[3.4] The Mistress of Agony - Lowlife BlightDrain Ascendant / Occultist - ALL content viable!

How did you manage to get 4 blue sockets on the atziri boots? isn't it 120 dex and 0 int?

"

Deathsphere22 wrote:

How did you manage to get 4 blue sockets on the atziri boots? isn't it 120 dex and 0 int?

As I said in a post some days ago,

"

I simply had a lot of luck with the Vorici 2B recipe.

UPDATE: I am currently playing a lowlife variant of this build in breach.

I went for the Occultist + Pathfinder + Path of the Ranger sub-ascendancies.

PLANNED FINAL TREE

I went for a classic Energy from within in the jewel socket under the melding cluster, and for an Intuitive leap in the jewel socket between shadow and ranger area to take piercing shots and fatal toxins without wasting too many travel nodes.






These are the core items (and flasks) of the build. The dagger craft is crap and I know it, I'm trying to obtain a better one. I'm currently running Iron will as the 6th link for QoL (no mana multiplier, nice damage increase) while I grind currencies to obtain a lvl 4 Empower.

The remaining items are all classic ES / resistances pieces of gear. Hubris, fingerless silk gloves, crystal belt and a 2stone ring with the chaos essence modifier.

Heretic Veil is no longer required since we use only 2 curses on Blasphemy, and we get the 3rd one from Witchfire Brew.

Final gem setup would be something like this:

6L (Shav): Essence Drain | Void Manipulation | Controlled Destruction | Rapid Decay | Pierce | Empower (lvl 4)
4L: Blasphemy | Enfeeble | Temporal Chains | Enhance (lvl 4)
4L: Discipline | Arctic Armour | Blood Magic | Enlighten (lvl 3 is more than enough, lvl 4 is not required)
4L: Contagion | Increased Area of Effect | Faster Casting | Vaal Lightning Trap
3L: Wither | Faster Casting | Spell Totem
3L: Whirling Blades | Faster Attacks | Fortify

I have never felt the need to use Vaal Discipline so far. If I think it becomes sort of necessary for the endgame content, I'll consider the possibility to use an Unset Ring for that extra "oh noes" button.

So far this lowlife version literally wrecks maps until T15. The most difficult so far was Plaza due to boss' curse immunity. The character is currently level 86.

Single target is amazing. The Essence Drain + Poison (with fatal toxins) + Decay + Witchfire + Occultist chaos res lowering combo is really great, especially when a Vaal lightning trap has been thrown at the target prior to dotting.

Uber lab is a total joke.

When I get the chance to try guardians + shaper I will update the full guide and hopefully post some kill videos. I'll let you know how things go in the hardest contents of PoE.

I am making some funny experiments with a lowlife CWC setup:



Still leveling the char (I made another Scion to test, because the passive tree is completely different from a classic ED one), but the shotgun effect on ED is amazing. Using the CWC mechanic you fire an ED bullet every 0.35 seconds; this equals to having 115% cast speed, which is pretty unreachable otherwise, and has an insane scaling with poison damage and double dipping. The single target is fantastic because you stack both wither and poison simultaneously on your target; with this setup wither can reach 20 stacks (+140% chaos damage taken), and the clearspeed is untouched if not better.

Cast speed is your best friend because of wither spamming.

Another side effect of the CWC mechanic is the mana cost: it's ridicolously low because Wither is NOT heavy on mana and with some passives + clarity you can spam a lot without even using a mana potion (I run without it all the maps but no regen ones).

I am running 3 auras (discipline on mana, haste and clarity on life) and 2 blasphemy curses (enfeeble + temporal chains, both on mana).

With those many stacks of wither on your target(s) + vaal lightning trap on a boss, vulnerability becomes pretty unnecessary so you can stick to dual cursing because the damage is already insane as it is.

How do you setup your skill hotkeys? There are way too many skills and i don't know why are interchangeable during boss fights vs fighting group mobs.

"

Deathsphere22 wrote:

How do you setup your skill hotkeys? There are way too many skills and i don't know why are interchangeable during boss fights vs fighting group mobs.

In the classic ED setup, I have:

Wither totem on Q
Whirling blades on W
Contagion on E
Vaal lightning trap on R
Vaal haste or Vaal grace on T

Essence Drain on mouse right button
Movement only on mouse left button
Golem / curses - auras on mouse central button (you can activate the curses and remove them from the keybinds, then have the golem up and the curse auras will still be active until you die or logout).



In the current lowlife CWC ED setup I am running in Breach, I have:

Nothing on Q
Whirling blades on W
Contagion on E
Vaal lightning trap on R
Vaal Discipline on T

Wither on mouse right button
Movement only on mouse left button
Blasphemy curses + auras on mouse central button


Remember you don't need to have the curses / auras on your skill bar to have them active.


Hope it helps!


Later in the next week, I will update the whole build, proposing a lowlife "classic" alternative and a lowlife "cast while channeling" setup.

Really sorry if I'm just misunderstanding this and giving you more work, but I can only use 1 curse at a time on my mouse middle click. I put the golem up then change the keybinding to only 1 of the 3 curses; do all 3 get applied when i mouse middle click since they're all linked together on my equip?

Sorry!

"

Deathsphere22 wrote:

Really sorry if I'm just misunderstanding this and giving you more work, but I can only use 1 curse at a time on my mouse middle click. I put the golem up then change the keybinding to only 1 of the 3 curses; do all 3 get applied when i mouse middle click since they're all linked together on my equip?

Sorry!

You put a curse aura on the central mouse button, then you activate it, then you remove it from the mouse bind and put another curse aura, then you activate it, then you remove it from the skill bar and so on. Once you've done this for all your curses, you can put the golem in that mouse button and stick with that until you die or log out.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh heretic's veil has a blasphemy support gem built into it! I was so confused because they were just curses and not curse auras, thanks for clearing that up!

Very good news!

The CWC iteration of the Mistress of Agony, using this gem setup



and going lowlife to compensate for the damage loss (no rapid decay and empower supports), is amazing!

Both Uber Atziri viable (proof) and Shaper viable (proof)!

Shaper was surprisingly easy, wither is awesome when the adds spawn. I fucked with a smash in phase 3, but it can be done deathless with no problems!

All guardians done, obviously poison immune ones (chimera and hydra) are more difficult but doable with some more attention.

Minotaur and Phoenix are a piece of cake. They die in a few seconds.

This is my final gear in Breach league:



And these are my flasks:



I'll update the full build very soon with the whole details of this amazing version of an Essence Drainer.

Cheers!