Reaper Form grants attack speed, poison chance, extra damage, and a "second life" mechanic. Engage with Last Epoch gold Flay.

This delivers direct hits while stacking curses.

Flay is your bread-and-butter button spam.

Apply Spirit Plague to enemies.

Spirit Plague triggers Poison Overload, which grants 4% poison penetration per stack up to 100 stacks-that's a whopping 400% poison penetration at full uptime.

Against groups, curse a single enemy in the pack. Against bosses, target the boss directly.

Use Great Harvest when off cooldown.

Thanks to Executioner's Tiebreaks, Harvest transforms into Great Harvest with a 5s cooldown.

It restores mana (26% against bosses/rares, 4% against normal mobs), which is critical for sustaining Flay spam.

Repeat the loop.

Stay relatively still to maximize Aura of Decay's damage multipliers.

Use Flay for damage and curses, Spirit Plague for penetration, and Great Harvest for mana sustain.

Skill Synergies in Detail

Aura of Decay - The Real MVP

Poisons enemies four times per second baseline.

With Reaper Form's 500% poison chance, this results in 24 poison stacks per second.

Poison frequency can be doubled with nodes from Aura's tree and further multiplied via Flay's nodes.

Staying still builds Fester stacks (up to 9), granting 54% more multiplicative damage.

Fume Weaver reduces enemy poison resistance by 1 per point of Intelligence-so aim for 50+ Intelligence.

Also heals for 8% missing health per second, offsetting the self-poison drawback.

Important: Aura of Decay poisons you, too. For safety, deactivate it between echoes and use gear with cleanse on potion use for emergency resets.

Reaper Form - Your Extra Life

Functions as both a damage steroid and a survivability tool.

When your health bar hits zero, you revert to human form instead of dying instantly.

Grants:

50% increased poison chance

Extra attack/movement speed

Flat damage bonuses

Always have it active before engaging.

Flay - The Active Spam Skill

Your main attack is constantly dealing damage and applying curses.

Inflicts two curses via its skill tree.

Combined with Spirit Plague, enemies usually suffer from three curses at once.

Works beautifully with the Soulstealer Warlock passive, which refunds 13 mana per curse on hit.

Spirit Plague - Poison Overload Engine

Ensures near-permanent 400% poison penetration through Poison Overload.

Efficiently spreads in packs and is mandatory on bosses.

Also sets up Withering Curse when paired with Harvest, further boosting damage.

Great Harvest - Mana Sustain & Burst

Normally, Harvest has no cooldown, but Executioner's Tiebreaks convert it to Great Harvest with:

150% more multiplicative damage

50% more AoE

5s cooldown

Critical for mana sustain: restores 26% mana on bosses and 4% per kill on mobs.

Defensive Layers and Sustain

Even though Aura of Decay can be dangerous to you, the build has multiple ways to mitigate that risk:

Aura of Decay Healing - Restores 8% missing health per second.

Potion Cleanse Mod - Essential for safely removing self-poison stacks.

Ward Generation - Passive Warlock nodes provide steady ward gain.

Reaper Form Safety Net - Grants a valuable "second life."

This makes the build surprisingly tanky for how much damage it pumps out.

Gear Priorities

Unique Dagger - Provides +4 skill levels and core scaling.

Gloves - With poison penetration to supercharge stacks.

Executioner's Tiebreaks - Essential for converting Harvest into Great Harvest.

Belt with Cleanse on Potion - Strongly recommended.

High Intelligence Gear - Boosts damage via Fume Weaver node.

Closing Thoughts

The Poison Flay Lich is not just another DoT build-it's a carefully tuned poison engine capable of handling 1000+ corruption with ease. By combining Aura of Decay's insane poison stacking, Flay's curse engine, Spirit Plague's penetration scaling, and Great Harvest's sustain, the build achieves both extreme damage and reliable survivability. Having enough cheap Last Epoch gold also ensures survivability.

If you're willing to manage Aura of Decay carefully and gear properly for sustain, this setup offers one of the most satisfying high-corruption playstyles in Last Epoch. Poison builds don't get much crazier than this.

The endgame of Last Epoch can feel confusing if you're just stepping into empowered monoliths for the first time. One of the most common questions players ask is: What exactly is corruption, and why should I push it?

Corruption isn't just another number to grind. It's a core mechanic that defines the endgame difficulty, the loot you earn, and which bosses and echoes you can access. Whether you're aiming to farm rare uniques, unlock woven echoes, or simply scale your character's power, corruption progression is essential. This guide explains how corruption works, why it matters, and the best strategies to push it efficiently.

What Is Corruption?

Once you've completed the three standard monolith timelines, you unlock empowered monoliths, which is where Last Epoch's real endgame begins. From there, you can repeat echoes in a timeline to build corruption.

Raising corruption does two things:

Increases difficulty - Enemies hit harder, have more health, and fights take longer.

Boosts rewards - Item rarity and experience gain scale upward.

If you've ever wondered why some players seem to loot better gear or level faster than you, it often comes down to corruption. The higher you push it, the better the returns.

Certain encounters require minimum corruption levels. For example:

Woven Echoes demand 100-300 corruption.

Fighting regular Abberoth requires 300 corruption.

Uber Abberoth needs a whopping 500 corruption.

For general farming, 300-500 corruption is considered a sweet spot. Going beyond 1,000 offers diminishing returns, so while pushing higher can be fun for challenge's sake, it's not always efficient.

How Corruption Increases

Normally, corruption rises when you fight the Shade of Orobyss (or "Oreos," as some players affectionately call it). Each time you defeat this boss, your corruption goes up depending on the number of Gazes of Orobyss you've banked. These gazes act as multipliers, allowing you to raise corruption more quickly. Having enough Last Epoch gold can also help you a lot.

Here's the loop in a nutshell:

Run echoes to build stability.

Spend stability to unlock the boss.

Defeat the Shade of Orobyss.

Watch your corruption climb.

Repeat.

Catch-Up Mechanics Across Timelines

Each monolith timeline has its own corruption level. If you heavily push one timeline, you can use catch-up mechanics to boost others more quickly.

For example, if your Spirits of buy Last Epoch gold Fire timeline is at 800 corruption but your Age of Winter is only at 300, defeating the Shade in the Age of Winter timeline will trigger a huge catch-up boost. That one fight could push it to nearly 800 instantly.