Last Epoch Season 5 Classes Guide

Last Epoch Season 5 ‘Rage of the Frostborn’ (patch 1.5, live since 1 October 2026) keeps the same 5 classes and 15 masteries and adds three new skills to existing masteries. This guide lists every mastery by class, explains the new skills, summarises what the 1.5 notes changed per class, and separates the developer’s changes from Maxroll’s community tier list. The 1.5 patch notes do not provide a developer build ranking, so the ranking half of the decision is community opinion.

Two separate answers exist, and they should not be blended: what the developer changed, and what a community site currently rates. Neither is a damage measurement.

Layer 1: what the official 1.5 notes changed

El official Season 5 patch notes describe mechanical changes such as percentages, node reworks and point costs, each tied to a specific skill or passive named in the notes. They do not rank builds. Per-class details are in the sections below, so you can read the changes for the mastery you already like and judge from there.

Layer 2: what the community rates (Maxroll, 5 October 2026)

This is community opinion, dated. Maxroll’s Endgame Tier List for Season 5 was last updated on 5 October 2026 for ‘Season 5, Week 1’, and it weighs damage, defense, speed, gear requirements and ease of play using each build’s Endgame Planner Setup. The S tier on that list includes Shadow Cascade Bladedancer, Static Orb Sorcerer, Rip Blood and Flay Mana Lich, Void Knight (Time Rot, Erasing Strike, Warpath), Flame Reave Spellblade, Lightning Blast Runemaster, Ballista Falconer, Tornado Shaman, Storm Crows and Frogs Beastmaster, and Blood Spectre and Skeleton Necromancer.

Radiant Lance Paladin sits in A tier, not S, alongside builds such as Bladestorm Bladedancer, Fire Aura Spellblade and Shuriken Marksman. The list had a pre-patch version dated 28 September and a Season 5 Week 1 revision dated 5 October. A revision alone does not establish which placements changed.

Each class has three masteries, listed on the official class pages. Season 5 adds skills to existing masteries rather than adding a new one.

The developer’s Hype Week Day 3 post introduced Radiant Lance for Paladin, Summon Tide Elemental for Shaman and Dreamslash for Bladedancer, and says each is a final mastery skill or an added offensive option. The details below come from the official Steam post and the patch notes.

Radiant Lance (Paladin)

It unlocks once you spend 15 points in the Paladin passive tree, per the official 1.5 patch notes. The official Hype Week post confirms it requires a shield and scales its damage with your uncapped block chance, similar to Shield Bash, though the exact percentage per point isn’t stated in the official text we checked. 1.5 also moved all block-chance-scaling effects to uncapped block chance, so scaling continues past 100%. Nodes named in the Steam post: Cloudless Sky removes the shield requirement and swaps block scaling for mana scaling; Golden Reliquary places an invulnerable Reliquary that casts it for you, starting at a maximum of 1 and increasable through attunement; Abyssal Heresy is a Void conversion aimed at Void Knights.

Summon Tide Elemental (Shaman)

It is a stand-alone minion that can fight with or without other minions. Its summon duration is not stated in the Hype Week Day 3 post. Named nodes include Tidal Totem (turns the elemental into a totem), Seahenge, Water Spout, Whirlpools and Wellspring, an aura giving cold spell damage and cast speed to allies within 18 meters. It unlocks at 30 points in the Shaman passive tree, per the official 1.5 patch notes.

Dreamslash (Bladedancer)

It is a low-cost, spammable melee attack with movement, and shadows perform it too, per the official Steam post. The official patch notes also list a minimum mana cost of 1, and Nightmare Steel swaps the dash for a damage wave that still counts as a melee attack. The Steam post names Narcolepsy (Dream stacks, more damage but random targets) and Apocalyptic Vision (fire and ignite conversion). It unlocks at 10 points in the Bladedancer passive tree, per the official 1.5 patch notes.

Items marked “listed, not re-read” appear in the 1.5 notes but were not checked line by line for this guide, so numbers beyond those stated are unverified.

Acolyte

• Summon Bone Golem: cooldown is now 3 seconds (was 10), and mana cost is 30 (was 35).
• Flay: the Blood Eruption subskill had a bug giving it base damage of 2 instead of the intended 40; 1.5 fixed it, so it is a bug fix rather than a deliberate buff.
• Listed, not re-read: Rip Blood Coagulation producing several orbs, and new uniques Unbroken Legion, Devoured Knowledge and Perilous Reflection.

Mage

• Runebolt: 125% damage effectiveness (from 100%), and Cold Runebolt’s base freeze rate is 50 (from 40).
• Runic Invocation: Dragons’ Breath (Rah Heo) goes to 600% effectiveness (from 300%), and Antipode of Mesembria (Rah Gon Heo) to 1,500% (from 900%). Wherever effectiveness was raised, base damage was raised by an equivalent amount.
• Listed, not re-read: Static Orb, Elemental Nova nodes, Flamethrower mana regeneration, Frozen Monolith needing a direct cast, and a reduced ward-per-second affix on rings and amulets (per Maxroll’s copy of the notes).

Primalist

• Summon Tide Elemental is the new Shaman skill described above.
• Listed, not re-read: Entangling Roots damage-over-time stacking at 300% (was 200%), the Caretaker’s Regrowth set, Tempest Strike effectiveness 100 to 200% with mana cost 16 to 12, a Storm Surge dash on Storm Crows, Swarmblade’s Stormslash, Shaman passives covering all elements and Avatar of Stone at 15 seconds.

Rogue

• Synchronized Strike is now locked to Bladedancer, acquired at 35 points invested (from 10).
• Dreamslash is the new Bladedancer skill.
• Listed, not re-read: buffs to Cinder Strike, Hail of Arrows and Puncture, a nerf to Umbral Blades, Ballista placement range from 20 to 4, and a reworked Marksman passive tree.

Sentinel

• Shield Bash: Shieldstorm gains 0.5% increased attack speed per 1% uncapped block chance, and Shield Bash gains 1.5% more damage per 1% uncapped block chance; both were previously capped at 100% block.
• Ring of Shields (Forge Guard) was reworked across several nodes, including Healing Shields now healing every 4 seconds (from 6).
• Forge Guard’s second mastery bonus grants a Stalwart stack when you are hit or hit an enemy. Stalwart grants 10% increased armor and lasts 10 seconds.
• Nerfs: Judgement’s Urgent Inquisition now gives 75% less healing (from 50%) plus 25% less damage for Consecrated Ground; Void Maw (Anomaly, Void Knight) now grants 10% increased health leech per point for you and allies within your Time Bubble, down from 50%.

As of 6 October 2026, the hotfix notes list no class skill balance changes. Patch 1.5 went live on 1 October at 11:00 CDT, hotfixes 1.5.0.1, 1.5.1 and 1.5.1.1 followed on 2 and 3 October, and 1.5.1.2 arrived on 5 October. Hotfix 1.5.1.2 is bug fixes only, such as dungeon-key retries and removing Yrun from Monoliths and the Gauntlet of Strife. Patch 1.5.1 did also rework the Circle of Fortune’s Lens of Tyranny and open Pinnacle Morditas to Legacy and Offline characters, which is not class balance. A Dreamslash fix in 1.5.1 concerned a hitbox issue with Yrun, not damage numbers.

Sources and Confidence

This table separates what the studio has confirmed and what is not confirmed yet. Each claim below is tied to the post and the game version it describes.