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

Hello there, I like your build its been a blast. So far I have managed to do everything (except uber elder, haven't found him yet) with it few deaths here and there but it works very well. So thank you for sharing it with us. So far this League I have been extremely lucky, my progress so far:



Note: for those who don't know since beastcrafting its easy to get 21/0 gems and levels are so much better until you get the 21/20. I spend 1 alch for 21/0 Blight and 5c for 21/0 Essence Drain. Also if you are playing Occultist and you want smoother mapping without explosions you can instead take the Forbidden Power (Power charges actually give you some damage and area witch is nice for clear speed and you need to spend mana instead of relying to crit which is very nice and I have 4 power charges up all the time during mapping and you can drop Presence of Chayula for any other amulet of your choice) Node and Vile Bastion and change back to Profane Bloom and Malediction for the hard bosses like Shaper, Uber Elder, Uber Atziri and Guardians.

Thanks again,
regards Wrops.

"

Haasts wrote:

An update - things certainly skyrocketed once I had my Hungry Loop setup (also allowing me to run Haste), and I've been pretty happy with the build's performance up to Shaper Guardians and red Elder (haven't kept the Shaper alive during the latter, but I'm levelling a Frost Wall in my off-hand to test out). Burned a good chunk of my currency getting a Presence of Chayula (selling off 1k Jewellers Orbs, sextants etc) so I'm now saving up to replace helm/gloves (& possibly juggling jewels/ring to balance stats & resists) before looking to 6L my Shavs. Gems are at 19/20, with a few duplicates in the offhand - out of Blight, Essence Drain and Contagion, which is the priority for 21/20? Or would e.g. a 20/23 Temporal Chains be more important?

For the 6L Blight setup, if you don't have access to a L4 Empower, what would the best substitutes be - L3 Empower, or would ... IDK, Decay work out?

Also, any thoughts on Aspect of the Spider as a substitute for Enfeeble?

Occasionally think I should swap the Blight & ED setups between chest & ring while mapping - multiple "allies cannot die" make me want to swap Pierce into the ED setup, and likewise inc movement speed map-mod chimerals or other hopping things make me feel like I'm blink & drunk playing darts, and that maybe LMP might help out =p

Spoiler

Contagion is a super low priority for 21/20. It isn't even needed, you can leave it at 20/20 because the +4 to radius is unlocked at level 20, to gain extra radius the gem should be level 25 which is impossible in our gear setup. Blight > ED > Blight supports when it comes to the corrupted 21/20 priority.

The best "temporary" substitute for a lvl 4 Empower is... a lvl 3 Empower. Decay does not work with Blight because Blight does not hit.

I was talking with Nedieth about the Aspect of the Spider thing. In the Scion version of this build we use two curses on Blasphemy (Despair and Temporal Chains), so we can arrange an alternate setup to apply both curses (Witchfire brew for Despair), remove Despair from Blasphemy and have Aspect of the Spider in addition, with even less mana reserved. This makes us gain damage and survivability.

In the Witch version we already use 3 curses (TC and Enfeeble on Blasphemy, Despair on Witchfire Brew). To include Aspect of the Spider, we have to sacrifice one of the three because of the mana reservation. I haven't checked the exact numbers (will do later today), but if you can reach 15 stacks of Wither on endgame bosses without Temporal Chains, that one will be the sacrificed curse. If not, we will remove Enfeeble. I'll let you know soon and update the guide accordingly.

Usually, the "allies cannot die" rares can be killed with Blight quite easily. Remember that one of the main advantages of not using Allelopathy is the fact that we have a 20q Blight, which has 10% increased area of effect when compared to a 0q one. That makes it safer to fire it from a sliglthy higher distance because it covers a larger area.



@ Wrops: your suggestion is good from a clearspeed point of view. If you want to map a lot, you can still go for the clearspeed route. Scion stays superior in that specialized thing because of the extra speed, recovery, cast speed, attack speed, charges generation and skill duration, but at least removing Profane Bloom fixes the bad interaction issue with Contagion.

As to your gear, I think that the best upgrades you can get are:

- A better ES spirit shield with some more spell power
- Fingerless silk gloves with about the same ES of your Sorcerer ones to gain some spell power
- Boots enchantment
- Head enchantment

However, these upgrades will cost several exalts, so it's just a matter of how far you want to push the character. You should be able to do all the endgame content with your current gear.

Cheers!

Can someone explain to me, why is Trickster version of this build worse than Scion one?

People keep saying that Scion is faster, but Trickster has in fact more speed increases in its ascendancy tree:

- Trickster: total of 40% extra cast and attack speed (20% from WtA, 4% from extra 1 frenzy charge [Swift Killer], and 4*4% from lesser nodes)
- Scion: 3% increased attack and cast speed per aura (via Necromancer node)

Not to account Trickster's extra mobility and survivability if you take Ghost Dance.


I might have bad understanding of Scion class, but can someone please explain, where does its advantage over Trickster come from?

Keep in mind that the comparison we are talking about is between lifebased MoM Trickster builds (Trickster fits the MoM playstyle a lot better than Scion) and this lowlife Scion build.

In the Scion version of this build, since we are lowlife we can run the Haste aura with 38% extra effectiveness from the tree (12% movement speed + 22% attack and cast speed) and we have perma Onslaught on kill while mapping (20% movement / attack / cast speed) thanks to the Elder jewel. We also use Flesh Offering (15% movement, attack and cast speed) and since we have more passive points to spare because the Ascendant has this perk, we take the Nimbleness cluster (12% cast speed + 4% movement speed). The necromancer node of the Scion, as you already wrote, gives 9% attack / cast speed since we run 3 auras (Discipline / Clarity / Haste).

The grand total of these things is 51% movement speed, 66% attack speed and 78% cast speed. Since we use a blending of Shield Charge, Flesh offering and the ED + Contagion combo while mapping, the resulting total speed is very satisfying.

I played a ton of versions of Essence Drain builds with various characters (lifebased Scion, lifebased MoM trickster, CI trickster, lowlife Occultist, lowlife Ascendant, lifebased Pathfinder) and if you want to focus on the clearspeed, in this patch Scion is probably unbeatable.

A lowlife Trickster could be faster if the uptime of Ghost dance attack / cast speed while mapping was high (which it should NOT, because you don't get hit too often while mapping, and when you do it's because you are probably channelling Blight to take some tanky rare / boss down. Sadly, there are not too many builds around a lowlife ED Trickster, and it's not something I want to try in a near future.

Cheers!

"

djnat wrote:

Keep in mind that the comparison we are talking about is between lifebased MoM Trickster builds (Trickster fits the MoM playstyle a lot better than Scion) and this lowlife Scion build.

In the Scion version of this build, since we are lowlife we can run the Haste aura with 38% extra effectiveness from the tree (12% movement speed + 22% attack and cast speed) and we have perma Onslaught on kill while mapping (20% movement / attack / cast speed) thanks to the Elder jewel. We also use Flesh Offering (15% movement, attack and cast speed) and since we have more passive points to spare because the Ascendant has this perk, we take the Nimbleness cluster (12% cast speed + 4% movement speed). The necromancer node of the Scion, as you already wrote, gives 9% attack / cast speed since we run 3 auras (Discipline / Clarity / Haste).

The grand total of these things is 51% movement speed, 66% attack speed and 78% cast speed. Since we use a blending of Shield Charge, Flesh offering and the ED + Contagion combo while mapping, the resulting total speed is very satisfying.

I played all the possible version of Essence Drain and if you want to focus on the clearspeed, in this patch Scion is simply unbeatable

I understand the advantages of LL build over MoM. However, I recently decided to switch my Trickster to LL (also running all those auras) and would like to know why specifically is LL Trickster worse than Scion. The only thing that comes to my mind is not having the Flesh Offering buff and extra passive points. Am I missing something?

No, like I said in my previous post (a part of it was cut in the posting and I edited it) a lowlife Trickster should be pretty good too, especially from a clearspeed point of view.

Witch Occultist is still a lot superior for bossing, but at least now Trickster and Scion are really close in terms of clearspeed when going lowlife.

And the clearspeed was never an issue for the Trickster to be honest, in fact if you look at my class comparison section of the build it's on par with the Ascendant one.

Update on my progress, reached level 95 + some upgrades;


Self crafted the Figerless Silk Gloves, got the boot enchant, upgraded the shield, and I am not sure that I need the helm enchant it feels like I have enough damage so I will stick with the Enfeeble enchant for now. And thanks for the response.

Gloves and shield are really good! Congrats on the craft.

How much ES do you have with Witch Occultist and that gear?

With Clarity Watcher's Eye I have ~10.4k ES and With the ether of other two I have ~9.7k ES.

Quick question:

Say i wont push further than lvl 94.
Which 6 points would you leave out?
Scion version.