Best Last Epoch Falconer Build: Skills, Stats, Passives, Items, Blessings

The Rogue class's third and final Mastery in Last Epoch is the Falconer, a potent specialization that focuses on strategic trap usage and utilizes a loyal Falcon companion. But crafting an optimal build for the Falconer can be challenging due to its distinctive move set and avian ally that needs to be considered in your attack rotation.

Fortunately, you won't have to navigate this task alone, as this guide is here to assist you. In the following sections, we will delve into our top choice for the best Falconer build in Last Epoch—the Explosive Ballista Falconer. We'll also discuss recommended skills, items, blessings, idols, and much more to help you create the ultimate Falconer build.

Is Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer Build Good in Cycle 1?

The Explosive Ballista Falconer stands out as one of the most potent Falconer build variants in the current meta. Its strength lies in the utilization of impactful explosions that trigger ballistae, effectively tearing through adversaries, hence the name. This build demonstrates exceptional prowess, effortlessly dismantling all challenges in cycle 1 (season 1) of the game, including formidable end-game content such as the Arenas and the Monolith of Fate.

How To Play Explosive Ballista Falconer Build in Last Epoch

This build relies on Explosive Trap and triggered Ballistae as its primary damage sources, particularly effective once you achieve the 0 mana cost for it. Dive Bomb provides additional burst damage, and when combined with Smoke Bomb, Decoy, and Falconry, you'll have ample utility and movement to survive encounters.

To achieve the 0 mana cost mentioned earlier, you'll need to use two Exalted Tier 6 Rings with Throwing Damage and Reduced Mana Cost or Bo's Anarchy, reaching a total of -8 to Throwing Attack Mana Cost. Without this setup, Explosive Trap will consume mana and won't generate any mana from Sapping Strikes.

The general rotation is as follows: initiate with Explosive Trap to trigger explosive ballistae for a near-screen-wide AoE (Area of Effect) control. Follow up with Dive Bomb and Falcon Strikes against high-priority targets. Finally, use Falcon Strikes strategically to Cull or Fear enemies when needed and deploy Decoy when in danger to create some breathing room.

Ultimately, due to its incredible AoE, damage output, and multiple layers of defense, the Explosive Ballista Falconer excels in all content. To witness it in action, check out Maxroll.GG and Rhykker's video above that showcases it fully.

Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer Skills

Below, we present the skills utilized in the top Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer build, along with their official descriptions:

Please note: For a full layout of every single skill point assignment, check out the brilliant and informative guide from Maxroll.gg.

1. Ballista: Summons a ballista that fires bolts at nearby enemies.
2. Explosive Trap: Throws a trap that releases a net at a nearby enemy when it triggers. You can have a maximum of 6 Net Traps active at once, and they last up to 30 seconds.
3. Smoke Bomb: Drops a Smoke Bomb at your feet that blinds enemies and grants you haste while you remain inside it. The Smoke Bomb grows in size over its duration. Lasts 4 seconds.
4. Dive Bomb: Your Falcon ascends high into the sky then dive bombs the target location at high speed, dealing a high amount of physical damage to enemies in the area.
5. Falconry: Summons a Falcon that fights with you and uses Falcon Strikes, where the Falcon rapidly hits many enemies in the target area.

Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer Passives

When allocating passive skill points for the Explosive Ballista Falconer build, we're going to distribute 66 points into Falconer Mastery, 31 into the base class, 8 into Bladedancer, and the remaining 8 points into Marksman. This allocation will bring you to level 100, providing ample empowerment and unlocking the necessary skills for the build.

In terms of point distribution, prioritize nodes that enhance your build's damage output, and speed, and, lastly, nodes for survivability/health or tanky-ness. Begin with Sapping Strikes to ensure your mana sustain is secured. Then, acquire any Dexterity or Dex scaling nodes, along with the Finesse Them passive, to increase your overall damage output.

Next, progress to the Needle-Like Precision node, offering substantial Crit Chance and Critical Strike Multiplier. Additionally, invest in Tactician for a significant amount of Flat Damage for the Ballista. Finally, incorporate Fencing Grace, Deflect, and Weave, as they serve as effective ways to scale Block Chance and Effectiveness. 

This is crucial, considering the build is inherently quite squishy compared to other classes and Rogue builds. However, given its remarkable damage output and wide AoE attacks, you'll seldom need to stop moving, as enemies will be melted before they can successfully counterattack.

Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer Stats Goals 

Because this build focuses on damage output, speed, and mana reserves/mana sustain to expedite our Explosive Trap attacks and Ballista spawning, the stats we're going to invest in will reflect that. We will also try to account for the build's shortcomings, which include its lack of defenses. Of course, with so much damage and speed, you won't be taking many hits, but in case you do, you'll need some buffer for that.

• Capped Resistances
• Capped Endurance
• 200%+ Critical Strike Avoidance
• 2500 - 3000+ Health
• 30% - 40%+ Armour
• 100 - 120+ Dexterity
• 100% Ballista Critical Strike Chance
• 150%+ Ballista Critical Strike Multiplier
• -8 Throwing Attack Mana Cost
• 50% - 100%+ Movement Speed

Similar to the Blast Rain Marksman build, we want to focus on boosting our speed and damage output stats as much as possible since putting points into defenses would end up being wasted. However, you need to ensure you have a decent health pool as you level up. Lastly, throw a few points into skills or wear items that bolster your defenses a little bit to avoid dying when you're still in the early stages of the build.

Best Blessings & Idols For Explosive Ballista Falconer

As you approach the endgame and gear up for challenges like the Monolith of Fate, Endless Arena, and Champion Arena, enhancing your strength becomes crucial. To fortify your character, you'll need to utilize both Blessings and Idols. Specifically for the Explosive Ballista Falconer build, here are our recommended Blessings and Idols:

Best Blessings for Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer:

Blessings deliver a lasting enhancement once you complete a Timeline in the Monolith of Fate. For a comprehensive list of Blessings, refer to our detailed guide available here. However, focusing on those most synergistic with our build, we advise employing their most potent version, known as Empowered Blessings, as detailed below:

• Grand Resolve of Grael - Provides you with a decent boost of Physical Resistance. 
• Grand Echo of Solarum - Gives you increased Void Resistance with a high roll. 
• Grand Resolve of Humanity - Gives you an increase in all Resistances.
• Grand Body of Obsidian - Increase Armor which is extremely useful for this build. 
• Grand Light of the Moon - A high roll will help you increase your Mana pool and have less risk of running out if you are unlucky with procs from Explosive Trap.

Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer Best Idols:

For the Explosive Ballista Falconer build, we're going to want to use Idols that focus on Health (four if possible), as well as two that grant both Health and Elemental Resistances first and foremost. Then we want to use an idol to increase our bow/ballista's physical damage and critical strike chance, so let's take a look at those below.

• Large Shadow Idol - Increases %Health and %Elemental Resistances.
• Adorned Majasan Idol - Increased Bow Physical Damage and Bow Critical Strike Chance. 
• Stout Lagonian Idol - Increases %Health.

If, of course, you spot any Idols in the world that can contribute to this build's strengths (speed, damage, and mana sustain) or account for its weaknesses (defense and health), be sure to grab them and slot them in as you see fit. Also, If you haven't unlocked the Idols yet or need some help in doing so, be sure to check out our guide on how you can unlock Idols, their sizes, and more.

Last Epoch Explosive Ballista Falconer Items

There is a plethora of items to choose from when deciding on those for your build, and the Explosive Ballista Falconer build is no exception. Thankfully, we do have some great recommendations for you to use below that take advantage of everything this build offers. Fortunately, the build has no required items, but these are the best ones we've found that work for the build overall.

Of course, if you find some items don't work for your playstyle, feel free to switch it up, as long as it doesn't affect your damage output and mana sustain since those are the crucial aspects of the build.

Alternative Last Epoch Falconer Builds

At the end of the day, the best build will boil down to your specific or preferred playstyle, and as powerful as the Explosive Ballista Falconer build is, you might be looking for something else with a different playstyle. Thankfully, there are quite a few alternate builds to choose from, and we believe that second to this build is the Shadow Daggers Falconer build.

Similar to the Shadow Daggers Bladedancer build, this build excels in moving fast while remaining quite tanky and survivable. While it doesn't have the most explosive damage output, it can easily tear through enemies when used correctly, and the faster you go, the more damage you deal, making it ideal for high-octane playstyle lovers out there.

So there you have it, a detailed and comprehensive look at our pick of the best Falconer build in Last Epoch, the Explosive Ballista Falconer build. Of course, if any updates and changes are made that affect this build, we will be sure to update this guide accordingly. And huge thanks go out to Maxroll.gg's BinaQc for this epic build.

Last but not least, be sure to check out our ever-expanding Last Epoch section for the latest news, guides, and, of course, powerful builds!