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

Hey guys,

I'm having some serious issues getting my guides updated in time for this league. As many of you know, I'm not a full-time streamer I work parttime job(s) to make ends meet and a few weeks ago I lost the job giving me guaranteed shifts. With this in mind I signed a contract a bit over a month ago to work at a rock festival here in Sweden (Sweden Rock Festival) which is where I'm sending this message from.
I've borrowed Hannas laptop so that I could make sure the guides got updated in time, however, I'm working 16-20h shifts with almost no sleep and just now finished the patch notes before heading to bed. So without looking at the tree in detail I will therefor give my verdicts of the builds further down in this post on all my build guides.

I sleep in a caravan during the event with 0 power supply so getting the computer charged is my main priority for tomorrow so that I could hopefully get PoB working on this shitty Apple laptop and I hope I can get the guides updated before Legion releases.

With this said and before I leave comments below specific for each guide I've posted this to:
Myself and many others are discussing builds, reviews, my guides over at my discord server www.discord.gg/GhazzyTV where you are more than welcome to get help from myself & many other PoE veterans on a daily basis, specially now before a league release. I'm able to get my phone charged at the work place but I'm unable to have the laptop there for a variety of risk reasons,

I hope you can forgive this one shitty situation out of the 6 years I've been making sure build guides with quality is available for the community and hope I can deliver on this release as well..





This build will in my opinion be the #1 league starter build for 3.7, it has been among the best league starter builds in the entire game ever since the release of the ability and the nerfs that hit Bane as well as Soulrend are not that massive, though I must say that I favour the approach of utilizing ED & Contagion again. Though I would feel confident being so bold to say that leveling with Bane should still be a preferable idea whilst leveling your ED & Contagion gems on the side. The build can handle Uber Elder, SSF, HC and SC on similar styles and still get away with an extremely minimal investment in the process of handling these contents. I feel very inclined to do this build again myself in 3,7 to farm Monoliths with due to how effective it'll be for that specific purpose on top of the end-game viability.

As mentioned above, I hope I can make sure the tree & PoB as well as the guide is sorted before release. In case this thread gets spammed I would love if someone could help Quote this message for new people to see the message so that noone is left in the dark which is very important to me and I hope you guys will have an amazing league start. I'll be back on Sunday to salvage what needs to be salvaged and then create new inspiring guides for the community!

general question. can i still play this as a life MOM with one aura, or maybe essence worm? am i missing something that might make it crappy?

You're a real trooper Ghazzy! I hope the festival work doesn't break you completely and that you have a good summer.

I was initially going to go freezing pulse assassin, but this is going to be my league starter. wonder what meta will be this league.

Appreciate the dedication Ghazzy! Enjoy the festival and keep rockin!

Thanks for build - really enjoyed it during flashback - wish I had gone with it during synthesis - got further in 2 weeks of FB than during main league (I was away for 8 days of FB). it's probably going to be my backup for legion (trying something totally new for me). good luck with everything.

"

Ghazzy wrote:

Hey guys,

I'm having some serious issues getting my guides updated in time for this league. As many of you know, I'm not a full-time streamer I work parttime job(s) to make ends meet and a few weeks ago I lost the job giving me guaranteed shifts. With this in mind I signed a contract a bit over a month ago to work at a rock festival here in Sweden (Sweden Rock Festival) which is where I'm sending this message from.
I've borrowed Hannas laptop so that I could make sure the guides got updated in time, however, I'm working 16-20h shifts with almost no sleep and just now finished the patch notes before heading to bed. So without looking at the tree in detail I will therefor give my verdicts of the builds further down in this post on all my build guides.

I sleep in a caravan during the event with 0 power supply so getting the computer charged is my main priority for tomorrow so that I could hopefully get PoB working on this shitty Apple laptop and I hope I can get the guides updated before Legion releases.

With this said and before I leave comments below specific for each guide I've posted this to:
Myself and many others are discussing builds, reviews, my guides over at my discord server www.discord.gg/GhazzyTV where you are more than welcome to get help from myself & many other PoE veterans on a daily basis, specially now before a league release. I'm able to get my phone charged at the work place but I'm unable to have the laptop there for a variety of risk reasons,

I hope you can forgive this one shitty situation out of the 6 years I've been making sure build guides with quality is available for the community and hope I can deliver on this release as well..





This build will in my opinion be the #1 league starter build for 3.7, it has been among the best league starter builds in the entire game ever since the release of the ability and the nerfs that hit Bane as well as Soulrend are not that massive, though I must say that I favour the approach of utilizing ED & Contagion again. Though I would feel confident being so bold to say that leveling with Bane should still be a preferable idea whilst leveling your ED & Contagion gems on the side. The build can handle Uber Elder, SSF, HC and SC on similar styles and still get away with an extremely minimal investment in the process of handling these contents. I feel very inclined to do this build again myself in 3,7 to farm Monoliths with due to how effective it'll be for that specific purpose on top of the end-game viability.

As mentioned above, I hope I can make sure the tree & PoB as well as the guide is sorted before release. In case this thread gets spammed I would love if someone could help Quote this message for new people to see the message so that noone is left in the dark which is very important to me and I hope you guys will have an amazing league start. I'll be back on Sunday to salvage what needs to be salvaged and then create new inspiring guides for the community!

This will likely be my 3.7 starter. Thanks for all the time you put into these guides. Can't wait to try it!

can someone confirm trickster is better than occultist? or break down the cons/pros? there seems to be a disagreement on the matter

I threw together a leveling checklist to help out myself and the other peoples league starting this build.

General rule: Always be looking for movespeed boots at the start and items with more blue links. B-B-G is what you are looking for at the start of the game and as you level mo blue=mo better

Temporarily start as witch. Grab arcane surge from the beach. RIP to shiny new Murder Hillock.

Enter Lioneye’s watch. Sell all gear except wand and arcane surge and take blight for Hillock murder reward. Look for movespeed boots.

Start a shadow. Die to Hillock again. Take explosive trap. Equip blight with arcane surge as your trash clear and explosive trap as boss damage.

Go to tidal isle and RIP to Hailrake. Get quicksilver flask as reward. Take infused channeling and link to blight

Complete “Breaking some eggs” and take contagion as reward. Can now link contagion and arcane surge and drop this on packs as you run by. Explosive trap and blight provide extra boss damage. Alternatively, Frost bomb linked to onslaught is good for dropping on packs and getting the extra move speed from onslaught.

Grab the new dodge skill (dash or frostblink) for dodging nasty attacks and steelskin for when you can't dodge. NOTE: these are new so not sure exactly where you get them.

Make a +1 Chaos gems wand by vendoring one chaos gem (use your gems from the beach) with a blue wand in colors you want (G-B-B) if possible and socket contagion-blight.

Proceed to the prison. After killing Brutus take (G)Void manipulation and socket that into your +1 chaos wand. Links at this point should be Contagion-Blight-Void manipulation

Purchase flame dash and link to arcane surge. Also purchase wither and a second Void Manipulation. We can drop fire trap at this point. Wither won’t be used until we get spell totem from the library, but start putting experience on it now.

Upon reaching Mervail's caverns port back to town and get Essence drain.

At this point your ideal gem setups would be:



Most of the time you can still just drop contagion on packs and move along. Add in Essence drain and blight as needed for tougher packs/mobs. (NOTE: with the new monster health buffs in 3.7 this may no longer be possible) Essence drain and contagion combo is much slower to cast both so I avoid this until later when you have some cast speed.

After completing “The Root of the Problem” take Faster Casting and link it to your flame dash. Purchase 2 Controlled destruction gems, which should be linked to contagion and blight.

Gem links now:


At after completing “Lost in Love” take Bane as your reward and purchase the Malevolence aura and despair curse.

Ideal links are



At this point Bane will be your trash clear and essence drain and blight will be our single target. Continue to level contagion in an off hand for now. As before, you can use contagion and essence drain if you prefer but I personally feel you need more cast speed first.

Once you reach the library and complete the quest there pick up spell totem and link it to wither. Efficacy and swift affliction are now good support options for your damaging skills.

After completing “Breaking the Seal” take the stone golem as your reward for more regen or flame golem for more damage. Linking this to a Cast When Damage Taken is nice quality-of-life improvement. You can also pick up Phase run at this point for more zoom-zoom.

Once you feel your cast speed is high enough to comfortably cast contagion and essence drain combo you can switch over to that and drop bane. Once you do this you will need a different way to curse enemies with Despair.

"

Creditor wrote:

can someone confirm trickster is better than occultist? or break down the cons/pros? there seems to be a disagreement on the matter

Prior to this patch this guide was very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7D6RrN-Wv0&t=3s

Now occultist has had a lot of it's defenses nerfed and one of it's best nodes (Wicked Ward) is now on the regular skill tree. Trickster received a small nerf but not nearly as bad. Trickster still maintains most of the quality of life stuff that made it popular before.