Crafting in Last Epoch is one of the most powerful and rewarding systems in any ARPG. Whether you’re chasing perfect affixes for your build, preparing exalted items for legendary slams, or simply experimenting during the campaign, understanding how crafting works is essential to progressing in the game. This guide breaks down the basics, explains the key glyphs and runes, and offers strategies to make the most of your items.

 

Crafting Basics

 

Not every item in Last Epoch can be crafted. Set items can only be shattered for shards, while most unique items cannot be altered directly. Exceptions exist: certain unique items with legendary potential (LP) can be combined with exalted items of the same base type inside the Temporal Sanctum. The number of affixes transferred depends on the LP value. For example, a pair of Wing Guards with 1 LP can inherit a single affix from an exalted pair of gloves.

 

The real heart of crafting lies with exalted items, which contain tier 6 or tier 7 affixes. Exalts are valuable both on their own and as the building blocks for creating legendaries. To craft on an item, you’ll consume its forging potential (FP)—a limited resource that determines how many times you can modify it. Once FP reaches zero, the item can no longer be crafted.

 

Glyphs

 

Glyphs are consumables that alter how affixes are added, upgraded, or modified during crafting.

 

Glyph of Hope: The most common and useful glyph. Each craft has a 25% chance to cost no forging potential, letting you stretch your FP much further. Use these liberally when upgrading or adding affixes.

 

Glyph of Chaos: Changes an affix into another random one from the same pool. Ideal for rerolling undesired affixes into something more useful. For example, you might cast off a weak stun chance suffix in hopes of hitting fire penetration.

 

Glyph of Order: Prevents the numerical value of an affix from rerolling within its range when upgrading. Useful when you already have a near-perfect roll on a stat you want to preserve.

 

Glyph of Despair: Seals an affix, removing it from the item’s main affix slots while keeping it as a permanent “hidden” affix. This opens a slot for better stats. It’s especially powerful when combined with advanced techniques such as shuffling affixes with runes of havoc.

 

Glyph of Envy: Consumes stability from an item to progress your Monolith timeline. Niche in use, but handy for farming or leveling alts.

It will be more convenient to have enough Last Epoch gold to upgrade.

 

Runes

 

Runes provide more specialized crafting effects.

 

Rune of Shattering: Breaks down an item and gives you a portion of its affix shards. This is the main way to expand your shard pool for future crafting.

 

Rune of Removal: Removes one random affix from an item and grants all its shards. Best used on items with only one or two affixes to increase your chances of targeting the stat you want.

 

Rune of Refinement: Rerolls the numerical values of all affixes within their tiers. Perfect for polishing T7 exalts to get maximum rolls before using them in a legendary slam.

 

Rune of Discovery: Fills empty affix slots with random stats at no FP cost. Extremely powerful during the campaign or early endgame, but less useful later when you’re chasing specific affixes.

 

Rune of Shaping: Rerolls the implicit stats of an item (the properties at the very top). Particularly valuable on weapons like daggers with high crit multiplier ranges.

 

Rune of Ascendance: Upgrades a base item into a random unique of that type. With the Circle of Fortune faction, you gain a chance to preserve your runes, making this an efficient way to farm build-defining uniques.

 

Rune of Weaving: Instantly progresses the Weaver’s Will mechanic, saving you the time of equipping and leveling the item manually.

 

Rune of Havoc: Shuffles the tiers of affixes. This is where advanced crafting shines—by sealing or adding low-tier affixes, you can attempt to move a T7 affix into a more desirable stat slot.

 

Rune of Redemption: Randomizes exalted affixes on an item. A gamble, but it can turn bad double exalts into something usable.

 

Rune of Creation: The rarest and most powerful rune. It duplicates an item but sets the forging potential of both the original and the copy to zero. It’s essentially a way to “mirror” a perfect exalt, giving you two chances at slamming it into legendaries.

 

Crafting Strategies

 

Early Game: Use runes of discovery to fill out gear and glyphs of hope to stretch FP. Don’t worry too much about perfection—just aim for solid defensive and offensive stats.

 

Shard Farming: Shatter most rare items you won’t wear to build up shards. Use removal sparingly for hard-to-find affixes, especially on low-affix blues.

 

Exalt Preparation: Always save high-tier exalted items, even if the affixes aren’t ideal. They can become the foundation of a legendary or be manipulated later with glyphs and runes.

 

Advanced Crafting: Combine glyphs of despair with runes of havoc to attempt tier shuffles, or use refinement to maximize top-end rolls. Be prepared to fail sometimes—crafting in Last Epoch always involves risk.

 

Endgame Perfection: If you ever find a god-tier exalt with your best stats, be patient. Save it until you acquire a rune of creation so you can duplicate it before committing to a legendary slam.

 

Idol Crafting

 

Class-specific idols can also be enchanted. Running Monolith echoes like the Cemeteries allows you to apply an affix and Weaver’s Will to idols. Just like weapons or armor, you can accelerate the process with runes of weaving or reroll undesired outcomes.

 

Final Thoughts

 

Crafting in Last Epoch is both simple to learn and endlessly deep. You can start by casually adding affixes during the campaign and grow into advanced strategies involving sealing, shuffling, and refining exalted gear for legendaries. The system rewards experimentation, patience, and clever use of resources. Having a large amount of cheap Last Epoch gold will help you get rewards.

 

Mastering these glyphs and runes gives you control over your progression, letting you shape gear tailored exactly to your build. And while luck will always play a role, the sheer flexibility of Last Epoch’s crafting makes it one of the most satisfying systems in the ARPG genre.