Forget druids and mages, I'm making a beeline for Diablo rival Last Epoch's battle falcons, stat

As time-travelling fantasy APRG Last Epoch gears up for its 1.0 release this week, developers Eleventh Hour Games have revealed the final crop of character classes that will be arriving in the game on February 21st. Technically, they're the final pair of the 15 mastery classes that you'll be able to unlock after working through one of Last Epoch's five base classes, but listen, I don't even need to look at the other 14 masteries to know what I'm going to be aiming for come release. The Falconer specialisation of Last Epoch's Rogue class just sounds too good to pass up.

Based on its description, the Falconer sounds like a real catch-all kind of RPG class, with the obvious addition of having a heckin' cool falcon as a built-in attack buddy. In addition to building on the Rogue's traditional skillset, the Falconer can set explosive traps and throw down nets while doing a backflip that will slow down enemies - perfect, the devs say, for making them "easy prey for your avian ally".

The most unique summoner class in an ARPG! - Falconer Reveal [Last Epoch]

"In the case of the Falconer, we wanted the mastery to offer an atypical minion playstyle," Eleventh Hour Games wrote on Steam over the weekend. "One where the Falcon is much more than a minion or companion but an extension of your own play."

Indeed, they go on to say that not only is your falcon invincible, but it will also scale with many of your own stats, so it will grow stronger over time as you gain more experience. Yes please and thank you.

In fairness, the also-announced Warlock (a mastery of the Acolyte class) also sounds pretty tempting, as it's completely focused "around manipulation of souls and curses," the devs say. "With both existing Curse abilities and five new curses, the Warlock is a master of forbidden arts, twisting enemy minds and bodies."

It goes on to say that: "The Warlock is not concerned with distance or close range; they have many options at their disposal to choose the amount of risk they desire in their combat style. The Warlock focuses on debilitating their foes to enhance their own damage and combining curses, debilitations, and damage synergies to eradicate their enemies."

You can see all the different masteries and how they grow out of Last Epoch's five base classes over on their website. The five base classes are all familiar twists on traditional RPG tropes, encompassing the aforementioned Rogue and Acolyte in addition to the knight-like Sentinels, magical Mages and druid-y Primalists, but the masteries do all sound noticeably distinct from one another. When I first saw Last Epoch ahead of last year's Gamescom, Eleventh Hour were just showing off the Runemaster, which is a powerful mage class that has 40 distinct spells at its disposal on a single attack key.

I'm quietly hoping it will be more my bag than Diablo 4 was last year, but we'll have more thoughts on the game's 1.0 build later this week. For now, you can check it out on Steam.