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

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Sonnics wrote:

Why use Blight instead of just another 6L Bane on chest? Assuming you already have 6L ED on bow.

I keep seeing people use blight but isn't ED + bane better on single target?

Blight is the *Single* *BEST* single target chaos skill in game.
lvl 21 Blight deals 282.9 dot per stack
assuming 4s duration (I got 5s duration with prolonged pain and duration cluster) and 5 cast per sec, you can get 20 stacks.

Even ED lvl 28 (3672 dot) is outdpsed with 13 stack blight lvl 21.
You can ramp that up very quickly.

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sngn87 wrote:

First of all incredible guide!


I just wanted to ask is there a specific reason why we should craft with 6L short bows?
I see a bunch of 6L bows on trade that are over ilvl 50 and with Dex req less than 170. so I was wondering if I could just buy any of those bows and just scouring orb them and start crafting from that.


Thanks!

You want 3b 2g 1r ideally. Which is really hard to roll with chromatic unless you go as low dex as possible. Higher dex requirement means the chrom rolls are biased towards more green.

Another very long post coming. I was out a couple days and just checking back now.

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musicesmelife wrote:

Do you have a simple explanation on how to get the end game fossil crafted helmet? (Similar how you explained the end-game bow)

For the helmet, start with a Hubris Circlet or Deicide Mask. If you want to spend a little more, grab one with the 40% Essence Drain enchant. As always with gear, spam single resonator Perfect fossils until you get an acceptable quality. From there you just spam it with at minimum two-socket resonators. You need Aberrant for the -9% chaos resistance and I prefer Pristine fossils as the second for life rolls. You can swap the Pristine for a Dense if you want to go for more ES due to the ascendancy and then just craft life on as well. If you want to spend more, add a Sanctified fossil as a third to get better rolls.

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Garash wrote:

Im using a 1h and zeel and the inc aoe is quite awesome. With a bow Id get much higher dps to release generals etc. easier. With the higher dps of the bow, do you prefer that to the higher aoe of a zeel combo?

I plan on going bow. The DPS makes a massive difference. I will also use Carcass Jack and take the full Amplify wheel in the Templar area. The AoE from that should be plenty.

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MajesticG wrote:

Do you guys generally run bane and contagion at the same time?

ED/Contagion feels clunky and awkward to use to clean up small packs and stragglers. You definitely need either Blight or Bane to help. I still run Bane, mainly to proc Despair. The build does get socket starved later, so I would likely drop it if I had a better way to keep Despair up (but keep Blight in the build). I'm experimenting with self-cast curse, Witchfire, and linked to my CWDT setup. I haven't decided which I like best.

Impresence would be best, but that thing is so expensive I can't justify it right now.

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ozten wrote:

Hey, im at a point where I cant make my mind up about what to replace next. I have about 5EX rdy to go, I want a multimoded wand (dont wanna get into bows yet) and maybe Impresence. What makes the impresence good vs just using a witchfire brew? 100% uptime on curse?

Yes, Impresence gets you huge quality of life with Despair. The rest of the mods are also pretty nice, life, attributes, chaos res, increased damage, and maddening presence is even a cool little defensive buff.

As for wand/bow, may I ask why you don't want to get into bows yet? The bows are actually tremendously easy to make. Porcupine div cards make 6-link short bows cost < 50c. The +1 gems mod is fairly common, maybe a could hundred alts? T1 non-ailment chaos multi is much rarer, maybe 1200-1600 alts to find it. The bow is much higher DPS, and I think you'd find it cheaper to craft than a wand. I only recommend wands that you just buy as rares with t2-t3 non-ailment chaos multi since they go for a few chaos as a temporary stop-gap until you can get a bow. Once you've got 4 ex though, you can make the bow.

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DTD_Hiro wrote:

Once you have a bow, is it worth the points to go into the Hunter's Gambit wheel?

Or are those "increased damage with bows" not apply to ED/cont?

Only the "skill effect duration" and "non-ailment chaos damage over time" mods on Hunter's Gambit itself apply for us, unfortunately. The "damage with bows" and "damage over time with bow skills" mods do not work for Essence Drain. You actually have to fire your bow to get those. The wheel is absolutely bonkers for Toxic Rain/Caustic Arrow, but not for us.

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Ultimesk wrote:

Hi there, I'm planning on speed farming monoliths (T10/15 Burial chambers or any other good map for this), any advice on how to tweak the build or the gear I should absolutely have ?

I have approx 9-10ex of currency and don't really know what I should get first to be the most efficient.

Thanks in advance !

If it's just speed-farming monoliths, go with the 6-link bow and Carcass Jack. It's all DPS and max AoE, so make sure to grab the Amplify wheel. Elder amulets can roll increased AoE. If that's literally all you're doing, you can also probably justify dropping some life or other defensive nodes to go get Arcane Expanse. Then just make sure you've got your standard quicksilver flask, a reliable onslaught uptime, and probably Phase Run somewhere to really zoom zoom.

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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?

It mostly comes down to your cast speed. At low levels, it takes a long time to cast Contagion and ED. Often times you will cast Contagion, then you'll get hit/stunned which will cancel your ED cast. Bane or Blight feel smoother. I used all three while I leveled, but I rarely cast ED except for bosses while it was still a 4-link. It's not "bad" by any means, but once you spec Arcanist's Dominion, Retribution, Escape Artist, find a wand with some cast speed, get yourself a 6-link (all around level 70ish give or take), ED/Contagion hits a whole other level.

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musicesmelife wrote:

Thanks for the detailed reply! Playing around with POB a bit, I found out mana works out if you can use Essence Worm (Malevolence) + Diadem (Blasphemy, Flesh/Stone, Despair, Temporal Chains-Solstice) + Solstice and trigger Arcane Surge with Clarity toggles for boss fights.

I assume that in terms of defensive auras, is it accurate to say its Flesh/Stone > Temporal Chains > Discipline? Or do you value Discipline over Temporal Chains?

Yeah I'd agree with that ranking. I like Perfect Form with that combo since you want to avoid the 30% ES hit from Acrobatics. Then you stock up on 7% life, 8% ES jewels to pad your eHP like crazy. You'll feel like a tank with this setup.

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dejuvenate wrote:

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Sonnics wrote:

Why use Blight instead of just another 6L Bane on chest? Assuming you already have 6L ED on bow.

I keep seeing people use blight but isn't ED + bane better on single target?

Blight is the *Single* *BEST* single target chaos skill in game.
lvl 21 Blight deals 282.9 dot per stack
assuming 4s duration (I got 5s duration with prolonged pain and duration cluster) and 5 cast per sec, you can get 20 stacks.

Even ED lvl 28 (3672 dot) is outdpsed with 13 stack blight lvl 21.
You can ramp that up very quickly.

This is true, plus the build tends to get socket starved, so Allelopathy giving a level 22 Blight and making the 4 link into a pseudo 5-link is super helpful. Self-casting also gives you the ability to proc the Infusion buff, which is another 10% more damage from all sources. Additionally, you need to get the Withered debuff onto your enemies somehow. Withered causes enemies to take 6% additional chaos damage and can stack 15 times. Since "enemies take additional damage" is its own category in the damage calculation, that means this becomes a MORE multiplier. So a max stack Withered debuff basically doubles ALL of your damage. With Spreading Rot, Blight can inflict this debuff. That's just insane value from only your gloves and a jewel. If you went 6-link Bane, you'd still need either Wither totems or Blight + Spreading Rot anyways.

I personally prefer getting blight in the chest, as alleopathy gives no life and very low ES. Blight even in 5L is very respectable dps.

Not sure how I feel with acrobatics. I am pretty much done with leveling and been wondering where I should invest, whether I should go acro, or go eb mom. So many ways to build lol.

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ozten wrote:

Hey, im at a point where I cant make my mind up about what to replace next. I have about 5EX rdy to go, I want a multimoded wand (dont wanna get into bows yet) and maybe Impresence. What makes the impresence good vs just using a witchfire brew? 100% uptime on curse?

As for wand/bow, may I ask why you don't want to get into bows yet? The bows are actually tremendously easy to make. Porcupine div cards make 6-link short bows cost < 50c. The +1 gems mod is fairly common, maybe a could hundred alts? T1 non-ailment chaos multi is much rarer, maybe 1200-1600 alts to find it. The bow is much higher DPS, and I think you'd find it cheaper to craft than a wand. I only recommend wands that you just buy as rares with t2-t3 non-ailment chaos multi since they go for a few chaos as a temporary stop-gap until you can get a bow. Once you've got 4 ex though, you can make the bow.



Ok, I am ready to craft my bow, is there someone who can give me a step by step guide of how to craft it please?

I get my porcupine 6-link, with you so far.
Then alt spam it, is it possible to get the +1 bow and non chaos doing this? if so is it more than the 1500ish alts?
at this point I become a bit lost and need help. Thanks all.

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jbabel1012 wrote:

I get my porcupine 6-link, with you so far.
Then alt spam it, is it possible to get the +1 bow and non chaos doing this? if so is it more than the 1500ish alts?
at this point I become a bit lost and need help. Thanks all.

the non-ailment chaos multi is a bench craft. so that would be added when you multimod the bow.

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jbabel1012 wrote:

Ok, I am ready to craft my bow, is there someone who can give me a step by step guide of how to craft it please?

I get my porcupine 6-link, with you so far.
Then alt spam it, is it possible to get the +1 bow and non chaos doing this? if so is it more than the 1500ish alts?
at this point I become a bit lost and need help. Thanks all.

Non-ailment chaos multi can't roll on bows. The step-by-step:

1) Start with a 6-linked ilvl 50+ bow. Popular choices are Short Bow (due to Porcupine div card existence and the lower coloring costs with low dex) or Maraketh Bow for the movespeed implicit.
2) Alt spam until you hit +1 to level of socketed gems. This is a fairly common mod, so a few hundred alts should be more than enough. If you roll this prefix with no suffix, awesome. If you roll it as a 2-affix magic item, I'd consider continuing to alt-spam until you get it as a single mod. It will depend real-time on the price of alts vs. annuls which of these is the right choice.
3) Regal.
4) Say a prayer, then use Annulment Orbs until your item is a rare with only the +1 to socketed gems mod. If you had a 1-mod magic bow, you only need to get lucky once on a 50/50 annul. If you had a 2-mod magic bow, you'll need to get 2 lucky annuls.
5) Multimod (2ex).
6) Add non-ailment chaos damage over time multiplier, +2 to socketed support gems (1ex), increased cast speed & 10% chance to trigger arcane surge on killing an enemy, and 13-16% increased chaos damage suffix.
7) Destroy everything.

If you've chosen to go with Swift Killer with your ascendancy points, then adding "5-6% increased damage per frenzy charge" is likely going to be better than the 13-16% chaos damage suffix almost always.

had a pretty good weekend and wanted to share my ssf adventure...

finally found my last lab trial after completing all t1 to t8 maps (ugh) and got the 16% inc cast speed enchant on my boots.

it took 6 tries to get a lvl 21 essence drain. was hoping to have a few left over to try for a 21/20 ed. i probably should've waited until they were all 20/20. leveling blights now in case i don't find the allelopathy gloves.

i got a witchfire brew in the menagerie and swapped out despair for flesh and stone. with less mana reserved i respecced a couple mana nodes and now i'm feeling a lot more tanky and clearing maps like a boss.

i have three porcupine cards and it shouldn't be too hard to farm the rest. i only need one more fragment for the pale council but it will be a while before i unveil all the crafts i need for the multimod.

and i found a shaped quiver with the onslaught mod. the other mods are pretty bad so i'll probably use it as a base.

Thanks for the bow guide!
I guess next question is quivers. What are the prevailing theories on them?

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jbabel1012 wrote:

Thanks for the bow guide!
I guess next question is quivers. What are the prevailing theories on them?

I prefer Shaper ones. You can roll onslaught on kill as well as increased movement speed. Elder ones would be next and can roll increased AoE and frenzy charge on kill.

Outside of that, just use it as a stat slot to fill in life and resists. Projectile speed can roll on any quiver and is also super handy if you happen to luck into it, but I wouldn't go out of my way searching for it. None of the implicits are useful for us, so you don't have to worry about which type of quiver you get.