How the 5 base classes and 15 mastery classes fit together, and the real cost of switching mastery mid-season.
Last Epoch Classes: 5 Base Classes, 15 Masteries, and the Cost of Switching
Last Epoch has five base classes and fifteen mastery classes. You pick one of the five base classes at character creation, then ascend into one of that class's three masteries early in the campaign — and the mastery, not the base class, is what actually hands you your abilities. You can change mastery later for gold, but the price ramps hard with character level and the swap wipes every passive point you spent. As of Patch 1.5, Season 5 Rage of the Frostborn (live October 1, 2026; current hotfix 1.5.1.1 on October 3), the respec only offers your own class's other two masteries — not the other twelve.
The 5 x 3 structure, the mastery names and the Season 5 skill gates come from official sources. Official source: Last Epoch on Steam and lastepoch.com/classes. The respec gold table is a community-reported copy of an older patch note — we mark it as such below. The NPC route is reported by guides and players, and we did not verify it in-game this round.
The five base classes and how mastery sits on top
The Steam store page sells it as "15 Mastery Classes": you start as one of five powerful classes and "through your journey, ascend into a unique Mastery Class that unlocks more specialized abilities and build-options." The official site is blunter — 5 classes. 15 masteries. 120+ skills — and adds the line that decides how you should think about the choice: "Ascending into a mastery provides powerful passive bonuses and skills." That is why guides treat base class as flavour and attributes, and mastery as the real class.
| Base class | Role | The three masteries |
|---|---|---|
| Sentinel | Armored melee bruiser, shields and throwing attacks | Void Knight, Forge Guard, Paladin |
| Mage | Elemental caster built on Ward | Runemaster, Spellblade, Sorcerer |
| Acolyte | Blood, necrotic and poison; curses and minions | Lich, Necromancer, Warlock |
| Primalist | Nature warrior; pets, totems, shapeshifts | Shaman, Beastmaster, Druid |
| Rogue | Assassin, ranger and bow user; dodge and glancing blows | Bladedancer, Marksman, Falconer |
Season 5's own race is the cleanest official proof of the five-way split. The First Blood announcement crowns ten winners — "Five classes. Two options to play. Ten packs waiting" — with a champion each for Acolyte, Mage, Primalist, Rogue and Sentinel. Masteries get no leaderboard of their own, which matches how the game treats them.
Two timing facts matter while you are still deciding. First, guide coverage treats the base class as a per-character permanent decision, and no 1.5 patch note mentions a base class change. Second, the mastery pick lands early — roughly level 15 to 20 by media accounts — not at character creation, so if you are torn you get a real vote before you commit. The wider onboarding order is in our beginner guide.
All 15 masteries, one line each
Role and damage focus follow Maxroll's class and mastery introductions (updated April 2, 2026). The curve column is our editorial read on kit complexity — no official difficulty ratings exist, and neither does an official tier list.
| Mastery | Base class | What it is for | Damage focus | Curve |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Void Knight | Sentinel | Echoes that re-cast your skills; leech and Time Rot | Void | Steep |
| Forge Guard | Sentinel | Armor, throwing support, forged weapons and minion synergy | Physical, Bleed | Gentle |
| Paladin | Sentinel | Healing plus adaptive spell damage behind a shield | Fire, Ignite | Moderate |
| Runemaster | Mage | Element casts spawn runes; Runic Invocation combines up to three | Fire, Cold, Lightning | Steep |
| Spellblade | Mage | Melee attacks that proc spells; generator into spender | Fire, Cold, Lightning | Moderate |
| Sorcerer | Mage | The baseline ranged caster, big elemental AoE, crit support | Fire, Cold, Lightning | Gentle |
| Lich | Acolyte | Spends your own health to gain power | Physical, Necrotic, Poison | Moderate |
| Necromancer | Acolyte | Minion armies, single big minions, undead bombs | Varies by minion | Steep |
| Warlock | Acolyte | Damage-over-time specialist with the game's strongest curse support | Fire, Necrotic, Poison, Physical | Steep |
| Shaman | Primalist | Totems that buff spells, melee or companions | Cold, Lightning | Moderate |
| Beastmaster | Primalist | Companions you revive, plus Aspects applied to them | Physical, Poison | Gentle |
| Druid | Primalist | Werebear, Spriggan and Swarmblade forms; stance dancing | Physical, Poison, Cold | Steep |
| Bladedancer | Rogue | Melee ninja with shadow copies and guaranteed-crit daggers | Physical, Poison | Gentle |
| Marksman | Rogue | The only mastery that uses bows and quivers | Physical, Poison, Fire | Moderate |
| Falconer | Rogue | A damage-immune falcon attacks and buffs for you | Physical, Poison, Lightning | Moderate |
The three masteries Season 5 put in the spotlight
Patch 1.5 shipped one new signature skill per standout mastery, and their unlock gates are the actual decision. Bladedancer gets Dreamslash at 10 passive points, Paladin gets Radiant Lance at 15, Shaman gets Summon Tide Elemental at 30 — the deepest gate of the three. The same patch also moved Synchronized Strike to Bladedancer-only at 35 points (from 10) and Symbols of Hope to Paladin at 35 (from 15), so two existing skills quietly became more expensive to reach.
None of them need a new character. Full breakdowns are in Season 5's three new skills, and if you are starting a fresh Season 5 character, the route table is in starter builds.
What switching mastery actually costs
Three things get billed, and only the first is the number everyone quotes.
1. The mastery respec gold. The level-scaled fee. The table below is a player-pasted copy of the official 1.1 patch notes ("Tombs of the Erased") quoted in an April 2025 forum thread — treat it as community-reported, from a 2025 patch, and expect it to have moved since.
| Character level | Mastery respec gold |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100g |
| 20 | 5,000g |
| 40 | 15,000g |
| 50 | 30,000g |
| 60 | 50,000g |
| 70 | 100,000g |
| 90 | 600,000g |
| 100 | 1,000,000g |
At level 100 that is a million gold, and the patch note quoted in that thread says the fee "is combined with the price for respeccing all allocated passive points." One Acolyte player reported paying 43,000g at level 48 and 56,000g three levels later with only 30 points invested — the bill rose faster than his gold income. Another player at level 52 worked out that a single high-tier "money" Echo run paid him 8,832g, so a 34,000g change cost him about four of those runs — roughly four minutes of farming, by his own estimate.
2. Every passive point, including base class points. Guides agree the swap resets your whole passive grid — base class tree included — and you re-allocate from scratch. If you would rather clean points by hand first, Maxroll's respec guide adds two rules that make that slower: points come out one at a time, each removal costing gold scaled by how many sit in that node, and you cannot strip more than 20 base class tree points while you still hold mastery tree points. Passives you re-allocate immediately, though — unlike skills, they never need re-levelling.
3. Skill points above your minimum. Skills are the one thing a respec cannot buy back for free. Each skill has a minimum specialized level that climbs from 1 with your character level up to 10; points above that line must be re-levelled by actually using the skill.
What survives: your level, gold, stash and equipped gear. Guides describe gear as staying equipped but possibly no longer fitting the build, which is the honest version — nothing is deleted, but the items that made your damage work may be dead weight.
Players constantly quote the "free" skill respec as evidence that swapping is cheap. The skill part is the only part that is nearly free. Gold, passive points and re-levelled skills are all billed on top.
Where the respec NPC is, and what we could not confirm
Two guides independently name Chronomancer Lerinne as the respec NPC in The End of Time: Maxroll's respec guide (updated April 2, 2026) places her in The End of Time or The Council Chambers with a brain icon on the minimap, and an Escapist guide from March 2026 puts her just south of the waypoint. Her dialogue offers "Respecialize Mastery Point allocations" and "Respecialize Mastery" — two separate buttons, which is why players conflate a passive-point cleanup with a class change.
The community wiki lists Lerinne's location as "The Square" with no mastery option in her dialogue, and forum players in August 2025 reported the respec option appearing in The End of Time and at Champion's Gate but nowhere else in the campaign hubs. We did not verify the current NPC, hub or UI path inside Patch 1.5 — check in-game, and treat every route above as a starting point rather than a confirmed step list.
Respec or roll a new character?
| Situation | Cheaper move | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Wrong mastery, under level 40, thin gold | Respec | The fee is a rounding error and you have few passives to lose |
| Wrong mastery, level 60+, six figures in gold | Respec anyway | Farming the fee back costs more playtime than re-levelling a character |
| Wrong base class entirely | New character | There is no base class respec in any official source |
| Wanted a different skill inside the right mastery | Respec skill | Skill respec is cheap; the mastery respec is what scales |
| Just want the Season 5 signature skill | Respec, not re-roll | Dreamslash, Radiant Lance and Tide Elemental are point unlocks |
| Planning to run two different builds long-term | Keep both characters | Mastery respec buys one build at a time, and blessings are found per game mode but rolled per character |
The clean rule: a mastery mistake is a gold problem, a base class mistake is a new-character problem, and a build mistake inside a mastery is a skill-respec problem. The passive grid you re-allocate after a switch is covered in The Weaver Tree guide.
FAQ
Can I change my base class? No base class respec appears in the 1.5 notes or any other official source we checked. Guides treat it as a per-character permanent decision.
Can I change my mastery? Yes, for gold, and only into the other two masteries of your own base class. It arrived in 2025 with patch 1.1.
Do I lose my gear, level or stash? No. Guides describe gear as staying equipped and everything else untouched, though items that carried the old build may stop being useful.
Do my passive points survive a mastery change? No — the passive grid is reset, base class tree included, and you re-allocate immediately at no re-levelling cost.
Do I need a new character for the Season 5 skills? No. All three unlock from passive points inside the mastery: 10 for Dreamslash, 15 for Radiant Lance, 30 for Summon Tide Elemental.
Related
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