How to improve Essence Drain?

Hi everyone I am playing essence drain with delirium bow at the moment and have been playing it in some of the leagues before aswell and I experienced that at a certain point I cannot really improve damage further while I saw that some people here reach 50%/100% more damage than I did with average equip.

So here is my setup:
Weapon:


Skill Tree:
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAIDAAFvAdEDHgPuBAcFtQ18DkgQexEvEVARlhNtFAkV1xmKGo0bJR0UHU8dvh8CH0Ei6iL0JognqSj6KlsrCiymLL8tHzOHNAo1uTbFN0w3ZkM2SRNJUUyzUq9S7FZjV8lbJlxAXGtd8mJaZ_xsC20ZbWx1nnaCefZ_gH-Wf8aCx4RIhq6Hy4ngi3qPRo_6kNaTH5MnlwaboZ63n22hIqEvokCnK6ebr-u0DLVItzC7Tb46vorBxcLswzrDbcSix53IDMrTzerPFdlb2xrdX9-Y4vfmWOd06Nbquutj7Bjw1fFt9Pj3wffX-ej60v8Q

My ideas what I can still do:
-Level 4 empower instead of either controlled destruction / slower projectiles or pierce.

-2 envy rings (unfortuneately very expensive)

-Binerot Whalers

-Some jewels with more damage on it

Anyone has another idea? I think that some of those things are way too expensive for me or would hardly reduce my ES/Resistances.

Why are you using GMP? Spread ED through contagion not through GMP as it's a less modifier.

More damage options:
Level 4 empower instead of GMP
Level 21 ED
Slow proj on bosses instead of pierce
Low life with PA
Bow with +1/+2 but getting that on a Decay bow might be really rare

yeah, drop gmp and use something that improves the damage, and contagion. That should make a big difference..

I was playing bow ED/decay build myself and was using Abyssal cry to kill most of the things. ED was "only" a detonator (100% pierce) and single target damage. I did not ever have to cast contagion (had it on cwdt though).. But I had lots of increased AoE radius, which now is kind of impossible..

Thanks for the reply!

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Why are you using GMP? Spread ED through contagion not through GMP as it's a less modifier.

I am using GMP because it boosts the clearspeed a lot and makes clearing way more comfortable. I should also state that clearing stuff in maps is not the problem I have all the damage I need for that I just have problems with the bosses (for which I switch GMP with slower projectiles)

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Bow with +1/+2 but getting that on a Decay bow might be really rare

I don´t think this is possible because a bow can just get +1 gems / +2 bow gems so it wouldn´t work with ED would it?

Yep I derped there. Was thinking of how people are getting +1/+2 fire on bows but obviously you can't get that AND decay. Well at least not in 2.6

Are you using a Wither Totem?

One of the greatest benefits/coolest things about Essence Drain is that a 6L Essence Drain isn't just a 6L Essence Drain. It's a 6L Essence Drain and also whatever other sockets you devote to Contagion; since Contagion is a carrier skill for ED, a lot of Contagion supports are, in a sense, also supports for ED. Contagion > Inc. AoE > Item Rarity in a 3L allows you to run a pseudo-magicfinder (or a straight-up magic finder if you want). Area boosts on Contagion are area boosts for ED, as well.

Admittedly there's not a ton of ways to take advantage of this because Contagion can't hit, and therefor isn't compatible with most of the things you'd really like to do here, but there's not really any reason to dilute your ED links with things like GMP or Chain or what-have-you when you can instead focus those clearing efforts into Contagion. It's what makes Essence Drain a favored league starter build - you can get ED running as a sorta pseudo-6L on one 4L for ED and one 3L for Contagion to serve as a carrier vector and overcome ED's otherwise crippling clearing issues.

Or, to put it short - get GMP the hell out of there and get the highest-level Empower you can manage. A +1 bow would be a big benefit, especially with Empower to compound with, since ED is a spell and thus welcomes every single additional level you can get. ED's single target is basically going to be bunk from now on due to the loss of ridiculous multi-compounding quintuple-dipped Poison chicanery, but a Delirium weapon/Decay support can help. Some investment in Poison might not go amiss, though I don't know how well it would really work with ED's normally-pants single hit damage.

Realistically, the best way to go is to do things like a Wither totem, Vulnerability, enemy Chaos resistance reduction via Occultist, or similar means of increasing the damage an enemy takes rather than trying to pump your own DPS. ED has a very definite ceiling on what it can achieve; the rest of its power comes from debuffing the shit out of everything you can.

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Sarno wrote:

Are you using a Wither Totem?

This is pretty important in 2.6, I believe. You can get massive DPS boosts from it because Damage Taken is a different individual data piece than outgoing damage, which means that in many cases it is very close to or exactly a More modifier.

As has been mentioned, wither totem, also vulnerability and if you want all the single target, then even blight might be worth a try.