[2.4] The Master of Agony - CI / ZO + Tri-Curse Essence Drain / Contagion Trickster

Ahh yeah, my mistake :)

Anyway im kinda new to this game and wanna ask also about auras. Is that 12% Increased Aura Radius (nodes near Charisma and Ranger starting section) increase our Blasphemy/Enfeeble/Temp. Chain etc also? Or it is only for auras which we cant cast without Blasphemy?

"

Unk_Particle wrote:

Ahh yeah, my mistake :)

Anyway im kinda new to this game and wanna ask also about auras. Is that 12% Increased Aura Radius (nodes near Charisma and Ranger starting section) increase our Blasphemy/Enfeeble/Temp. Chain etc also? Or it is only for auras which we cant cast without Blasphemy?

It works with the curse auras via blasphemy too.

I played an almost identical build to this in Perandus, except I was a LL Occultist. I've been trying out your Trickster version this league, and I agree with you that Trickster is great for Essence Drain this league.

The extra attack and cast speed are great. Not having to deal with Profane Bloom is nice. Free whirling blades is nice.

On the other hand, even though I am only level 81 so far, damage seems quite a lot lower. Missing the chaos resistance reduction from Occultist is a big deal, especially against chaos resistant enemies. Obviously not having the 30% more damage from going Low Life also makes a significant difference.


I think going low life would be worth it. You lose ES on your chest but gain almost all of it back with Discipline, you also get 10% faster start of ES recharge with Shavs. You do lose the ES behind CI, but I easily had 10k ES without it on my occultist last league. As a trickster that is even easier to reach, and with Enfeeble and Temporal chains that's more than enough survivability. Instead you gain Discipline (as mentioned), Arctic Armour (13% less physical damage taken, 12% less fire damage taken, chilling enemies) and 30% more spell damage for 1 point. As of this league you can also get Arcane Vision for 1 point if you want it.
To fit in the extra auras I would drop the golem. His regen is okay, but he is not worth 3 sockets. He also likes to split up packs so contagion doesn't spread your damage. This way I will also be able to fit in CwdT/IC. With a level 21 blood magic you only need the 1 point 4% reservation node across from CI. With a lower level blood magic gem you need the Conqueror's Efficiency jewel. As a side note, with that node and jewel I am able to play comfortably with 3 Blasphemy curses without Heretic's Veil, using a mana potion (which is needed for lower/no regen maps anyway, which they seem to roll very often). Heretic's Veil would still be better, but it's very expensive this league.

Also I'm not sure the Piercing Shots cluster is worth it. You spend 5-6 points for 50% pierce and less than 2 nodes worth of damage. I have never had an issue with 50% pierce chance.

I agree on the Heretic's Veil point: this league the cost is more than doubled when compared to Perandus, so it's very difficult to get that helmet in the starting phases of Prophecy.

I know Void Beacon is a very powerful damage tool when it comes to very tough enemies (like the ones you can find in Poorjoy's, for example).

I am curious, what's your current damage tooltip for ED as a Trickster? And what was your tooltip as a lowlife Occultist?

Going lowlife is a simple trade: you lose a ton of survivability (less ES, no more chaos dmg immunity so you become vulnerable to dangerous map combos like poison on hit / vulnerability / desecrated ground, especially in the highest map tiers) for some more damage multiplier, and then you have to sacrifice some damage nodes and skill gem slots to get the lost survivability (ES / mana reservation / curse efficiency nodes) partially back. Arctic armour isn't a very powerful tool, it's decent if you have free mana to reserve but not that amazing, since as an Essence Drainer you spend 90%+ of the time moving and the fire / phys mitigation bonuses of AA work only if stationary. Arcane Vision is quite mandatory if you go LL, especially when planning to run labyrinth a lot.

And when choosing to go lowlife... this league Shavronne is 7ex MINIMUM (with horrible ES rolls, like less of 400 after 20q). A couple of 800+ ES vaal regalia are in trade in Prophecy for a half of that cost.

As I said in a previous post, Occultist is slightly more damage (the difference is evident only in the maps you cannot oneshotcombo packs and have to reapply the dots, and in my experience it happens like in Poorjoy, or Enfeeble / %max life ones, in which probably even the Occultist would need to double dot).

The less regen / no regen maps are frequent and we want them! It's basically free packsize at the cost of almost no danger.

"

djnat wrote:

The difference is huge, so if you are wondering how big your improvement margin is... well, it's very big. :)

Thanks for the response! Any thoughts on Hex Master? I noticed you didn't take that on your tree, and the radius alone is pretty beneficial to debuff ranged enemies. Skittering Runes would be great too, but obviously you're pressed for points, plus curse nodes are annoyingly situational thanks to Hexproof. My original thought was to do a life-based Trickster with Cospri's Will, but the lack of life in the Shadow/Witch area of the tree is significant. I feel like Belly of the Beast is practically required to do a decent life version.

"

Tempada wrote:

"

djnat wrote:

The difference is huge, so if you are wondering how big your improvement margin is... well, it's very big. :)

Thanks for the response! Any thoughts on Hex Master? I noticed you didn't take that on your tree, and the radius alone is pretty beneficial to debuff ranged enemies. Skittering Runes would be great too, but obviously you're pressed for points, plus curse nodes are annoyingly situational thanks to Hexproof.

We get 12% radius from the first node of the Charisma cluster. In my experience, since we are mobile, extra radius for auras is really an overkill, and not required.

Curse efficiency is good to compensate the defensive issues which can exist if going lowlife. But again, in my experience when you start relying too much on curses, hexproof maps / mobs become a pain in the ass.

And curses are always pretty nerfed at bosses, which all have 60% curse effectiveness reduction.

I consider curses a defensive / offensive layer, not the thing that makes the difference between a working build and a horrible one. In fact, I can run hexproof maps quite comfortably, because other layers of defense come into play (fortify, extra evasion from grace, extra es from discipline, golem / glove enchantment distractions, wither totem slowing effect, and eventually vaal discipline).

"

djnat wrote:

I agree on the Heretic's Veil point: this league the cost is more than doubled when compared to Perandus, so it's very difficult to get that helmet in the starting phases of Prophecy.

I know Void Beacon is a very powerful damage tool when it comes to very tough enemies (like the ones you can find in Poorjoy's, for example).

I am curious, what's your current damage tooltip for ED as a Trickster? And what was your tooltip as a lowlife Occultist?

Going lowlife is a simple trade: you lose a ton of survivability (less ES, no more chaos dmg immunity so you become vulnerable to dangerous map combos like poison on hit / vulnerability / desecrated ground, especially in the highest map tiers) for some more damage multiplier, and then you have to sacrifice some damage nodes and skill gem slots to get the lost survivability (ES / mana reservation / curse efficiency nodes) partially back. Arctic armour isn't a very powerful tool, it's decent if you have free mana to reserve but not that amazing, since as an Essence Drainer you spend 90%+ of the time moving and the fire / phys mitigation bonuses of AA work only if stationary. Arcane Vision is quite mandatory if you go LL, especially when planning to run labyrinth a lot.

And when choosing to go lowlife... this league Shavronne is 7ex MINIMUM (with horrible ES rolls, like less of 400 after 20q). A couple of 800+ ES vaal regalia are in trade in Prophecy for a half of that cost.

As I said in a previous post, Occultist is slightly more damage (the difference is evident only in the maps you cannot oneshotcombo packs and have to reapply the dots, and in my experience it happens like in Poorjoy, or Enfeeble / %max life ones, in which probably even the Occultist would need to double dot).

The less regen / no regen maps are frequent and we want them! It's basically free packsize at the cost of almost no danger.

My current tooltip damage over time on my Trickster is 17.4k. That's with quality on some but not all gems, 20/23 ED and level 19 supports on a 5-link, still missing some damage from the tree (level 82 now). I have 9.6k ES with pretty bad gear, but I don't die to anything but lag.
I honestly don't remember my tooltip damage over time on my Occultist since I respecced it to a VMS Elementalist at the end of the league, and cannibalised the gear to other characters. I think it was around 38k. That was on a 6-link with a 21/20 ED, 20/20 supports but only level 3 Empower (I hate slower projectiles) and of course Pain Attunement--no Brinerot Whalers though, needed the ES and resists of rare boots more than damage.

800 ES chests cost around the same as Shavs on Prophecy Softcore. Lowest b/o on poe.trade atm is 6.8ex. I saw a Shavs listed for 6ex yesterday, lowest atm is 7ex. Shavs+discipline is around 730 ES.

I think I will go for the frenzy charges when I get around to doing Uber lab though, which might help with the damage while also giving attack and cast speed. I have a +1 frenzy Chayula and the charge from bandits too.

Love love loving this build. So tanky and with great clearspeed, and I love basically not caring about map mods...at all.

Just hit 70, sitting on around 5.1k ES, easily soloed merc lab at 68.

"

Zeint wrote:

My current tooltip damage over time on my Trickster is 17.4k. That's with quality on some but not all gems, 20/23 ED and level 19 supports on a 5-link, still missing some damage from the tree (level 82 now). I have 9.6k ES with pretty bad gear, but I don't die to anything but lag.
I honestly don't remember my tooltip damage over time on my Occultist since I respecced it to a VMS Elementalist at the end of the league, and cannibalised the gear to other characters. I think it was around 38k. That was on a 6-link with a 21/20 ED, 20/20 supports but only level 3 Empower (I hate slower projectiles) and of course Pain Attunement--no Brinerot Whalers though, needed the ES and resists of rare boots more than damage.

800 ES chests cost around the same as Shavs on Prophecy Softcore. Lowest b/o on poe.trade atm is 6.8ex. I saw a Shavs listed for 6ex yesterday, lowest atm is 7ex. Shavs+discipline is around 730 ES.

I think I will go for the frenzy charges when I get around to doing Uber lab though, which might help with the damage while also giving attack and cast speed. I have a +1 frenzy Chayula and the charge from bandits too.

Well, with the right gem setup / corruptions / gear you can go past 40k ED tooltip even in the CI trickster version. As you can see from the screenshots I published in the opening post, I am @ the 40k mark, and have really got zero troubles in maps of all tiers / Atziri farming. The most "expensive" item I got in my gear in Perandus was Heretic's veil, which I found myself in a 8 mod corrupted Residence map. The body armour was fairly cheap, I got it for 75c unsocketed / unlinked and linked it myself.

I also hate slower projectiles, but it's a great lowcost option, and gives even more damage when compared to Empower 3. Empower 4 outperforms it, but it costs a lot more (an average of 9-10 ex in the past 3-4 leagues).

"

zz9za wrote:

Love love loving this build. So tanky and with great clearspeed, and I love basically not caring about map mods...at all.

Just hit 70, sitting on around 5.1k ES, easily soloed merc lab at 68.

Glad you are loving it! Your ES seems pretty low for a lvl 70 CI char (I always discourage the transition to CI with less than 6.5-7k ES), but I guess it's a matter of gear that will be easily solved with some more farming. :D

Here's what I'm running:

I was lucky and got an exalt to drop, spent it mostly on buying good gems and decent maps. I'm comfortably running tier 8 maps without really any worries, and have run a couple of Tier 9 Orchards, only died to that annoying worm boss once.












Essence Drain is at just over 10k on the DOT + whatever poison CD adds

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYCAAMeA-4FtQ18DkgQexEvEVARlhNtFAkVUBXXFr8ZihpsGo8c3B1PHb4fQSLqIvQmiCepKPoqWysKLL8zhzW5PLZDNkkTSVFJsUyDUuxWY1fJXEBd8mqMbAttGW1scNR0gXWedoJ59n_GgseGrofLieCP-pMfkyeXBp2uoS-i2acIpyunm7DYtAy00bVItzC4k746vorBxcLswzrIDMgUytPPFdfP2jva3dsa5ljndOjW6rrrY-vu7BjviPDV9W_22vfB-Tf5pPno-wk=?accountName=zz9za&characterName=Zerghast

The one main deviation from the guide so far is that since I'm a sloppy/lazy SC player I'm just running the Stone Golem in a CWDT along with Frost Wall. Seems to work pretty well.