[3.13] ESSENCE DRAIN / BANE / SOULREND Occultist / Trickster Build. STARTER & UBER Elder Carry!

Can someone please take a look at my char and tell what I need to improve? On tree as well, don't know if I need to go for more dot, or skill effect etc.... I'm running the cerb+shield, but I took some shield nodes o tree etc. Also would add chaos and decay suit better for soulrend? I mean, it's pure chaos there
Would it not scale higher? Or the dot is higher than the pure chaos damage for soulrend and bane? Tks in advance!

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Tzimisces wrote:

Can someone please take a look at my char and tell what I need to improve? On tree as well, don't know if I need to go for more dot, or skill effect etc.... I'm running the cerb+shield, but I took some shield nodes o tree etc. Also would add chaos and decay suit better for soulrend? I mean, it's pure chaos there
Would it not scale higher? Or the dot is higher than the pure chaos damage for soulrend and bane? Tks in advance!

Don't take arcan guarding for now, since you don't have ES shield. All shield nodes are garbage. Arcane Will is pointless too. Flat ES will be better
You didn't not follow the tree i see :)

I followed most of it, grabbing shield nodes , es flat etc, and I'm using Cerberus + aegis aurora now, I don't have currency to get a shavrone, so I'm going es 7k + some life around 1,7 k, and cap res too
But didn't saw my tree? I should respec the minion nodes there and stop on additional curse node and take dot on assassin's field? What about the gear?

.....

Just wanted to say love the build and thank u for sharing it! I have no issues with guardians. I have killed shaper but not uber elder yet. Using the ES/Contagion build with Cerebus weapon and Aegis shield. Everything just melts in maps.

Thanx!
And time to unleash the MASSIVE update!
[3.6] The "Ultimate" SOULREND / ESSENCE DRAIN Occultist Path of Exile Build (V1.1 UPDATE) https://youtu.be/J6CXp3WVb1M
V 1.1 UPDATE (30/04/2019)
-POBs updated and now only 2 left instead of 3 to reduce complexity
-replaced standard gear with the league gear
-added Deathless Uber Elder video + Shaper videos
-expanded various written sections

Greetings. Nice topic, man!


1st, i have few questions about Soulrend. I read, somewhere, that Soulrend's initial (instant) hit damage - is increased by any "increased Area Damage" modifiers, like ones in the skill tree. And so i suppose that it's an AoE hit (instant chaos damage AoE hit) which is being affected by "increased Area of Effect", too, - so:

1) do i suppose correct, per above?

2) what is the base radius of Soulrend's initial hit?

3) how exactly initial hit of a Soulrend projectile is applied - is it "once per target" or, perhaps, "once every X frames to any target in AoE range", or, even, "hit anything in AoE range which does not have Soulrend DoT of _this_ projectile on it, yet"?


And 2nd, depending on the answers to the above, i may have an idea to improve your 1st post. Namely, this part of it, quote:

"Soulrend 6L Bossing/Mapping: Soulrend-Swift.Affliction-Void.Manipulation-Controlled.Destruction-Efficacy-Empower.lvl.4./Greater.Multiple.Projectiles".

The idea is to replace the 6th gem here, - GMP, - with Volley support, for "Bossing", because:

- i tried it and i found that Volley allows to hit a single target with all 3 Soulrend projectiles reliably, while GMP does not;
- Volley has significantly smaller "Less damage" penalty than GMP, which i believe increases both direct hit and also DoT of Soulrend;
- Volley has a bit lower mana multiplier, iirc, - which would help a bit with mana-hungry nature of Soulrend.


But, of course, much depends on how initial hit is calculated, especially on big - "boss" - targets.

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Fins_FinsT wrote:

The idea is to replace the 6th gem here, - GMP, - with Volley support, for "Bossing"

Soulrend has two parts of dmg, 1 is the "on hit dps", the other is "DOT dps" (90% of the dmg is here) the on hit does stack if multiple projectiles hit target but the DPS does not so its not worth it.

For Single Target bosses you wanna swap GMP with Swift Affliction. Making it SR-Controlled-Efficiacy-Empower(4)-Void mani-Swift Aff.

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XxHeartxX wrote:

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Fins_FinsT wrote:

The idea is to replace the 6th gem here, - GMP, - with Volley support, for "Bossing"

Soulrend has two parts of dmg, 1 is the "on hit dps", the other is "DOT dps" (90% of the dmg is here) the on hit does stack if multiple projectiles hit target but the DPS does not so its not worth it.

For Single Target bosses you wanna swap GMP with Swift Affliction. Making it SR-Controlled-Efficiacy-Empower(4)-Void mani-Swift Aff.

Doubtful. Skill itself does _not_ have 90% of its damage in its DOT part, because base duration of the DOT is just 0.4 seconds last time i checked. I.e. it does not do the amount listed as "per second", it does 2.5 times less, with its DOT, total, per application. Which is very comparable to direct hit damage it does. And 3x hit damage - easily wins vs single DOT.

Of course, different skills and setups can change things. DOT duration can be higher - or lower! - than base duration, and both DOT and direct hit parts can be (possibly massively) higher than base, depending on items/tree/etc.

And it is my belief that boosting direct hit Soulrend's damage and increasing number of projectiles hitting the target - both helps with leech part of the story, which is a form of defense the DOT can't ever provide.

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Fins_FinsT wrote:

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XxHeartxX wrote:

"

Fins_FinsT wrote:

The idea is to replace the 6th gem here, - GMP, - with Volley support, for "Bossing"

Soulrend has two parts of dmg, 1 is the "on hit dps", the other is "DOT dps" (90% of the dmg is here) the on hit does stack if multiple projectiles hit target but the DPS does not so its not worth it.

For Single Target bosses you wanna swap GMP with Swift Affliction. Making it SR-Controlled-Efficiacy-Empower(4)-Void mani-Swift Aff.

Doubtful. Skill itself does _not_ have 90% of its damage in its DOT part, because base duration of the DOT is just 0.4 seconds last time i checked. I.e. it does not do the amount listed as "per second", it does 2.5 times less, with its DOT, total, per application. Which is very comparable to direct hit damage it does. And 3x hit damage - easily wins vs single DOT.

Of course, different skills and setups can change things. DOT duration can be higher - or lower! - than base duration, and both DOT and direct hit parts can be (possibly massively) higher than base, depending on items/tree/etc.

And it is my belief that boosting direct hit Soulrend's damage and increasing number of projectiles hitting the target - both helps with leech part of the story, which is a form of defense the DOT can't ever provide.

Low duration is one of the reasons why I love running temp chains on my Bane. As for Hit vs DOT.
Current on my PoB (Actual setup i am running on non-flashback synth) for Soulrend :-
Average hit dmg : 35700.
Cast Rate : Approx 3
Total DPS (from hits) : 106k (3 casts(hits) + 9% crit chance @ 150% crit multi)
DOT DPS: 1645k

Even if the duration of each DOT is 0.5 seconds, it's still WAY higher than hits. And with a Cast rate of 3 I am sure to apply DOT before it even expires. Hope that clarifies things :)