Essence Drain

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Jess_GGG wrote:

Post your feedback for this skill here!

Make sure you concisely state your character build, level, and other complimenting abilities you have when you talk about a skill - The more we know about your character, the better we can understand your feedback.

League: Talisman Softcore
Level: 78
Build: Chaos Caster
6L Essence drain - Void Mani - Rapid Dec - Controlled Destruction - Faster Proj - Slower Proj
4L Contagion - Faster Cast - Inc Aoe - Inc Duration
Curse: Vulnerability on Blasphemy

Overall: the new mechanic of how essence drain and contagion work is novel and I'm enjoying that concept. However, it seems very gimmicky to get things rolling. First, the cast speed and respective cooldowns are ultra slow. There are periods of time where I am just standing around waiting for essence drain to hit. Second, the projectile speed compounds to this effect. The idea is there (it could be my build) or the gem concepts but getting reliable clear speed/kill speed is tough to do. When it does hit, it doesn't seem to reliably proliferate the effect.

The other thing that is really frustrating is the following scenario. Cast contagion, cast essence drain, monster runs in front of affected monsters. No proliferation happens. Scramble running around to hit contagion + essence drain while you get beat up.

Things that might improve the experience. Perhaps contagion could have a greater radius or faster cast speed. Perhaps essence drain could have multi projectiles or pierce to help with this.

I'm not entirely sure what the solution is, but the gimmicky feeling is making me want to swap out. I've played the build since level 4 and have really tried to figure out ways to make it work. Any feedback from the community is welcome too.

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armyguyclaude wrote:

LVL 58 now.

Using

So far GMP has been a Godsend. I use to 1shot pretty much any white mob pack within 1-2 seconds, blues in 2-3, yellows in 2-4, and uniques in 3-4.

Been using

As backup damage. But rarely do I need it.

Using

As extra poison dmg since all of my skills are based around chaos dmg. More Dots, More Chaos = Dead enemies.

Using

As auras. This way I never need to cast my debuffs.

Rarely do I ever notice that my Aura range is "Not Long Enough".

Can't wait to get Bino's Kitchen Knife to test better regen options.

Playing in softcore atm, but only after I got

do I notice the real power of this build.

would like to suggest you try fastercast+aoe contagion and then shoot single projectile drain in, contagion isnt really meant to damage and im 99% sure it's degen doesnt stack with drain either, its just there for the debuff to spread

in general, quick guide to aoe clear (since a lot seem to use it differently and being disappointed)

cast contagion on a pack or 2/make it overlap, then hit a mob of that marked pack with drain, the drain target dies and spreads drain to all other contagion marked targets

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Vipermagi wrote:

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Giniyo wrote:

would like to suggest you try fastercast+aoe contagion and then shoot single projectile drain in, contagion isnt really meant to damage and im 99% sure it's degen doesnt stack with drain either, its just there for the debuff to spread

It's about 85% common knowledge that Damage over Time from different sources does stack. I am 100% certain that Essence Drain is not Contagion, and thus they are different sources, and their Damage over Time stacks.

:P

i never saw a difference even though contagion most times was 1/5 of drain's damage

and.. really? i dont think if you were to play 6player everyone caustic arrow that clouds would stack either, the strongest wins

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OnmyojiOmn wrote:

It's too bad people are so resistant to the idea of skill synergy.

It isn't skill synergy that's the problem. It's that the combo is too slow, and really only works in solo. Once group play comes about, this combo is worthless. Enemies tend to die before you can even hit them with ED after Contagion. Even if you don't hit with contagion and just fire off ED, without faster projectiles, it's just far too slow to even hit a target that isn't a boss. MAYBE a yellow, if you're lucky.

So it isn't that people are resistant to skill synergy, it's that this is a good idea with poor execution.

It doesn't work with CWDT. Is it a bug or intended?

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Piromane wrote:

It doesn't work with CWDT. Is it a bug or intended?

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Rory wrote:

We're going to be shortly allowing this skill to work while triggered, and in the long term it will work with traps and mines. For now, it won't spread correctly when used with these supports, and has some other issues we need to work through before Traps and Mines work correctly.

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Tyroki wrote:

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OnmyojiOmn wrote:

It's too bad people are so resistant to the idea of skill synergy.

It isn't skill synergy that's the problem. It's that the combo is too slow, and really only works in solo. Once group play comes about, this combo is worthless. Enemies tend to die before you can even hit them with ED after Contagion. Even if you don't hit with contagion and just fire off ED, without faster projectiles, it's just far too slow to even hit a target that isn't a boss. MAYBE a yellow, if you're lucky.

So it isn't that people are resistant to skill synergy, it's that this is a good idea with poor execution.

This +1

Cast speed of Essence Drain and contagion is far too high in particular for Essence Drain because not only it's slow to cast but the projectile itself is slow as hell.
The end result is that you need to cast it twice to eventually get one hit (in the meantime all the enemies already reached you and you are in harms way) but then you also have to cast contagion in the first place which is also slow as hell to cast.
Without a very high increase duration (i'm working on that) the end result is that contagion has already ended or it about to end.

You then have to recast it but of course then Essence drain has not finished it's job. It goes most of the time that circle

I'm working on increased duration, pierce and multiproj and chance to flee to get things going but in that end i might lack the DPS...

It needs a buff either cast speed, or projectile speed or anything.

Very underwhelming as it is right now