Essence Drain

Playing an essence drain shadow in prophecy league. Currently level 84. Have been doing up to tier 11 maps so far. Here are the pros and cons of this skill.

+ No reflected damage
+ Does not need a penetration gem
+ Great aoe coverage with contagion
+ Chain reaction
+ Heals player
+ Can "shoot around walls"
+ Bypasses proximity shield most of the time

- Allies cannot die monsters
- Elreon defend relic missions
- Certain chaos resistant monsters
- Needs contagion for aoe

My charachter's items.



My charachter's passive skills at level 84.

https://goo.gl/GB8q2A

I give this skill a 4/5 rating. A good skill that has been working well for me from the moment i started using it until now. If it wouldn't be for the cons listed above i would give this skill a top rating.

Great skill, great idea, I do wish its graphical representation would get a tiny overhaul: I frequently can't tell when it hits because it's so dark. Some sort of bright shiny something, at least on hit, would be helpful.

Playing essence Drain in essence league and i am lvl 89 right now.
Really awesome and safe playstyle, but clearspeed cant compete with oder spells/builds.

Sometimes contagion spreads over the hole map and i find myself smiling about it. But most of the time u need to cast contagion and ED for each group of Monsters, which takes alot of time.

On my opinion the problem About Essence drain is it long cast speed. I am not sure but the base castspeed of essence drain is the same like other projectiles, which would be fine, if essence drain would scale on cast speed. The onhit dmg does scale, but more important the damage over time doesnt scale on cast speed, so u dont take any cast speed notes on passive tree, or focus ur gear with some cast speed.

It takes alot of time to cast essence drain, and if its main source of damage doesnt scale on cast speed. It should be possible to reduce the base cast speed of ED right?

I dont think essence drain is bad, but i wish i could have a higher clearspeed with it.

Essence Drain could be so fun and awesome to use

But there are a few mechanics holding it back from feeling smooth...


1. The Essence Drain projectile is too skinny and the base projectile speed is too low

Try hitting a fast mob with essence drain from a distance.. please... any slight increase to the size/thickness of the projectile would be HUGE

2. Essence drain has no inherent mechanic for piercing, applying poison, fork, chain, or anything really

Its simply a chaos dmg spell that has 1 mod- spell dmg also applies to the dot

I feel like if any slight buffs were put in place mechanic wise such as a free 50% pierce chance it would feel much stronger because players could give up the pierce wheel or pierce gem. Even adding 1 additional projectile to it or something... anything... it feels soo... soo.. meh untill massive scaling into end game.

You CANNOT play essence drain without pierce because of divine shrines or rare mob with cannot be killed auras.

You HAVE TO have 100% pierce to not have a cancerous feeling

3. When a mob explodes with occultist ascendancy sometimes it doesnt spread the contagion to nearby mob even though that mob is infected with contagion..

This slows down clear speed massively.. needs to be fixed so that if a mob has contagion it will always spread regardless of how it dies....

just some thoughts...

edit: moved to contagion

I am a lvl 93 Champion Ess Drain/Contagion Tank.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1766555

I really love this spell, but I think a damage boost of about 40-60% increased damage should be added to keep up with other crazy damage builds. Or give it a flat 20% reduced chaos resistance on enemies, on contagion spread, as there isn't very many ways to reduce enemy chaos resistance.

Also Ess Drain should have 1-2% more life drain based off raw damage, because as a tank, that Regenerate X of debuff damage as Life is the only way I can leech life, all other life leeches don't really do anything at all since it's a spell.

Ess Drain should also boost the AOE Area Circle of contagion by 40-60%, again, to keep up with other insane clear speed builds that clear 300-500% faster than I do.

This would make Ess Drain boost the usefulness of Contagion even more by increasing the AOE Area Circle.

I have a big complaint I think needs to be addressed.



"Regenerate 0.50% of Debuff Damage As Life" is essentially an instant leech, and should work on no life/mana regen map mods since it is built into the spell.

I think the spell should be reworded, and the regen work exactly the same, but fall under a different set of rules, because it makes it extremely frustrating to function on no leech maps.

Just my two cents.

I fear for the future of this skill if/when poison/double dipping gets addressed.

Right now, it takes all the stops to get essence drain to a point where it is end game viable for things like shaper and his guardians, especially when there are map mods that affect your dps.

Anyway, at top tiers the only things holding essence drain single target together are poison and decay. Both of these effects are super reliant on the way damage over time "currently" benefits from double dipping, yet I don't know a soul who would call end game essence drain single target anywhere near overpowered. In fact I'd call essence drain the "fairest" poison build we have at endgame.

So all I ask GGG is do not trample over essence drain when you bring down the nerfhammer on poison to try and kill things like blade vortex.

One possible solution is to bake a single target stacking effect into essence drain, something that can allow for similar dps levels in a nerfed double dipping world.

the worst thing with this skill is,
that it can destroy barrels and such.

Really - if i put a wither-totem, then use contagion on mobs and then cast ED - in a barrel.

THAT is really demotivating.