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

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zeldicx wrote:

Many thanks for the guide DjNat, I'm fully sure that i'll follow your guide, it's possible that we've level skill points guide before release?

A massive update of the starting post should happen before Prophecy.

Goals of this update:

- Improving the gear section a bit with some clarifications about jewel sockets and possible gear corruptions
- Optimizing and publishing the leveling section
- Adding screenshots of offense / defense stats, and of ED damage


Possible post-prophecy updates:

- Adding strategy guides for the hardest encounters (Atziri, Trio, some difficult map bosses)
- Adding gameplay videos


Stay tuned! :)

 

The Occultist lowlife version of ED is very good, and I expressed my appreciations for it in Klino's post some time ago.

That said, there are still some solid reasons to try the Trickster.

1. You have a lot more ES (if we talk about fully optimized gear for both classes and relative builds, the difference is at least 3-4k).
2. Ghost dance and Shade form are an amazing layer of defense, especially when combined with flasks (and having primal spirit is nice for the extra charges gained), I don't even need a CWDT setup to be ultra-safe in all map tiers, I prefer going for a strong golem instead
3. DPS is very close to the lowlife version, with a slightly better Spirit shield than the one I'm currently using, and a level up (I am 94 and at next level another jewel socket unlocks) I should go past the 40k mark on ED's dot component
4. Trickster takes more chaos and projectile damage nodes, which double dip on the poison damage, and has more innate cast speed and free mana pool which allows for more spamming, so the single target damage output with consuming dark is very good
5. Chaos immunity is fantastic to have, as you said, it nullifies map mods like desecrated ground and poison on hit, and makes those nasty groups of ancient constructs in Uber Atziri's grinding a total joke
6. Profane bloom has really poor utility when you already destroy packs with a single ED + Contagion (plus, it's bugged); the only places where I don't destroy mob packs with a single combo 100% of the time are Poorjoy's Asylum, Alluring Abyss and T14-15 maps with Enfeeble + more monster life modifiers
7. 100% pierce is a QoL feature that is vastly underexistimated, totem maps / "other allies cannot die" foes are a lot easier when you can always take them down with a single Essence Drain
8. Ballistic Mastery is very nice to have, 20% proj speed is quite useful in fights where aiming can become a complicated task
9. Having a Stone golem rocks, especially on a 3-link; not only it provides nice additional ES regen, but it's very tanky and I consider it to be a very reliable decoy
10. Having a decent unreserved mana pool (about 400) allows to really spam ED at bosses if constant movement is not required to survive (like in P2 Palace Dominus, Conservatory Oversoul, Shrine Piety, Wasteland Voll for example). And generally, mana management is a lot more confortable as a Trickster, because of Patient Reaper (or Weave the Arcane, depending on personal preference). Especially in mana regen nerfing maps.
11. Walk the Aether is a massive clearspeed booster if you love to spam whirling blades to navigate maps.


And I want to point out again that I'm a fan of the Occultist lowlife version. But if a hardcore player, for example, asked me what ascendancy to pick for an essence drainer, I'd answer Trickster all the time. Occultist would be a good ascendancy btw, and Void Beacon is the real winner there, because it's the only thing that makes the damage output slightly better than the one of a Trickster.

In the end, I think it's a matter of personal preference.

As to the cost, Perandus has been a special league, you know. I'm not sure a Shav will cost only 3ex in Prophecy, especially considering that Shav-like rarity uniques' drop rate is being lowered, and Cadiro is no more.

 

Hi,

first thanks for this great guide. I think i will follow this for prophecy.

I have a question. Am I wrong that you have to apply every single curse by a manual cast? Or is there somthing I miss?

thanks and best regards

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hiZr wrote:

Hi,

first thanks for this great guide. I think i will follow this for prophecy.

I have a question. Am I wrong that you have to apply every single curse by a manual cast? Or is there somthing I miss?

thanks and best regards

No you don't have to, that's why there is a heretic's veil in the build (Socketed curse gems are supported by lvl 22 Blasphemy). But until then you'll probably have to use the blasphemy spell and only use 2 curses (to free up some mana to use). or use the three curses but that leaves you with only 7% of your mana.

Have a great day :)

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hiZr wrote:

Hi,

first thanks for this great guide. I think i will follow this for prophecy.

I have a question. Am I wrong that you have to apply every single curse by a manual cast? Or is there somthing I miss?

thanks and best regards

One of the mandatory uniques of this guide at higher levels is Heretic's Veil:



This supports all the gems inside with Blasphemy, so you have 3 curse auras. And you can support them with Enlighten, since we have a free socket in the helmet, if you want more unreserved mana.

Another thing that can be done is investing some more points into reduced mana reservation to use Enhance instead of Enlighten in the helmet, to have stronger versions of Temporal Chains and Enfeeble. This, however, should leave about 200 unreserved mana, which is decent but very annoying when you face some map mods.

Oh, well thats what I miss! Thanks alot for the answers :)

Hey, can you tell me what the difference between trickster and occultist?
I want to try out ed\cont in prophecy, and i can really choose the class i want to play.

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BlindSythe wrote:

Hey, can you tell me what the difference between trickster and occultist?
I want to try out ed\cont in prophecy, and i can really choose the class i want to play.

Basically this.

Occultist

Slightly more DPS (due to Void Beacon)
Good ES recharge mechanic (due to Vile Bastion)
Profane bloom could be very nice for clearing speed if it wasn't bugged...

Trickster

More ES, especially when going CI
More defensive layers (some more dodge / spell dodge, especially under flask effect)
100% pierce
Better mana management
Better movement speed / cast speed / attack speed (===> faster whirling blades ===> more clearspeed)


Please refer to one of my previous posts for a better in-depth difference analysis of both ascendancy classes.