Golemmancer v8 Build Guide for Last Epoch – Best Necromancer Minion Setup ~ HaploGamingChef

Dominate with a Full Minion Army in Season 2 of Last Epoch

Looking for a reliable, powerful, and low-stress way to steamroll through Season 2 in Last Epoch? The Golemmancer v8 is here to deliver just that. This casual-friendly guide covers everything you need to build an unkillable Necromancer minion army, packed with bone golems, skeleton mages, zombies, vanguards, and permanent wraiths. It’s a build that excels in both boss fights and clearing large packs, with a ton of survivability baked right in.

Whether you're brand new to Last Epoch or you're coming back for the Season 2 update, this is one of the strongest minion summoner builds you can play. In this guide, you’ll learn the full skill tree setup, passive breakdown, gear priorities, and a leveling path — all centered around Golemmancer v8, a build designed and tested by Aaron from Action RPG.

How the Golemmancer v8 Build Works

This build transforms the Necromancer into a full-on general of an undead army. The focus is on melee minions with high survivability and damage output. The star players are three Bone Golems, but they’re not alone — you’ll also command Skeleton Mages (turned into melee death knights), Zombies, Vanguards, and two permanent Wraiths. Every minion in this setup is tuned for threat generation, damage dealing, or utility like fear and stun effects.

What makes this version different? The latest updates, especially in Season 2, added quality-of-life changes like permanent Dread Shade and balance tweaks that make critical strike-based minion damage extremely viable. If you like sitting back and letting your army do the heavy lifting, this is your build.

Crushing Bosses: Abberoth Fight Breakdown

One of the biggest flexes of the Golemmancer v8 is how smoothly it handles tough boss fights — even Abberoth, who has a reputation for being a challenge. In a recent Twitch stream (Subathon Day 12), Aaron ran the full army setup against Abberoth, and the results were eye-opening.

Despite losing a couple of support units during a big slam, the Golems remained untouched. Even by Phase 4 of the fight, every key minion (especially the golems and vanguards) was alive. The high threat generation and bulk from the Bone Golems keep your other units — and you — from taking direct damage. It's a display of how effective the threat management and tankiness mechanics are in this build.

Setting Up Skeleton Mages for Melee Combat

Unlike most traditional setups that keep Skeleton Mages in ranged roles, the Golemmancer v8 turns them into melee death knights. The change adds more frontline damage support and increases your minion density around your character, helping with both offense and defense.

Here’s how to spec them:

First, use Grave Passage to convert them into a movement skill, allowing you to teleport with your entire army.
Then move down to transform your mages from casters into melee units, giving them strong survivability and synergy with buffs like Dread Shade.
Boost their critical strike chance and multiplier, which turns them into serious damage dealers, especially when paired with other crit-boosting effects.
You can also add one extra mage through passive choices, increasing your total army size.

If you're earlier in the campaign or need more sustain, pull back a few points from Skeleton Mage and redistribute them into mana efficiency or critical scaling based on how you're performing.

Bone Golems: The Core of Your Undead Wall

The three Bone Golems in this build aren’t just meat shields — they’re critical to both threat generation and survival. These units draw aggro, tank massive hits, and provide AoE control through stun and raw damage.

Key specializations:

Start by grabbing the nodes that increase size and threat, making them the first targets for enemies.
Max out the node that converts your health regeneration to your golems, which massively improves their tankiness.
Move on to boost melee multiplicative damage and stun chance, which helps keep bosses like Abberoth from unloading full attack rotations.
Finally, invest in attack speed and movement speed boosts so your golems can reposition quickly and hit harder, faster.

With these nodes maxed, your Bone Golems can handle nearly any front-line scenario without collapsing — even in extended boss fights.

Volatile Zombies: Crowd Control and Burst Damage

Your Summon Volatile Zombies add a splash of controlled chaos to your undead squad. While golems and mages handle steady output and defense, zombies are all about burst damage, stuns, and fear effects.

Here’s how to build them out:

Begin by reducing mana cost and increasing cast speed, so you can spam them during high-mobility or boss phases.
Invest in stun chance and kill threshold nodes early on. These help zombies secure quick kills and interrupt enemy actions.
Choose multiplicative damage boosts and necrotic scaling to make their explosions matter even in late-game encounters.
Fear effects are a great addition — they keep enemies disoriented and running while your golems and vanguards clean up.

Their synergy with the rest of your army is strong — while golems hold threat, zombies debuff and damage enemies that slip through the cracks.

Permanent Wraiths: High DPS with Zero Micromanagement

The real MVPs in your late-game damage output are your two permanent Wraiths. With the right setup, they become 350k+ damage dealers that stick around for the entire fight without re-summoning.

How to optimize them:

Use Twin Spirits to make them permanent — you’ll only have two, but you’ll never need to worry about uptime again.
Stack base damage, attack speed, and critical strike chance + multiplier. This ensures they scale well into late game.
Their damage spikes when supported by buffs like Dread Shade, which you’ll be using constantly on your golems.
While other minions handle disruption and threat, your Wraiths just pump out consistent DPS from mid-range.

Even though you can’t heavily specialize due to point limitations, putting the essentials into crit scaling and multiplicative modifiers gives your Wraiths all they need to wreck enemies.

Dread Shade: Buff Your Army Without Downsides

One of the biggest quality-of-life changes in Last Epoch Season 2 is the update to Dread Shade — it now no longer expires, making it a set-and-forget power boost for your main minions. In the Golemmancer v8, Dread Shade plays a central role in pushing your minions’ DPS to the next level.

Here’s how to specialize it:

First, increase its area of effect so it can reach more minions, even if they’re slightly spread out.
Take the node that prevents minion decay — this way, you’re not sacrificing minions for buffs.
Focus on nodes that increase base damage, attack speed, and multiplicative damage.
Then add scaling based on missing life, which works incredibly well since many of your frontline units are constantly trading damage.
Finish by enabling the node that lets Dread Shade inflict damage on enemies — turning your support buff into an offensive tool.

Apply Dread Shade to a Golem or a Wraith depending on the fight. You don’t need to recast it, so it simplifies your rotation while delivering significant power.

Necromancer Passive Tree: Scaling for Minion Power

Your passive tree is focused on increasing minion survivability, output, and sustain, while giving you just enough personal defense to stay alive during chaos.

Here’s a breakdown of key passive priorities:

Acolyte Base Tree (Early Game)

Grab Intelligence for overall scaling and Necrotic Resistance for personal survival.
Invest in minion attack speed, cast speed, and base armor to toughen up your army.
Take Ward Retention and general resistances to help with stability during early progression.

Necromancer Tree (Main Build Path)

Max out Risen Army for minion attack speed and damage.
Invest in minion health regen, an extra skeleton, and more melee support.
Use Aaron’s Will, a unique armor, to expand your maximum skeleton count.
Take Cursed Blood and Aegisfall for minion armor shred, increasing your full army’s effectiveness.
Additional points go into leech, crit, health regen, and scaling abilities tied to the number of minions on the field.
Near the end, grab Reclamation of Souls, which gives you Ward every time a minion dies — especially useful since your zombies are frequently exploding.

This setup keeps your minions strong, your screen full, and your survivability high without making you juggle multiple mechanics.

Blessings: Prioritize Regeneration and Flex Slots

In Last Epoch, Blessings offer passive boosts tailored to your build, and for the Golemmancer v8, there’s one that stands above the rest.

Must-Have Blessing:

Health Regeneration from the Lagon timeline. This is essential. It feeds directly into your golem tankiness via skill nodes that convert your regen into theirs — keeping them alive under pressure.

Recommended Blessings (based on your current gear):

Flat Health – Adds base HP, helping with survivability.
All Resistances – Flexible and essential if you're short on certain res stats.
Endurance and Physical Resistance – Useful against bursty boss mechanics.

These aren’t locked in stone. You can swap these blessings depending on what your gear lacks. If you're short on Void Resistance or Critical Strike Avoidance, make those adjustments to balance your defenses.

Idols: Life Boosts and Defensive Utility

The Acolyte Idol pool is one of the most synergistic in the game for pet builds. You’ll mainly be stacking health bonuses and defensive perks.

Priority Idols:

Double Life Idols – Look for the ones offering up to 9% life and 54% base health. Stack these wherever possible.
Ward Decay Reduction – Reduces how fast your ward fades, giving you more sustain.
Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Crits – Adds protection against spike damage from elite enemies and bosses.

Inventory Strategy:

Carry four major idols with double life stats.
Fill remaining idol slots with 6% health idols or ones that complement resistances you're lacking (Void, Poison, etc.).

This combination helps you maintain both a large health pool and ward uptime, making your summoner extremely stable even during hectic combat.

Gearing Up: Required Uniques and Strong Exalts

This version of the Golemmancer is gear-intensive, but you really only need one mandatory unique. The rest helps, but can be built over time.

Required Unique:

Aaron’s Will (Chest Armor) – This unlocks additional maximum skeletons and lets you summon multiple full-sized golems. Without this, the build doesn’t function at peak capacity.

Recommended Uniques:

Death Rattle (Amulet) – Massive boost to minion critical strike multiplier.
Mandate (Relic) – Adds +2 to skills, prevents your minions from being stunned, and gives them leech.
Vessel of Strife (Ring) – Converts your health regen into ward, strengthening your survivability.

Exalted Gear Targets:

Helmet: +1 to Bone Golem, Minion Health Regen, and Double Life suffixes.
Belt: Minion Health Regen, Minion Damage, and Double Life.
Boots: Intelligence, Movement Speed, Double Life.
Gloves: Cast Speed, Minion Health, Double Life.
Rings (Hollow Fingers): Seek out +1 or +2 Skeletons, ideally with minion stats like Health, Leech, or Ward Gen.

Many of these items are accessible even to mid-tier players — 2 to 3 LP versions of Hollow Finger rings are relatively common. Even without 4 LP perfect rolls, the build still performs exceptionally well.

Leveling the Golemmancer: Easy Mode from Start to End

Whether you're starting as a Necromancer, Lich, or Warlock, leveling with minions is by far the smoothest experience — even if it’s not technically the fastest. You don’t need to constantly respec or micromanage. Just build your minion army early and let them do the heavy lifting while you cruise through the campaign.

Step-by-Step Leveling Strategy:

1. Start With Skeleton Archers

The first skill you unlock is Summon Skeleton.
Immediately spec into archers only — remove the warriors. Archers deal solid ranged damage and stay alive longer.
Invest in extra archers so your backline feels stronger from the start.

2. Unlock Bone Golem Early

Your second key skill is Summon Bone Golem.
First nodes: Tower of Bones and Fragments of the Fallen, creating a single powerful golem that tanks well during early progression.

3. Add Zombies to Your Spam Slot

Use Volatile Zombie as your spam/cast skill.
Go for Kill Threshold first so you can execute mobs efficiently.
You’re now running a solid team: Archers in the back, a tanky Golem in front, and Zombies to clean house.

4. Use Transplant for Mobility

Once unlocked, put Transplant on your bar and spec into movement bonuses.
This lets you dash through zones while your minions destroy everything.

Recommended Starter Gear:

Reach of the Grave (Bow) – Add T7 Minion Bow Damage; you can equip it at level 5.
History of Eterra (Amulet) – Add double minion and void resistance stats for a strong leveling bonus.

These two items alone can carry you through almost the entire story without needing constant upgrades.

Pro Tip:

You don’t need to constantly rework your setup. From Act 1 to the endgame, this build works with just small modifications.
Focus on maximizing minion uptime and stacking extra summons as soon as possible.

Wrapping Up: Why Golemmancer v8 Is One of the Best Minion Builds in Last Epoch

If you’re looking for a stress-free, durable, and high-damage Necromancer build, Golemmancer v8 checks every box. It’s optimized for both newcomers and veterans, giving you a reliable way to dominate content without needing insane gear or constant rotations.

With high sustain, great threat control, and a massive minion army, you’ll rarely be in danger yourself. Just focus on positioning and letting your undead team do what they do best — destroy everything in their path.

Whether you're pushing late endgame content, farming, or casually progressing through Season 2, this is a top-tier summoner build that consistently delivers results.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: What is the Golemmancer v8 build in Last Epoch?
A: Golemmancer v8 is a powerful minion-based Necromancer build in Last Epoch Season 2. It focuses on summoning Bone Golems, Skeleton Mages, Zombies, Vanguards, and Permanent Wraiths to form a massive undead army that handles all the heavy lifting. The build excels at survivability, threat management, and boss damage.

Q: What gear do I need for the Golemmancer build?
A: The only essential item is Aaron’s Will, which lets you summon extra skeletons and multiple full-sized Bone Golems. Other highly recommended items include Death Rattle (for crit multiplier), Mandate (for minion leech and skill levels), Vessel of Strife (for health-to-ward conversion), and Hollow Finger rings (for bonus skeletons and ward stats).

Q: Is Golemmancer v8 beginner-friendly?
A: Yes! This build is ideal for both new and returning players. It’s easy to level with, requires minimal active input, and your minions do most of the work. The scaling is smooth from early campaign to endgame, with gear upgrades helping along the way.

Q: How should I level this build from the start?
A: Focus on Skeleton Archers early on by removing warriors and increasing your archer count. Add a Bone Golem as soon as possible, and use Volatile Zombies as your main cast skill. Pick up Transplant for mobility, and you're good to go. This setup carries you through the campaign with almost no need for major respects.

🎮 Meet Haplo Gaming Chef 🍳

Level 99 Kitchen Warrior here! I'm on a quest to transform your gaming sessions into epic culinary adventures. When I'm not farming rare ingredients in MMOs, I'm crafting real-world recipes inspired by your favorite video games.

Specializing in: • Game-inspired recipe creation • Cooking quest guides • Power-up snacks for gaming sessions • Achievement-worthy meal prep

Join my party as we explore the delicious intersection of pixels and plates. Whether you're a casual foodie or a hardcore gamer, there's always room at my crafting table! #Gaming #GamingGuides #GamingChef #HaploGamingChef For More Visit: https://haplogamingchef.blogspot.com/

Follow Me!

https://bsky.app/profile/haplogamingchef.bsky.social
https://www.threads.com/@haplogamingchef
https://www.twitch.tv/haplogamingchef
https://www.pinterest.com/haplogamingchef
https://www.youtube.com/@HaploGamingChef
https://www.tiktok.com/@haplogamingchef
https://flipboard.com/@HaploGamingChef
https://x.com/HaploGamingChef
https://www.instagram.com/haplogamingchef
https://www.facebook.com/HaploGamingChef
https://www.linkedin.com/in/haplogamingchef
https://haplogamingchef.blogspot.com
https://www.tumblr.com/haplogamingchef
https://medium.com/@haplogamingchef
Google Business Profile: https://g.co/kgs/6nqgw9H