How to Progress Through the Monolith of Fate: A Guide to Timelines, Corruption, and Empowered Timelines in Last Epoch

Monolith Beginner Guide

The Monolith of Fate is a core system in Last Epoch, where players will spend the majority of their time after progressing past the campaign. This guide will cover the fundamentals of the Monolith of Fate, including what it is, how to access it, and an overview of all its features and mechanics.

What Is The Monolith?

The Monolith of Fate is the main endgame system in Last Epoch. After finishing the campaign, players will move on to the Monolith, which offers a branching map system, targetable rewards, bosses, modifiers, and difficulty scaling. Below, we'll dive deeper into each of these features.

How To Access The Monolith

Early in the campaign, players will reach a central hub called "The End of Time." Upon reaching this area, the Monolith of Fate becomes accessible by taking a portal on the east side. However, the lowest level enemies in the Monolith are level 58, and there are still valuable rewards to be earned from the campaign. For this reason, most players will want to continue progressing through the campaign and return to the Monolith of Fate later.

Timelines

Timelines are separate islands within the Monolith of Fate, each offering its own web of quests, bosses, and rewards, as well as a unique area level (Timelines higher on the map have a higher area level). When players first enter the Monolith, they only have access to one timeline. After completing that timeline—by finishing the quest echoes and defeating the timeline-specific boss—players can choose between two new timelines to unlock.

Eventually, all Timelines can be unlocked, though some may require rerunning previously completed timelines. Timelines can be completed as many times as players wish, and often, players will want to complete them multiple times to unlock other Timelines and farm specific rewards tied to those Timelines.

Echoes

Echoes are the maps you run within timelines. They are selected through a procedurally generated web that is unique to each timeline and can be reset by killing the Shade of Orobyss. Defeating the Shade generates a completely new web to explore, but it also impacts Corruption (more on the Shade of Orobyss and Corruption will be covered later).

Echo Details

Each Monolith Echo features a map, a modifier, and a reward for completing the echo. Each timeline can roll a specific set of maps and modifiers. Modifiers add difficulty to echoes and will persist into additional echoes for a specified amount of time. The duration and scaling of these modifiers in terms of difficulty are influenced by several factors, such as the corruption level and the distance from the start of the Timeline web (higher corruption and echoes located further out have modifiers that are more difficult and last longer).

Under the 'Echo Information' section (as seen in the left-side image), all details for an echo can be found except for the map, which is located just above the 'Start' button. The number '3' under several icons in the image indicates how many Echoes the modifiers will remain active for. In this example, the modifiers will remain active for this echo and the next four Echoes. It is important to note that quest Echoes, including the boss encounter, also count, meaning these modifiers can carry over into quests and bosses.

Echo Objectives

Upon starting each echo, an objective will be randomly generated. The objectives are as follows:

• 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 that will continuously fire at you from long range until destroyed.

There is one exception to these objectives: arena maps. If you encounter an arena map echo, it will always be an arena with 12-17 waves of enemies that must be defeated in order to complete the echo.

Special Echo Rewards

Each Timeline also offers a special echo reward that provides a specific type of unique item for completing that echo:

Unique Echoes

• Collapse – Bows, Quivers
• Fall of the Outcasts – Bows, Quivers
• The Stolen Lance – Wands, Sceptres, Staves, Catalysts
• The Black Sun – Helmets, Shields
• Blood, Frost, and Death – Body Armour
• Ending the Storm – Gloves
• Fall of the Empire – Belts
• Reign of Dragons – Swords, Axes, Maces, Daggers, Spears
• The Last Ruin – Relics
• The Age of Winter – Rings, Amulets
• Spirits of Fire – Boots

Stability

Every echo you complete provides stability for that Timeline. The amount of stability you receive is determined by how far the echo is from the center of the timeline (the farther it is, the more stability you gain) and how much bonus stability you earn from killing enemies in the echo. Stability is used to unlock the quest echoes, which include the Timeline Boss. The timeline UI displays both how much stability you currently have and how much is needed to unlock each quest.

Timeline Quests & Bosses

Each Monolith Timeline has three quests, with the third being a boss battle. Each quest has a stability requirement, with the first quest having the lowest and the third quest having the highest. Quests must be completed in order, and upon defeating the boss, players will receive a blessing as well as a choice to unlock a new timeline.

Quests are not randomly generated. They are specific to each Timeline and will always remain the same within that Timeline. The boss will also be the same for any given Timeline.

Blessings & Boss Rewards

Each Timeline boss provides two specific rewards (this does not include the Shade of Orobyss; see the next section for his rewards).

Blessings

Blessings are permanent buffs to your character that either directly increase power or improve loot drops in some way. Each boss has a specific Blessing table, and the Blessings it provides cannot be found anywhere else. This means that if you're looking for a specific Blessing, you will need to farm the right boss until that Blessing drops.

Uniques

Each boss has its own loot table of uniques that only drop from that boss. Some are common, while others are rare, and many require a specific level of corruption or the empowered version of the Timeline in order to drop. Since these uniques do not drop anywhere else, the only way to obtain them is by farming the boss until the specific unique you want drops.

Timeline Boss Rewards

Timeline bosses will always provide a selection of Blessings to choose from and at least one unique item from their loot table.

Corruption & The Shade of Orobyss

Corruption is a mechanic that allows players to increase XP and rewards by also increasing the difficulty of a Timeline. To increase Corruption, you must kill The Shade of Orobyss, who can be found as an echo type in the web. The farther out you go, the more likely you are to encounter a Shade echo, and the more Corruption the Shade will provide. The Shade is not an easy fight, so make sure you're prepared.

Increasing Corruption & The Shade of Orobyss

Increasing Corruption also raises the health and damage of every enemy in the Timeline, including bosses and additional encounters of the Shade. It also increases XP and item rarity, improving the rewards you receive. The increase per point of Corruption is effectively linear, scaling equally at both low and high levels of Corruption. Corruption also affects the likelihood of more valuable Echo Objective completion rewards as well as Boss Uniques.

Here are a few additional tips regarding Corruption and the Shade of Orobyss:

• 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 like, you can 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 will be presented with three options that allow you to choose how much Corruption to remove.
• Corruption caps at 50 in normal timelines but is unlimited in Empowered timelines (see the next section for information on Empowered Timelines).
• Killing the Timeline Boss adds stacks of ‘Gaze of Orobyss,’ which increases the amount of Corruption received from a Shade kill. These stacks are lost if you die to a Shade.
• The amount of XP, rarity, and monster difficulty gained by Corruption is not linear. Early on, Corruption will increase everything by quite a bit, while at higher levels of Corruption, the increase will be smaller.

Empowered Timelines

By completing the top 3 Timelines (Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter, and The Last Ruin), players can unlock Empowered versions of every timeline. These Empowered timelines feature a level 100 area level and start with 100 corruption, meaning that while the rewards are greater, the difficulty is also significantly higher. Unlike normal Timelines, there is no corruption cap for Empowered Timelines.

Empowered Timelines also introduce Empowered Blessings, which are Blessings with higher rolls compared to their normal counterparts. Additionally, some uniques that drop from Timeline Bosses can only be acquired through Empowered versions of the Timelines.

Summary

• The Monolith of Fate is the primary endgame system in Last Epoch.
• The Monolith can be accessed through the End of Time, which is encountered relatively early in the campaign.
• Timelines are islands in the Monolith, each with its own Echo Web, Quests, and Bosses that players must complete to progress through the Monolith.
• Echoes are the mapping component of the Monolith, with each Echo featuring its own modifiers and rewards.
• Killing a Timeline Boss provides boss-specific rewards, including Blessings, and unlocks additional Timelines.
• Corruption is a system that allows players to increase the difficulty of Timelines in exchange for higher rewards. Corruption is increased by defeating the Shade of Orobyss.
• Empowered Timelines are a level 100 version of normal Timelines, starting with 100 Corruption and offering better rewards, but at a higher difficulty.