[2.5] Essence Drain Build Options (HC Uber Atziri/Shaper Viable)

Very goodlooking build. Many thanks for such a detailed guide!

I decided to use it for my second char in Hardcore Essence league. My possbile starting budget is not too big - less than 100 chaos. Have already started to lvl a Shadow and I'm a CI-fan.

But I faced two dilemmas.

FIRST
Would it be a solid option to buy white 6 link bow and boost it with Essence of Woe to obtain nice Spell damage buff? As a quiver I'm going to use Soul Strike.

So the Pros will be: Cheap 6 link which can have GGGGBB much easier than vaal regalia and great additional survivability from fast ES recharge start. Blink arrow for movement.

But Cons are: No poison from dagger and no WB-movement. Less total ES, no block and other stuff good shield can provide.


SECOND
Curseses were nerfed in bossfights and Heretic Veil is very expensive, so I thought about next trick if I take bow and soul strike.
1.Equip Essence Worm ring to have Discipline Aura.
2.Use Mirror Arrow with curse on hit to apply 2 curses. Mainly needed on bosses, trash mobs can be done without any curses I suppose.
3.Grab some mana nodes including Weave the Arcane accendancy and take MoM.
4.Use high lvl clarity. Or use Clear Mind and no clarity.
5.Use some 1-2 manpotions. Probably abuse Divination Distillate for better loot.



Would greatly appreciate any advice.

P.S. Why I took Trickster and not Occultist which brings the maximum output from soul strike? Played as a Witch many times in many leagues, but only few hours as a Shadow. also want more itemization flexibility Trickster provides.

hello guys!

i have been following this build guide with my new essence league char and it is going great.
i am level 78 (filthy casual, ik) at the moment and i am using the life version of this build.

since i got really lucky with chancing me some skyforth which i sold afterwards, i have some currency at my hands in order to go for the lowlife version.

my big problem now is: i couldn't find any shavs with ggggbb socket and bought a shav with different colors, thinking i would be able chrome those colors on it. as you guys probably guessed it didn't work out. what can i do to get them ggggbb coloring on the shavs?

i would be glad if you could give me some tipps on that issue. thanks in advance!

greetings

@RaveHeart1985

Useful calc LINK


So for Shavs you should just Vorici 3G

thanks a lot.

yesterday i was lucky to trade my shavs with someone else.
in the end i paid around an ex more, which is a bit more than the currency i would have had to pay for the coloring. i take it as learning currency. ;)

since i am only lvl 79 and i made the switch to lowlife it feels a bit clucky and rippy.
i guess it was to early for the high life to ll switch, but i didn't want to wait. :)

do you guys have any feedback on my acutal char?


greetings

"

RaveHeart1985 wrote:

thanks a lot.

yesterday i was lucky to trade my shavs with someone else.
in the end i paid around an ex more, which is a bit more than the currency i would have had to pay for the coloring. i take it as learning currency. ;)

since i am only lvl 79 and i made the switch to lowlife it feels a bit clucky and rippy.
i guess it was to early for the high life to ll switch, but i didn't want to wait. :)

do you guys have any feedback on my acutal char?


greetings

You are lacking a lot of ES on most of you current gear, especially on shield. You should try to get 450ES+ shield asap and maybe consider Crystal belt for even more ES. Also i have noticed you are not running energy from within near melding so i would recommend getting that.

Also noticed you only have 2 ascendancy points, once you get to shade form it will help a lot.

As you gain more levels and increase the effect of your curses you will also notice big improvement for both survivability and damage. Dont forget to get 20% quality on the most crucial gems (blasphemy, curses, ED, Contagion, wither and and ideally all the main support gems).

Besides that you seem to be on the right track. I am also playing the lowlife version of this build (with some adjustments) on esc and it is a lot of fun. Clear speed is decent enough and i was able to do pretty much all bosses except shaper which i am still working on.

my current gear:

Hey all, Having a ton of fun levelling this build. I am still quite poor and I was wondering what would be the optimal use of GCPs. Further, I have a Consuming Dark atm, but I was wondering what uniques I should consider picking up first. I am life build so Shavs is not necessary yet.
Edit:
Current Gear:

wow! those were really helpful tips!! thank you very much.

shield and jewel were a bit expensive but with 6 asc. points + lvl 83
i am now at 8.5k es => way more tankier! :)

wasn't sure if should ascend frenzy charges, but chose the es route.
i will use the 7/8 point for frenzy charges if i ever make the uber lab.
that could take a while :)

greet community as always. thats also why i love poe!

I'm thinking about this (low life shav's CI) build, but I'm freakin' love the Evasion.

Could be better the flat ES from items, or evasion/ES hybrids can make better effective 'life'.
For example (flat eva/ES):
~300/150 from gloves and boots
~440/260 from Heretic's
~100 ES from belt
~700/450 from shield
~30-30 from rings
~400 from Shav's

Also I must take the Deflection part of the tree as soon as possibl cuz it's a huge boost in this case.

"

KisBali wrote:

I'm thinking about this (low life shav's CI) build, but I'm freakin' love the Evasion.

Could be better the flat ES from items, or evasion/ES hybrids can make better effective 'life'.
For example (flat eva/ES):
~300/150 from gloves and boots
~440/260 from Heretic's
~100 ES from belt
~700/450 from shield
~30-30 from rings
~400 from Shav's

Also I must take the Deflection part of the tree as soon as possibl cuz it's a huge boost in this case.

It works, you dont even have to stack too much evasion.

I went with trickster which is 500 then Heretic another 400+ and also 460+ from Voidwalker which puts me at over 3k evasion. Then i am running Jade and stibnite flask (witchfire brew) with which i get to 17k+ evasion - around 57% chance to evade, on top of that i am standing in smoke cloud from stibnite which halves all enemy chances to hit you and Enfeeble reduces that chance by another 49%.

If you do get hit then shade form kicks in 20% more chance to evade. It works very reliably against big packs and even some bosses have hard time hitting you. I dont think investing into evasion on shield and other items is worth it over getting more important stats.

"

Juviall wrote:

"

KisBali wrote:

I'm thinking about this (low life shav's CI) build, but I'm freakin' love the Evasion.

Could be better the flat ES from items, or evasion/ES hybrids can make better effective 'life'.
For example (flat eva/ES):
~300/150 from gloves and boots
~440/260 from Heretic's
~100 ES from belt
~700/450 from shield
~30-30 from rings
~400 from Shav's

Also I must take the Deflection part of the tree as soon as possibl cuz it's a huge boost in this case.

It works, you dont even have to stack too much evasion.

I went with trickster which is 500 then Heretic another 400+ and also 460+ from Voidwalker which puts me at over 3k evasion. Then i am running Jade and stibnite flask (witchfire brew) with which i get to 17k+ evasion - around 57% chance to evade, on top of that i am standing in smoke cloud from stibnite which halves all enemy chances to hit you and Enfeeble reduces that chance by another 49%.

If you do get hit then shade form kicks in 20% more chance to evade. It works very reliably against big packs and even some bosses have hard time hitting you. I dont think investing into evasion on shield and other items is worth it over getting more important stats.

I'm willing to use Eva/ES shield, cuz of the extra evasion, and I can get a good one .. like 1 ex?.. and in this case it grants a lot of boost in my defense.

Also I'm going to use witchfire, cuz I alrady have a perfect one.

If I go as an evasion hybrid should I use granit flasks? My plan right now like this:
Witchfire - 9x% eva jade - bleed removal mana(?) - freeze removal (Topaz/ruby - both, depends on mods/boss) - Rumi's.