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

I'm still leveling my occultist atm - couldn't opt out of work for this update, so I'll be going slowly - but.

-If you get the blasphemy helm, you can run triple curse easily (and imho the 4 points are worth it, enfeeble / temp chains / vulnerability makes every non-curse-immune map basically trivial)

-If you don't, you can always put 2 curses in blasphemy and use a CWDT (lvl 1) firestorm (lvl 1-7) curse on hit (lvl 20/21) 3rd curse (level 20/21) instead of the arctic breath (the CWDT/CoH setup is to use a high level curse with a low level cwdt) - which I personally (no offense) have never found a use for (I understand the chilled ground everywhere can help, but meh.) I'd put temp chains / vuln on blasphemy and enfeeble on cwdt, as tc/vuln both have an offensive component.

-I personally use a 3L cont when I'm going for a "low budget" ED/Cont : Contagion - Item Rarity - Increased Area of Effect. The reason being that for IR calculations, the "oldest" dot is taken into account, so if you apply cont BEFORE ed, you'll get the full effect of the IR gem without sacrificing a link on your ED.

-If you want the full not-MFer, you probably want a 6L cont on chest (Contagion, Rapid Decay, Void Manipulation, Controlled Destruction, Empower, Concentrated Effect (for bosses) / increased area of effect (for map clear)) and a 6L ed on a +1/+1/high spell damage staff (ED, rapid decay, void manipulation, controlled destruction, slower projectiles, empower). That's the optimal pure-dps setup, with contagion hitting 10k+ damage per second. It's not anywhere near ED damage, but add in wither and vulnerability and it's still a fuckton.

-If you're really poor but running life based, I think Iron Will outperforms Poison, at least for multiple targets (as the poison isn't spread by contagion), poison probably edges ahead in terms of single target.

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Hephoran wrote:

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liama wrote:

Spoiler

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMAAN-Ku_x-oekCFX5p2EuuxvcbJZJ02VttGRFQl_Qi9DW5UlNsC6crl5U9X5MnTLO-in_G74gEB9AfoS_K0xGWwcX5N4Pb7-u0DA5I7BhYWtfPVcbqul3ytzCP-nC7Tm1SKUmxOlgNfCsKFAlcQKXEVeCsmFfJES8DHhNth8ucMvfXKPrrYx9BJoinm4RIUq-Cx7iTtUh1nlxru02tSh2--egc3HaCzxXDbd1fZ_wzhxg8QYePGsgMA-69J5y-tz600RhWDR_-Cha_PCjyRdi9JpUPqzrhNZJh4iSLpldVS8M6ieCbteZYhMWTH0kT8NVJUQAA

My variant of buld.

I see you've got a lot of jewel slots, what do you plan to put in there?

HP\ES Chaos DMG\DOT Proj Speed

I'm seeing a lot of tree varient,which is the best?

This is best, that a pre-lowlife 3 curse,with new hemlet.Have 214%ES\110%life,lots of mana\hp regen.134%DoT DMG\194% Chaos DMG,40% Curse Effect.Very Flexible.

I personally tend to run



If it's early in the league and I'm going life based. Especially if I'm running an ED/Cont MFer - which I might just do this league again - to grind mid-to-high tier solo.

Some nodes can go fuck themselves once my rares are good enough and get refunded for jewel sockets for damage optimisation.

For the rest it's pretty standard, and pretty similar to what liama uses - except I don't take ES nodes (outside those that I can't avoid, like nullification.

Hey, so any advice for how to deal with the labyrinth, or rather the Bosses of the Labyrinth? I went in for the first time last night, and basically just died to the first boss.

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songslinger wrote:

Hey, so any advice for how to deal with the labyrinth, or rather the Bosses of the Labyrinth? I went in for the first time last night, and basically just died to the first boss.

What level are you? I had to outlevel the zone by a bit for my first run? Helped a lot when I got chaos golem and the Spell Totem-Wither going though. I'm well into merciless now and everything is running great.

If you don't have blasphemy-temp chains running yet, start it, great for slowing down Argus.

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krustyle wrote:

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songslinger wrote:

Hey, so any advice for how to deal with the labyrinth, or rather the Bosses of the Labyrinth? I went in for the first time last night, and basically just died to the first boss.

What level are you? I had to outlevel the zone by a bit for my first run? Helped a lot when I got chaos golem and the Spell Totem-Wither going though. I'm well into merciless now and everything is running great.

If you don't have blasphemy-temp chains running yet, start it, great for slowing down Argus.

Mid 30 to low 30's, and no, I don't have those skills yet.

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songslinger wrote:

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krustyle wrote:

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songslinger wrote:

Hey, so any advice for how to deal with the labyrinth, or rather the Bosses of the Labyrinth? I went in for the first time last night, and basically just died to the first boss.

What level are you? I had to outlevel the zone by a bit for my first run? Helped a lot when I got chaos golem and the Spell Totem-Wither going though. I'm well into merciless now and everything is running great.

If you don't have blasphemy-temp chains running yet, start it, great for slowing down Argus.

Mid 30 to low 30's, and no, I don't have those skills yet.

I would wait until hight 30s/low 40s then hit it again, or jump in a group running it. It's good to have something for them to beat on while the DOT takes them down.

If you did not see the last patch, minor "UP" via bug fixing :p

Version 2.2.0d
- Fixed a bug where Essence Drain sometimes wouldn't spread between monsters.