(2.4) Essence drain shadow, trickster Hybrid (Budget friendly SC/HC Atziri red map viable)

So this is my take on the essence drain/contagion trickster build. I decided to play Essence drain as my first character for this league because I knew that it would scale very well into the end game and I haven't played Essence drain before.

Change Log
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-added guide
-added new video of T8 map
-upcoming: Lab run/Atrizi run and some map demos.


Pros
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-strong build
-no reflect
-budget
-can scale really high up to all content
-pretty faceroll
-smooth leveling
-pretty colors
-watch mobs melt


Cons
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-chaos damage (both uses and is bad against)
-single target is a little lacking until you get consuming dark
-requires consuming dark
-could be better optimized as low life dual curse
-can be confusing if not used to it
-is slow until you get 100% pierce


current gear at lvl 85
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Current passive at lvl 85


passive tree at lvl 100 as hybrid
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Low Life Passive tree (dual curse)
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CI passive tree


Bandits
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I killed all the bandits because I was going Hybrid. You can choose to spare Oak in normal and Kraityn in merc for the extra frenzy charge, however, if you plan to go Low life or CI Kill oak.


leveling

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Leveling this character is very straight forward. I used EK until I could get Blade Vortex then from there when I had enough Chaos and Damage over time nodes I switched over to Essence drain contagion. You want to get the pierce nodes on the tree pretty early on because they make ED feel more mechanically fun. Once you can link a 4l of ED, Controlled Destruction, Pierce and Void Manipulation then switch completely to ED.

The way you want to spec the passive tree is basically Shadow -> Witch -> templar, grabbing life/DoT AoE and Pierce then fill out the rest and move down towards the scion.

I will make a bunch of leveling trees later if anyone wants to see them.


Gem Links
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Essence Drain -> Controlled Destruction -> Pierce -> Void Manipulation -> Rapid decay -> Empower or SLower Proj

Contagion -> Inc Aoe
Whirling blades -> fortify -> faster attacks
Wither -> Spell totem -> faster casting
Vaal Grace + Vaal Discipline -> Inc Duration
CWDT -> Immortal Call -> Inc duration
Enfeeble -> Blasphemy, clarity, discipline (or just link up temp chains to blasphemy as well if you get dual curse)
Optional: Enduring cry (or Abyssal Cry) and Chaos golem if you can fit it in.

For low-life, you can run Discipline and Clarity on your life and Enfeeble, Temp chains/vuln on your mana.



Videos

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video guide (villa map): https://goo.gl/2Htetk (note: not great at talking and playing at the same time...)

T8 Rare Shore with some commentary: https://youtu.be/BV_ru7vJ5QA








Last edited by draakisback on Sep 18, 2016, 3:55:47 AM
Last bumped on Sep 30, 2016, 2:09:07 PM
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What jewels would you recommend for this build for jewel slots?

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