[3.19] Enki's Lowlife Chaos DoT Occultist - Bane & Essence Drain

Unlike hit damage, Damage over Time (or DoT) applies consistent damage per second over a duration to enemies. The length of this duration depends on the DoT source and can be changed through modifiers, gems and curses.

There are two types of DoTs: skills that apply their own DoT on hit or within an area, and damaging ailments that can be applied by any skill that hits. Most of these can only have one active damaging instance unless something enables them to have more, the exception is Poison which can stack by default.

DoT is resisted by the enemies resistance and damage reduction towards that damage type. It doesn't hit and can't crit as well as benefit from on-hit mechanics such as resistance penetration.

Curses are debuffs that are split into hexes and marks. They have a base curse limit of 1 regardless of their type or source, which can be increased through various items and passives.

Hexes affect multiple enemies within an area and have a duration. If they were selfcasted, they gain doom over time which increases their effect. Bosses reduce the effect of hexes by up to 66%.

Marks have strong effects but can only affect one enemy at a time, and you can only have one mark active regardless of your curse limit. Unlike hexes, they have no doom mechanic, no duration and aren't resisted by bosses.

Lowlife refers to reserving life below the lowlife treshold of 50%, which allows you to run more auras and gives benefits from certain gems, items and the Pain Attunement keystone.

It's normally done together with energy shield and Shavronne's Wrappings or Petrified Blood to sustain incoming damage. The relatively low life pool of these builds makes you weak to stun and elemental ailments, and require to invest into ways to mitigate those.

Evasion is the counterpart to enemies' accuracy. Evading a hit prevents all damage and ailments it would cause, however only attacks can be evaded. If the attack succeeds, there's a second roll to potentially prevent it from being a critical strike.

It uses an entropy system to prevent unlucky hit streaks. Reducing the attackers accuracy with mechanics such as blind further puts things in your favour.

The biggest danger are spells or enemies with either Resolute Technique or Hits can't be evaded, which all ignore evasion and therefore also can't be downgraded from a crit.

This part contains everything you need to know about the build while getting through the acts.
If you're new, I recommend checking out the Getting Started section on Maxroll.

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Notes

‣ You'll only get one gem as quest reward. If there are multiple gems from the same quest listed below, you have to buy the others from the currency vendor in that acts town.

‣ Your auras don't need to be actively on your skill bar. You can activate them and then unbind them, or bind them to your secondary skillbar by holding CTRL.

‣ The build uses cold spells for the first two acts until you get Bane in Act 3. Use the Cold Damage recipes below to craft two wands, then switch to the Spell Damage recipe once you get Bane.

‣ Set Bane, Essence Drain and Flame Dash to Always Attack without Moving. You can find this option at the top when left-clicking the skill on your skillbar.

‣ Use Withering Step for tough enemies, add Essence Drain for bossfights.

‣ After getting your hideout and unlocking recipes starting in late Act 2, use your Crafting Bench to add Resistances, Life, Spell Damage, Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier, Dexterity or Strength to your gear.

‣ Wear a Heavy Belt and Jade Amulet for early attribute requirements.

‣ Equip two Wands and craft them with the recipes below or any Essences of Woe you may find. If you have access to Abberant Fossils and Primitive Chaotic Resonators, using them on an item level 2 Wand will give you +1 to Level of all Chaos Spell Skill Gems. These weapons can last you through the entire acts and even into early maps. Refine your weapons with the Crafting Bench by adding either Spell Damage or Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier once you can.

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Recipes

Weapon with "Adds (5-7) to (10-12) Cold Damage to Spells" (Level 8)
Magic-rarity Wand + Normal-rarity Sapphire Ring + Orb of Alteration

Weapon with "Adds (11-15) to (22-25) Cold Damage to Spells" (Level 20)
Magic-rarity Wand + Rare-rarity Sapphire Ring + Orb of Alteration

Sapphire Ring
Iron Ring + Intelligence Skill Gem

Wand with "(20-29)% increased Spell Damage"
Wand + Rare Chain Belt + Blacksmith's Whetstone

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Passive Tree Goals

Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | Act 4 | Act 5 |Act 6 | Act 7 | Act 8 | Act 9 | Act 10

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Bandits

Kill Kraityn | Kill Alira | Kill Oak

to gain 2 Passive Skill Points from Eramir in the Forest Encampment

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Gem Progression

Use these as your damaging spells until Level 24.

Freezing Pulse (Enemy at the Gate, Act 1) -> Creeping Frost (The Siren's Cadence, Act 1)
+ Lesser Multiple Projectiles (The Caged Brute, Act 1)
+ Added Cold Damage (The Caged Brute, Act 1)

Frost Bomb (Breaking Some Eggs, Act 1)
+ Added Cold Damage (The Caged Brute, Act 1)
+ Elemental Focus (Sharp and Cruel, Act 2)

Replace them with the following two setups after unlocking Bane.

Bane (Lost in Love, Act 3)
+ Void Manipulation (The Caged Brute, Act 1)
+ Controlled Destruction (Sharp and Cruel, Act 2)
+ Despair (Lost in Love, Act 3)

Essence Drain (The Siren's Cadence, Act 1)
+ Void Manipulation (The Caged Brute, Act 1)
+ Controlled Destruction (Sharp and Cruel, Act 2)
+ Swift Affliction (A Fixture of Fate, Act 3)

These gems are used regardless of which of the above setups you're at.

Herald of Ice (Intruders in Black, Act 2) -> Malevolence (Lost in Love, Act 3)
+ Grace (A Fixture of Fate, Act 3) after allocating Sovereignty
+ Defiance Banner (A Fixture of Fate, Act 3) after allocating Sovereignty

Frostblink (Breaking Some Eggs, Act 1)
+ Withering Step (The Caged Brute, Act 1)
+ Arcane Surge (Twilight Strand, Act 1) keep it at level 7
+ Increased Duration (A Fixture of Fate, Act 3)

Steelskin (Breaking Some Eggs, Act 1)
+ Increased Duration (A Fixture of Fate, Act 3)
+ Cast when Damage Taken (The Eternal Nightmare, Act 4)

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Flask Progression

Life Flask
Life Flask -> Jade Flask (The Key to Freedom, Act 5) + ..of the Deer
Mana Flask -> Quartz Flask (The Silver Locket, Act 7) + ..of the Conger
Mana Flask -> Quicksilver Flask (The Great White Beast, Act 2) + ..of the Lizard
Quicksilver Flask (Mercy Mission, Act 1) -> Silver Flask (Safe Passage, Act 10) + ..of the Urchin

Use the Menagerie to craft the listed suffixes onto your Flasks.

Passives

Level 80 pre-Lowlife | Level 85 Lowlife | Level 95 Lowlife (finished build) | Level 100 Lowlife

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Masteries

Atrophy - +1% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier per 4% Chaos Resistance
Corruption - 20% increased Effect of Withered
Hex Master - Non-Cursed Enemies you inflict Non-Aura Curses on are Blinded for 4 seconds
Soul Thief - 30% increased Evasion Rating while you have Energy Shield
Unnatural Calm - Regenerate 2% of Energy Shield per second
Insightfulness - Gain 3% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield
Purity of Flesh - Regenerate 2% of Life per second while moving
Growth and Decay - 10% less Damage Taken from Damage over Time
Influence - Auras from your Skills have 10% increased Effect on you
Sovereignty - 20% increased Life Reservation Efficiency of Skills

Void Beacon (Normal Labyrinth)
Lowers nearby enemies Chaos Resistance and Life Regeneration significantly.

Withering Presence (Cruel Labyrinth)
Gives a more Chaos Damage multiplier and lots of Chaos Resistance, which turns into damage with one of the Chaos Masteries. Also gives a damage reduction towards Damage over Time from hindered enemies, and applies 15s-duration Withered stacks to nearby enemies every second.

Profane Bloom (Merciless Labyrinth)
Allows you to curse enemies with the Hexproof modifier and grants a 40% chance for cursed enemies to explode, dealing 25% of their life as Chaos Damage, which can be further scaled by generic Chaos- and AoE modifiers.

Malediction (Eternal Labyrinth)
Lets you apply another curse to enemies, increases curse effect and debuffs cursed enemies with Malediction, which lowers their damage and increases the damage they take by 10% respectively.

This is for the Lowlife setup. Before that, just use the same gems as during the acts!

Main Skill

Bane is an AoE spell that applies a chaos DoT to enemies and triggers linked Hex curses. It raises their effect and gains a damage multiplier and DoT duration per curse triggered. This doesn't just add convenience, its synergy with Profane Bloom also makes it a very good map clearing skill.

Void Manipulation gives a large chaos damage multiplier but prevents the linked skill from dealing any elemental damage. This is once again no issue as Bane only deals chaos damage.

Awakened Void Manipulation gives a slightly bigger multiplier and adds another level to linked Chaos skills, such as Bane, at Level 5 for a major damage increase.

Despair is the first curse in this setup. It makes enemies take increased damage from DoTs and lowers their chaos resistance. While it also adds chaos damage to hits, this is irrelevant here.

Temporal Chains is the second curse and only works once getting Malediction. It makes duration effects last longer on enemies and reduces their action speed, which affects their movement-, attack- and cast Speed as well as their animation time.

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Single Target Damage Support

Essence Drain is a projectile spell that applies a chaos DoT on hit and grants 0.5% of the DoT damage listed in your tooltip as life regeneration. It stacks with Bane and is a good source of additional damage for bosses.

Void Manipulation does the same as above, Awakened VOid Manipulation is also here a good upgrade.

Controlled Destruction adds a huge more spell damage multiplier. While it also massively reduces the linked spells crit chance, this doesn't hurt as Bane can't crit anyway.

Awakened Controlled Destruction is an endgame option to maximize damage.

Swift Affliction grants a huge DoT multiplier but reduces their duration by 25%. With Temporal Chains and a buffed Zealotry, this downside isn't too noticeable with this build.

Awakened Swift Affliction is an option that grants an even bigger DoT multiplier.

Efficacy grants another DoT multiplier and increases skill effect duration.

Empower raises Essence Drain's leveland with that its base damage. It's only useful at Level 3+ and pretty rare, so keep it as your sixth link.

Awakened Empower is an option for rich players to maximize damage.
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Movement & Debuff

Frostblink is a movement skill with one charge that replenishes after a cooldown, casts instantly and allows you to cross gaps. It also leaves a Chilling Area and prevents taking damage from damaging ground effects while dashing through them, which is very helpful in many endgame bossfights.

Withering Step triggers a buff that grants Phasing and Elusive. While having the buff, there's an AoE around you that applies up to seven Withered stacks to enemies to quickly increase the chaos damage they take. The buff gets removed upon using a different skill and goes on a 3s cooldown.

Arcane Surge grants the Arcane Surge buff for 4s after spending a certain amount of mana with the linked skills, keep it at Level 7 to trigger the buff with a single skill use.

Increased Duration increases the linked skills duration.

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Auras

Purity of Elements is an aura that gives elemental resistances and full elemental ailment immunity, which is incredibly valuable not just for a Lowlife build like this.

Vaal Discipline grants two skills, the regular Discipline and its Vaal version. Discipline is an aura that grants energy shield and increases energy shield recharge rate.

Vaal Discipline temporarily prevents damage from disrupting your energy shield recharge. This makes it a good panic button for sketchy situations.

The Vaal version requires souls to be used, which are primarily gained by killing monsters or at certain thresholds during bossfights. After being used, it goes into Soul Gain Prevention for some time during which it can't be charged up for another use.

Defiance Banner reserves mana to carry a banner that grants increased armour and evasion and reduces the crit chance of nearby enemies. If placed, it grants a bigger effect for those and taunts nearby enemies while also lowering their damage by 15%.

Herald of Ash has great synergy with Profane Bloom and Curse on Hit ring suffixes. While its damage buff doesn't affect this build, the overkill burn helps proliferating Profane Bloom explosions to increase clearspeed.

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Auras

These gems need to go into your Prism Guardian!

Malevolence is an aura that grants a more DoT multiplier and skill effect duration, which is very valuable for our various buffs and debuffs.

Grace is an aura that adds a lot of evasion and a huge evasion multiplier.

Zealotry is an aura that grants a more spell damage multiplier.

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Guard Skill

Cast when Damage Taken triggers linked spells upon reaching a treshold of damage taken from hits. The amount of damage it takes to trigger as well as the maximum required level of the linked spells it can trigger depend on the gems level. Keep it at Level 9 for this setup to work!

Immortal Call is a guard skill that reduces the amount of physical- and elemental damage taken for a short duration. If you have Endurance Charges, they're consumed to grant additional damage reduction and buff duration per charge.

Keep it at Level 11 to keep the trigger cost low while still getting good damage reduction. Together with three Endurance Charges coming from Enduring Composure on a Small Cluster Jewel, this will grant a total of 75% less physical- and elemental damage taken.

Increased Duration increases the Immortal Call duration.

The build starts mapping with a life-based setup. For your first set of gear, all you need to focus on is having a good amount of Life on each piece and capping your Elemental Resistances at 75%.

Once you've progressed deep into your atlas and have acquired more currency, you want to prepare to switch over to the Lowlife setup. The minimum requirements for this are Shavronne's Wrappings, Prism Guardian, Presence of Chayula, Champion of the Cause as anointment and Energy Shield-based gear to reach atleast 6.5k Energy Shield.

The section below shows what stats to aim for in each slot and for each budget.

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Weapon

This build uses Wands for their implicit Spell Damage. The main stats to look out for on your first weapon are 50%+ Spell-/Chaos Damage and 20%+ to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier or Damage over Time Multiplier.

Your Endgame Wand should have those stats together with +1 to Level of all Chaos Spell Skill Gems or +1 to Level of all Spell Skill Gems, or even both if you can afford that. This is good enough for Endgame and worth putting on the Harvest Enchantment listed below.

Harvest Enchantment: Grants 1% increased Area of Effect per 4% Quality

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Shield

Your first shield needs 70+ Life, Resistances and 40%+ Spell Damage.

To switch to Lowlife, you need to use Prism Guardian. This shield lets you reserve Malevolence, Grace and Zealotry on life without needing the Arrogance support gem, and also gives them some Reservation Efficiency. Aside from that, it also increases their level by 2 and comes with some much needed Dexterity and Resistances.

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Body Armour

Your body armour needs to be Energy Shield-based to have an easier time with getting the correct socket colors, and have 80+ Life and Resistances.

Once you go Lowlife you need to use Shavronne's Wrappings. It stops chaos damage from instantly killing you by making it damage your energy shield first, and also comes with some Lightning Resistance and Faster Start of Energy Shield Recharge.

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Helmet

Your first helmet only needs 70+ Life and Resistances on an Energy Shield base. The enchantment doesn't matter at this budget yet.

Once you go Lowlife, switch to Crown of the Inward Eye. This helmet comes with some Energy Shield and gives you a multiplier for your Life, Mana and Energy Shield. Aside from that, it also increases damage by granting Transfiguration of Soul and Transfiguration of Mind. If possible, look for one with the Enchantment below, but it's not too important.

Enchantment: 15% increased Effect of Curses applied by Bane

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Gloves

All your first gloves need is 70+ Life and Resistances on an Energy Shield base.

Once you go Lowlife, you want Sorcerer Gloves with 100+ Energy Shield, a Resistance and an open suffix to craft +25 to Strength and Dexterity. This is also good enough to aim for the Eldritch Implicits listed below.

From here on you can craft similar gloves with Socketed Gems deal 30% more Damage over Time. This isn't too hard to craft, get item level 84+ Sorcerer Gloves and use Essences of Delirium until you hit something usable. This turns Bane into a pseudo-5L for a noticeable damage increase. If there's an open prefix, you can even add +1 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems for more damage.

Searing Exarch Implicit: +#% to Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier

Eater of Worlds Implicit: Withered you Inflict expires #% slower

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Boots

Your first boots need 20%+ Movement Speed, 70+ Life and Resistances on an Energy Shield base. The enchantment doesn't matter too much yet.

Once you go Lowlife, aim for Sorcerer Boots with 100+ Energy Shield, 30%+ Movement Speed, a Resistance and an open suffix to craft +25 to Strength and Dexterity. This is also good enough to farm for the Enchantment and roll for the Eldritch Implicits listed below.

Searing Exarch Implicit: 5% increased Movement Speed

Eater of Worlds Implicit: 7% increased Elusive Effect

Enchantment: 35% increased Mana Regeneration Rate if you've cast a Spell Recently

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Amulet

Start with 40+ Life and +1 to Level of all Chaos Skill Gems. The anointment doesn't matter at this point, anoint Beef if you need Strength.

Once you go Lowlife, you need to use Presence of Chayula. This amulet makes you immune to stuns, adds a ton of Chaos Resistance and converts 20% of your Life to Energy Shield. Once you can, use 20x Tempering Catalysts to increase this to 24%.

Anointment: Champion of the Cause

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Rings

Your first rings only need 40+ Life and Resistances, add any Dexterity or Strength you need.

Once you go Lowlife, upgrade one ring to an Iolite Ring with 30+ Energy Shield, Resistances and an open suffix to craft Aspect of the Spider with the Menagerie. This aura improves your damage against bosses, where you can disable Herald of Ash to be able to activate it.

Your other ring should also have 30+ Energy Shield and Curse Enemies with Despair on Hit. While Bane already triggers this curse, having this suffix on your ring allows the Profane Bloom explosions to apply it aswell, which together with Herald of Ash can cause them to proliferate. In short, this noticeably improves your clearspeed.

Add 40 Mana + Regenerate 4 per second to both rings with the Crafting Bench and use Noxious Catalysts or Tempering Catalysts, whichever makes more sense.

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Belt

Look out for any belt with 80+ Life, Resistances and some Strength to get started.

Once you go Lowlife, switch over to Ascent from Flesh. This belt gives a good amount of Evasion, Energy Shield and Resistances, occasionally grants Phasing and gives Movement Speed and Evasion while Phasing. Refine it with 20x Tempering Catalysts once you can.

If you feel adventurous, you can attempt farming the Enchantment below with Dedication to the Goddess.

Enchantment: Enemies Withered by you have -6% to all Resistances

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Jewels

These are socketed into Basic Jewel Sockets within your passive skill tree. I recommend to have Life on them at first, once you're Lowlife you want Energy Shield instead. Add in as many of the following affixes as you can.


Energy from Within is recommended to use once you're Lowlife. When socketed near Melding, it converts the Life from all those nodes into Energy Shield. When you can afford, upgrade to one with You cannot be Cursed with Silence corruption.

Watcher's Eye is an Endgame choice that comes with up to three aura-related affixes. Most important affix here is #% to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence, add in as many of the following affixes as you can:


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Cluster Jewels

These are socketed within Large Jewel Sockets on the outside of the passive tree and expand it with new nodes. While oftentimes being an optional choice, they're a core part of this builds endgame passive tree.

The Small Cluster Jewel is most important. It needs to be Armour based with 2 added Passive Skills and have Enduring Composure as notable. This lets you passively gain Endurance Charges after getting hit, which provide physical damage reduction and can be used by Immortal Call for significant damage reduction. Only one of those is needed.

Next comes the Large Passive Cluster. It needs to be Chaos Damage based and have 8 added Passive Skills. The notables you're looking for are Wicked Pall, Unholy Grace and Unwaveringly Evil, Dark Ideation is a strong choice too if you have atleast 1500 Mana.

Once you reach beyond Level 90, you can work in Medium Cluster Jewels. They need to be Chaos Damage over Time or Damage over Time based with 4 or 5 added Passive Skills. The main notable to get is Vile Reinvigoration, it gives some damage and survivability increases. Good addions are Wicked Pall, Unwaveringly Evil, Eldritch Inspiration, Brush with Death, Brewed for Potency, Student of Decay and once again Dark Ideation with 1500+ Mana.

Before crafting any of these flasks, use an Orb of Scouring to make them normal-rarity and then use 4 Glassblower's Baubles to raise their quality to 20%!

The Endgame Flasks require high item levels, check poedb before crafting them!

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Sulphur Flask

Before you switch to the Lowlife build, use a Divine Life Flask instead. It should have any reduced Amount Recovered/Instant Recovery when on Low Life prefix to stay safe, add of Sealing with the Menagerie to remove Bleed and Corrupted Blood.

Once you're Lowlife, switch this to a Sulphur Flask. It grants some damage and creates Consecrated Ground on use. Aim for atleast +20 to Maximum Charges as prefix together with a Grants Immunity to Bleeding.. suffix.

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Jade Flask

This flask grants a lot of evasion. Get any Increased Duration prefix and add of the Deer with the Menagerie to remove Chill and Freeze.

After switching to Lowlife, replace the suffix with any Evasion suffix.

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Quartz Flask

This flask grants Phasing to avoid getting bodyblocked by monsters. Get any Increased Duration prefix once again and add of the Conger with the Menagerie to remove Shock.

After switching to Lowlife, replace the suffix with any Immunity to Poison suffix.

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Silver Flask

This flask grants Onslaught for added mobility. As it consumes 40 charges, roll a prefix that adds atleast +20 to Maximum Charges and add of the Urchin with the Menagerie to remove Ignite.

After switching to Lowlife, replace the suffix with any Cast Speed suffix.

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Quicksilver Flask

This flask grants additional movement speed for better mobility. Go for any increased Duration prefix and add of the Skunk with the Menagerie to remove Poison stacks.

After switching to Lowlife, replace the suffix with any Movement Speed suffix.

‣ Life-based Gear
‣ Flasks
‣ Jewels
‣ Lowlife Setup w/ 5L Shavronne's Wrappings
‣ Jewel Upgrades & Energy from Within
‣ "Curse Enemies with Despair on Hit" Ring
‣ Level 21 20% Bane & Essence Drain
‣ "Aspect of the Spider" Beast
‣ 6L Shavronne's Wrappings
‣ Level 3 Empower
‣ Watcher's Eye
‣ Essence of Delirium-crafted Gloves
‣ Awakened Gems

Mapping

Check the Atlas Guides in Maxroll's Getting Started to learn more about the Atlas.

There's not much thinking needed while mapping with this build. Activate Herald of Ash, keep your Withering Step and flasks up and blow enemies up with Bane. And that's it. Just don't try to facetank stuff and you'll be fine.

Recommended stats for Tier 14+ Endgame Content
‣ 7k+ Energy Shield
‣ 6L Essence Drain & pseudo-5L Bane
‣ Enduring Composure Small Cluster Jewel

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Mapmods to look out for

Players cannot Regenerate Life, Mana or Energy Shield
Pretty risky and annoying, skip this.

Players have 60% less Recovery Rate of Life and Energy Shield
Another risky mod, but can be done if you play more cautiously.

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Bossfights

Similarly to mapping, bosses don't require much thinking. Disable Herald of Ash and activate Aspect of the Spider before starting the fight. Now approach the boss with Withering Step, then use Bane and Essence Drain and keep circling the boss until you need to refresh those skills.

Try to stay close for Void Beacon, Withering Presence and Aspect of the Spider to do their thing, as long as you stay behind the boss you'll mostly be fine. If they start any AoE skill animation, use Frostblink to gain some distance until it's safe to get close again.

Soul of Arakaali (Major Pantheon)
Its default effect reduces the damage over time you take. All upgrades are worth getting to recover your energy shield faster after taking damage over time, gain some Chaos Resistance towards it and make debuffs affecting you expire faster.

Soul of Gruthkul (Minor Pantheon)
Its default effect gives you up to 5% Physical Damage Mitigation based on hits taken within the last 4s. Its upgrade lowers an enemies attack speed after hitting you and is worth getting.