[Possible 3.0 Update Coming SOON!]"Dbum's Occultist Essence Drain/Decay with a F***ing Bow!"

Vortex is really nice. I was obliterating 8's and 9's last night with almost no trouble. The jewelry swap was a great ehp boost. I'm sitting at 8500 ES w/o discipline and around 17.5k ED damage, but that's with pierce over slower proj (which I need to add back in). I'm still missing a ton of aoe radius because I don't have a 5L and I'm also gonna snag a Vaal lightning trap and see if that helps clear speed. My resists aren't quite capped so I'm mulling over using purity of elements because I had no survivability issues at 8500 ES. But 10k is so nice.

I'm still leaning towards dropping contagion entirely. Maybe that will change when I start looking at 11+ maps.

does this build struggle past t13? is it uber lab/atziri viable? shaper? will it have the dmg?

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I did an uber lab carry last night at ~85. Wasn't ever really in any danger of dying. Blink arrow made the fight pretty easy to just dot and kite. I think it is way better than flame dash.

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Ragnar0kkr wrote:

does this build struggle past t13? is it uber lab/atziri viable? shaper? will it have the dmg?

Uberdan did Shaper on hardcore with a very similar build (same concept of bow + decay but just different passives). He has like 38k degen/sec though so his gear is god tier, but it's still doable with much less. There's also a picture of someone doing Atziri at level 72 in this thread so it's definitely strong.

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awesome thanks guys did you run that as assassin?

I much prefer BL over Vortex, personally. Vortex is much slower, but higher potential sustained damage if you can keep things in it. For "weaker" mobs, just putting decay on them is enough. I kite/run past mobs most of the time, leaving them dead behind/to the side of me (On T10's). So I won't be switching to Vortex.

Sitting and waiting for mobs to die is terribly boring to me :P.

Swapped alot of gear around to make the ring work in place of the necklace, but overall I got like 1k more ES and 1.5k more DPS from my necklace I got for 1 chaos.



Not sure how I feel about Vortex. It places me in harms way to cast, but with Enfeeble and Temp Chains, it doesn't matter too much right now.

Still respeccing a little, trying to figure things out. MIGHT go back to BoL from time to time to see if Vortex is worth it.

EDIT: Ran Uber Lab before patch. Got all keys, ran with Vortex, was SUPER F'ing easy.

Vortex

Pros
- Another DoT that gets buffed from our DoT nodes
- Good damage being a viable 4-5 linked damaging spell
(basically viable spell for the initial hit, Decay, and it's DoT if they stay in, all on it's own)

Cons
- Must be in the middle of $hit to cast
- ONLY initial hit applies Decay

Ball o Lightning

Pros
- Throw it out, applies DoT and a curse, walk away

Cons
- Decay stops killing stuff on its own (blue packs and rares) higher up

Anyone else want to add to this? I am liking Vortex as it feels better to run from group to group, dropping a Vortex, everything dies, and only using ED on high HP yellows and unique/bosses. No need for Contagion anymore IMO.

Will continue to use both and test.

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Anyone else want to add to this? I am liking Vortex as it feels better to run from group to group, dropping a Vortex, everything dies, and only using ED on high HP yellows and unique/bosses. No need for Contagion anymore IMO.

Yeah at 19/20, Vortex is doing 3500 dps on the dot and 1400 dps on the initial hit, plus whatever Decay is doing. I think I like that play style more than the ball lightning / coh play style. Vortex actually adds dps as well, where Ball didn't really.

I have preferred Vortex myself, but I find myself wishing I could spread it out more.