my writeup on why essencedrain/contagion sucks

I am putting this here because honestly i dont want it getting buried in the feedback thread, if it gets moved so be it.

I have leveled a witch with essence drain and contagion up to level 61 so far and it has been so unenjoyable, I have been putting a lot of thought into why and finally came up with an answer.

First off the amount of effort it takes to do damage compared to the normal spam abilities just isnt worth it.

To take out a white pack I need to cast contagion, essence drain. then I need to pray that one of the mobs that wasnt in the contagion aoe doesnt take the essence drain (which happens a lot) If it gets hit i need to essence drain again. Then it takes 1-2 seconds for the white mobs to melt. In the time it takes to do this I could had casted 1-2 aoe abilities the mobs would be dead and I would have had 2 seconds to spare.

For all that effort to use a combo ability there should be some kind of reward I feel like, instead i keep feeling that im being punished.


On blue/yellow packs you need to contagion/essence drain/curse/wither totem. Then even if it all hits perfectly it takes around 3-4 seconds sometimes more for the whole pack to melt compared to a normal spam ability killing them in seconds. Dont even get me started on bosses.


The next HUGE problem for this build is a lack of space for defensive abilities. You need 3 slots for wither totem (wither,faster casting, spell totem), 2 slots for contagion (contagion increased aoe), 4-6 slots for the main ability essence drain, then slots for your curses. Most spam builds only need room for the curses and the spam ability leaving plenty of space to fit in survival based abilities.

Lastly sustain is a joke with chaos based abilities, essence drains life regen is a joke and you cant leech from these abilities with life leech and such.


Anyone else feel the same way? The amount of effort needed to do this build is punishing compared to a normal spam build.

I'm enjoying it hell I can stream if you want lol

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I'm enjoying it hell I can stream if you want lol

Only if you have webcam, Kappa.

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I'm enjoying it hell I can stream if you want lol

what level are you

I've been doing ED since like the beginning of the level when I got it? So I've been doing the ED /contagion thing for about since 76?

It's pretty good.

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I've been doing ED since like the beginning of the level when I got it? So I've been doing the ED /contagion thing for about since 76?

It's pretty good.

how do you survive while it ticks away though? my experience has been as im casting the abilities i get surrounded of course i run but if ED misses it takes forever to recast and it gets interupted so easily.

so your experience has been good and mine has been so bad that ive essentially quit this season all together. How about other people?

Level 73 Chaos Contagion Shadow here...

I've been enjoying the hell out of it. I'm not sure what you are doing wrong, but to me contagion is insanely powerful if you know how to use it.

The only real annoyance is invulnerable mobs/totems where it's hard to target the individual target.

Defense is not hard...you just have to think outside the box a little bit. I'm doing maps 3-4 levels above me and not struggling at all. This isn't exactly a CWDT type of build.

I'm not even fully DPS'd out and my tool tip ED right now is at 12.5K/s. (not super amazing...but not bad considering the levels of my gems - 16).

The key to the build (in my opinion) is clever use of blasphemy and curses. Curses are huge in this build. Once you understand the interaction between Temporal Chains and DoTs and realize the full power of enfeeble, the build really comes into it's own.

After multiplers, my actual DPS is somewhere around the 22K/s. I'll probably end up around 30Kish with 4K life/+some small amount of ES.

I'm literally strolling through maps untouched for the most part.

The build is super engaging to me.

It's fun, challenging, and damn cheap to gear (since there is no real gear dependency at all).

I'm with I_NO on this.

"

Level 73 Chaos Contagion Shadow here...

I've been enjoying the hell out of it. I'm not sure what you are doing wrong, but to me contagion is insanely powerful if you know how to use it.

The only real annoyance is invulnerable mobs/totems where it's hard to target the individual target.

Defense is not hard...you just have to think outside the box a little bit. I'm doing maps 3-4 levels above me and not struggling at all. This isn't exactly a CWDT type of build.

I'm not even fully DPS'd out and my tool tip ED right now is at 12.5K/s. (not super amazing...but not bad considering the levels of my gems - 16).

The key to the build (in my opinion) is clever use of blasphemy and curses. Curses are huge in this build. Once you understand the interaction between Temporal Chains and DoTs and realize the full power of enfeeble, the build really comes into it's own.

After multiplers, my actual DPS is somewhere around the 22K/s. I'll probably end up around 30Kish with 4K life/+some small amount of ES.

I'm literally strolling through maps untouched for the most part.

The build is super engaging to me.

It's fun, challenging, and damn cheap to gear (since there is no real gear dependency at all).

I'm with I_NO on this.

the problem with blasphemy for me is how short range the curse auras are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FIQh5fY42Y

I found this interesting.

While I am still lower level, I can see fairly clearly how the mechanics work and why they'd continue to work into higher end play. I think if you're just after clear speed with minimal skill management, Chaos DoT is probably not the way to go.

Might I suggest:

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Blade_Vortex?