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

Hey djnat, I just want to say I 100% love your build. I finally got my first ever Shaper kill because of you! As a newer player, I'm very thankful that people like you share your knowledge in the PoE forums. I love the progress that my Scion has made, and I will be looking forward to your builds in the future!

Hey, thanks for the kind words!

I'm happy you liked this build!

I'll try to keep it updated for 3.0, even with the double dipping changes it should be more than playable. We'll see!

So, assuming Consuming Dark main hand, I'm curious if a decay weapon is really worth it in off-hand vs a Breath of the Council, in a properly geared low-life variant.

Path of Building seems to think Decay is worth between 50-75k DPS depending on gear, buffs and debuffs, whereas Breath of the Council appears to be worth almost 150k once the increase to Poison damage is factored in, and I confess that matches my experience playing Essence Drain in the past (Essence league, with pre-nerf decay).

I can't actually find a decent discussion about this. I can certainly see the advantages of decay as a fairly budget way to add a large chunk of damage at map-entry level or in a more traditional cast + kite build (given its enormous duration), but am I missing something fundamental here?

"

Galadedrid wrote:

So, assuming Consuming Dark main hand, I'm curious if a decay weapon is really worth it in off-hand vs a Breath of the Council, in a properly geared low-life variant.

Path of Building seems to think Decay is worth between 50-75k DPS depending on gear, buffs and debuffs, whereas Breath of the Council appears to be worth almost 150k once the increase to Poison damage is factored in, and I confess that matches my experience playing Essence Drain in the past (Essence league, with pre-nerf decay).

I can't actually find a decent discussion about this. I can certainly see the advantages of decay as a fairly budget way to add a large chunk of damage at map-entry level or in a more traditional cast + kite build (given its enormous duration), but am I missing something fundamental here?

For pure DPS purposes on non poison immune targets, you are right. BotC + CD is the best solution.

I've found the decay plus CD combo the perfect allrounder for mapping. Decay damage is always "static" in the sense that it doesn't stack and has no ramp up time, so it's perfect for the "cast and go on" strategy when clearing maps. Poison has some "nerfing" map affixes which impact its damage output (but not decay's).

In the game's current state, I actually prefer going for:

- CD + decay Sai for general mapping (especially if you have got a very good decay dagger with extra attack speed on it, which is a very noticeable QoL and clearspeed upgrade)
- CD + BotC (FULL poison setup) for Atziri / Shaper / Phoenix / Minotaur / Breachlord runs
- Decay Sai + Spell damage / ES shield for Hydra (this is the only fight where I think having more ES - i.e. survivability - is really useful)
- Decay Sai + BotC for Chimaera

Hi
How come that the eastern part in your build isn't connected to the scion's part? I thought that you can only connect nods to one another?

"

djnat wrote:

In the game's current state, I actually prefer going for:

- CD + decay Sai for general mapping (especially if you have got a very good decay dagger with extra attack speed on it, which is a very noticeable QoL and clearspeed upgrade)
- CD + BotC (FULL poison setup) for Atziri / Shaper / Phoenix / Minotaur / Breachlord runs
- Decay Sai + Spell damage / ES shield for Hydra (this is the only fight where I think having more ES - i.e. survivability - is really useful)
- Decay Sai + BotC for Chimaera

Thanks for the clarification!

Levelling this now and wanted to make sure I wasn't totally misunderstanding where the damage was coming from. It's such a neat idea, thanks for writing it up!

"

jarek102 wrote:

Hi
How come that the eastern part in your build isn't connected to the scion's part? I thought that you can only connect nods to one another?

It's an Ascendant feature. You can start from both the Scion and another class initial nodes if you choose the "path of the ranger" or "path of *** class", depending on where you want to have the second start located at.

"

Galadedrid wrote:

Thanks for the clarification!

Levelling this now and wanted to make sure I wasn't totally misunderstanding where the damage was coming from. It's such a neat idea, thanks for writing it up!

You are welcome!

Here you can find my demonstrative video of an Enfeeble Minotaur kill where I went with the Decay Sai + Consuming dark setup.

hello, I'm currently playing the occultist tri-curse version of this build, and found it so comfortable and safe.
I'd like to try to kill the shaper but I don't know if I can actually make it with my dps.
I'm sitting at 14176 ES and 41k unbuffed dps with a shield, equipping a consuming dark would boost my damage a lot with poison but my es would go down to 10k etc.
I tried the dual wielding setup vs the phoenix but I died three times before killing him without that more 4k es, I'm not so good at dodging and predicting attacks.
Could I make it against the shaper and uber atziri with the shield setup instead of dual wielding?
my gear:


some people suggest to use an aquamarine flask to keep the adds away from zana, and I could swap pierce with slower projectiles to reach 43k dps ot
thank you! :)

ps: ita? :)

Personally, I don't like doing Shaper without poison. It's a LOT longer and it can make the fight really difficult to manage.

Plus, you are playing a completely different version of an Essence Drain build when compared to this one. This one is focused on single target damage and makes use of a CwC setup to make mana management a lot more comfortable.

With your stats, btw, you should be able to do Shaper, but without the extra damage which comes from poison it's just longer. I'd rather sacrifice decay, if you want to go with a shield, and use a Consuming dark instead.

The aquamarine flask is good for the Shaper adds' phase, I have never used it with my CWC Scion because it's really not needed, adds just melt while I channel wither on them. You are an occultist btw, this means that the Shaper adds' phase can be made simpler by profane bloom procs.


PS: yes, I'm Italian.