Last Epoch: Faction Swapping and Gear Strategies

Starting with Circle of Fortune is recommended for new Last Epoch players due to its loot advantages and lower stakes.

### Last Epoch: Circle of Fortune vs. Merchants Guild Faction Guide
* 💰  In Last Epoch, players must choose between the Circle of Fortune and the Merchants Guild factions, with the former offering **extra loot** and the latter providing **access to trade**.
* 🔄  Players can switch between factions, but items obtained in one faction **cannot be used in the other**, creating stakes and friction in the player's choice.
* 🎮  The Circle of Fortune is recommended for shorter play sessions (10-30 hours) due to the **immediate benefits** it provides, while the Merchants Guild is better for longer playtimes (50-100+ hours) for **access to trade**.
* 🛠️  Before switching factions, players should ensure they have a gear set ready for the new faction, spend all favor (the currency of the factions), and prioritize acquiring **runes and glyphs which can be used in both factions**.
* 🏹  Items obtained in the Circle of Fortune faction will have a **purple icon**, while items from the Merchants Guild will have an **orange icon**, indicating their faction affiliation.
* 🛡️  When switching to the Merchants Guild, players must **unequip faction items first**, such as gloves, rings, and bows, which are tied to the **Circle of Fortune**.
* 💬  The player in the video demonstrates the faction switch process, including **preparing a new gear set**, **spending favor**, and **joining the new faction**.
* 🏆  This guide provides essential tips for players considering a faction switch in Last Epoch, ensuring a **smooth transition** and **maximizing the benefits** of each faction.

hey guys it's Sno and we're playing lasty today so I didn't really make a video talking about my plans for lasty but here we are. I'm in the middle of the game. I'm making the same build I did last time because I just loved playing that build. I am going to make a video talking about last EAC versus Poe, the gameplay, the feel of it. So that'll be coming later on but today's focus is on the circle of Fortune which is right here, and the merchants Guild which is the other faction. So if we see here, we got three different factions: forgotten Knight is the new one and you get it with the other two but you have to choose between Circle fortune and Merchant Guild essentially, especially for the Path of Exile viewers out there. This is effectively a ssf faction versus a trade faction. That's not exactly the way it works but they're interchangeable and there are advantages to going with the circle of Fortune. You get all kinds of extra loot and then with the merchants.

Guild you get access to trade, but you cannot use items from one source into the other. So even though you can keep switching back and forth, it creates a lot of friction for the player. It makes it gives you some stakes in your choice, and I think that's great because you got a lot of agency. There's a lot of stakes, there's friction, and swapping. So to me, this is the Hallmark of a good mechanic. But at any rate, it can create some issues the first time you play the game. And so I'm going to hopefully educate you on some things that I learned playing it blind last time in 1.0. It's a big deal for me, and maybe you want to go in blind and you want to experience that journey yourself. I don't blame you if you do. You can turn off the video, come back another time. But if you'd like to kind of bulletproof your mind on something to watch out for when you switch about the why to switch and how to start and the best strategies.

overall, this is going to be a great video for you, new player, or if you've been playing a while. So, Circle of Fortune is definitely better to start off with, unless maybe you're doing like some sort of Giga group play stuff. You would want to have access to the items in trade, because of course, trade is going to be the ultimate place to get the very best items. I crafted a lot of items from trade, and then I bought, you know, the three or four Legendary Power items off trade. It's could to be really hard to get those things in Circle of Fortune. So, if you're looking out for the long game, and you got to ask yourself the question, really, if you're going to play, I don't know, let's say, um, if you're going to devote at least 50 to 100 playing hours into a cycle, I mean, personally, I would say would definitely do Merchant's Guild in that case. If you're going to keep it short, you know, especially just like 10-20, 10 to 20.

maybe 30 playing hours. Probably just go with Circle of Fortune and stay there. Don't mess with it. So this is going to be for people who are intending to play a little longer and maybe want to experience this. Swap. The main reason you would never start with Merchants Guild other than, you know, I guess a racing group or whatever is because it's dead in the first couple days anyway. There's nobody there because players are naturally going with the Circle of Fortune, getting a whole bunch of extra loot that way, and then later swapping over when trade is a little more robust. Not like Path of Exile in that case. It takes a little while to get it going. But anyway, the Circle of Fortune is where I'm at right now. I have 3,000 of what is it, 3,350 favor, and you can see the reputation here almost all the way to the full. There's a bunch of different reward ranks for that. I'm not going to go through detail about that. You can check that out somewhere online to see.

why some of these rewards are so good. You get all kinds of extra loot, you get increased chance of getting exalted items, increased chance of getting t7 affixes. But the problem is when these things happen, especially if it has a direct impact from circle of Fortune, it forces the item into that faction only. Such as this bow, which is a build enabling item that I have for this build. You see that purple icon there, that means uh it is tied tethered to the circle of faction. But if I scroll over another item, not necessarily there's nothing there, and it would look orange if it was tied to the merchants Guild. And that's the case if you purchase it off trade, then it would automatically be tied there. So these items that have a purple icon means that they were they essentially dropped as a result of the circle of Fortune. Had I not been in that faction, I wouldn't have even seen these items. There does seem to be some buggy things like if you send a regular item through the Nemesis cooker.

and it can magically show up with a circle of Fortune icon. I just discovered that today, very annoying, so hopefully that's a bug and they can fix that, but not sure. Anyway, I need to make sure one big thing. I have to make sure is that I have my a gear set that is ready and available for the swap, because the second I drop this faction, I can no longer equip this bow, this ring, and these gloves, but everything else I can because it's all clean and was, uh, found or looted by more conventional means. Also, I want to dump all my favor, second biggest thing, and I want to dump the favor, and I did that by doing all the prophecies. I have a few left over, but this was one huge thing I did, was, uh, just kind of fulfill all the different prophecies. I mean, at one point I had like over a 100,000 favor, and now, you know, you can do this kind different ways. You certainly prophecies in the beginning when you need your build enabling uniques and stuff you should go.

get the weapons like I started off with a weapon, and get a dragon song, uh, but obviously that creates a problem in the future because I can't use it later if it drops through the prophecy. The only thing you can use prophecies for that have a great deal longevity, and you can, uh, reap the rewards regardless which faction you're on is this one here, and not the idols, but the runes, and let's see if I can see it make it show up here, the glyphs. So, for some reason I can't get a glyph reward, and part of that is because I have extra runes right here, uh, it is forcing a lot of Rune down there. So, these will of course carry over either way, and why you see that is because you know I got these three different ones here, and again, this is not some kind of guide about, uh, how to do the circle of Fortune, but these were the three that I'm using. Very important, this one I think, uh, leaves a lot of room open for the, uh, prophecies for additional ones, but

Focusing lens for runes and glyphs is really important. There, my goodness, I can make a single glyph show up. Okay, here we go. And now you know I can pick this up or whatever but um, you know, I did all the monolith stuff I wanted to do, then I did all the Dungeons, and I did all the campaign stuff, and I blocked the arena stuff basically, and that left me with nothing else to do, and left me a metric ton of runes and glyphs. I knew that glyphs of Despair and removals I was targeting those are hard to get. Uh, look at this. This is like day four of the cycle, and this is what I got already. All these things by focusing on that, and it's very easy to get. Oh, got an interruption here. Not thank you for that subscribe. All right, so we got a lot of uh, creation runes, which are normally extremely rare. I've not even dropped one of these yet, but I got 20 of them and used one because of the prophecies, which is really good run.

of ascendants. I've already used about a 100 of these trying to get boots and uh and weapon, which can be crossed over if you get it through the Rune of Ascension, and you put it in Nemesis, and don't get unlucky, uh, it will give give you LP that way, or it will just Auto automatically give you the legendary powers, and you can get a nice am uh a nice item that can go either faction, because if it's derived from the Rune, it's not tied to the faction, even though I got the runes from the faction, if that makes any sense. So that's kind of the third biggest thing, so when you're using all of the favor that you get Circle forun prioritize the runes and glyphs, so yeah, then uh you're ready to quit, ready to leave shop, so here we go. I can spend the very last little bit I want maybe on just some random purchase here, but you know I can't even afford it, so I've done what I needed to do, okay, I've ranked up.

or whatever. I got some core items, and I have some gear in the stash. We'll show you in a second. I have a gear set ready to go. Satisf. I've spent the favor. I've got tons of runes and glyphs ready for crafting on the merchant field side. But uh, I need, oh yeah, I keep over here. I need to leave the faction. Now you must unequip faction items first. All right, so that is again the gloves, the ring, and the bow. Might be Idols as well potentially, uh, but all my Idols are clean here. So this something to should work. It will be my pleasure to satisfy your curiosity. Okay, leaving the circle forun reset your favor. Blah blah blah blah blah. You lose all active prophecies. You lose, uh, the favor, but you don't lose reputation. So I can go back to this and farm more, uh, prophecies, more runes, more glyphs for crafting and Merchant skild later if I want. All right, you can see I got nothing going on here. Zero. And this is why it's

really important to have a gear set ready because I can't just automatically buy things from the merchant. Guild you have to level up that faction you have to at least have some kind of Baseline uh gear set uh for me you know I'm in the U empowered monolith so I have some monoliths that are only corruption level 100. I know my gear set can do that I was doing up to 300 corruption in other places but uh this will certainly be doable so we're now in the merchant. Guild dialogue dialogue okay join the faction I guess I automatically get a little bit all right good so everything is fine and now these are xed I can no longer use these items very important to know this okay keep extra gear sets of other items that you can use and this is the next best bow that I have is clean. It's not as good as this one I really need the crit hybrid roll but I can handle Hunter corruption without a crit hybrid roll it'll be okay uh the

ring. I don't know Ring's in here somewhere, a I remember the ring. I'm using uh this one, a very good ring here, and armor gloves. Yeah, I can't do this. I might have actually dropped the ball here and not remember to get this one. Well, actually, I think I think it might be these. I think it's these were the last ones I was using, so there's going to be some issues with resistances. You might want to double-check before you do this. It's going to, you know, cramp all your resistances out, but this is fine. I can get by on 100 corruption with this setup, no big deal, and these you can just track or buy them later. I'm just going to trash them 'cause I don't want to mess with that in the stash. However, the stash system is really nice, and now these I can still use these again once I switch back to Circle Of Fortune, uh, just for some quick farming of crafting materials if need be, so I'll just throw these back over here.

actually, should probably, uh, should probably keep those items in a special place. But, um, now I might suggest making another tab here and making like a circle of faction Tab and Merchant Guild tab, maybe. But, uh, yeah, we'll just put it here for now, that's good. I'm cooking up some more bows when I get the chance, and now we got a functional build that is obviously a little bit weaker, but it will soon be much much stronger because I will have been able to purchase, you know, three, four LP items. I'll be able to purchase amazing exalted gear to slam into it. I'll be able to purchase legendary straightforwardly later on once I level it up, uh, and it levels more quickly this time because I'm going to get more experience because I'm far already farming, uh, empowered monolith, so works out nice. That's it for the video. I just wanted to give you guys some major tips for the swaps. People keep asking me in the chat, why are you swapping? What's the deal with that? Which faction you want?

to choose you know a lot of different layer questions there uh some are more beginner esque questions some are a little bit more advanced so here's a total kind of a total pack page uh maybe not talking super in depth about everything but this gives you an idea hopefully those are the things to watch out for anyway let me know in the comments uh if you've made any major mistakes swapping one faction to another like I did last time uh or you know how this video is able to help you in your play style hopefully your build's going well I know there's definitely some issues with the game right now with some builds not quite working as well as they should or some lag issues and stuff but anyway I'm going to continue playing last CAC for another few days I want to definitely see this progress through the end with the merchant Guild I'm I'm going to now I have to figure out how the trades economy is working which is another giant task anyway I'm up for it

that's it. I'll see you guys in the next video. [Music]

[LE 1.1] Key Takeaways for Swapping Guilds in Last Epoch

SnooBAE85

Comparing Circle of Fortune and Merchant Guild in Last Epoch

Sno is focusing on the Circle of Fortune and the Merchant Guild factions in Last Epoch, offering insights for Path of Exile viewers.

The Circle of Fortune provides extra loot, while the Merchant Guild offers trade access, creating stakes and friction for the player.

The choice between the two factions depends on the player's preferred playstyle and the amount of time they plan to invest in the game, with the Merchant Guild being more suitable for longer playing hours and access to the best items through trade.

Maximizing Benefits in the Circle of Fortune Faction in the Game

The Circle of Fortune offers extra loot and benefits, making it a popular choice for players, while the Merchants Guild is less favored in the early days of the game.

Joining the Circle of Fortune faction results in unique items and gear that are exclusively tied to that faction, requiring players to prepare a gear set for the faction swap.

Dumping favor by fulfilling prophecies is crucial when transitioning out of the Circle of Fortune, allowing players to maximize their benefits in the game.

Prioritizing Runes and Glyphs for Long-Term Benefits

Using prophecies for obtaining runes and glyphs provides long-term rewards regardless of faction.

Focusing on these items results in a significant accumulation, offering flexibility in obtaining rare items.

Prioritizing runes and glyphs when using the Circle of Fortune's favor allows for a strategic and beneficial approach.

Preparing to Leave a Faction in the Empowered Monolith

The process of leaving a faction in the Empowered Monolith requires unequipping faction items like gloves, ring, and bow.

Leaving the faction resets favor and active prophecies but not reputation, allowing for the opportunity to farm more runes and glyphs.

It is important to have a gear set ready before leaving the faction, as re-equipping new items becomes impossible after joining the Merchant Guild dialogue.

Tips for Efficient Item Swapping in the Game

Efficient item swapping can significantly impact resistances, so double-checking is crucial.

The stash system is convenient for managing items, and creating special tabs for different item types is recommended.

Farming for crafting materials and purchasing high-quality gear can greatly strengthen the build.

Ask for help with any major mistakes, and share how the video has impacted your play style.

Address current game issues, and express excitement for future progress with the Merchant Guild.