GhazzyTV - Essence Drain & Contagion (or Bane/Soulrend) Trickster [SC/HC/Uber Elder/Shaper]

Excuse, which would be better, a Cane of Unraveling or dual Breath of the Council? I'm doing Bane/ Essence Drain. Yes yes, rares are better, but I really want to know which is best between those two, since I have no POB. Thank you.

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Jedijax wrote:

Excuse, which would be better, a Cane of Unraveling or dual Breath of the Council? I'm doing Bane/ Essence Drain. Yes yes, rares are better, but I really want to know which is best between those two, since I have no POB. Thank you.

Can of unraveling, no contest. Using my current setup and just adding those two choices - max rolls on both - POB puts me at 577k DOT / second with the Cane of Unraveling, and 384k DOT with dual maxxed Breath of the Councils.

EDIT: Also, for comparison - the same setup in a proper +3 gems rare bow, goes up to 865k DOT.

Okay i'm getting more used to this game and to this build now but i still feel weak, what should i upgrade next guys?



for my accessories:


my flasks:

thank you


Edit:

I just changed my chest for

and my havoc spiral ring for

i gained about 3k damage

so if only usinge Soulrend / Bane, how would u link it for Mapping / Bosses ?

Same as ED / Conta ?

Didtn find it exactly in the posts.

TYYVM and a nice sunday :)

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Goggo2000 wrote:

so if only usinge Soulrend / Bane, how would u link it for Mapping / Bosses ?

Same as ED / Conta ?

Didtn find it exactly in the posts.

TYYVM and a nice sunday :)

Bane: Bane / Void Manipulation / Controlled Destruction / Despair / Swift Affliction / Efficacy.

Soulrend for mapping: Soulrend / Empower 3+ / Greater Multiple Projectiles / Swift Affliction / Controlled Destruction / Efficacy.

Soulrend for bossing: Most of the time, you can just leave GMP in. If it's a really tough boss, swap GMP for Void Manipulation.

Also, for boss fights that are going to take a while, you'll probably need a mana flask. I swap these at need:

Has anyone tried using Bane/ED with Contagion totems? I was running standard 6L setups for Bane and ED (I use those two together for bosses) with the standard 5L Blight totem setup (via Allelopathy) yesterday when I had the thought to swap the Efficacy support in the totem setup for Contagion. One of my main problems with Contagion had been making sure the ED actually connected with an enemy affected by Contagion; other enemies would tend to get in the way, delaying the chain reaction and slowing down mapping too much for me to prefer it over Bane/Soulrend. (Admittedly, this is probably due to poor aim on my part.)

So I finally had the idea to let my totems cast Contagion, since Blight honestly wasn't doing that much for me, anyway. The things go absolutely crazy and spam Contagion all over the place, making it very easy to drop one ahead of you and get the chain reaction reliably started by the time you're close to the pack. In this sense, you kind of get the best of both worlds, since you can quickly 1-shot small packs with a single Bane and cast the totems when you see a bigger group so you can kill them almost instantly with a single ED cast right in their faces. Anything tough you can hit with both and then you get the benefit of automatically getting Despair in the mix without popping a flask for it. It's particularly good for Delve encounters, too, since you don't have to constantly be casting Contagion.

There's probably a more efficient setup for this; mine was just an experiment. But it seems versatile and strong enough for all the content I've tried so far, including UE. And it obviates the need for the gem swaps I was having to do. Anyone have any thoughts?

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

One of my main problems with Contagion had been making sure the ED actually connected with an enemy affected by Contagion; other enemies would tend to get in the way, delaying the chain reaction and slowing down mapping too much for me to prefer it over Bane/Soulrend.

How is this happening? You should be casting Contagion at the front of the pack you are shooting ED into. I have NEVER had this issue before. One cast of contagion is much much faster than deploying a totem.

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xsnowingx wrote:

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

One of my main problems with Contagion had been making sure the ED actually connected with an enemy affected by Contagion; other enemies would tend to get in the way, delaying the chain reaction and slowing down mapping too much for me to prefer it over Bane/Soulrend.

How is this happening? You should be casting Contagion at the front of the pack you are shooting ED into. I have NEVER had this issue before. One cast of contagion is much much faster than deploying a totem.

Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't really make sense, does it? LOL

Perhaps that wasn't accurate. Maybe my issue was more that monster packs when mapping are often dispersed to the point that it takes several casts of Contagion (and ED) to get them all. It was feeling faster to just spam Bane than it was to try getting every straggler with Contagion. Obviously this is much less of a problem Delving.

Have you never experienced this, either? If not, I must be doing something wrong. I would have no trouble believing that, since pure ED/Contagion seems to work like a charm for so many others. Is there any way to increase Contagion's "chain" length? Or am I just inept?

Edit; yeah, eff this, it was a terrible idea. I think I just wanted both Bane and Contagion, and this is not the way to go about it.

I have been using Allelopathy as my main source of sustained damage on my ED chars since it was introduced. Having a powerful blight selfcast available also helps a lot with stragglers. My ED does a total of 1m DPS while blight fully stacked does 2m DPS, so quickly tapping a straggler with blight to finish it off, or to channel for a second in other to get some proper damage in solves the issue.

Blight > blight totems for sure imo. If you need that wither stack to be more reliable, a 2L wither totem setup complements a single spreading rot nicely.

People might not agree on this approach now that bows have settled as the meta choice for ED.

EDIT: added gear for "3.0 ED gearing" reference: