Harbingers of Ruin is the first new Cycle in Last Epoch, allowing players to face off against Aberroth and their Harbingers as they fight their way across the timelines. Actually meeting and battling the Harbingers requires players to enter the endgame, but this guide will explain how you can find them.
Harbingers of Ruin also added several other systems and mechanics to Last Epoch, such as the Nemeses that can be encountered while exploring the world and the ability for all classes to use the Evade Skill as an evasive/movement technique.
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Last Epoch: How Nemesis Works
Nemesis is a new random encounter system in Last Epoch that provides an additional way to earn powerful loot throughout the game.
How to Find and Fight Harbingers in Last Epoch
Harbingers can only be encountered once you start entering the timelines associated with each Monolith of Fate. After finishing off the boss of a timeline a Harbinger can appear. They will absorb some of the properties of the boss you just defeated and the fight will begin immediately. Your first Harbinger will spawn when you defeat the Boss that unlocks Empowered Monoliths/Empowered Timelines. Each Harbinger fight requires higher corruption than the last to spawn, which also ensures that Harbingers will continue to get more difficult as you defeat more of them.
Harbingers use combo attacks that deal void damage, often have a means of teleporting to the player, and will absorb some of the properties of whichever boss was slain to spawn them. You can turn off Harbinger Encounters by unchecking the Harbinger Crest on the menu before entering the boss fight that would spawn them, which is useful if you aren’t ready to face them or otherwise want to avoid them for the time being. Beating all 10 Harbingers is required to unlock the Pinacle Boss “Aberroth”, with future Harbinger encounters dropping the items needed to refight the boss.