[LHC] 2.6 Ramona's CI Essence Drain

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BalefulStar wrote:

I'm curious is there a point where high end vaal regalia outweights The Skin?

When you just look at damage the Skin beats a Vaal every time since it provides +1 to gems.
When you look at defences even a low 600 ES Vaal provides more ES than the Skin.

I would call it a draw but what makes the Skin so useful for this build are the socket colors.
You need 3 green, 2 blue and 1 red and that isnt far from easy to get on a Vaal.
You need a high level Vorici and still can spend several 100 Chroms to get that.

All in all the Skin is the "cheaper" option here.

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Xirce wrote:

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BalefulStar wrote:

I'm curious is there a point where high end vaal regalia outweights The Skin?

When you just look at damage the Skin beats a Vaal every time since it provides +1 to gems.
When you look at defences even a low 600 ES Vaal provides more ES than the Skin.

I would call it a draw but what makes the Skin so useful for this build are the socket colors.
You need 3 green, 2 blue and 1 red and that isnt far from easy to get on a Vaal.
You need a high level Vorici and still can spend several 100 Chroms to get that.

All in all the Skin is the "cheaper" option here.

let's say that the skin of the loyal is a must for softcore players (imho), I'm sitting at nearly 13k ES and with two more easy upgrades I can raise to 14k, it's sufficient to do endgame content, I'd never trade the DPS from the skin for more ES.
in HC you may want to go safer and opt for an high ES regalia if you don't want to go low life, but keep in mind that endgame bosses like Shaper, Uber Atziri, Chayula are still dangerous because some of their hits (ray, slam, flameblast etc.) will still oneshot you if you don't dodge them properly, and even 3k more ES won't help much, you just want more dps to get the job done as soon as possible :)
so, yes, either you go low life or with soul strike and a decay bow, or skin of the loyal is best in slot for me :)

hey man how would you recomend playing this in ssd softcore
can't seem to make my mind up on lvling skills etc

thanks in advance

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R1N1X wrote:

hey man how would you recomend playing this in ssd softcore
can't seem to make my mind up on lvling skills etc

thanks in advance

Hi R1N1X,

For early leveling can use something simple like Firestorm.
All of these gems should be obtainable through Siosa aside from Enhance.

Hi, can I ask what gem links would you swap to if you use profane vile bastion instead of tricurse?

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DemirothII wrote:

Hi, can I ask what gem links would you swap to if you use profane vile bastion instead of tricurse?

Hi Demirothll,

Maybe a CWDT setup if you aren't using one already.
I personally have never chosen Vile Bastion over Tricurse so I cannot really say.

Hi,
i am doing very similar build and everything is going fine at my lvl 80 (Uber Izaro, maps etc) except only one thing -BREACHES. I ve obeserved that is not easy to farm them and survive using Essence drain+contagion

Has anyone faced the same problems?

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albatrossfly wrote:

Hi,
i am doing very similar build and everything is going fine at my lvl 80 (Uber Izaro, maps etc) except only one thing -BREACHES. I ve obeserved that is not easy to farm them and survive using Essence drain+contagion

Has anyone faced the same problems?

Yea, i faced the same issue.

It really made me think to drop this build.
Dont get me wrong, this build is fantastic but the whole Contagion + Essence Drain mechanic felt more and more clunky to me.

I lost all the fun with Breaches and rather tried to avoid them.
Around level 80 it was clear to me that i had to switch to a different build.

Fortunatly the changes to the Tree and gear investment was minimal and now Breaches are fun again, especially with a Monsters from Beyond topping. :)

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Xirce wrote:

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albatrossfly wrote:

Hi,
i am doing very similar build and everything is going fine at my lvl 80 (Uber Izaro, maps etc) except only one thing -BREACHES. I ve obeserved that is not easy to farm them and survive using Essence drain+contagion

Has anyone faced the same problems?

Yea, i faced the same issue.

It really made me think to drop this build.
Dont get me wrong, this build is fantastic but the whole Contagion + Essence Drain mechanic felt more and more clunky to me.

I lost all the fun with Breaches and rather tried to avoid them.
Around level 80 it was clear to me that i had to switch to a different build.

Fortunatly the changes to the Tree and gear investment was minimal and now Breaches are fun again, especially with a Monsters from Beyond topping. :)

what are you playing now? :)

anyway until now I'm not having troubles with breaches in mapping or vs breachlords and their realms, the build is a bit slow in burst damage and mapping of course, but it's very safe and good in single target.
I've done all the endgame stuff, rare corrupted t15, corrupted guardians more than once and vaal temple, uber lab, atziri, shaper, breachlords...
like Ramona said, you need good gear and levels for certain bosses, but compared to my old life based elementalist, the occultist wins.
here is my actual gear:

I swap pierce with slower projectiles vs bosses who don't add a lot of spawns which gives me roughly 3000 dps more. I use a jewel to overcap resistances in elemental weakness maps, a Dream Fragments for Tul bossfight and for t15-t16 bosses when on chilled ground mod, and swap temporal chains and enfeeble for arctic armour and clarity/purity of lightning.
my total ES is 14170 (with low ES fingerless silk gloves, it can raise to 14500 or 15000 with even better gear) and my actual dps is like 41500 with pierce (44830 with slower projectiles), adding the decay dps which stands at 27k with pierce.
you can check my level 95 occultist in my character tab on my profile to see the passive tree, I took Sovereignity to drop heretic's veil and have more ES and resistances, having 180 unreserved mana with a bit of mana regen and a mana pot it's fine (you can free up to 220 mana with a level 4 enlighten).
Until GGG doesn't nerf anything, Essence drain feels a safe and pretty cheap build overall

Yes agree with all the comments)
The build is indeed very "solid" somewahat defensive-like and personally i like it.

Yesterday i leveled to 90, am running tri-curse setup using Heretic veil. I have only 12,3 K energy shield pool and the damage is approximately 7000 (spell itself) + 17 000 (dot) with pierce support. Obviously that my damage is a bit low since i have only 5 link Regalia with standard gem setup. Thus, i need to corrupt ess. drain to level 21, make other gems 20/20 and find a 800+ six-link regalia for inclusion of slower projectiles. To my opinion the damage will be somewhat 12 k(spell)+ 25-30 k (dot)
and 15 k shield can be attained easily with good gear.

Breaches on red maps are problematic for me. I can farm breaches on yellow maps and even remove chayula eye for bisco on white low-tier maps. Hope that the damage boost solves the problem.