Last Epoch Monolith Corruption, explained

If you’re exploring the Monoliths of Fate in Last Epoch, you’ve probably heard about Corruption and The Shade of Orobyss. These are key parts of the intricate Echo web in the endgame. Here’s all you need to know to master this content and use Corruption to your advantage.

What Monolith Corruption is in Last Epoch

Monolith Corruption determines how difficult and rewarding the Echoes in a Monolith of Fate in Last Epoch are. The higher the Corruption value in the Monolith, the stronger the enemies but the better the loot you can get from completing Echoes. Increasing a Monolith’s Corruption levels affects the game in several ways:

• Enemies become stronger, having more health and dealing more damage.
• If you’re in a Normal Monolith, the area level of Echoes increase.
• You’re more likely to find rare items.
• You earn more experience from Echoes and defeating monsters.
• You gain more Stability for each Echo you clear.

You, the player, can control the Corruption level by completing two specific Echo nodes: Echo of a World and Sanctuary of Eterra. Each Monolith has its own Corruption level, but increasing the Corruption in one Monolith also gives a bonus to others, making it faster to farm in them.

Players try to make Corruption as high as possible because it improves their chances of finding Unique and Set items. These items make their characters much stronger. Essentially, it’s a cycle: you increase Corruption to get better gear, which makes you strong enough to increase Corruption even more, allowing you to get even better gear, and you keep doing this over and over until you decide it’s enough.

How to increase Monolith Corruption

To raise a Monolith’s corruption level in Last Epoch, you need to beat The Shade of Orobyss boss found in special Echo of a World nodes. Each victory increases your Corruption by a certain amount shown in the Echo’s info and resets the Echo web of that Monolith. This increase is usually by one or two units and gets higher the further you are from the web’s center. There’s no maximum limit for Corruption, but most players prefer to farm in Monoliths with 400 to 600 Corruption to avoid needing very specific, optimized gear and builds.

Before you start working on increasing Corruption, make sure to unlock Empowered Monoliths. These offer better loot more often than the normal ones, and when you unlock Empowered versions, they already begin at 100 Corruption. So complete all Monoliths of Fate first to access Empowered Monoliths and only then work on Corruption increase.

How to reduce Monolith Corruption

If Echoes get too hard after you’ve increased corruption, you can lower it by defeating the five Sanctuary Guardians in the Sanctuary of Eterra node. This node is often one of the first ones linked to the starting Echo of the Monolith’s web. After beating them, you can pick how much to decrease the corruption: a little, a medium amount, or all of it. Lowering corruption also resets the Monolith’s Echo web, just like when you increase corruption. Be sure to farm any nodes you’re interested in before reducing corruption.