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

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unhappymeal a écrit :

A big thank you to the original poster. He was not lying that this build is incredibly smooth from cradle to grave all while without trading. I just finished the campaign, started mapping and found my very first Exalted Orb. A few questions:

1. Aside from needing obvious gear upgrades in the head and gloves slot. What should I be using this exalted orb towards? Should it be for the jewel that converts life to ES or should I save it to start crafting a bow?

2. What should I be looking for in a wand? Right now I have one with +spell damage and +1 chaos gems. Is there any obvious upgrade?

3. Some metamorphs are insta-gibbing me, should I ditch the second wand and start hunting for a nice shield?

Lastly, this is a compliment: this build has ruined other builds for me. I didn't realize how slow my melee characters and self-casters were at clearing until I tried this build.

Hey there and thanks for the kind words!

I'd suggest you keep the exalt for later when you're making the investment into the bow.

Priorities for wand: +1 Chaos Gems > % Chaos Multiplier > DoT Multiplier > Regular Chaos or Spell Damage

A good shield will provide you a lot of ES & Life as well as give you necessary resistances, so I'd recommend a shield before you make the switch to bows.

Glad you're enjoying the build so far! Let me know if you're running into any further trouble. :)

Hey ArtCrusade.

I read your guide and you seem to be quite experienced with building ED/contagion.

I've already levled my char using a different guide, but noticed that the passive trees are nearly identical - just yours having the life node cluster near Scion, while mine went for Acrobatics + Phase Acrobatics.

Most difference is in some of the unique gear and gem setups.

The build I followed went for Mind over Matter with cloak of defiance (which also offers high eva for the ascendancy bonus ES) - combined with Eldritch Battery from the helmet as the main damage mitigation (+ the dodge from acrobatics). So splitting the damage between life and the ES-protected mana.

I guess yours is more reliably tanky with non-reduced ES amount (no acrobatics) protecting Life, and having overall much bigger amount of both, though it also needs to stand in place more often when channeling blight.

I rarely die cause I can pretty much move all the time and dodge, while my blight (+wither jewel) totems keep applying blight and staking wither on bosses. If some attack hits me hard once in a while, I usually survive it thanks to the 40% MoM.

My dps seems to be a bit on the low side though from reading here. Not sure how much of that is cause I'm lacking 6L and a lv3 or lv4 empower gem, and how much cause of using 2 wands instead of bow with gem lv+ rolls (..which is currently beyond my budget).

On Essence Drain the tooltip for damage over time per second says slightly over 200k. Though playing with it feels fine - clearing T16 maps easily even rare corrupted with bad mods (just having to be a bit careful there). The unique bosses and metamporphs may not die super fast, but I kinda expect that from bosses - dodging around them while killing them. But probably gonna be a bigger struggle if I end up fighting the harder conquerors or end game bosses.

Most monster packs die instantly to the contag + ED, when they don't (chaos res blue packs, rares, or other mods that make them tankier) I throw a Bane (with Despair + Temp Chains) on them after ed/contag and then they're gone quickly - or drop my Blight totems on them which also tends to clear them quickly.

So.. reason I'm posting this here in your thread, is to ask if you'd be willing to take a peek at my char / build and give me advice on anything I could improve? Just if you have the time and it isn't a bother.

My main worry is dealing with endgame bosses and the seemingly low dps. On the other hand I see another guy in the topic having 500k dps and struggling with T16 Maps, while I'm doing fine there - even with metamorphs. Will it make a big difference once I manage to get 6L with Empower? I'd imagine +2 (or +3) to the level of Essence Drain and all its support gems will make quite an impact, just not sure how big.

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schattenwulf a écrit :

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While the passive trees might look much alike (which is due to the fact that all chaos DoT builds go for chaos multis etc. etc.), the builds are very different from one another.

There's actually a list of things that don't quite add up to me, where I'm not sure if that's just the build you're following or your own doing:

- you use Witchfire Brew but have Despair in Bane setup anyway. Could use another damaging support here
- your wand doesn't have +1 to chaos gems (bows are overall the better choice no matter what you put here anyway tho; right now you're dual-weilding and still have less DPS than a character with a bow)
- you have no means of replenishing your mana outside of 75 mana regen and killing enemies. If you're going the MoM route you have to have a mana flask somewhere
- you are using a Chaos Golem -> why? you have about 5% phys damage reduction. Definitely not worht the slot

Style choices:

I personally have tested Blight totems and find them lackluster at best. You have a 4-link that'll apply Withered stacks quite quickly, which is of course good. But to put things in comparison: my self-cast Blight adds 4x as much damage as your totems. Against Shaper, your Blight totem will have about 200k Shaper DPS and your ED about 400k. My ED has about 800k and my Blight adds another 900k. Infusion Support boosts your ED as well so it's overall just a really good source of damage. I'm using Spreading Rot as well, but I decided to split Wither stack application between the Wither totem and Blight, because Wither keeps the hinder going longer than Blight and it's more consistent.

The actually easiest thing for you to increase your DPS would be to craft a bow. Much easier to get a 6-link and more DPS. ^^

Do you need iLVL 80 bow that you can craft +2 Supports on bow?

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ArtCrusade a écrit :

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unhappymeal a écrit :

A big thank you to the original poster. He was not lying that this build is incredibly smooth from cradle to grave all while without trading. I just finished the campaign, started mapping and found my very first Exalted Orb. A few questions:

1. Aside from needing obvious gear upgrades in the head and gloves slot. What should I be using this exalted orb towards? Should it be for the jewel that converts life to ES or should I save it to start crafting a bow?

2. What should I be looking for in a wand? Right now I have one with +spell damage and +1 chaos gems. Is there any obvious upgrade?

3. Some metamorphs are insta-gibbing me, should I ditch the second wand and start hunting for a nice shield?

Lastly, this is a compliment: this build has ruined other builds for me. I didn't realize how slow my melee characters and self-casters were at clearing until I tried this build.

Hey there and thanks for the kind words!

I'd suggest you keep the exalt for later when you're making the investment into the bow.

Priorities for wand: +1 Chaos Gems > % Chaos Multiplier > DoT Multiplier > Regular Chaos or Spell Damage

A good shield will provide you a lot of ES & Life as well as give you necessary resistances, so I'd recommend a shield before you make the switch to bows.

Glad you're enjoying the build so far! Let me know if you're running into any further trouble. :)

Thanks for the recommendations! I picked up a Heretic's Veil on the cheap and that alone was a massive boost so survival. I went from 24% chance to evade to 48%. How much ES should I be looking for in a shield? Also, should I be looking for one with +spell damage to mitigate the loss of my second +chaos gem level wand?

Lastly, is it worth dropping any of the keystones/jewel slots (e.g. Whispers of Doom) to get Arcane Guarding/Swiftness?

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ArtCrusade a écrit :

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schattenwulf a écrit :

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Thanks for taking a look!

Most of it I can explain cause it make sense to me. The chaos golem I'm not sure about cause it was part of the guide - I guess the 1 gem slot just didn't have any better use and its basically free damage reduction (however small, it may differ between a one-shot and barely surviving) and an extra target for enemies. Is a bit annoying to re-summon, but got used to it. Though the same guide also said to use Discipline Aura in the helmet sockets (less mana reserved, +1 level) but there I decided against it cause the mana it reserved was still a notably bigger amount than the ES it offered, and with eldritch battery my ES and Mana are basically equal when it comes to taking hits - so sacrificing more for less seems bad.

I did try a wand with +1 chaos gem levels before (couldn't find any that had that + chaos multi), but when I swapped it around with another wand that had about the same stats but a chaos multi mod instead of +1 chaos spell levels, I actually had more dps with the chaos multi wand. (was earlier in the league. now there are some +1 gem wands with chaos multi, usually crafted, but costing 1ex or more).

Am still kinda on budget and need to save up if I wanna craft such a bow, but guess I will get started on it once my empower reaches lv3 - since the main appeal for starting on the bow would be the 6L at first until I can do multi-mod / support-gem mod and afford it too.

The things that don't add up to you are due to the inherently different playstyle, I think. With self casting blight, your build is used to be up close and personal with bosses - thus having blasphemy curse and making use of witchfire brew's despair aura. Also requiring the bigger pool of EHP cause needing to survive more hits at a time.

The way I play is much more distant. I always keep enemies at range from me, constantly moving and dashing about so I rarely take any hits - and if something hits me, its dodged quite often. Since I'm at range, blasphemy or the witchfire aura aren't really usable - I only use the potion for the increased chaos over time damage, and thus still need to apply Despair at range with my Bane. Though.. not sure how far the range of witchfire's Despair goes. Might be able to do as you suggest, in exchange for playing a bit riskier to keep bosses in the Despair range.

Mana regen doesn't really matter and rarely comes into play - if I take a hit, it gets mainly taken from Life and energy shield. My skill costs are also paid from ES most of the time. When I do take a big hit to the point that my ES is gone and my Mana empty (which rarely ever happens so far) I back away a bit, or just pop my Sorrow of the Divine + Life flask which heals both my Life and ES at the same time. The Mana mostly just serves as a cushion for blows that take out all of the ES.

The blight totems are also because of this stay-safe-at-range approach. Can just drop totems near the boss and refresh them when they die, while keeping my save distance and dodging stuff - they also make for additional targets the boss may aim for. Applying my Bane curses from a distance. Throwing essence drain from a distance. It's all about getting hit as rarely as possible, avoiding taking damage at all most of the time rather than building up enough defensive to survive regular hits.

I'm really not very experienced with builds, so I usually just follow a guide - doing minor personal adjustments towards the end of it when they feel right to me. And as I said, it feels fine for playing. Just guess the stats / numbers aren't optimal - and maybe not optimal for getting the most value out of each skill.

But I do find it interesting to discuss and see different points of view from different builds, also welcoming the advice. Definitely going to try crafting such an ED bow once I have the means to do so.

(sorry for the lots of text, hope you find it somewhat interesting or at least mildly amusing ^^)

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Makek93 a écrit :

Do you need iLVL 80 bow that you can craft +2 Supports on bow?

You can craft it on any bow, but +2 Support Gems will make the minimum level to equip it be 64.

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unhappymeal a écrit :

Thanks for the recommendations! I picked up a Heretic's Veil on the cheap and that alone was a massive boost so survival. I went from 24% chance to evade to 48%. How much ES should I be looking for in a shield? Also, should I be looking for one with +spell damage to mitigate the loss of my second +chaos gem level wand?

Lastly, is it worth dropping any of the keystones/jewel slots (e.g. Whispers of Doom) to get Arcane Guarding/Swiftness?

A good shield will provide 200 ES and 80+ life, but budget is key here. If you can get one with +1 chaos gems though that'll be juicy for your DPS

Whispers of Doom is worth a lot for us since it enables the double curse setup. I used Arcane Guarding/Swiftness while leveling the character and later specc'd out of it. I didn't specc into some of the life nodes for it, though.

I am wondering how is it possible that I have almost similiar "total increase" and "total more" in my dmg calcs and still I am missing 50% of dmg.


MINE


YOURS

Finally.. had really shitty luck with the anullments. 6x it removed the +1 to gem levels. Now gotta save up the 4 ex for multimod and +2 to support gem levels. (..as well as getting the recipes)

Though I guess since multi-mod is limited to 2 extra mods I didn't really need to anull since I probably won't be getting any proper mods beyond the non-rng multimod crafts .. and getting +1 gem levels as well as over-time multiplier together seems impossible without tons of luck (only saw the over-time multiplier once in 500 alterations).