[3.7] Essence Drain/Contagion Trickster (the best one)

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HockeyVG wrote:

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qaizr wrote:

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HockeyVG wrote:

Are 6l Short Bows expensive just because of popularity in these guides? Any 6l bow will do, correct?

short bows are great for ED builds because of the low dex requirement (26) which makes it easier to color, but any bow will do. the stats and implicit on bows are not important for us. reflex/maraketh bows have inc movement speed implicits but higher dex requirements (124/222).

edit: you can also get a 6L short bow from the porcupine div card. so it's actually really cheap if you farm for the cards.

Yea, I didn't know if there was a specific reason. 6l white Short Bows are 70c+ while there are other 6l bows starting at 15c

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rlauren2 wrote:

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sixer wrote:

Hey, thanks for this guide! Interesting variation and nice specifics on Legion!

I'm running a mix of Ziz/Ghazzy guides on Hardcore Legion (ggdowntown). Not having too many issues (damage could be a little better as rares have so much health now - hopefully improves when i 6-link) but haven't hit red maps yet. I'm a bit torn on a couple of thing:

1. I want to ditch Acro nodes for more life on the Templar side similar to Steelmage did in SSFHC but I'm not sure it will be the better defensive option as i lose the big evasion on my chest which works well with my ascendancy. Interested in Perfect form, do you think it would be a good replacement to Hyri?

2. Is Bow + Quiver really that minor of a difference to defence? I think it would be great to boost damage that much.Intended on getting Magna Eclipsis with Cerberus but now i'm second guessing it.

3. Should i ditch spell totem and just channel blight? Concerned i cant place and run if i channel though.

Any other hardcore survivabilty/damage tips?

I'm enjoying mapping but i wouldn't mind pushing bosses. Although if this build isnt quite good for it i might roll another character - any good HC boss killer suggestions if so?

1. If I were playing HC, I'd use Perfect Form. In HC, evasion really sucks. If you had to choose between taking 4k damage guaranteed or 90% chance to take nothing, 10% chance to take 8k, SC and HC will make different decisions. The evasion route is less damage "on average" but basically guarantees you get killed eventually. Acro's ES hit is a big deal. I think Phase Acro, Arctic Armor, the life bonus, and uncapped cold resist evasion boost overcome Hyrri's higher base ES and 10% dodge.

2. It depends on whether you use Acro and on which shield you choose. With Acro, you take a big hit to block as well. Thus, switching to bow/quiver is a smaller downgrade in defense. The shield I have in this guide is Zeel's which is more of an offensive oriented spell shield. Losing that isn't as big of a deal. Magna plus Cerberus is VERY defensive in nature, so you're right that bow/quiver is a big dropoff from that.

3. Self cast is more offensive, totems more defensive. I play SC so I go self-cast. How risky you think you can get is on you :)

For HC, the biggest tip is probably not to cast Contagion/ED back to back. You need to get in the habit of sidestepping in between. Contagion -> stutter step -> ED. So many tunnels/temples/incursions where you pop open a door and a million projectiles fly at you. If you try the full combo, you'll get torn up. Outside of that, I'd go full hybrid without EB and try to get 5.5-6k life with 3k ES. Perfect Form, flesh and stone, atziri boots, vaal grace arctic armor, huge evasion rating and 9k eHP should feel pretty breezy, and you can still use the bow/quiver for top DPS.

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bluesylph wrote:

I'm also wondering about allelopathy. Since I have plenty of currency too go around I'm wondering if I shouldn't just 5L perfect form and slot my gems there and grab general resist/etc gloves instead.

I'm still dubbing about dropping acrobatics or not as well.

Another thing I'm wondering about is which gems at 20%/higher than level 20 would provide the most dps. Other than empower lvl 4 obviously.

I love the build otherwise, it's a lot of fun in this league. Only thing I'm not sure about is single Target dps.

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chrisb419 wrote:

Anyone know what the average cost of making a bow would be? They currently are being listed for 7.5 ex. Im wondering how big of a markup that is. I dont have all the recipes unlocked. Would it be much cheaper to make a +1 bow with crafting and paying for someones services to finish it?

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chrisb419 wrote:

Anyone know what the average cost of making a bow would be? They currently are being listed for 7.5 ex. Im wondering how big of a markup that is. I dont have all the recipes unlocked. Would it be much cheaper to make a +1 bow with crafting and paying for someones services to finish it?

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Sphiralis wrote:

Planning to run this build soon but I just wanted to say you can guarantee the +1 socketed gems on a bow for about 1 ex 30C if you don't want to take the gamble.

Start with your 6 link bow white and craft any mod from the crafting bench on it. Regal it and remove the mod to leave you with a 1 mod rare. Annul off that mod so you have a 0 mod rare.

Then craft cannot roll attack mods for 1 ex. You then use the beastcraft that removes a suffix and adds a prefix and boom. You have your +1 bow ready to multimod with no rng.