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

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0sync0 wrote:

I've seen people say it is better to use Bane for leveling instead of ED/Contagion. Any advice on when to switch from Bane to ED/Contagion?

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stephenp1983 wrote:

You can easily use both.

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0sync0 wrote:

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stephenp1983 wrote:

You can easily use both.

OK. But I get the impression ED/Contagion is not effective to use until you reach a certain point. I don't know what that point is though.

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heishe wrote:

Why exactly do we use bows instead of dual wielded statstick wands or something? Does the gem level on this and supports just scale it that insanely that it outdoes anything we could do with caster gear?

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0sync0 wrote:

I've seen people say it is better to use Bane for leveling instead of ED/Contagion. Any advice on when to switch from Bane to ED/Contagion?

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0sync0 wrote:

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stephenp1983 wrote:

You can easily use both.

OK. But I get the impression ED/Contagion is not effective to use until you reach a certain point. I don't know what that point is though.

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rlauren2 wrote:

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bankai1009 wrote:

Great guide, loved your last one too for winterorb :)

What are your thoughts on the 'best' setup for hard bosses like uber elder for:
1) Evasion defensive by using Hyrri Ire and getting 10% more spell and attack dodge instead of MoM?
2) Wither totem vs Blight totem vs Self-Cast Blight setup?

Also for immortal call and steelskin, do you have that on a CWDT setup?

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jinhaoxuan wrote:

what i'm worried about is one shot from T16 legion mobs. with MoM sometimes i still get one shotted. how do you think about the survivability without MoM?

Grouping these since they're both mostly about survivability.

I don't like Hyrri. Between evasion, acro, blind aura, quartz flask, atziri's step, escape artist, jade flask, vaal grace, etc. you already have an insane amount of avoidance mechanics. You'll often be over-capped on dodge. As a Shadow, avoidance is your main tool by design. The playstyle of this build is 1) move out of the way of telegraphed attacks, 2) cast spells when it's safe, 3) move out of the way again. The long duration of ED plays nicely into this. Legion's rework of Immortal Call also makes "active" defense more valuable and punishes "passive" defense. I personally don't know the mechanics of the super end game bosses too well, so I plan on putting my defensive skill on a much higher leveled CWDT so it will only trigger when I'm taking a beating. Not sure how exactly that will end up. For a more experienced player, self-casting will reward that higher skill cap.

The problem with avoidance as a defense mechanic is that, while lowering your probability of getting one-shot from 100% to maybe 5%, you're still gonna die eventually. We have *some* mitigation in the form of ghost shrouds and IC/Steelskin, but not much. The only defense is HP. For a pure defensive setup, Perfect Form plus Essence Worm/MoM is the best option. With PF, I would drop acro from the tree entirely, use those 8 points to stack more ES or mana with things like Void Barrier, Unnatural Calm, Arcane Focus, Deep Thoughts, etc. Without the 30% ES penalty from acro, it shouldn't be a stretch to get 5-6k life, 3k ES, and 1-1.5k unreserved mana. That's a pretty massive eHP pool for a build that also has an insane amount of avoidance mechanics. As far as how much you can deviate from this and still be OK, it depends on too many factors (your character level, your skill, your gear, your tolerance level for death frequency, etc.). You kind of have to just feel it out.

As for Wither/Blight, self-cast blight is the most offensive since you can trigger the infusion buff and add more damage support gems. Blight totems are the middle ground, still doing some damage. Wither totems are the most defensive, since they don't do any damage now, but you get to free up a gem slot by not using Spreading Rot. Right now I'm self-casting, but I haven't reached high red maps, so we'll see how it goes.

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dejuvenate wrote:

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heishe wrote:

Why exactly do we use bows instead of dual wielded statstick wands or something? Does the gem level on this and supports just scale it that insanely that it outdoes anything we could do with caster gear?

ED doesnt scale wjth crit etc. Best way to scale ED is wjth gem lvl, similar to skills like herald of agony, vortex etc.

To put things in perspective:

Lvl 20 ED deals 1503.2 dot
Lvl 21 ED deals 1683.9 dot
Lvl 23 ED (21 ed + lvl 3 empower) deals 2109.6 dot
Lvl 24 ED (21 ED + lvl 4 empower) deals 2359.2 dot ==> best case for chest armors, pending corruptions
Lvl 25 ED (21 ed, lvl 3 empower, +1 bow) deals 2637 dot

Lvl 27 ED (21 ED, lvl 3 empower, +1 bow, +2 supp gems) deals 3289.8
Lvl 28 ED (21 ED, lvl 4 empower, +1 bow, +2 supp) deals 3672 dot ==> "cheap" multimodded bow

TLDR, Bow deals approximately 50% MORE DAMAGE.

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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.