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

I have been using Allelopathy as my main source of sustained damage on my ED chars since it was introduced. Having a powerful blight selfcast available also helps a lot with stragglers. My ED does a total of 1m DPS while blight fully stacked does 2m DPS, so quickly tapping a straggler with blight to finish it off, or to channel for a second in other to get some proper damage in solves the issue.

Blight > blight totems for sure imo. If you need that wither stack to be more reliable, a 2L wither totem setup complements a single spreading rot nicely.

People might not agree on this approach now that bows have settled as the meta choice for ED.

EDIT: added gear for "3.0 ED gearing" reference:

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

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xsnowingx wrote:

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

One of my main problems with Contagion had been making sure the ED actually connected with an enemy affected by Contagion; other enemies would tend to get in the way, delaying the chain reaction and slowing down mapping too much for me to prefer it over Bane/Soulrend.

How is this happening? You should be casting Contagion at the front of the pack you are shooting ED into. I have NEVER had this issue before. One cast of contagion is much much faster than deploying a totem.

Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't really make sense, does it? LOL

Perhaps that wasn't accurate. Maybe my issue was more that monster packs when mapping are often dispersed to the point that it takes several casts of Contagion (and ED) to get them all. It was feeling faster to just spam Bane than it was to try getting every straggler with Contagion. Obviously this is much less of a problem Delving.

Have you never experienced this, either? If not, I must be doing something wrong. I would have no trouble believing that, since pure ED/Contagion seems to work like a charm for so many others. Is there any way to increase Contagion's "chain" length? Or am I just inept?

Edit; yeah, eff this, it was a terrible idea. I think I just wanted both Bane and Contagion, and this is not the way to go about it.

I hope you're at least using max chisels, and re-rolling if the map mods suck (ie small pack size or small quantity) before you Vaal the maps. If you make denser maps you might not have this issue.

You could try Spell Cascade in a Contagion 5-link, but I have not experimented with this because I have never had any issues. And Spell Cascade support does come with downsides as well as the obvious upside. (Supported Skills have 16% less Area of Effect)

It might solve your issues as long as you don't drop anything from the standard 4L.

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xsnowingx wrote:

I hope you're at least using max chisels, and re-rolling if the map mods suck (ie small pack size or small quantity) before you Vaal the maps. If you make denser maps you might not have this issue.

You could try Spell Cascade in a Contagion 5-link, but I have not experimented with this because I have never had any issues. And Spell Cascade support does come with downsides as well as the obvious upside. (Supported Skills have 16% less Area of Effect)

It might solve your issues as long as you don't drop anything from the standard 4L.

Yes, I definitely chisel my maps and try for at least 80% IIQ before corrupting. I certainly understand that ED/Contagion is at its best in denser maps.

That is a good suggestion, and I will try it out. Thank you!

Hi guys,

I would like to have some gear recommendations, I have 4 ex to spend.
I was thinking to buy next maybe a cheap 5 socket zodiac leather and try to make it 6 link. Or should I save the currency and wait for next season?
Thanks for the help!

For starters, take blight out of your allelopathy blight gloves. xD


Save your exalts for the meta bow.

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Mojoe1000 wrote:

Hi guys,

I would like to have some gear recommendations, I have 4 ex to spend.
I was thinking to buy next maybe a cheap 5 socket zodiac leather and try to make it 6 link. Or should I save the currency and wait for next season?
Thanks for the help!

What the last guy said. :)

Also... quality your flasks, and fix their affixes. All your flasks should at least have dual affixes... you added quality to your Forbidden Taste? You *like* taking an extra 8% chaos damage?

No point saving currency, it doesn't go into the Blight league, it goes into standard. I haven't used Standard for anything other than build testing for years.

Have you checked whether you have enough Evasion to make the QOTF worthwhile? You need at least 15k Evasion with flasks up before you see gains. Below that, you might as well pick up a 5L with decent evasion rolls, life, and better resists. I'm using this, I paid 100c for it:

Admittedly, I don't care about the life roll as I'm running CI.

thanks for the answer, this is my first char in poe, so I am a noob ;).
So what should I use instead of blight then? What are good Flasks?
Yes with the Flasks I have 20k evasion

Hi all,
Struggling to beat Elder. I've gotten so close, but always die on the last gate. Shaper is going to be a real problem. If someone could look at my gear and tree and tell me where i can improve it would be much appreciated. thnks

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Mojoe1000 wrote:

thanks for the answer, this is my first char in poe, so I am a noob ;).
So what should I use instead of blight then? What are good Flasks?
Yes with the Flasks I have 20k evasion

efficacy support



These are an example of decent flasks imo if you are not running a despair curse yourself. You can take basalt off for sulphur that's just preference. Notice that they all last at least 5 seconds asides from the staunching health flask, so I can press them all at the same time every 5 seconds. You have an inc effect flask that doesn't last very long.



What he is talking about is the crafted part of the flasks. You probably want Staunching, of Heat(I am using Cannot Be Frozen boots and decided to slip this one), of Warding, of Adrenaline, and if you have room for a 5th, which you do not, then 'of Reflexes' .

And you ideally want all of those flasks to either have reduced charges used, or increased charges gained, or at least some additional useful modifier. You can beast craft your flasks if you're able to roll the charge effect part with an alt.

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Tigytallpants wrote:

Hi all,
Struggling to beat Elder. I've gotten so close, but always die on the last gate. Shaper is going to be a real problem. If someone could look at my gear and tree and tell me where i can improve it would be much appreciated. thnks

Off the top of my head...
- quality your flasks, and your ED gems.
- And your armour!
- Buy an uber lab carry and finish out your ascendancies.
- Drop your life flask for a Divine one, see about replacing your witchfire brew with a higher rolled one, ensure you roll decent affixes on your existing flasks
- Remember to max their quality first for more duration. The cost to Quality20 a flask that's white is 4 glassblower, the cost for a blue is 10.
- Empower level 4. On a build that scales so well with levels, this is a big deal.
- Your gear could use other upgrades as well - the life rolls on boots, belt, and jewelry are below average.
- I'd probably drop Wicked Ward and the Int nodes leading to it. You've already got Vaal Discipline, which does pretty much the same thing. Put those points towards more life or DPS nodes, like the chaos damage nodes up top next to Corruption or the Aura nodes on the left around Sovereignty.