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

Hey there,
I am using your build and it's been going pretty well for the most part. Now I've reached the stage where I'm doing Guardians and Shaper but I yet have to slay him. I blame it on lack of mechanical expertise for now.
What I noticed is that the endgame damage of my charakter is really lacking. That might be due to the 3.0 boss changes but my old "unethical" cast while channeling chaos firestorm char melted the guardians while this one really struggles on some of them and shaper as well.

Stuff that I do have is:
21/20 ED
Level 4 Empower
+1 to all Tabula
40% more ED damage enchant

PoB says that if the enemy is hindered the dotdps of my ED is 132k which, judging by the numbers I see in this thread should be enough.
I just dont understand how every fight with a guardian is taking me 5+ minutes even though ED, blight and ~10+ wither stacks are constantly on them.

I appreciate you taking your time and I hope that you have some tips for me. Because at this point my fun is slowly fading away which might be due to the heavy investment with low payoff that I'm seeing so far.



PoB Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/tm9GCF4Y

Even though you have near our max dps for ED without going LL, guardians and shaper have a LOT of hp, and compared to other dps heavy builds, it just takes us longer :) It's the downfall of having an easy playstyle build

Just wanted to thank you for the helpful build guide - this turned out to be a character I enjoyed playing very much. I managed to kill Shaper deathless (for the first time!) having only modified my approach slightly from some of the interesting discussions in this thread. For anyone curious, here is how I ended up at 93:



Pastebin with jewels: https://pastebin.com/udga5Ddj

"

AsianOne wrote:

Hey im level 40 still using lifesprig and other low level leveling gear lol. I was wanting to upgrade so if anyone unique or other gear thats worth getting let me know! Thanks

Rare items will be better around your lvl, once you get to lvl 50 you can get yourself the Heartbreaker!

"

bosmano775 wrote:

will this build be also good with 2hand staff? got my hands on

and i dont know if i should fallow this one or go for LL wariant?

You can absolutely make the build work well with a 6L staff :)

LL will be doing more damage but will also cost tons more currency.

"

keygy wrote:

the allelophaty gloves the blight skill how you use it? i mean its for bosses right? you do contagion+ED and blight or how? dont know how to use it.

Contagion to get Arcane Surge > Essence Drain > Blight (reapply ED when it falls off, preferably before)

"

glichy777 wrote:

"

Hey,

My pleasure bro!

The Frenzy charges grants atk/cast as well as "more" damage to your abilities, on top of this the Ascendancy "Swift Killer" makes Frenzy & Power Charges grant additional Damage over Time per charge :)

hey i am new to this game and wanna ask what from this build generates those frenzy charges because i cant get to it...

Its an item which i will get later ( i am 41 atm) or what?

The Swift Killer Ascendancy also generates charges :)

"

wtfbliz wrote:

Hey guys, I am about to roll my socket colors on my Cloak of Defiance.

Is there a consensus about which 6 I want to use? So far I've been considering the following:

Must haves:
Essence Drain
Controlled Destruction
Swift Affliction
Void Manipulation

Options:
Slower Projectiles
Pierce
Efficacy
Empower


Also, have thought about using the unique gem that gives 10% damage and 1 pierce in a 4th socket in the grid so that I can have a semi pierce without gearing it.

Thoughts?

The gems in the guide should be listed in order of efficiency for you already! :)


-----------

@Durew: Thank you for your help in the thread <3

-----------

"

DrKatz11 wrote:

Hey, I love this build idea and just started leveling it yesterday. The leveling process is super smooth too! I noticed you swapped out Whirling Blades for Shield Charge in 3.0? Is there a specific reason for this? I like how smooth Whirling blades feels, and I'd love to stick with it if possible. But is it a bad idea to use it in 3.0? Thanks!

Matter of personal taste, Shield Charge is just faster :)

"

AndyNSanity wrote:

"

Ghazzy wrote:

Hey,

Welcome in!

During the LvLing process, yes.
I would suggest a few things for you, specially as you're new to the game:

1) Go to your account settings, make sure your profile is not private, this allows for anyone to look at your characters via the forum page which allows me to look at your gearing & skilltree and help you further.

2) If you're familiar with Discord I'd recommend popping in to my community, here: https://discord.gg/XzDUaHT. In there myself & many other veterans are helping eachother out on a daily basis.

3) Can always swing by my stream for direct help :)

Hi again!

Thanks for rapid responsea, I've changed the privacy settings now, so if you have any tips, I'll take them!

I'm connected to Discord since today too! (Though I don't know how to use it still....)

And soon I'll see you in stream too!

Good job mate!

Let's check it out then....

You are rather low lvl which makes it hard to help you out properly for the end-game which basically just requires you to follow the guide :)

I would recommend going out of MoM as it will require unreserved mana to actually function or it will be in a risk to put you in bad situations. Use the MoM calculator in the guide to see how much you need based of how much life you have and if you have 30% MoM or 40% (via CoD).

Do note that added flat spell/ele dmg only affects the initial projectile hit & not the DoT effect, same goes for Elemental Damage not affecting your damage output and you should focus on pure Spell or Chaos damage. At your lvl you could purchase the dagger "Heartbreaker" to help you out. (A response about that dagger can be seen further up in this post).

"

Antebios wrote:

"

Hey there !

First of all thanks for your wonderful build :)

There is a little something I did not understand about it tho.

Why do you take Frenetic on the passive tree ? What are those frenzy charges for ?

I tried to read your build again and again but I just can't figure it out xD

"

Hey,

My pleasure bro!

The Frenzy charges grants atk/cast as well as "more" damage to your abilities, on top of this the Ascendancy "Swift Killer" makes Frenzy & Power Charges grant additional Damage over Time per charge :)

Thanks for your fast answer !

Now I understand this a little bit more :p

So, do we have useful things in this build in order to trigger the charges ?

Not sure if I understand your question, care to elaborate?

"

Inheritedzero wrote:

Hi,

Been playing this build and it's been good with minimal investment. Actually made quite a bit of $$$.

Damage seems low though, 24.8k and with arcane surge up after 1x contagion cast it's at 28k, full buffs/flasks about 37k I think.

Damage has been good enough to do up to t14 maps, but you do notice it's a bit slow and not as efficient in t12+ with my current dmg. Sometimes I need to stop and stack blight 1 or 2x on a yellow mob or ED takes too long to kill. Full buffs my blight reads 10k~

I don't think I could do guardians, I need 6L empower/dmg at full life as sixth link. But 6L prices are dumb, 540+ chaos for defiance 6 linked. I don't feel like paying 500 chaos for 1 piece at all.

My health is 5,2k but im using healthy mind jewel for some mana making life 4.9k + .1.1k ES, because im running enfeeble + arctic armor. Almost 5k mana and 3k of that is reserved.

Survival seems no issue, I dont even look at the mods I rolled on rare maps anymore. Even no regen double boss enfeeble and additional damage on monsters is NP. I just wish I had more damage, to make it feel more smooth. 50k+ dmg would be very smooth I imagine and 80k+ just insane. I don't see how 1 additional gem (6 link) will give me 20k+ dmg though....

Also there don't seem to be that many mobs in maps anymore which is slightly annoying as ED doesn't chain as nicely at times :(

Thanks for the build.

Edit: using tabula now for easy 6L, damage only went up with 4k using +1 empower... how do people get 80k+ ED damage?

I will have to do some extensive testing to polish the build in it's end-game stage tbh. Glad you like it though, I'll do my best to optimize it as soon as time allows.

"

Hamude wrote:

Im looking for ways to improve, any tips? I managed to kill 2 guardians with this setup.

Cherrubim 6L
Essence of Envy crafted jewelleries, Honestly the gear looks solid and what you did with it :)

"

nauds3000 wrote:

Awesome build, thank you!

One question is I'm using Lifesprig wand for leveling purposes and that prevents me from using Shield Charge... should I just use Flame Dash while leveling then switch to Shield Charge when I get a good dagger? or is there a dagger option for leveling?

Hey,

Cheers!

Flame Dash is a great choice, aye :)

LvL 50 = Heartbreaker

"

Efed wrote:

Hey!
Can you tell what is best option for body armor in endgame? Cherry or CoD? which one is more influential? I almost saved up 500c. Looks like 80 chaos damage is huge, but i really dont get how much much CoD will affect my farming potential.
Also any advice for my Trickster? https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Efed/characters

Hey,

CoD for hardcore survival, Cherrrubim for bosses & softcore tbh.

I would recommend Cherrubim for you.

"

razzyc wrote:

Pierce or Empower (Lv.2)
what is better ?

and how different between Empower and Empower corrupted ?

thx

To put it this way, I generally don't recommend Empower unless it's lvl 3 or higher. However, for this build lvl 2+ actually grants damage to the build, then again, Poison does increase your singel target damage as well.

When comparing vs Pierce it's basically comparing: QoL projectiles vs a bit more damage. The choice is yours :)

"

seitosei wrote:

I was going to level a poison spectral throw character (thanks mathil) but when I started leveling I kinda just loved Ed+Contagion so much I changed my mind and started using this build. very fun!

I just hit endgame today and farming t10 comfortably, but my damage is definitely feeling like its on the lower end. I know I'm missing a few link setups, but I would appreciate any other tips to get my dps up. My character's name is PoisonSucksNow

Also why do we take cloak of defiance? From what I gather we're getting Es and 4 passive points (if we un-spec MoM) and in return we lose 64% mana, for the cost (55-70c for a 5L) This is my first season so maybe I'm missing something that makes it more valuable?

Similarly, If death's oath triggers 450 dot on kill how do you survive with it constantly ticking during mapping?

Hey,

Glad you're enjoying it!

CoD is insanely effective for defensive reasons whilst Cherrubim helps you out tons in the damage section.-

Death's Oath is alrightish but I would rather do Cherrubim over DO.

"

arkan1et wrote:

Hey there,
I am using your build and it's been going pretty well for the most part. Now I've reached the stage where I'm doing Guardians and Shaper but I yet have to slay him. I blame it on lack of mechanical expertise for now.
What I noticed is that the endgame damage of my charakter is really lacking. That might be due to the 3.0 boss changes but my old "unethical" cast while channeling chaos firestorm char melted the guardians while this one really struggles on some of them and shaper as well.

Stuff that I do have is:
21/20 ED
Level 4 Empower
+1 to all Tabula
40% more ED damage enchant

PoB says that if the enemy is hindered the dotdps of my ED is 132k which, judging by the numbers I see in this thread should be enough.
I just dont understand how every fight with a guardian is taking me 5+ minutes even though ED, blight and ~10+ wither stacks are constantly on them.

I appreciate you taking your time and I hope that you have some tips for me. Because at this point my fun is slowly fading away which might be due to the heavy investment with low payoff that I'm seeing so far.

Spoiler

PoB Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/tm9GCF4Y

Honestly, everything looks great, the main problem is the HP buff of bosses as of 3.0 I will as mentioned before have to do some extensive end-game testing to see what I can polish myself when I'm playing.

"

durew wrote:

Even though you have near our max dps for ED without going LL, guardians and shaper have a LOT of hp, and compared to other dps heavy builds, it just takes us longer :) It's the downfall of having an easy playstyle build

True true, but then again, I'd like to minimize that impact of the build :)

"

greginno wrote:

Just wanted to thank you for the helpful build guide - this turned out to be a character I enjoyed playing very much. I managed to kill Shaper deathless (for the first time!) having only modified my approach slightly from some of the interesting discussions in this thread. For anyone curious, here is how I ended up at 93:

Pastebin with jewels: https://pastebin.com/udga5Ddj

Great, thank you for showing it of! <3

Ok, i am noob but can somebody explain why there are 4 support gems linked to each other in many of your equipment builds? Am i missing something?

Can anybody link a good dagger for this build

Hey Ghazzy,

I'm loving this build, playing it as a starter in HHC. Any suggestions for my next purchase? I've saved up probably about 50c just working my way through white maps. I feel pretty safe as is - was wondering what would be a good upgrade for damage (maybe a 6L?)

Also a couple questions:

1. I noticed you recommend those unique mana jewels - How would I decide between those and some damage jewels?

2. Why do you recommend a quicksilver flask? I shield charge everywhere - would it be of any use? I'm using 2x seething divine and jade, granite, basalt right now and loving the defense utility.

Thanks for the quick response!

Is it worth leveling up the Clarity gem? It seems less mana reserved would be good, but im not sure. Seems like people who post gear are leveling up their clarity gem.

"

Nauds wrote:

Thanks for the quick response!

Is it worth leveling up the Clarity gem? It seems less mana reserved would be good, but im not sure. Seems like people who post gear are leveling up their clarity gem.

The mana regen helps out with MoM.



Great build ghazzy very fun to play, here is my current setup.



Using what i find at the moment, gonna need to stock up before i can get into crafting.

"

2. Why do you recommend a quicksilver flask? I shield charge everywhere - would it be of any use?

Shield charge's speed is increased by both attack and movespeed. Quicksilver is not a necesity tho' - it will make you move slightly faster.

I am not sure about blasphemy + enfeeble. I'm gonna run with temp chains instead.

Not so convinced about clarity and grand spectrum however I never played endgame with MoM (I leveled with it a bit in the past) so maybe I'll get over it when I'll try it out myself.

Used to play a ZO CI trickster ED before and what I never really liked was fightning bosses - it felt lame. Well we will see how it's gonna look with the new efficacy gem (I got everything 20 quality to start of).
I remember using consuming dark for poison but after the 3.0 nerf there's no point considering it anymore.

I gotta say I feel kind of weird playing a life trickster but hey - can't play the same shit every league.