Last Epoch Monolith of Fate Overview: Timelines, Echos & more

As you traverse the realm of Eterra in Last Epoch, you'll encounter numerous points of interest and mechanics with unique purposes. One such element is the Monolith of Fate, offering players access to abundant rewards upon overcoming the challenges within.

If you're gearing up to explore the game and want insight into the monolith before encountering it, read on. This article will cover everything you need to know about Last Epoch's Monolith of Fate, along with an explanation of how the timeline and echo mechanics function within it.

What is the Monolith of Fate in Last Epoch?

After completing the main campaign of the game and reaching the post-endgame content, the Monolith of Fate will be introduced after completing the "The End of Time" quest as part of the final wave of content to complete. This structure, when interacted with, will give players access to various challenges, including unique quests, bosses, and loot in the form of what's known as Timelines (more on that later).

Now, while you can access the Monolith of Fate once the aforementioned quest is unlocked, the lowest-level monsters in the dungeons are at 58, meaning it's recommended that you first complete the main campaign before taking it on. 

Now that you know how to access the monolith and have an overview of what it entails, let's dive into the details below.

How Do Timelines and Echoes Work with the Monolith of Fate?

As previously mentioned, the Monolith of Fate contains what's known as Timelines; these timelines are small islands that provide their web, quests, bosses, and rewards as well as their area level (as you unlock more Timelines, their difficulty will increase). Once a Timeline is completed, you can choose one of two new Timelines to unlock and complete next.

Players can also rerun older timelines, which in some cases are needed to unlock new Timelines (shown on the world map). However, they can also be rerun to farm for levels and get Timeline-specific rewards. At the time of writing, there are currently 10 timelines that players can complete and are listed below (more may be added in the future, so we'll update this section accordingly):

• The Last Ruin.
• Ending the Storm.
• Blood, Frost, and Death.
• The Age of Winter.
• Spirits of Fire.
• The Stolen Lance.
• Reign of Dragons.
• The Black Sun.
• Fall of The Outcasts.
• Fall of the Empire.

Moving on, each Timeline contains what's known as Echoes, which are the small map sections that you run inside of the timeline you chose. These Echoes or map sections are chosen and ordered through a procedurally generated web that is distinct for every timeline. Each of the Echoes has a map, modifier, and reward for finishing the echo which can be viewed by checking out its "Echo Information" panel.

Most important, however, is knowing the Echo objective, which is a specific goal you'll need to complete when entering each of the echoes that generate randomly when you enter it. These objectives can be broken down into the following categories:

• Kill a specific boss.
• Kill 1-3 specific types of enemies that are patrolling the map.
• Seal a time gate by activating it and then killing the enemies that spawn.
• Destroy 1-3 spires which will continuously fire at you from long range until destroyed.
• Arena maps will always be an arena with 12-17 waves of enemies that must be killed to complete the echo.

The next thing you'll notice is that completing an Echo will increase that branch's Stability, which is a value needed to unlock specific quest echoes that include the Timeline Boss. Speaking of, each timeline has three main quests, with the third one being that timeline's boss, and upon defeating it, you will gain either a Blessing or a Unique Reward.

Blessings are permanent buffs to your character that either directly increase power or improve loot drops in some way. Unique drops are exactly that, rare and unique items and weapons that the boss will drop randomly from its unique loot table.

Next, we have the Corruption Mechanic and the Shade of Orobyss. Corruption is a mechanic that allows the player to increase XP and rewards by also increasing the difficulty of a Timeline, so don't expect an easy time but expect better rewards. To increase Corruption, you must kill The Shade of Orobyss who can be found as an echo type on the web. The farther out you go, the more likely it becomes that you’ll see a Shade echo and the more corruption that Shade will provide.

Some things to note are that Killing The Shade will reset the Timeline Web and generate a fresh one so be sure to only kill the Shade when there are no more echoes left that you want to complete.

If you find that the amount of corruption is higher than you’d prefer, you can also decrease corruption by finishing the Sanctuary of Eterra Echo. This Echo is located right next to the starting point of your web. After completing the Echo, you are presented with 3 options that allow you to choose how much corruption to remove.

Finally, we have the Empowered Timelines. These Timelines have a level 100 area level and start at 100 corruption, meaning their rewards are greater, but so is their difficulty, and unlike normal Timelines, there is no corruption cap for Empowered Timelines. Empowered Timelines of every timeline are unlocked by completing the top 3 Timelines (Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter, and The Last Ruin).

And there you have it, a comprehensive breakdown of how Timelines, as well as Echoes, work within the context of the Monolith of Fate in Last Epoch. Of course, as more information is made clear surrounding this end-game feature, we will be sure to update you accordingly in our ever-expanding Last Epoch section.