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

I appreciate the very in depth guide and detailed look into the mechanics. I wish I had seen this before the beginning of Essence League as I would have rolled a Trickster over my current Occultist. Wicked Ward is amazing but Profane Bloom is equally disappointing.

I'm level 82 and looking for some advice to progress my character. I'm very happy with the defensive aspects of the character (nearly 10K ES atm, still saving for Rumi's). The curses along with the playstyle make it really easy to avoid death.

I'm mostly farming uber lab at the moment. I can do the run and have started doing multiple key runs, but it takes a long time to bring down Izaro (especially without Vaal Lightning Trap). Just do to the sheer length of the Izaro fights, when doing multiple key runs, there instances where I run out of flasks and die. I could swap to Wither Totem but currently rely on Decoy Totem to avoid Izaro/Argus attacks. Do you feel the 3L golem is equally powerful at taunting?

Additionally, am I missing anything major as far as damage goes? Based on your recommended tree I'm going to respec into Method to the Madness (probably dropping Hex Master). Any other recommendations? My current tool tip is roughly 3.5K. It is a 5L, but all my gems are lvl 19.

As I see it, the major damage bonuses I can go for

-6th link (Slower Proj into Empower lvl 4)
-Gem Quality
-Spell Damage on Shield
-Brinerot Whalers
-Levels to get the Corruption wheel, Potency of Will, Path of the Savant (doesn't affect tooltip)
-Jewels

Would doing all that add a full 10K to my tooltip? Is there anything else I'm missing? To be clear, I understand that tooltip isn't everything and that there are a bunch of additional things (curses, vaal lightning trap, etc.) that enhance the damage you deal. That said, I feel the lack of damage with everything up (including Witchfire Brew for Vuln) particularly on Izaro (no vaal lightning trap). 3.5K also seems rather low considering my level, gem levels, and the fact that it is a spell build (no relevance for a GG weapon).

poeurl.com/Lt7

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Myrales/characters

Current Character: SisyphusChaos

Wearing Southbound gloves to counteract Profane Bloom. Swapping Enduring Cry for lab and Rallying Cry for low/no regen maps (neither is essential, 3R just came up on the helmet).

TLDR: Love the guide, read after starting as witch. Lvl 82 Occultist with ~3.5K tooltip. How do I most efficiently progress?

You have a lot of room for improvements on your character.

Gear: you need better boots asap. Go for Brinerot Whalers, they are quite cheap if you don't want a perfect projectile damage roll. The spell damage shield can cost quite a bit, so I'd consider it a sort of "rich" upgrade.

Gem level makes a huge difference when talking about damage output. One of the first things to search for when you get some currencies is a level 21 / 20q Essence Drain.

You can buy it or try corrupting it yourself.

Also, I feel curse efficiency nodes are not worth the cost when you can't bypass the hexproof modifier, especially after the curse efficiency nerf at bosses in 2.4.

Wither Totem is extremely good for damage purposes. It makes a pretty high difference at bosses, I'd consider it a must have.

I went for the strong golem setup because - as trickster - I didn't really need the CWDT setup. The insane defensive bonuses while under flask effect totally counteract all the things which usually make a CWDT setup necessary (like porcupines' spikes on death, for example). And I've never felt the need for a Decoy Totem, since Trickster is quite tanky (golem, fortify, temporal chains, enfeeble, insane defenses, flasks, high ES pool, chaos damage immunity, free dodge and spell dodge) and it's quite difficult to die unless you make really big mistakes.

6th link gives a very nice damage boost, especially if we are talking about Empower 4. Slower Proj has become quite complicated to use in 2.4, because of the Pierce support mana multiplier increase. Having both Pierce and Slower Proj (130% and 140% mana multi) accounts for a huge ED mana cost, which is hard to sustain in some maps. And yeah, some good passives are missing: Path of the Savant, Method to the Madness, Corruption. And jewel sockets. There is plenty of damage you can gain here and there.


To summarize it:

- Brinerot Whalers
- Passive tree minmaxing
- Rumi
- 21/20 ED
- Full Quality and level on all support gems
- 6th link
- Heretic's Veil and almost-up triple curse aura
- Jewels
- Spell damage shield

As you can see, in the last patch my trickster ED tooltip was about 40k. Now, with the Pierce support nerf, it has gone down by 10% but it's still good (37k). Some damage can be regained with the new ring craft available in Essence League (40% increased poison damage).

Hope it helps. :)

Thanks for the detailed help. Picked up a pair of 38% Brinerot Whalers for 8c, not really sure why they're so cheap.

Going to try dropping decoy totem and CwDT for the buffed golem and Wither Totem. Going to level a bunch of ED gems to corrupt, unfortunately can't buy any in the league yet. Also respeccing to through Foresight over Unnatural Calm. Don't think I can give up Essence Surge with Wicked Ward though.

Again appreciate the advice, will let you know how it goes.

"

Myrales wrote:

Thanks for the detailed help. Picked up a pair of 38% Brinerot Whalers for 8c, not really sure why they're so cheap.

Going to try dropping decoy totem and CwDT for the buffed golem and Wither Totem. Going to level a bunch of ED gems to corrupt, unfortunately can't buy any in the league yet. Also respeccing to through Foresight over Unnatural Calm. Don't think I can give up Essence Surge with Wicked Ward though.

Again appreciate the advice, will let you know how it goes.

Occultist is quite different from Trickster, so I don't know if it will be as smooth as it was for me, but let me know how it goes!

Brinerot Whalers are so cheap because people love to spend 10 exalts on tri-res + high ES / ms boots, or 25 exalts on skyforth in the majority of builds. Both of them aren't required for my build, so Brinerot Whalers become an easy BiS.

Hi djnat,

First of all i want to thank you for the build, great thing to start the new essence league!

Beeing a CI player for a long time, i use your build as a base and adjusted it to my own needs, i want your opinion on the modifications i made. (also i play softcore, so some choices i made aren't revelent to a HC player)

First of all, all the CI characters i played used the Alchemist node, and it's incredible, i was very sad you didn't include it into your build. Beeing CI makes us use only utility flasks and Alchemist becomes so strong then.
So the first change i made was to grab thoses nodes and to get to it i needed to change the pathing. I go from Deep Wisdom to Blast Radius (some extra aoe sounds always nice for the build even tho we dont need area damage), then i take Alchemist, keep going up, take the jewel node, then to the top left to grab Unnatural Calm, Corruption and Whispers of Doom.
You can watch the path on my character if that makes it any easier.


Once i take this path i dont need all the left side of your tree, but losing ZO would be just a mistake, that's why i use instead The Sorrow of the Divine http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Sorrow_of_the_Divine.
It gives ZO during flask effect, you already use a sulfure flask, so why not using this one and save 9 points in the tree (no really saving since i used 13 points to get Alchemist)
It happens you only really regenerate alot of ES while ED is active on mobs, and during this time you can be flasked. And with Primal Spirit, i'm kinda perma-flasked.

TLDR: I use ZO from flask instead of tree, and invested 4 more points to get 15% increased aoe, Alchemist, and -20 intel. Worth it?

This is for the part i tested and i'm happy with even tho it's not probably the smartest.

I'm also planning to test few things:

-Voidwalker, new boots dropping from the Shaper himself, i don't know if they are hard to get (how many builds would be able to get the Shaper down?)
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Voidwalker
We would lose the proj. damage from Brinerot but we would save 6 points in tree and we won't need to use pierce in the gem setup.

-Ascent From Flesh, great belt that really fits the Trickster mechanics, great ES, some flat evasion, all res, dodge chances, and phasing, which could trigger the Voidwalker if we happen to get them.
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Ascent_From_Flesh

-The beast Fur Shawl, low ES armor compared to rare one, but we get spell damage and AOE.
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Beast_Fur_Shawl

This is some ideas for my late game options, i hope i can put my hand on some of those items
I would appreciate a critic of my ideas from someone who played this build more than me.
Cheers,

One thing I love about ED is the fact that it's incredibly flexible and open to various solutions when it comes to gearing and passives. I'm happy if someone uses my build as a base and then elaborates his / her own alternatives.

I didn't include the Alchemist and Blast radius nodes in the build because it was already super strong without them. The new boots from the Shaper, however, seem to be pretty good if coupled with Ascent from Flesh, and if you get them you can try how they fit into the build playstyle.

The "bad" thing about the gear combo you suggested (Beast Fur Shawl + Ascent from Flesh + Voidwalker) is that it causes a massive ES drop (I think that you potentially lose about 2.5-3k ES). And if NOT using the pierce support gem, you would be forced to use Slower projectiles as the 6th support... which I really don't love to, especially in fights where aiming can become a complicated task. You would lose Auxium's QoL modifier against freezing / chilling foes, which I consider a great annoyance.

The "good" thing is that you would compensate the damage loss from brinerot whalers, save some points from the pierce cluster in the passive tree, and get slightly more damage from Slower Proj when compared to Pierce.

Finally, the Sorrow of the Divine thing: it's very good for sure, but the thing I don't like is the idea of activating a key mechanic of the build only via flasking. If you plan to use it as the only ZO source, you're right that the Alchemist node becomes super important to take.

To summarize it: all the ideas are good, the new gear from the last leagues (especially the belt + boots combo) is very interesting, I have not started this league with an ED toon so I'm very curious to hear about how these new possible gear combo work with the trickster.

Hi, djnat!

First of all, I would like to thank for your guidance and advice on this build.
So far im doing really good and smooth. My essence drain is doing 17k per second currently and my es is up to 9.4k ( which will reach 10k soon after i upgrade my gloves, belt etc ).

So later on i will pick up the whisper of doom to be able to run blasphemy with 2 curses. Currently im using clarity and temporal chain. Here's a problem, i find that without the support of clarity, im not able to spam my ed in boss fight ( as you said, poison can stack ). I check out your gears and passive tree and find there is just a little investment in mana related stuff but your mana regeneration stat is 50 per second which is quite decent. I faced mana problem if i drop clarity and run 2 curses. Btw, im curious how you have got 1.4k maximum mana pool as i have like 750 maximum mana pool at 85level.

Lastly, I would like to apologize for my bad english. Its my second language afterall. I hope you understand what im trying elaborate.

Anyway, thanks again for the build! Im having fun with this build and appreciate it!

How much ES is the "Shield Defences" node (next to Pierce cluster) worth? For example, using this 371 ES shield:



The base ES is 233, so the node would give ~93 ES?

"

djnat wrote:

Some damage can be regained with the new ring craft available in Essence League (40% increased poison damage).

Hope it helps. :)

Any Info on that craft? Is ist a masters mod or what do you mean?

"

polarboyz wrote:

Hi, djnat!

First of all, I would like to thank for your guidance and advice on this build.
So far im doing really good and smooth. My essence drain is doing 17k per second currently and my es is up to 9.4k ( which will reach 10k soon after i upgrade my gloves, belt etc ).

So later on i will pick up the whisper of doom to be able to run blasphemy with 2 curses. Currently im using clarity and temporal chain. Here's a problem, i find that without the support of clarity, im not able to spam my ed in boss fight ( as you said, poison can stack ). I check out your gears and passive tree and find there is just a little investment in mana related stuff but your mana regeneration stat is 50 per second which is quite decent. I faced mana problem if i drop clarity and run 2 curses. Btw, im curious how you have got 1.4k maximum mana pool as i have like 750 maximum mana pool at 85level.

Lastly, I would like to apologize for my bad english. Its my second language afterall. I hope you understand what im trying elaborate.

Anyway, thanks again for the build! Im having fun with this build and appreciate it!

For the mana issues you have, you should use a mana flask until you can acquire some decent mana / regen gear.

Patient Reaper + Doedre's Damning are usually fine on trash mobs in maps. For boss spamming, if you can't sustain the mana, a flask is the only solution.

I'd personally go for a mana flask all the time when your gear is set in stone. It removes some annoyances in no regen / -60% maps, so I think that once you have the resistances and the right mods on the other "support" flasks, you can have a mana one in your 5th slot.