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

Can anyone please help me understand how people are getting these MASSIVE ED numbers? I feel like I have pretty good gear, and im only at 41k dps unbuffed... somewhere around 60k full buffed(with ~100 rampage stacks).

I have a Cloak of Defiance in the bank im waiting to 6link and some the grand spectrum jewels to go with it but I don't think that will improve my damage. Are all these huge numbers coming from the super expensive jewelry with the spell/chaos damage?

The only thing I know I'm lacking is my gems are not maxxed yet. Idk how much that plays a role. This is my first season.

If anyone could give me some pointers about the direction I should take my gear at this point, I'd really appreciate it. I'm absolutely loving this game and build, and would like to explore all the content with it before moving on to try new things.

PS - Thank you Ghazzy for the guide. I have it open every time I play for one of the many references I use trying to figure out this game! Much appreciated.


4.2k Life, 958 ES, and 1979 Unreserved (experimenting with no clarity.. suggestions for open gem slot welcome!) 75/75/75 Res, -52 Chaos Res, 8 Ascendency Points. I have 5ex + 100c, to go shopping with!
Spoiler

Last edited by DwnWthVwls on Feb 13, 2018, 10:21:47 PM
"
DwnWthVwls wrote:
Can anyone please help me understand how people are getting these MASSIVE ED numbers? I feel like I have pretty good gear, and im only at 41k dps unbuffed... somewhere around 60k full buffed(with ~100 rampage stacks).


I was in a similar boat to you, damage-wise. I was around 30k dps on the ED dot with breath of the Council, a plain tabula, etc. Buying a 21/20 ED, a lvl 3 Empower, and a +1 Tabulu brought me up to ~65k. The ED upgrade alone took me from 30 to 40k. L3 Empower cost like 6 chaos. You could buy a L4 for ~4ex and sell your L2, but even going to L3 will help.

Page 212 has an awesome pic posted by kevinbrightblade that prioritized various upgrades. You can clearly afford to get your main gems (ED/Empower for sure) squared away and then see how you feel about various other upgrades.

For all the ED supports I just recently got them to 20L and did the gcp vendor thing to make them +20Q and am re-leveling them in my gloves (with replacements I'd been leveling alongside). As they get up to comparable dps, I've been swapping them back in.

Personally I don't think them being 23Q does a lot relative to 20Q. It's 1.5% extra spell damage, or extra chaos, etc. Way more important to get +1s on your ED and Empower first.

I may also be a little more offensively spec'd than you. I went for Method to the Madness and Corruption nodes and get my extra curse from Windscream greaves.



Corruption is the easiest to get as it is right next to the +1 Curse wheel.

That all may not get you up to "massive", but every bit is a step in the right direction.
Last edited by Chedric on Feb 14, 2018, 11:51:50 AM
"
DwnWthVwls wrote:
Can anyone please help me understand how people are getting these MASSIVE ED numbers? I feel like I have pretty good gear, and im only at 38744 dps unbuffed... somewhere in the high 40s-low50s full buffed.


Honestly your items are fine (nice helm!). Upgrading the ED gem setup to 20% quality will make a big difference. Also you can spec your passive tree into more jewel slots (see my abyss passive tree for an example) and get jewels with 2 or 3 stat damage for pretty significant boosts as well.

The massive ED numbers people are talking about is the tooltip damage number when full stacks of power/frenzy charges and arcane surge are all applied. I'd recommend not switching to CoD since you're not in HC. The +1 Tabula is way better for this build in softcore.

Get 100k+ fully buffed damage, 5k+ life, max resists and 43% unreserved mana and you should be able to clear everything in the game. If you decide to drop clarity then go for a meat shield gem like a golem or vaal summon skeleton (my favorite).

"
Chedric wrote:
Page 212 has an awesome pic posted by kevinbrightblade that prioritized various upgrades. You can clearly afford to get your main gems (ED/Empower for sure) squared away and then see how you feel about various other upgrades.


Thanks for the shout out!
Thank you both for the answers.. and yes Kevin, I took your advice from another post and I'm testing Vaal Skeles(love them, but still low level).

@Ched - I just got those boots as a drop and tried them out, but i was running triple curse with TC/Enfeeble goofing around. I'll consider the options of optimizing that setup.

@Kevin - Thanks, your posts have also been really useful. I'll go back and check out 212. I'm intrigued by your 1 curse setup with that neck and despair.. I love the flexibility of this build. (Also, I am only at 60k with full charges/surge/rampage, which is why i was so worried.. sounds like the gems are a huge).

Cheers.
"
If you decide to drop clarity then go for a meat shield gem like a golem or vaal summon skeleton (my favorite).

That's what I ended up doing as well. No more clarity but have a lot of mana regen through a jewel (although I'm not sure if it's needed). The Vaal Skellies are a great distraction for the bosses.

I also recently moved the spell totem from wither to my Allelopathy to use with Blight. I'm really liking that so far. Feels safer from a distance and self cast wither when needed.
"
"
DwnWthVwls wrote:
Can anyone please help me understand how people are getting these MASSIVE ED numbers? I feel like I have pretty good gear, and im only at 38744 dps unbuffed... somewhere in the high 40s-low50s full buffed.


Honestly your items are fine (nice helm!). Upgrading the ED gem setup to 20% quality will make a big difference. Also you can spec your passive tree into more jewel slots (see my abyss passive tree for an example) and get jewels with 2 or 3 stat damage for pretty significant boosts as well.

The massive ED numbers people are talking about is the tooltip damage number when full stacks of power/frenzy charges and arcane surge are all applied. I'd recommend not switching to CoD since you're not in HC. The +1 Tabula is way better for this build in softcore.

Get 100k+ fully buffed damage, 5k+ life, max resists and 43% unreserved mana and you should be able to clear everything in the game. If you decide to drop clarity then go for a meat shield gem like a golem or vaal summon skeleton (my favorite).

"
Chedric wrote:
Page 212 has an awesome pic posted by kevinbrightblade that prioritized various upgrades. You can clearly afford to get your main gems (ED/Empower for sure) squared away and then see how you feel about various other upgrades.


Thanks for the shout out!


I switched up my passives, I like the changes you made to the tree.. Got myself a level 4 empower and a 23/20 ED + jewels and im now 103k dps buffed.. With little change to my survival, just need another 800 hp or so to hit that 5k mark. Thanks!

One other thing.. what enchants should i be shooting for on gloves and boots?
Last edited by DwnWthVwls on Feb 14, 2018, 9:48:32 PM
"
DwnWthVwls wrote:
I switched up my passives, I like the changes you made to the tree.. Got myself a level 4 empower and a 23/20 ED + jewels and im now 103k dps buffed.. With little change to my survival, just need another 800 hp or so to hit that 5k mark. Thanks!

One other thing.. what enchants should i be shooting for on gloves and boots?


It doesn't really matter. Also I tend to use all my enchant tries on helmets since that's where the jackpot return is. While there are minor quality of life improvements you could get from glove/boot enchants, it's nothing compared to the currency value of some of the helm enchants.

That being said, for gloves you want either a minion summon or a ground effect enchantment. I think the overall best is the ground effect "Of Spite". At the Commandment level it's 9 projectiles in a nova, each leaving chilling ground for 2 seconds. This has saved my life a number of times from high number mob popups like strongboxes and abysses. (Note this is less useful if you're running temporal chains).

The other ground effect option is "Of Light", which creates an area of consecrated ground that gives health regen (6% of max health for 5 seconds). It's more for boss battles since if you get hit you can then bounce in and out of the consecrated ground, whereas during mapping you're moving too fast to really use it.

For minion I like "Of Reflection", but "Of the Grave" would be fine too.

For boots you really should be aiming for two-toned to make resist capping easier, which precludes an enchant. But if you don't go that route then there are a couple nice options. I think the best overall is "16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently". This is a very nice buff to make mapping just that much faster.

Similarly "10% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently" adds a nice quality of life improvement. And honorable mention goes to "8% chance to Dodge Spell Damage if you've taken Spell Damage Recently". This one is of less utility, although if you're using Atziri's Step then I'd consider this the best option.
"
"
DwnWthVwls wrote:
I switched up my passives, I like the changes you made to the tree.. Got myself a level 4 empower and a 23/20 ED + jewels and im now 103k dps buffed.. With little change to my survival, just need another 800 hp or so to hit that 5k mark. Thanks!

One other thing.. what enchants should i be shooting for on gloves and boots?


It doesn't really matter. Also I tend to use all my enchant tries on helmets since that's where the jackpot return is. While there are minor quality of life improvements you could get from glove/boot enchants, it's nothing compared to the currency value of some of the helm enchants.

That being said, for gloves you want either a minion summon or a ground effect enchantment. I think the overall best is the ground effect "Of Spite". At the Commandment level it's 9 projectiles in a nova, each leaving chilling ground for 2 seconds. This has saved my life a number of times from high number mob popups like strongboxes and abysses. (Note this is less useful if you're running temporal chains).

The other ground effect option is "Of Light", which creates an area of consecrated ground that gives health regen (6% of max health for 5 seconds). It's more for boss battles since if you get hit you can then bounce in and out of the consecrated ground, whereas during mapping you're moving too fast to really use it.

For minion I like "Of Reflection", but "Of the Grave" would be fine too.

For boots you really should be aiming for two-toned to make resist capping easier, which precludes an enchant. But if you don't go that route then there are a couple nice options. I think the best overall is "16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently". This is a very nice buff to make mapping just that much faster.

Similarly "10% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently" adds a nice quality of life improvement. And honorable mention goes to "8% chance to Dodge Spell Damage if you've taken Spell Damage Recently". This one is of less utility, although if you're using Atziri's Step then I'd consider this the best option.


plus
= 3 heavy (buffed by spell/projectile/ice) piercing icy projectiles on hit, which kill or chill (if less damage) everything in front of you. It's a great defensive option in the beginning (also in cases of bad connection or afk) and becomes a killer later. For the gloves I would add "of Blades" as an option, which is some sort of light version of piercing for your ED.
For people using Allelopathy/Blight "of Light" is great.


Boots - 16% speed is the favorite for mapping, but more complex and useful for me is 2% mana/life regen if you like to shield charge into the mobs and sometimes help by bosses (I like it in UAtziri, when actually her projectiles are healing me for free).
Hi all, new guy here with some questions.

1) Why you get points in the Frenzy charges mechanic? I read all the nodes and all the spells but can't find a single ability that gives a frenzy charge.

2) Why dual curse? I can only see 1 curse in your build.

Hope someone can explain.
Thanks
"
Brince wrote:
Hi all, new guy here with some questions.

1) Why you get points in the Frenzy charges mechanic? I read all the nodes and all the spells but can't find a single ability that gives a frenzy charge.

2) Why dual curse? I can only see 1 curse in your build.

Hope someone can explain.
Thanks


1) Swift Killer in the Trickster Ascension gets you charges on kill.

2) Witchfire Brew potion gets you a second curse as an aura when you pop it.

Hope that helps!

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info