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

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In Talisman League, when Pierce wasn't an option because it didn't give any "more" damage multiplier, Empower was mandatory, lvl 3 or 4.

Now that Pierce has become mandatory, I think Empower lvl 3 could be replaced by a 20/20 Slower Projectiles. Empower lvl 4, however, should be the best choice, but you are right, it's a lot more expensive. I'll add this in the guide!

I checked difference between empower and slower projectile with my character.
My ED(Essence Drain) is Lv 21 with no quality, and the others are Lv 19.
With Empower Lv3, DOT=35,830/s
With Slower projectile, DOT=37,600/s

And I set some equations with excel, calculated expecting damage with Empower4.
With Empower Lv4, DOT=39,715/s

Cause Empower only affects on active skill, Slower projectile is better than Empower 3.


Also, quality of gem (i.e. ED) only "increases" the chaos damage, not "more" damage.
The calculation said that 20% increased damage(Chaos, Spell,.. Whatever) only increases 2% DOT of ED.
(I think DOT=Skill*(sum every increase mods)*more mod 1*more mod 2....) )

So, If someone does not have enough budget to buy Empower 4 and ED(Lv21 Q20%),
I strongly recommand to buy ED (Lv21, Q 0%), and use Slower projectile. It costs only about 1ex.
I replaced the ED (Lv20 Q 20%) by Lv 21 with no quality, DOT raised from 34,530 to 37,500. It's really effective.

Yes, the quality on gems is usually a minor gain that only adds up some decent numbers when you get 20q on all supports.

ED gets the most advantages with skill gem level. This is why Corrupted Empower 4 / Corrupted ED 21 are such a boost when compared to Empower 3 / ED 20.

And this is why the best upgrade you can have when you are fully geared is the +1 corruption on body armour (which gives +1 to ED, all the supports and Empower)... but about that, we're entering the "rich" world.

Hey man,
great guide btw but a few questions:

-How well/fast is this build in newer leagues?
-Could you make a screen of the dot-dmg without empower and by chance with a lvl19/20 ED?
-Also a screen of your def stats would be nice, too.
-Is ZO really necessary? Since you don't need that much es to cast anyway and with OCC you have constant ES-regen.

I played poe in the open beta once and haven't played it after the beta. I started again with ascendancy and made myself an ed/cont trickster. I was really new to a bunch of content but thanks to Perandus it was self affordable. Now I'm planning on doing another ED-caster as scion in the upcoming league, but dunno how much the gearing will cost me (spell dagger/heretic's veil/hyrri's ire each cost 2ex, got the ire unlinked and crafted myself a 5link). It was kinda nice and cheap to get the gear and my dmg was also decent (22k dot with spell dagger, 21,5k with consuming dark).
Would be nice to know how much life/dmg you had at your first atziri run and at which lvl just for comparison.

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Flavourius wrote:

Hey man,
great guide btw but a few questions:

-How well/fast is this build in newer leagues?
-Could you make a screen of the dot-dmg without empower and by chance with a lvl19/20 ED?
-Also a screen of your def stats would be nice, too.
-Is ZO really necessary? Since you don't need that much es to cast anyway and with OCC you have constant ES-regen.

I played poe in the open beta once and haven't played it after the beta. I started again with ascendancy and made myself an ed/cont trickster. I was really new to a bunch of content but thanks to Perandus it was self affordable. Now I'm planning on doing another ED-caster as scion in the upcoming league, but dunno how much the gearing will cost me (spell dagger/heretic's veil/hyrri's ire each cost 2ex, got the ire unlinked and crafted myself a 5link). It was kinda nice and cheap to get the gear and my dmg was also decent (22k dot with spell dagger, 21,5k with consuming dark).
Would be nice to know how much life/dmg you had at your first atziri run and at which lvl just for comparison.

In new leagues, this build is very good. I played it since the start of Talisman, when heretic's veil wasn't still a thing and I could only run 3 curse auras without AA.

As to costs, it usually depends on the league, but the starting gear for a decent ED character is very cheap. I consider it a really nice choice to begin a new league.

You don't need Heretic's veil to own at start.
You don't need perfect or very good rolled gear like mine to own at start.
You don't even need corrupted gems or empower 4: remember that a slower projectiles support is still good, Empower is only a little upgrade when you get rich.
I did Atziri on a 4 link in the past league! If I am not wrong, I was level 84 and my HP / ES were something like 4100 / 1600. Like I said in the opening post, its a luxury for normal Atziri to go past 10k dot damage. In single target fights, btw, a Consuming dark is still better than Divinarius for obvious reasons (free poison).
The build is Uber-Atziri viable, but don't think you can facetank an empowered flameblast like some other builds can do.

Zealot's Oath is a huge QoL improvement in maps (especially when you wear Splendour, since it keeps your health pool constantly full), because you use whirling blades a lot to move faster (and get a better overall clearspeed) and this prevents your ES recharge to start since you have EB and cast on ES. Plus, you have MOM, and your ES is lowered when you take damage because of the mitigation. You can see it better when you do no regen maps: you run out of ES if you spam WB while spreading the dot death on packs.

When I get more free time, I'll upload some more screenshots about defensive stats.

Thx for the fast reply (also in advance for the upcoming def screens), the thing is I only use ZO if I have some base leech, which isn't provided in this build (also dunno how fast I can manage to get an Atziri's splendour as 5L or even one at all early in the league, gonna go for a tabula until 60-70ish I guess).
My current dual ele-Arc Inquisitor is using ZO with 2.6k ES and stone golem, but uses the voidbringer gloves. I can understand that for this build the mana sustain can be a struggle, especially getting hit hard with MOM, but for ED/Cont in theory it shouldn't be that huge of a deal (on my current ED-caster I reserve something like 91% mana with dual curse on heretic's with enhance + discipline, with one or two mana regen nodes and a ring with 60% mana regen it isn't a struggle anymore to cast your combo without getting oom, on 60% or no reg maps just taking off vulnerability and almost the same thing).

Well, in the end I can still try it out and judge afterwards how well I can play it without ZO.

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Flavourius wrote:

Thx for the fast reply (also in advance for the upcoming def screens), the thing is I only use ZO if I have some base leech, which isn't provided in this build (also dunno how fast I can manage to get an Atziri's splendour as 5L or even one at all early in the league, gonna go for a tabula until 60-70ish I guess).
My current dual ele-Arc Inquisitor is using ZO with 2.6k ES and stone golem, but uses the voidbringer gloves. I can understand that for this build the mana sustain can be a struggle, especially getting hit hard with MOM, but for ED/Cont in theory it shouldn't be that huge of a deal (on my current ED-caster I reserve something like 91% mana with dual curse on heretic's with enhance + discipline, with one or two mana regen nodes and a ring with 60% mana regen it isn't a struggle anymore to cast your combo without getting oom, on 60% or no reg maps just taking off vulnerability and almost the same thing).

Well, in the end I can still try it out and judge afterwards how well I can play it without ZO.

Well, you still have 25-35 life on kill from passive tree (hired killer cluster and blood siphon, plus Divinarius). This is pretty decent when starting, but Splendour is what makes the whole thing really easy in maps. +100 is huge.

And when you plan to reserve all the mana, you can solve all the regen reduction / no regen issues without wearing specific regen-oriented items and without having to cancel a curse aura to be fine. This build can always play at full potential, the only exceptions being Blood Magic and Curse Immune maps for obvious reasons.

There are various approaches to play ED / Contagion. You can play life based, with or without ZO / EB / MOM, you can play lowlife, you can even go CI. All the ways work if built correctly, and each of them has its downsides. Blood Magic is totally unplayable as CI or lowlife, Curse Immunity is heavily discouraged in all cases.

I tried them all, and the EB / MOM / ZO one was the most satisfying playstyle for me. It's always a matter of personal taste. :)

The lowlife / CI approaches became really enjoyable in 2.2, since you can reach insane amounts of ES with the new ascendancies at higher levels (over 9k for lowlife, over 11k + chaos damage immunity for CI), and the damage output is pretty good too. I was thinking to summarize all these playstyle options and their relative talent trees and gearing solutions, but it's a long work, maybe one day I'll have the time to do it. :D

What is the highest tier lvl maps you've tried with this build and is it uber viable?

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Bruxieus wrote:

What is the highest tier lvl maps you've tried with this build and is it uber viable?

Yes, it's uber viable. Normal Atziri is doable in 4-link like I said in the previous post, Uber is doable when your gear is good or very good. If you know how to handle the uber Trio fight, I consider Atziri easier than the Trio itself.

I cleared all map tiers in the past league, before Ascendancy came out. Now that it's even stronger, I guess it's even easier to do it. Since I don't play Standard a lot, I haven't done a lot of testing on endgame maps after Ascendancy, but I tried some high maps with pretty hard rolls (including a 8 mod corrupted Shrine), and it was a pretty smooth clear.

It's not a faceroll build like the most overpowered ones that are around these days, but I've always found it funny to play and pretty fast + solid to get to higher levels (I got to lvl 95 in Talisman with 0 deaths between 90 and 95).

In the future, I plan to try a corrupted +1 Splendour if I happen to get one. Dot damage should go way over 50k and it should be a lot of fun. :D

Hey, it's me again, you promised me to make some screenshots about def stats you remember?
With the new league coming out, I have to fine tune my build, would be really appreciate it, if you could do that.

Thx in advance.

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Flavourius wrote:

Hey, it's me again, you promised me to make some screenshots about def stats you remember?
With the new league coming out, I have to fine tune my build, would be really appreciate it, if you could do that.

Thx in advance.

Hey mate, sure I remember you!

I am currently working to extend this thread and publish a trickster version of this build.

Both classes are quite enjoyable to play, and when I'm done with the whole picture I will post all the stats (buffed with potions and un-buffed in hideout).

Stay tuned!