[THC] 2.1 Essence Drain Shadow

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Renews wrote:

OAK - kill - kill ?

yes and added

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k1ckd0wN wrote:

Hey MannerCookie, nice Build. I only recently started playing it and I already love it.
Awesome Clearspeed and easy to Level with it.

Just a quick note on the Skilltree's:
I think there is a little mistake next to the Shadow Starting-Area. Shouldn't the pathing between "Coordination" and "Fangs of the Viper" be via "Entropy" and not "Will of Blades"?

Thanks alot for this and keep up the good work!

Yes it was an error and has been fixed

MannerCookie, great build (my 3rd go at it RIP).
Quick question on weapons. Is %spelldamage applied globally or only to the gems in the weapon? Do you use dagger instead of a wand for mobility of Whirling Blades?

Much appreciate the build.
Big fan.

"

MannerCookie wrote:

I have a pet peeve against forum rats and really can't stand them.

I also have a pet peeve agianst forum dung beetles whom propigate misinformation and vomit unprovoked / uncalled for insults. Perhaps being a math utilizing 'forum warrior /rat' whom lacks any understanding and somehow hasnt played the skill despite having hundreds of hours with it being in my primary skill slot it simply is deserved. Being such a terrible terrible human being, the toxicity is expected.

Hey manner,

I wanted to post to give my 2 cents as I sort of followed your build for my outline (ED with iron reflexes) and wanted to give some thoughts. I think overall you had the right ideas, just not the best execution, namely with utilizing Iron Reflexes and your choice of gems for ED.

I don't think that going poison/toxins is going to help your clearspeed all that much. A single cast of ED is enough to kill all mobs throughout it's duration, so for getting the most out of your clearspeed, getting the greatest AoE on contagion would be the best bet.

IF you were going IR it would have been a good idea to try to include Grace as it gives you a very good boost.

I'm currently at 70% physical damage reduction (11.5k armor) just from gear and 4 endurance charges (took charge in merci) and additionally run Arctic Armor+Chaos golem for an additional 17% physical reduction. I think that setup with your gear choice of sai/atziri boots/rathpith would make a character like this insanely tanky.

The one thing that I haven't seen anyone really figure out, and at this point I don't really think there is a solid solution, is finding a way to sustain mana without the need for a flask.

Hi,
First of all thanks for this build Manner really interesting approche, i was looking for an essence drain tanky build that you can do with a tabula. Since a play on Standard Talisman i modified the tree to have more damage and less life, i'm pretty new to theorycrafting so suggestion and critics are welcome so if anyone can take a look and tell me if it's good enough to handle tier 10 + map or give me some suggestion on it.

This is my tree at lvl 85 :



Final tree at lvl 95 :




Thanks in advance

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_Betamax_ wrote:

Hi,
First of all thanks for this build Manner really interesting approche, i was looking for an essence drain tanky build that you can do with a tabula. Since a play on Standard Talisman i modified the tree to have more damage and less life, i'm pretty new to theorycrafting so suggestion and critics are welcome so if anyone can take a look and tell me if it's good enough to handle tier 10 + map or give me some suggestion on it.

This is my tree at lvl 85 :

Spoiler

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYAsNii2cgU9W9qjBa_tNEmlcgMYeJ2glVLtUjrYxEvAx42PSsKH0Gdql3ybIwOSGKstzC0xRQJwuzb5xNtBbUqW2wIRwYmiAZwjb959vGK0NBOn1FHQzaP-np_N9QwfFLsXEDtP419fyuHyyP2Vvqnm02Sd9d1nhR1zxVbrxjb3Q108S4jFSAppSFgk5ks6UCgu56GswDueu9GtypNBS3Tbz8no-9KyFSCbqq18jWS2L3-Crc-g8w8Lcaug18LYa9saPLwH6IABLPAZjwFn9_vfPJFOuGmVw==

Final tree at lvl 95 :

Spoiler

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYAsNii2cgU9W9qjBa_tNEmlcgMYeJ2glVLtUjrYxEvAx42PSsKH0Gdql3ybIwOSGKstzC0xRQJwuzb5xNtBbUqW2wIRwYmiAZwGo2Nv3n28YrQ0E6fWyZRR0M2j_p6f3_7N9QwfFLsXEDtP419fyuHyyP2Vvqnm02Sd9d1nhR1zxVbrxjb5ebdDXTxLiOcxBUgKaUhYJOZtyIs6UCgu56GswDueu9GtypNBS3Tbz8no-907UrIVIJuqrXyNZJ4Ddi9wBr-Cm878kW3Pjrhg8ymVzwtxq6DXwthr2xo8vAfogAEs8BmPAWf3-98

Thanks in advance

If you have a tabula, empower, and a normally leveled ED your damage will be fine for a 10+ map if you're running solo and aren't doing something with +% monster health. I don't think all of the points used to go to Templar for essentially 15% increased aoe on contagion are worth it, there are plenty of other offensive/defensive nodes on the right side of the tree you could pick up instead, namely life.

You should also redo the top portion of the tree near the phys/chaos wheel to path through the life nodes rather than get extra int.

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IkeaMonkey wrote:

MannerCookie, great build (my 3rd go at it RIP).
Quick question on weapons. Is %spelldamage applied globally or only to the gems in the weapon? Do you use dagger instead of a wand for mobility of Whirling Blades?

Much appreciate the build.
Big fan.

Spell Damage% applies to all your skills

Yes dagger is not only for mobility but also gives fortify buff since it's a melee attack (whirling blades)

"

Loi wrote:

Hey manner,

I wanted to post to give my 2 cents as I sort of followed your build for my outline (ED with iron reflexes) and wanted to give some thoughts. I think overall you had the right ideas, just not the best execution, namely with utilizing Iron Reflexes and your choice of gems for ED.

I don't think that going poison/toxins is going to help your clearspeed all that much. A single cast of ED is enough to kill all mobs throughout it's duration, so for getting the most out of your clearspeed, getting the greatest AoE on contagion would be the best bet.

IF you were going IR it would have been a good idea to try to include Grace as it gives you a very good boost.

I'm currently at 70% physical damage reduction (11.5k armor) just from gear and 4 endurance charges (took charge in merci) and additionally run Arctic Armor+Chaos golem for an additional 17% physical reduction. I think that setup with your gear choice of sai/atziri boots/rathpith would make a character like this insanely tanky.

The one thing that I haven't seen anyone really figure out, and at this point I don't really think there is a solid solution, is finding a way to sustain mana without the need for a flask.

You can't run grace and blasphemy+temp chain.

People seriously underestimate how strong the blasphemy+temp chain setup is with 20/20 gems.

This 50% reserve (since adding inc/aoe as well), is literally one of my biggest defenses in the setup.

It allows me to completely avoid a lot of the damage on the maps that I run.

I would take temp chain >>>>>>>>>>>>>> grace, any day on a HC character, it is that strong.

Also clear speed is not just about how much dps you deal, this is also why people don't understand why I use poison in my tree.

It's literally one link + 3 nodes to give the build single target DPS

You don't need 30000 DPS per second when everything already dies even at the highest tier maps.

and 30000 DPS is still 30000 DPS, your single target will be horrendous (with poison you would be able to stack poison stacks+ED)

Another thing about the way ED/Contagion performs is that, killing all units on the screen instantly isn't the BEST for clear speed.

^ THIS IS EXTREMELY difficult for people to understand, and it's because people don't actually try changing their approach and are just focused solely on DPS DPS DPS.

Ideally you want all mobs to gather and move with you so you can get value on MULTIPLE packs per cast.

If you instantly kill everything on the screen, there will be no mobs chasing you that can potentially spread the ED/Contagion to nearby packs that weren't in the initial AOE range.

Here's an example in "MATH", something people enjoy.

20,000 DPS per second over 6 seconds (120,000 total damage)

would be superior to

30,000 DPS per second over 4 seconds (120,000 total damage)

WHY IS THIS?

In the end as long as the mob dies within the full duration of the DOT, it is acceptable DPS. Longer duration allows you to move dotted damages around with you and potentially spread to other mobs that will allow you to save yourself a contagion cast or an ED cast or sometimes both.

Since lower damage over longer duration is more efficient damage during map clears, poison is there to supplement it's lacking single target DAMAGE PER SECOND by amplifying it with poison stacks that are also being affected by duration nodes and the high cast speed that comes from vaal haste. The initial hits will sometimes crit as well giving larger poison stacks

This is why I say that the attackspeed/castspeed/movementspeed mod on maps is one of the best for clear speed in my setup.

Why?

Because mobs chase me extremely efficiently with the fast movement speed, but the mod really doesn't make the map more dangerous since as soon as they are in my temp chain range, they are slowed.

But when they are not in my temp chain range, they move at accelerated speeds.

Do people seriously think I haven't run slower proj and don't know about adding another multiplier?

I dropped slower proj, why?

Because it is bad for clear speed, the projectiles are so slow they are impossible to hit from distance and the DAMAGE IS NOT NEEDED.

Why do you take AOE nodes on templar side? for the exact reasons you already stated in your post... AOE is king, the templar side has great aoe nodes and GREAT life nodes, it is far superior for overall balance than the witch aoe nodes or the mana nodes in middle.

POE is a game where skills far exceed the damage they need to clear the highest content

Don't be blinded by "I must have all the DPS in the world"

There is more to the game than that if you just change the way you approach it.

I'm not sure if you read too much into my post but that long response made it seem that way.

I couldn't really see it, and can't actually do it since you respecced the character now, but what exactly was the added damage that you were getting on the ED stacking poison? I know you put a lot into proj nodes etc which I normally wouldn't do, but the base hit on ED is pretty poor (half of what fireball is) so trying to get scaling off of that seems inefficient.

For mana reasons, I didn't think that running vaal haste was going to allow you to even get many stacks of poison as it is. Groups would be one thing, but one cast of ED on bosses to kill them, as you say, is acceptable.

I guess the difference between going grace+AA+stacking evasion/armor nodes vs. your setup with blasphemy+20q temp chains is a preference. I didn't do it specifically to avoid relying on 20q gems, but personally I felt that it's safer having the mitigation on the character rather than relying solely on the temp chains. You can run the risk of off-screen damage, random explosions, revenants etc. all have the chance to hit you before you're affecting them with temp chains. Whirling blades through packs gives you fortify and applies chilled to the enemies.

There is more to the game than that if you just change the way you approach it.

Relax for a minute and just consider that fact that I understand everything you're saying and am not saying your build is bad, but rather performs well due to gear. I'm saying that I didn't think it is optimal.

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loi wrote:

I'm not sure if you read too much into my post but that long response made it seem that way.

I couldn't really see it, and can't actually do it since you respecced the character now, but what exactly was the added damage that you were getting on the ED stacking poison? I know you put a lot into proj nodes etc which I normally wouldn't do, but the base hit on ED is pretty poor (half of what fireball is) so trying to get scaling off of that seems inefficient.

For mana reasons, I didn't think that running vaal haste was going to allow you to even get many stacks of poison as it is. Groups would be one thing, but one cast of ED on bosses to kill them, as you say, is acceptable.

I guess the difference between going grace+AA+stacking evasion/armor nodes vs. your setup with blasphemy+20q temp chains is a preference. I didn't do it specifically to avoid relying on 20q gems, but personally I felt that it's safer having the mitigation on the character rather than relying solely on the temp chains. You can run the risk of off-screen damage, random explosions, revenants etc. all have the chance to hit you before you're affecting them with temp chains. Whirling blades through packs gives you fortify and applies chilled to the enemies.

There is more to the game than that if you just change the way you approach it.

Relax for a minute and just consider that fact that I understand everything you're saying and am not saying your build is bad, but rather performs well due to gear. I'm saying that I didn't think it is optimal.

I'm not mad, I gave you a thorough response since you are not the first to not see why I run what I run and you gave detailed reasoning for your questions.

Mana is 0 issue even with vaal grace up and no mana pot.

Mana is only an issue on -regen maps and only on bosses if no mana pot.

Would you prefer I gave you a short response and you understand nothing?

Like I said 20Q blasphemy+20Q temp chain is extremely under-rated.

INC AOE brings the reserve up to 49% and it's range is very good with the AOE nodes taken from the tree.

You can call it preference but I would argue that temp chain is 10x more defense than pure mitigation of grace in almost all situations in actual gameplay through dangerous map mod combos, it also requires no "armour/evasion" nodes beyond what I already have. (I have tried both grace/haste, I will often drop the blasph for haste or grace on curse immune maps)

When you can simply not get hit at all, you are taking 0 damage and even temp/blasph without quality will allow you to do that, maybe give it a try and see how it performs for you?

Hey, Manner. What do you think about 5-6l staff+kaoms heart?