with Harvest there is the Death Inside passive which is up to 30% more damage against enemies with a few poison stacks.

[Ayk-]

You are playing melee lich without Aura of Decay :/

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Aura of Decay has armor shred and necrotic damage options in the passives, as well as other utility mechanics like cursing, slow, chill, and self healing. That said both reaper and harvest have synergies with the poison stacks, some even if you aren't using poison as a main damage type. For example with Harvest there is the Death Inside passive which is up to 30% more damage against enemies with a few poison stacks.

I was under the impression that armor shred is very bad at higher levels because enemies have disgusting amounts, meanwhile it'd completely obliterate my own armor (very bad).

I found no mention of necrotic damage on Aura of Decay. Is it a unique or set item?
How does Aura synergize with either curse?
Chill is good I guess, can get it from other sources though.
Self Healing is pointless as you can't heal in Reaper Form, only leech.

Harvest damage boost per poison stack doesn't look bad on paper, but I'd need to spend 5 points for it. Might be worth looking into.

Reaper Form doesn't have much poison synergy, it can help me apply it but stops reap from critting and I'm already very tight on points.

Originally posted by Ayk-:

You are playing melee lich without Aura of Decay :/

I've already played poison Lich, I really wanted to get a Necrotic melee build going.

[Astasia]

The Feast of Souls passive on the skill does necrotic damage to enemies when hit and grants ward.

[SrsBznz]

Originally posted by Astasia:

The Feast of Souls passive on the skill does necrotic damage to enemies when hit and grants ward.

That's really weak for my build, I'd have to spec into Soul Feast as well to make it even remotely decent, but it would not be worth replacing Transplant, Bone Curse, Harvest or Reaper Form. This isn't a caster build.

For more ward, I could get Putrid Recovery for Spirit Plague, which would get me 12 ward per hit. But it's more finicky to use than Wandering Spirits and most likely less damage.

[Urza]

Its an unfinished class so...

Now that multiplayer is out and trade/not-trade is resolved, time to riot about these damned unfinished classes

[Livy]

Originally posted by Urza:

Its an unfinished class so...

Now that multiplayer is out and trade/not-trade is resolved, time to riot about these damned unfinished classes

True, we still have no idea on the specifics of Warlock and their shared abilities/passives.