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

Okay, I'm back- maybe one last audit before the league ends. Learned so much, but still feel so clueless. My character feels like he's hit his potential. I'm about 92/100 atlas maps, trying to clear everything T-10 and below and then plan on trying out sextants on shaped Atoll. That'll be the end-game for this league/the character.

I feel like I need more health (5.3k), clearing maps feels relatively safe, but I've been dying two often to double boss maps and been stuck at 89 for days. My Damage seems fine for T-10, but bosses do take a while to kill and seem dangerous, especially because all I do is kite them while ED ticks- no confidence to face tank. My gems have mostly been upgraded to 20% quality. I don't really understand the post a guy made a few pages back about having level 21,22,23 gems.

My flasks feel half finished. Too many life pots but don't know what else to get. Obviously feel like I need to keep Bleed, Poison and Freeze covered. Don't really care about Quicksilver- don't run labs.

Now that I understand legendaries come with variable stats, I realize my Breath of the Council and Rathpith are low on damage- but is it worth upgrading them?

My Helm, boots and rings I've had a while but everytime I got to poe.trade to find an upgrading nothing feels that significant. Are there stats I should be setting for minimums?

Sorry, that's long and vague, but I feel like I've come to the end of the guide and yet I look at poe.builds.io and my head explodes. What's the middle ground for upgrades given my goals?

"

setcamper wrote:

Okay, I'm back- maybe one last audit before the league ends. Learned so much, but still feel so clueless. My character feels like he's hit his potential. I'm about 92/100 atlas maps, trying to clear everything T-10 and below and then plan on trying out sextants on shaped Atoll. That'll be the end-game for this league/the character.

I feel like I need more health (5.3k), clearing maps feels relatively safe, but I've been dying two often to double boss maps and been stuck at 89 for days. My Damage seems fine for T-10, but bosses do take a while to kill and seem dangerous, especially because all I do is kite them while ED ticks- no confidence to face tank. My gems have mostly been upgraded to 20% quality. I don't really understand the post a guy made a few pages back about having level 21,22,23 gems.

My flasks feel half finished. Too many life pots but don't know what else to get. Obviously feel like I need to keep Bleed, Poison and Freeze covered. Don't really care about Quicksilver- don't run labs.

Now that I understand legendaries come with variable stats, I realize my Breath of the Council and Rathpith are low on damage- but is it worth upgrading them?

My Helm, boots and rings I've had a while but everytime I got to poe.trade to find an upgrading nothing feels that significant. Are there stats I should be setting for minimums?

Sorry, that's long and vague, but I feel like I've come to the end of the guide and yet I look at poe.builds.io and my head explodes. What's the middle ground for upgrades given my goals?

Ok so firstly your items:

1. Your Cloak of Defiance makes you take much less damage at the cost of a lot of the damage potential of the build; it's really only necessary if you're playing hardcore. In softcore you should run armor with +1 to gems for a huge damage boost. A corrupted tabula rasa is the normal pick here, but there are better/more expensive options out there too.

2. If you drop the CoD, then there's no need to have grand spectrum jewels in your passive tree and you can replace them with two spreading rot jewels in order to maximize your allelopathy/blight skill. Then look for double stat damage jewels that add 25%+ to damage for relatively cheap. If you want to spend a bit more look for either triple stat damage (35%+ total) or double stat damage with life/mana/resists. I've also seen some good abyss jewels with damage and flat life/mana that could be good depending on your life/mana totals.

3. Your uniques aren't that bad. In order of cheapest to most expensive, you could upgrade your witchfire's stibnite flask to a perfect 40% damage. Your allelopathy gloves can go up to 30%. Your rathpith's could go up to 60%, but honestly I'd invest in a rare shield with 70%+ spell damage and life/mana/resists instead of buying a perfect rathpith. And your BotC could be better but it's super expensive so I wouldn't worry about it.

4. The rest of your items are fine. You could find rings or an ammy with damage boosts, but the above will all provide better returns so hold off on upgrades here until you've done 1-3. Your boots could have better movement speed, but that's a quality of life improvement. Your helm enchantment could be the 40% increased Essence Drain damage, but that's also super expensive.

Next your passive tree:

1. Drop the Melding wheel and the Mind Drinker and pick up another two jewel slots. This will allow you to run two spreading rot jewels and three damage jewels. I recommend the jewel slot off of the Shaper node first since it replaces some of the mana you'll lose from Mind Drinker.

2. You want total life to be between 5k and 5.5k with unreserved mana at ~43% of your life total. So you have that right now, but there's also some wiggle room for you to min/max your build with regards to life and mana nodes on your passive tree. If you can stay above 5k health with the required free mana pool, while shaking loose another 2 passive nodes you'll be able to pick up a third jewel slot for additional damage.

3. I assume you have maxed resists? And don't forget to pick up the last two ascendancy points for some extra mana and quality of life improvements.

Final thoughts:

Remember that your damage and effective health are in contention with one another and need to be balanced. If you have 5.3k health and are dying to bosses then you have too much health and not enough damage. So start shifting things back the other way.

The gem levels you have showing are all super low. Everything should be at lvl 19 or 20. If you vendored a gem to get 20% quality and are leveling it back up make sure to only have one or two low level gems in your main setup at a time.

My post about gems was simply showing what perfect level and quality gems would look like. For essence drain, a level 21 gem with 20 quality (21/20) is what you want. For efficacy, you want a level 20 gem with 23% quality (20/23). For some of the non-main gems quality or level don't matter. So my list was just to show whether level or quality should be maxed for each gem. If you don't know, gems can be corrupted, adding either a level or 3% quality if the corruption roll is lucky.

Thank you for taking the time to write out such a comprehensive list of recommendations. I'm a little weary of a lot of it though

"

1. Your Cloak of Defiance makes you take much less damage at the cost of a lot of the damage potential of the build; it's really only necessary if you're playing hardcore. In softcore you should run armor with +1 to gems for a huge damage boost. A corrupted tabula rasa is the normal pick here, but there are better/more expensive options out there too.

Noted- although I always felt like running just a Tabula was giving up too many stats. Maybe I'm not understanding the way the build is supposed to work, but I already feel fragile with a that chest. Maybe I can splurge on a rare....

"

2. If you drop the CoD, then there's no need to have grand spectrum jewels in your passive tree and you can replace them with two spreading rot jewels in order to maximize your allelopathy/blight skill. Then look for double stat damage jewels that add 25%+ to damage for relatively cheap. If you want to spend a bit more look for either triple stat damage (35%+ total) or double stat damage with life/mana/resists. I've also seen some good abyss jewels with damage and flat life/mana that could be good depending on your life/mana totals.

Before I used Grand Spectrum Jewels I couldn't come close to the mana pool required to hit 43% reserved and run a curse. I used to run 2 Rot jewels but it wasn't until I switch to 3 Grand Spectrum that I start to feel "Strong" that seems like a move backwards- although I understand why you're recommending it- I'm dubious I could support it without a complete gear rework.

"

3. Your uniques aren't that bad. In order of cheapest to most expensive, you could upgrade your witchfire's stibnite flask to a perfect 40% damage. Your allelopathy gloves can go up to 30%. Your rathpith's could go up to 60%, but honestly I'd invest in a rare shield with 70%+ spell damage and life/mana/resists instead of buying a perfect rathpith. And your BotC could be better but it's super expensive so I wouldn't worry about it.

Cool, sounds like I'll look for a shield- maybe new gloves.

"

1. Drop the Melding wheel and the Mind Drinker and pick up another two jewel slots. This will allow you to run two spreading rot jewels and three damage jewels. I recommend the jewel slot off of the Shaper node first since it replaces some of the mana you'll lose from Mind Drinker.

Yikes, dropping more mana, which I have trouble finding, for more damage. Sounds easier said than done and feels like i need to go backwards.

"

3. I assume you have maxed resists? And don't forget to pick up the last two ascendancy points for some extra mana and quality of life improvements.

Yeah, I'm 10% off cold and nothing in Chaos. Can't find the last Lab/Trail to access Uber for last ascendancy.

"

Remember that your damage and effective health are in contention with one another and need to be balanced. If you have 5.3k health and are dying to bosses then you have too much health and not enough damage. So start shifting things back the other way.

Interesting. I basically feel like I stand still for more than a second vs. most bosses I lose half my health. ED has such a slow cast animation sometimes I get through 3/4 of the animation but have to move and it isn't shot. I think this the "clunky" part of the build- that skill is frustrating to use and the targeting seems to leave a lot to be desired.

"

The gem levels you have showing are all super low. Everything should be at lvl 19 or 20. If you vendored a gem to get 20% quality and are leveling it back up make sure to only have one or two low level gems in your main setup at a time.

Yeah, I'm leveling them after upgrading quality. I thought I read ~13-14 the gems at 20% quality are just as good as 0 quality lvl20 gems. And it wouldn't take long to hit that.

"

If you don't know, gems can be corrupted, adding either a level or 3% quality if the corruption roll is lucky.

Nope, didn't know that. makes sense.

Again thank you for your reply. It all makes sense, but it sounds like it requires a complete rework or a secondary gear set to test. I only have an hour a night to play and I hate spending it looking over PoE Trade. Sounds like I've hit the limit of my personal growth for now.

"

setcamper wrote:

My Damage seems fine for T-10, but bosses do take a while to kill and seem dangerous, especially because all I do is kite them while ED ticks- no confidence to face tank.

"

setcamper wrote:

Interesting. I basically feel like I stand still for more than a second vs. most bosses I lose half my health. ED has such a slow cast animation sometimes I get through 3/4 of the animation but have to move and it isn't shot. I think this the "clunky" part of the build- that skill is frustrating to use and the targeting seems to leave a lot to be desired.

It sounds like you may not be using Blight much at all. Blight is especially useful for the bosses that are tough but you still have to move around a bit when you're not casting Blight. If you aren't using Blight though, then get rid of the Allelopathy gloves and replace them with gloves that give you more life, mana, spell damage, or to fill out your resistances. I ended up dropping the Allelopathy gloves myself and added some things to my CWDT setup.

"

It sounds like you may not be using Blight much at all. Blight is especially useful for the bosses that are tough but you still have to move around a bit when you're not casting Blight. If you aren't using Blight though, then get rid of the Allelopathy gloves and replace them with gloves that give you more life, mana, spell damage, or to fill out your resistances. I ended up dropping the Allelopathy gloves myself and added some things to my CWDT setup.

I use Blight quite a bit vs. Yellow mobs, especially when I open Rifts and 2-3 of them pop out. Some bosses I blight if they don't seem particularly dangerous, but others seem to have quite a bit of burst or multiple enemies where I'm running for my life. Sorry, I'm not familiar enough with map names or bosses to name the troublesome ones. It seems like high level versions of this build don't run Blight, but my ED doesn't seem strong enough to skip.

"

setcamper wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to write out such a comprehensive list of recommendations. I'm a little weary of a lot of it though

"

1. Your Cloak of Defiance makes you take much less damage at the cost of a lot of the damage potential of the build; it's really only necessary if you're playing hardcore. In softcore you should run armor with +1 to gems for a huge damage boost. A corrupted tabula rasa is the normal pick here, but there are better/more expensive options out there too.

Noted- although I always felt like running just a Tabula was giving up too many stats. Maybe I'm not understanding the way the build is supposed to work, but I already feel fragile with a that chest. Maybe I can splurge on a rare....

"

2. If you drop the CoD, then there's no need to have grand spectrum jewels in your passive tree and you can replace them with two spreading rot jewels in order to maximize your allelopathy/blight skill. Then look for double stat damage jewels that add 25%+ to damage for relatively cheap. If you want to spend a bit more look for either triple stat damage (35%+ total) or double stat damage with life/mana/resists. I've also seen some good abyss jewels with damage and flat life/mana that could be good depending on your life/mana totals.

Before I used Grand Spectrum Jewels I couldn't come close to the mana pool required to hit 43% reserved and run a curse. I used to run 2 Rot jewels but it wasn't until I switch to 3 Grand Spectrum that I start to feel "Strong" that seems like a move backwards- although I understand why you're recommending it- I'm dubious I could support it without a complete gear rework.

To get the full effect of the Cloak of Defiance on your effective life pool you need to have an unreserved mana pool of ~67%, which basically requires the Grand Spectrum jewels. No way you'd be able to get the required mana through items/passives. So yeah, it's an either or scenario. Either you stay with CoD and Spectrum jewels for super survivability or you switch to a +1 chest and damage jewels for... super survivability. Because the faster things die the less you get hit. It's a balancing act, whereas CoD forces you to one extreme.

"

"

1. Drop the Melding wheel and the Mind Drinker and pick up another two jewel slots. This will allow you to run two spreading rot jewels and three damage jewels. I recommend the jewel slot off of the Shaper node first since it replaces some of the mana you'll lose from Mind Drinker.

Yikes, dropping more mana, which I have trouble finding, for more damage. Sounds easier said than done and feels like i need to go backwards.

Same thing as above, without CoD getting the mana pool you need is wayyy easier. Also the Melding wheel is life not mana, and replacing Mind Drinker with the jewel off of Shaper isn't much of a mana drop. Especially if you get a jewel with mana on it.

"

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3. I assume you have maxed resists? And don't forget to pick up the last two ascendancy points for some extra mana and quality of life improvements.

Yeah, I'm 10% off cold and nothing in Chaos. Can't find the last Lab/Trail to access Uber for last ascendancy.

Ok you have to have max resists. Chaos resist matters less (with a few unique boss exceptions) but 75% cold resist is a requirement. And to find the last Lab Trial change your global chat to channel 820 and wait for someone to mention that they have the one you need available. People post those all the time and mostly for free. Simply send them a party invite, go into the open map portal and the trial should be right there for you to complete. If you're feeling generous you can tip the map owner a chaos.

"

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Remember that your damage and effective health are in contention with one another and need to be balanced. If you have 5.3k health and are dying to bosses then you have too much health and not enough damage. So start shifting things back the other way.

Interesting. I basically feel like I stand still for more than a second vs. most bosses I lose half my health. ED has such a slow cast animation sometimes I get through 3/4 of the animation but have to move and it isn't shot. I think this the "clunky" part of the build- that skill is frustrating to use and the targeting seems to leave a lot to be desired.

This is why the guide recommends picking up Walk the Aether ascendency early. That 24% increased cast speed is important.

"

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The gem levels you have showing are all super low. Everything should be at lvl 19 or 20. If you vendored a gem to get 20% quality and are leveling it back up make sure to only have one or two low level gems in your main setup at a time.

Yeah, I'm leveling them after upgrading quality. I thought I read ~13-14 the gems at 20% quality are just as good as 0 quality lvl20 gems. And it wouldn't take long to hit that.

For some of the support gems this may be true, but for essence drain the level determines base damage, while the quality is % damage. And the whole build is based off ED's flat damage. Personally I never have my ED gem lower than level 19. I work a backup on my weapon switch first to get to 20 quality and then to try and corrupt to level 21, but the damage drop off is too much to ever use a low leveled gem on my main setup.

Okay, sorry I'm lost- can we back up.

We're still talking about including MoM right? Instead of using CoD I'm going to put a point back into Mind over Matter. Why is CoD different than the MoM in the passive tree (67% unreserved vs. 43%)?

Assuming I find a Tabula +1 and remove my Spectrum Jewels my mana is siting at 1831/3217 with enfeeble running.

I'd need 2286 (about 450 more than I currently have) to maintain the 43% mana threshold, but that's before I remove Mind Drinker (and Melding).

If I run 2 spreading rot jewels, can I get that amount of missing mana from 3 other damage jewels?

Do I undo Ascendancy points with Orbs of Regret or is there a different method?

"

setcamper wrote:

Okay, sorry I'm lost- can we back up.

We're still talking about including MoM right? Instead of using CoD I'm going to put a point back into Mind over Matter. Why is CoD different than the MoM in the passive tree (67% unreserved vs. 43%)?

Assuming I find a Tabula +1 and remove my Spectrum Jewels my mana is siting at 1831/3217 with enfeeble running.

I'd need 2286 (about 450 more than I currently have) to maintain the 43% mana threshold, but that's before I remove Mind Drinker (and Melding).

If I run 2 spreading rot jewels, can I get that amount of missing mana from 3 other damage jewels?

Do I undo Ascendancy points with Orbs of Regret or is there a different method?

Ok so CoD adds 10% on top of MoM for a total of 40% mitigation, which translates to needing about ~67% of your life pool as free mana. MoM's 30% alone translates to ~43%. You can see this if you look at the hidden "Junk" excel tab of the MoM eHP calculator in the guide.

Also, and I'm sorry about this, but I completely missed that you didn't take the MoM wheel. You need to take all four nodes even if you have CoD for the 40 flat mana and 50% increased mana. That's the issue you're seeing with mana.

Refunding ascendancy points costs 5 refund points per, so I'd recommend finishing the uber lab asap to get your last two ascendancy points rather than refunding two others.

Lastly, I went back through your gem setup and your Cast When Damage Taken gem is way too high a level. I keep mine at level 6 and the highest I've seen on others is level 8. At level 16 the amount of damage you'd need to take makes IC proc too infrequently due to the damage counter/cooldown function. This could be what causes you to insta-die.

"

Ok so CoD adds 10% on top of MoM for a total of 40% mitigation, which translates to needing about ~67% of your life pool as free mana. MoM's 30% alone translates to ~43%. You can see this if you look at the hidden "Junk" excel tab of the MoM eHP calculator in the guide.

Also, and I'm sorry about this, but I completely missed that you didn't take the MoM wheel. You need to take all four nodes even if you have CoD for the 40 flat mana and 50% increased mana. That's the issue you're seeing with mana.

oh, thought CoD replaces MoM. I swear I saw someone ask that same question somewhere and the reply was that yes, MoM in the passive tree was redundant with the chest armor. I didn't realize CoD just adds to MoM's benefit.

"

Lastly, I went back through your gem setup and your Cast When Damage Taken gem is way too high a level. I keep mine at level 6 and the highest I've seen on others is level 8. At level 16 the amount of damage you'd need to take makes IC proc too infrequently due to the damage counter/cooldown function. This could be what causes you to insta-die.

Again, I swear I read someone in this thread that CWDT should be roughly half your total health. Oh well.

Why is Walk the Aether used here instead of say Ghost Dance? This build has a ton of mana and cast speed doesn’t seem all that important since its basically curse, fire 1 projectile move.