[3.13] [SSF] Essence Drain Beastmode || Ultimate Guide to Solo Self Found

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SirShmeckle wrote:

Sorry in above post it wasn't watchers eye it was Glorious Vanity to be socketed near Mind over Matter

I'd love to check your character out, but your characters are set to private. Can you change that setting in your profile, please? ;-)

This is the build I needed to kick off my SSF career. Thank you. Things are going very well.

I have made my character public. Thanks again for taking a look!

Characters set to public. Thanks for taking the time to help me. Also if you have any recommendations for single target DPS. Thanks again

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SirShmeckle wrote:

Characters set to public. Thanks for taking the time to help me. Also if you have any recommendations for single target DPS. Thanks again

Alrighty, let's get to it! I can see some good stuff already, but here's some feedback on your character:

1) No anointment on Solstice Vigil yet. You have several options here. Hunter's Gambit and Dirty Technique provide about 6% more DoT. If you want a cheaper option you should look into Prodigal Perfection

2) If you are using a Stygian Vise, get one with life + chance to gain Phasing on kill. Will help a great deal while mapping if you don't use a Quartz flask (which is a good flask to run this season, with Delirium and all that)

3) If you are going for a Hubris circlet, try to get one with some life on it as well. Otherwise, The Vertex is a great helmet. It'll provide some extra ES and boosts your Evasion rating from 24.5k to 28.4k.

4) You really need to work on your flask setup. There are several things you always want to be present on your flasks. Right now there's no immunities to Freeze and Curses and that can really screw you over in some maps. Also, I don't see any quality on your flasks, so you have 20% less flask uptime. Check back to the Flask part of my guide for pointers. :)

5) Conqueror's Potency doesn't do much for the build. Probably a leftover from leveling the character?

6) The most important thing you have to change about your equipment is your bow. Right now you have about 300k DPS on your Essence Drain. Chaos DoT Over Time Multiplier will boost your DPS by 24%. Add +2 to Socketed Support Gems to the mix and you end up with 65% more damage (from 300k to 500k). If you want to go all the way on investment on your bow, get a 6-linked Maraketh Bow as a base and craft the bow as explained in the build guide (+10% movement speed)

Other stuff will happen in due time. If you level ED to 20 and Empower to 3 you get another 20% DPS actually. :P

Thanks for this in depth response. I know i am pretty limited on currency.

I improved all my quality on my flask, definitely and over sight on my part. However in attempting to get the immune to freeze and curse i have run out of orbs of alt so I cant re roll them further.

What flask do you recommend taking out to use the Quartz flask??

I have annoitted my amulet as well as crafted the budget version of the bow just to increase my damage a little. I have all the crafting recipes I just need the 2 ex in order to do the +2 crafted mods etc.

I will keep and eye out for the Stygian vise. Any other belt you recommend?

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SirShmeckle wrote:

Thanks for this in depth response. I know i am pretty limited on currency.

I improved all my quality on my flask, definitely and over sight on my part. However in attempting to get the immune to freeze and curse i have run out of orbs of alt so I cant re roll them further.

What flask do you recommend taking out to use the Quartz flask??

I have annoitted my amulet as well as crafted the budget version of the bow just to increase my damage a little. I have all the crafting recipes I just need the 2 ex in order to do the +2 crafted mods etc.

I will keep and eye out for the Stygian vise. Any other belt you recommend?

Don't forget you need 2ex for the multimod and 2ex for the +2 support gems!

If you are looking into upgrading your belt slot, unless you have a good Stygian + a good jewel you should just get a Leather Belt with +130 total max life or more. If you add quality to that belt you can easily get 150-160 flat life out of that slot, which is a lot.

I'd probably get rid of the Granite Flask in favor of a Quartz Flask.

Good thing you are working on your flasks. Those are one of the most important parts of any build, so it's worth investing some time to optimize your setup. :)

Im tracking all the upgrades I need. Ill finish off my flasks upgrade the belt and bow.

Regarding the passive skill tree, you recommend glorious vanity gem socketed under mind of matter. but on the POB you dont have mind over matter selected. is the current pob still the best.

Im still searching for the face melt damage. As I said I have reaching a plateau, and most of the upgrades you recommend are sustain / survivability. Outside of that new bow which only will add maybe 20% more damage what is your gem and skill set up for bosses.

Clearing is fine, I can clear T16 pretty well, some packs are slow but the boss damage is so slow. Wondering if you had a recommended single target set up??

Thanks again. I just watch your video of the guardians and elder and you melt them while i struggle with the last fight of crusaders!! haha

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SirShmeckle wrote:

Im tracking all the upgrades I need. Ill finish off my flasks upgrade the belt and bow.

Regarding the passive skill tree, you recommend glorious vanity gem socketed under mind of matter. but on the POB you dont have mind over matter selected. is the current pob still the best.

Im still searching for the face melt damage. As I said I have reaching a plateau, and most of the upgrades you recommend are sustain / survivability. Outside of that new bow which only will add maybe 20% more damage what is your gem and skill set up for bosses.

Clearing is fine, I can clear T16 pretty well, some packs are slow but the boss damage is so slow. Wondering if you had a recommended single target set up??

Thanks again. I just watch your video of the guardians and elder and you melt them while i struggle with the last fight of crusaders!! haha

Essence Drain gets the most DPS increase from gem levels and reducing enemy chaos resistance. Thus, if you want to really up your damage, having a level 21 ED, a level 3+ Empower, the caster bow (+1 gems / +2 supports) and keeping the Wither stacks on enemies at a maximum (which is 15) is imperative. Everything else is flask management and playing the build right.

On another note: boss life and chaos resistance has been adjusted since I recorded those videos. Bosses are tougher nowadays! :)

My build makes sure you get a good balance between defenses and offense. However, if you want to go glasscannon, you can get rid of the TC aura and switch out the Solstice Vigil (120c right now) for a hunter amulet with +1 chaos gems and DoT multiplier.

Glorious Vanity isn't supported by Path of Building. The Doriyani mod is awesome since it provides 20% of max life as extra ES. Great QoL with how Ghost Shrouds and Essence Drain interact, so still a recommendation from me.

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ArtCrusade wrote:

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SirShmeckle wrote:

Im tracking all the upgrades I need. Ill finish off my flasks upgrade the belt and bow.

Regarding the passive skill tree, you recommend glorious vanity gem socketed under mind of matter. but on the POB you dont have mind over matter selected. is the current pob still the best.

Im still searching for the face melt damage. As I said I have reaching a plateau, and most of the upgrades you recommend are sustain / survivability. Outside of that new bow which only will add maybe 20% more damage what is your gem and skill set up for bosses.

Clearing is fine, I can clear T16 pretty well, some packs are slow but the boss damage is so slow. Wondering if you had a recommended single target set up??

Thanks again. I just watch your video of the guardians and elder and you melt them while i struggle with the last fight of crusaders!! haha

Essence Drain gets the most DPS increase from gem levels and reducing enemy chaos resistance. Thus, if you want to really up your damage, having a level 21 ED, a level 3+ Empower, the caster bow (+1 gems / +2 supports) and keeping the Wither stacks on enemies at a maximum (which is 15) is imperative. Everything else is flask management and playing the build right.

On another note: boss life and chaos resistance has been adjusted since I recorded those videos. Bosses are tougher nowadays! :)

My build makes sure you get a good balance between defenses and offense. However, if you want to go glasscannon, you can get rid of the TC aura and switch out the Solstice Vigil (120c right now) for a hunter amulet with +1 chaos gems and DoT multiplier.

Glorious Vanity isn't supported by Path of Building. The Doriyani mod is awesome since it provides 20% of max life as extra ES. Great QoL with how Ghost Shrouds and Essence Drain interact, so still a recommendation from me.

All makes sense, How do you recommend keeping the maximum wither stacks on the bosses? Do you prefer spell totem support linked to wither. Or do you prefer Withering step? or just the plane skill of wither that requires you to channel??