Hype Week Day 3: New Skills

Welcome to Hype Week Day 3! Today’s post will shed light on the new skills we will be introducing in Season 5. Not one, not two, but three new skills will make their debuts! These skills are Radiant Lance for Paladin, Summon Tide Elemental for Shaman, and Dreamslash for Bladedancer. We know you want to check out some new fun tools for your kits, so without further delay, let's get right into it!

Radiant Lance

Thunder cracks and the sky opens, holy energy rushes to your shield. A moment later, it explodes outwards with lightning from the heavens. You have harnessed the awesome power of Radiant Lance. Starting off, we wanted to give Paladins another aggressive option because they had limited choices when it came to offensive spells. Radiant Lance is a powerful spell which brings down holy light from the sky into your shield before blasting it off to destroy everything in front of you. Similar to Shield Bash, Radiant Lance gains more damage based on your block chance. But we’ve also updated all effects that scale damage based on your block chance to use your uncapped block chance, meaning you can continue to scale the benefit beyond 100% block chance. The Cloudless Sky node allows you to use Radiant Lance without a shield equipped, and replaces the block chance scaling with mana scaling. So for those who want to rain light down upon your enemies with a two-handed weapon, this is your chance. The Cloud Burst node forces the skill to be dropped on your enemies directly instead of blasting from a distance. Following Cloud Burst, Exterminatus will shoot a beam forward and a blast from the sky, giving you the chance to hit an enemy with both at the same time. In exchange, Radiant Lance will have less cast speed and cost additional mana. Paladins shall know no fear as they use Radiant Lance to exterminate their enemies from Eterra. Scathing Light is a node that makes bosses and rare enemies hit by Radiant Lance take fire and lightning damage over time. This non-stacking ailment can help provide significant damage for ailment builds without needing to cast frequently. The Abyssal Heresy is a Void conversion node that also changes Electrify chance to Time Rot chance, and Lightning resistance shred to Void, instead. Having this conversion will give Void Knights another toy to experiment with. Golden Reliquary majorly changes the behavior of Radiant Lance. Instead of casting Radiant Lance directly, you will place a Reliquary that casts it for you. These Reliquaries are invulnerable, so you won’t have to build Minion defense to keep them alive. You’ll start with a max of 1, and the amount can be increased based on your attunement. Among these nodes and many more that await you, Radiant Lance allows you to be a warrior who channels powers from above or through themselves to vanquish their enemies.

Summon Tide Elemental

It's been a long time coming, and we’re excited to deliver the Shaman’s next class skill. We wanted to give Shaman some more minion build options. As reliable as the moon itself, this powerful new minion is sure to turn the tide of any battle. Introducing Shaman’s much anticipated final mastery ability, Summon Tide Elemental! This is a powerful minion that can stand as a focal point of a build or add valuable utility to others. The summon itself is a powerful, stand-alone minion that can fight with or without other minions. For totem players, you'll have the chance to pick up the Tidal Totem node. This node converts your elemental to a totem. While it loses its ability to move, it’s now affected by totem modifiers. The Seahenge node forces all totems to move to surround your Elemental, extending totem duration. Another node that could prove fun to Shaman enthusiasts is Water Spout. Whenever you cast Tornadoes, and it hits the Tide Elemental, it will redirect the tornado to an enemy. The Whirlpools node will give your Tide Elemental the ability to cast Maelstrom whenever you do. When this node procs, it uses your Maelstrom tree along with its own stats. After picking up the Wellspring node, your Tide Elemental gains the Wellspring aura, granting additional cold spell damage and increased cast speed to allies within 18 meters. This will also reflect any element changes you may have selected from the tree or unique items. It has a healthy set of options. After Wellspring, Pools of Reverence removes the buff for players while making it more effective on totems. Elemental Fury grants your Tide Elemental ramping cast speed, while Unleashed Elements allows it to consume those stacks to unleash a massive torrent of shotgunning projectiles.

Dreamslash

Go ahead, pinch yourself. That’s right, you’re awake. Bladedancer also receives its final mastery skill in Season 5. But don’t blink because you’ll miss the speed and finesse at which the Bladedancer moves across the battlefield with the new ability, Dreamslash. We wanted Bladedancer to have a low-cost, spammable attack with movement that helps the Rogue lean into a nimble-like playstyle. While we have created ways to create shadows, we wanted another skill that could consume shadows for extra benefits. This new skill allows you to hit enemies along a path before performing a quick slash. Any shadows you have will also perform Dreamslash and dash beyond targets, hitting all enemies in their path. Nightmare Steel is a node that unleashes a wave instead of propelling you forward. It is, however, still considered a melee attack with the damaging wave. Narcolepsy grants Dream stacks, which causes Dreamslash to deal significantly more damage but target random enemies. You might not go where you wanted, but things will die. If you want to go all in on letting Dreamslash take the wheel, Dreamwalker increases the rate you gain Dream stacks, while Dreamshift allows you to use Shadows as substitutes for Dream stacks.

For the Rogues who want to amplify and find another source of Shadow Daggers, Collapsing Shadows is the node for you. Not only does each point give you a chance to inflict Shadow Daggers on hit, but the Shadow Daggers chance is doubled for shadows that perform Dreamslash. Recurring Dreams allows you to guarantee shadows get resummoned on every single use, but not for long, as it will rapidly consume mana. One of the conversion nodes available for Dreamslash is Apocalyptic Vision, converting the skill’s damage to fire and ailments to ignite. Dreamslash will allow Bladedancers to manipulate shadows, providing a different element of damage, and to move around a bit faster in a fight. Don’t forget, Travelers: the most deadly shadows are usually the quietest.

Outro

We hope you enjoyed a preview of these new skills and possibilities coming October 1. Let nothing stop you from cutting through dreams, summoning a powerful elemental to turn the raging tides, or calling down power from those above to punish your foes. Three new skills that expand the possibilities of your next build await you. Travelers, some extraordinary items are waiting to break loose and ignite the chase when you log into Last Epoch in Season 5: Rage of the Frostborn. Luckily, we’ll have more on such chases tomorrow as we check out some of the new Unique items in Season 5.