GhazzyTV - Essence Drain & Contagion (or Bane/Soulrend) Trickster [SC/HC/Uber Elder/Shaper]

33xx HP is kinda low, I would try to get more life nodes and equip with flat life.

what are the best enchants for this build? Obvs ED dmg on helm but what about boots and gloves?

why the extra curse node?

"

Lord_Endimion wrote:

why the extra curse node?

To be able to use Vulnerability from Witchfire Brew. Otherwise it would overwrite Enfeeble.

However, I'm currently unsure, maybe I'm dropping Witchfire altogether. To get Whispers of Doom, you need to invest quite a few passives. Against bosses, Vulnerability doesn't add too much (due to reduced effectiveness of Curses against bosses). Against trash on maps, it's not really needed (clearspeed is high enough and not limited by damage, I think).

It helps immensely against the boss fight on Beachhead. A lot of monsters, so the flask is always full, every bit of damage helps to kill the waves faster, it's really nice. But otherwise....not really sure.

Will have to do some more theorycrafting in PoB to see what I could take otherwise.

Of course, if I was rich, I would just buy a decent +1 curse amu and not think about it :)

"

KuronekoBestGirl wrote:

Well after refunding some points, I've taken all life nodes this build can reach and now I have 3953 HP.

Still not a whole lot. For reference, I have about 52xx at Lvl 92. Scaling down to Lvl 80 (your level if I'm not mistaken), that would translate to approx 4800 life. And I guess even that's on the low side. I've seen people with well above 5500 life with this build at Lvl 90+.

Can you give more details what the main problem is? Just the Vault boss or lacking damage in general? How do you play (which spells in which order) etc?

"

what are the best enchants for this build? Obvs ED dmg on helm but what about boots and gloves?

Nothing really stands out I would say.

Regen on Boots is nice. Also chance to avoid being stunned, or dodge / spelldodge, or movespeed. It's more about those QoL things I guess.

Crit Chance doesn't do a lot for us, neither added damage (I think it only applies to attacks, not spells).

Chance to Freeze, Shock & Ignite sounds nice as well, but I don't know if that works with our dots. If it only affects the target that was hit, I would ignore it.

For Gloves: I don't know if those Enchants scale with stats. If yes, the cast ones could be nice, but again nothing special. The Attack with xxx of light is nice due to Regen...

"

weppe1337 wrote:

hey would anyone inspect my character and give me some guidance?
my gems and links are incomplete and do I need MoM from skill tree if I use cloak?

edit: btw it's my first character so don't understand the importances and priorities yet.

th in advance

I propose to stick with the guide if you are new - the guide is quite detailed and also provides the rationale for a lot of decisions (Kudos to Ghazzy again). Don't get me wrong, this may sound harsh, but this will really help you with most decisions.

Anyways, the most important hint I can give you:
Swap the ED gems into the chest armor. ED is your most important spell, you should maximize ED. Contagion is secondary at this point and only required to spread ED. No need to add damage support gems to Contagion, but rather improvements like increased duration, faster casting, arcane surge (since the buff you get also affects other spells, i.e. ED).

For ED, you want to stack all the "more damage" support gems you can get. Most notably:
Efficacy, Controlled Destruction, Void Manipulation, Swift Affliction. The 5th support (6th link) can be either Pierce or Poison or Empower.

Highest damage will be via Empower (needs to be level 3+), especially if you use a +1 chest armor. But it's also the most expensive gem to buy and takes ages to level yourself. Next highest damage is via Poison. Pierce has lowest damage of the three, but might allow for easier application of ED to packs of monsters.

Blight is nice as additional damage especially vs bosses, but I would not take the gem but use the Allelopathy gloves instead. First of, they are lvl 22, secondly, you get essentially a 5link that way. If you don't want to use the gloves, I would skip Blight tbh. Especially if you are new, since Blight needs to be incorporated into your spell rotation, you need to stand still to channel, so it's a potentially dangerous playstyle.

Also, if you want to use Blight, you should use 2 Spreading Rot jewels. They increase damage taken of mobs affected by the Blight hinder debuff.

You also shouldn't need the Vitality aura (and Clarity is debatable, I used it myself quite some time, but stopped recently and didn't notice a big difference).

Instead, get Enfeeble or Temporal Chains and run them via Blasphemy.

Finally, swap increased duration support for Shield Charge with faster attacks. Yes, longer Fortify duration is nice, but getting around the map faster is even nicer :)

So, in summary:
ED in chest with suggested damage supports
Contagion in 4L
Decide whether you want to use Blight

But all this is covered in the original guide at page 1.

EDIT: to your other question:
You don't need MoM if you use the Cloak. However, there are three very nice mana nodes behind MoM, which you will want to take. They provide 64% inreased mana + 100 flat mana, wich is incredible. You won't get that amount of mana anywhere else in the tree for just 3 points.

So, yes, by all means, take MoM and also the three points behind.