Last Epoch Corruption Guide: How to Push It
Once you've completed the regular Monolith progression and cleared the three "Night" timelines in last epoch, you'll unlock Empowered Monoliths—and this is where the real endgame begins. We need to complete them to build Corruption. How to push Corruption in last epoch? Raxxanterax shared a guide on his YouTube channel, aiming to help us with the increase in Corruption. Let's dive in!
What Is Corruption and Why It Matters
Corruption is a central mechanic in empowered Monoliths and serves multiple important purposes:
Unlocking Content: Certain high-value boss fights and Woven Echoes require minimum levels of Corruption. For example:
- Woven Echoes may require 100, 300, or even 500 corruption.
- Uber Abberoth requires 500 corruption to access.
- Regular Abberoth requires 300 corruption plus defeating several Harbingers.
Loot and XP Scaling: Higher Corruption increases enemy health and damage, but in return, you gain better item rarity and more experience points. If you're wondering why others are leveling faster or getting better loot, it's likely because they've pushed their Corruption higher.
As a rule of thumb:
- 300–500 corruption is ideal for optimal rewards.
- Beyond 1,000 corruption, the gains sharply diminish due to extreme diminishing returns.
How Empowered Monoliths Work
Normally, you'd progress through Echoes in a timeline, gain stability, and eventually unlock a boss. Defeating this boss gives you Gaze of Orobyss, which increases your Corruption. Each timeline has its own corruption value, and when you clear bosses, you gradually raise it.
Catch-Up Mechanic
If you've pushed one timeline very far (e.g., Spirits of Fire at 800 corruption), switching to a lower-corruption timeline (e.g., Age of Winter) will trigger a catch-up bonus. This can cause a massive spike in Corruption after a boss kill, bringing timelines closer together quickly without manual grinding.
The Glyph of Envy Trick for Speed Pushing
Here's a powerful trick to fast-track stability and push Corruption, which lets you instantly unlock the boss fight—no need to grind multiple echoes.
- Run One Echo in any empowered timeline.
- Craft Cheap Items: Grab junk items (e.g., vendor gear or trash exalts) and use Glyphs of Envy with any low-tier affix.
- Spam Crafting: Every time you use a Glyph of Envy, it grants stability for the most recent monolith you ran.
Boosting Corruption with Harbinger's Needles
To increase the number of Gazes of Orobyss you gain when killing the Shade of Orobyss, use Harbinger's Needles (common idol drops):
- Stash them right before fighting the boss.
- Fight and kill the Shade.
- You'll receive additional Gazes based on the number stored.
Note:
- The boss only consumes up to 4 Gazes at a time, but this still speeds up Corruption stacking significantly.
Which Timeline Should You Push?
A smart strategy is to choose a timeline that drops a specific rare item you want. For example, if Flames of Midnight only drops from Spirits of Fire, that's the timeline you should farm and push Corruption in.
Corruption Boosts for Alts
Later on, you can unlock a special Woven Echo that matches the Corruption of your highest-level character. This allows your alts to instantly access high corruption timelines without grinding from zero.
If the content becomes too difficult, remember: at the start of every timeline, there's a cleansing echo that lets you lower Corruption again.
Final Thoughts
- Push Corruption to access powerful content like Woven Echoes and Uber bosses.
- Use the Glyph of Envy trick to skip echo grinding.
- Boost Gazes with Harbinger's Needles to accelerate corruption gains.
- Use the catch-up mechanic and timeline switching to maximize your efficiency.
- Plan your farming based on unique boss or Harbinger drops.
- Use Woven Echo syncing for alt characters.
- Push smarter, not harder—and get the loot you deserve!