[2.2] Occultist (Contagion + Essence Drain) Beginner starting build

im using a lil bit different items atm.. and my clearspeed is soooo good right now..

Lvl87 witch occultist @ PHC .. gotta do merci lab tho for even more dmg.


Using 5Link Carcass, rathpith, blood dance, consuming dark..

Tooltip DPS with buffs @ 22k atm. I got no quality gems yet, and still got some dmg nodes to get.

Life @ 5.6k, ES @ 2.3k...

Basicly i run only temp chains blasphemy till i get the merci lab then ill put prolly enfeeble in it...

Then i use rallying cry, vaal haste + the frenzy charges.. and 100% pierce from the tree.. makes just everything explode.. i am so damn fast lol.. its not even funny..

cwdt setup is tempest shield + immortal call + whatever u want...

normal whirling blades ofc and flame dash is in my 4link with contagion/faster/attacks


The 100% pierce is just must-have in my opinion.. since i am not scion.. it changes a loot.. a 2nd curse would be cool, like i said.. gotta do merci lab for it.

needed gear:


tree:

Consuming Dark is the best option for pure single target fights. For maps, Divinarius helps with the 10% radius in terms of clear speed.

For me Pierce is useless in this build, since you have Contagion. Poison gives so much dps it's waste to give pierce for skill, which doesn't need it. Consuming Dark can be waste of weapon slot, you can have more spell dmg and other things on dagger/wand instead.

Poison has been nerfed to the ground in 2.2, the support gem is literally destroyed when compared to its 2.1 version and the fatal toxins node has been halved in value.

Having 100% pierce is super useful in Totem maps and in large groups leaded by a monster with the "other allies cannot die" mod. Its a good improvement in clear speed, especially considering it comes at a zero cost when playing a Scion (50% pierce from the Deadeye sub-ascendancy, 50% from the support gem which gives the same more multiplayer of slower projectiles without slowing ED's bullet).

What do you think about going acrobatics since we're deep into shadow's area of the skilltree anyway?

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Deciever wrote:

What do you think about going acrobatics since we're deep into shadow's area of the skilltree anyway?

Only useful(ish) if going full hp but why not? If you have a tree like this one you just might get it:

How does poison work with ED? It doesn't add any tooltip DPS, and the only ED calculator I've found doesn't do poison in calculating its damage output.

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Deciever wrote:

What do you think about going acrobatics since we're deep into shadow's area of the skilltree anyway?

It's a solid defensive choice.

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Summoner wrote:

How does poison work with ED? It doesn't add any tooltip DPS, and the only ED calculator I've found doesn't do poison in calculating its damage output.

It does a percentage of the initial ED damage over 2 seconds, and stacks.

Poison was one of the best possible supports in 2.1. In 2.2 its damage has been lowered by a crazy amount, and the fatal toxins node all ED / poison based builds took was halved in value.

In 2.2, poison is NOT the way to go if you are playing ED / Contagion.

Anyone done lowlife out of this?

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Miochan wrote:

Anyone done lowlife out of this?

Low life is certainly an option.

The passive tree should look like this.

However, I am not a big fan of lowlife ED, because I don't like the fact ED has no leech potential (0.50% is not that high even in a ZO scenario with vitality aura and some regen nodes like shaper), and because to get the pain attunement bonus you have to sacrifice lots of useful things, especially jewel sockets (a good-geared life based ED build takes at least seven of them).

Plus, to have a good survivability when wearing Heretic's veil, you should sacrifice precious dps / mitigation gear slots like gloves (no winds of change, you need some ES) or feet (no Atziri's step, you need Rainbowstride or good rare ES boots with resists).

Another downside is you can't have a CWDT defensive setup to mitigate damage spikes, because all of your gem slots are taken (curses in head, auras in shield if you use prism guardian, or in another piece if you don't, contagion takes at least a 3L and wither takes another 3L too... if you use weapon / shield for contagion and wither, you have only 4 slots left... two of which should be vaal discipline + increased duration, not to mention you should use a movement skill like flame dash, lightning warp or whirling blades if you wear a dagger, and you will probably need clarity for mapping, since you cast on mana).

EDIT: I forgot to say you are really susceptible to stuns. You can solve this issue with a corrupted + 1 curse Chayula that frees a ring slot to use something better than Doedre's.