Essence Drain & Contagion = PERFECT!

In my opinion Essence Drain & Contagion is the most perfectly balanced skill combination in the game and I would like to see more skills on that level. What I like so much about these skills is the fact that you can build your char from the very beginning without any investment up to a very powerful but never op endgame char. If you don't have any currency you can still play ED/C so it is perfect for new players and for league starters. On the other hand you do not even need another char if you only want to level one char. The more you invest the stronger the char get until at lvl. 27 ED he is really strong but still no broken faceroll bullshit like many other skills. In my opinion the damage progression is just 100% perfect. I really would like to see more skills like this. And the other thing I like about ED/C builds is that you can become somewhat tanky but never become on of these horrible I facetank all builds. You can survive a mistake but you still have to dodge some big hits. Therefore defence wise I think ED/C is perfectly balanced too. Yes I know, Cpt. Faceroll and friends will call ED/C dogshit tier but you should really ignore those plebs and try to bring more skills somewhat in line with the powerlevel of ED/C imo.

My ED+Contagion+Blight soon-to-be-CI Occultist with a whole bunch of auras and curses is my favorite character to date. Looking for an excuse to go back and keep working on her.

My ED+Contagion+Blight Trickster also was one of my favorite characters to date.

Died to off-screening a corrupting blood pack on tier 7, that i noticed too late.
Will probably play this again in the future, kinda missing that playstyle.

i love my triple curse life based version even though i only use ED for bosses and the blight gloves

I wonder why everyone is using blight too? I tried both normal blight setup and blight-gloves but I completely dropped blight in the end because I never needed it. I'd really like to know what blight can do that ED+Contagion can't?

it doesnt do anything special but its fun with enfeeble,despair and temp chain.
the hinder duration + bonus dmg from jewels is good and hinder adds even more cc.
it doesnt more dmg as ed but ofc doesnt have the range

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ciel289 wrote:

it doesnt do anything special but its fun with enfeeble,despair and temp chain.
the hinder duration + bonus dmg from jewels is good and hinder adds even more cc.
it doesnt more dmg as ed but ofc doesnt have the range

Exactly this. Keep in mind 2 Blight jewels means a whopping 50% increased chaos damage taken for hindered enemies. AND they increase Hinder duration without increasing Blight duration, which makes the slow + damage taken bonus easier to manage in hit-n-run scenarios.

My usual M.O. was doing the normal ED+C, blasting anything that survives with Blight (usually bosses or problematic rares), then jump to safety. Repeat if necessary (rarely needed). It's a complex and involved playstyle without being overbearing or unwieldy. Probably why it's my favorite.

Personally I think the combination is bit too strong.

It doesn't kill bosses fast, yes, but its extremely safe. Its very easy to destroy nearly all bosses with this build, purely due to constantly being able to move while doing damage.

Map clear speed is insane and there really isn't that much need to kill bosses if they take too much time.

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NemoJr wrote:

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ciel289 wrote:

it doesnt do anything special but its fun with enfeeble,despair and temp chain.
the hinder duration + bonus dmg from jewels is good and hinder adds even more cc.
it doesnt more dmg as ed but ofc doesnt have the range

Exactly this. Keep in mind 2 Blight jewels means a whopping 50% increased chaos damage taken for hindered enemies. AND they increase Hinder duration without increasing Blight duration, which makes the slow + damage taken bonus easier to manage in hit-n-run scenarios.

Hmmm, at lvl. 27 Ed & lvl. 22 Contagion things die fast enough so that you do not need any hindering at all and investing into two more jewels? No thank you! ^^ I do not even use temp chains or enfeeble anymore, the only aura that I use is despair because thanks to impresence it reserves no mana and so I have 100% unused mana for mom. That way I have almost 11k ehp. I invested quite a lot (at least for my standards) in that char and it is somewhat strong but also has it's weaknesses (for example a pretty mediocre delver at best). As I said before I really like everything about these chars, the progression, the power level the defence level and the fact that it still has weaknesses and isn't a faceroller. For me the perfectly balanced skillset.

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NemoJr wrote:

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ciel289 wrote:

it doesnt do anything special but its fun with enfeeble,despair and temp chain.
the hinder duration + bonus dmg from jewels is good and hinder adds even more cc.
it doesnt more dmg as ed but ofc doesnt have the range

Exactly this. Keep in mind 2 Blight jewels means a whopping 50% increased chaos damage taken for hindered enemies. AND they increase Hinder duration without increasing Blight duration, which makes the slow + damage taken bonus easier to manage in hit-n-run scenarios.

My usual M.O. was doing the normal ED+C, blasting anything that survives with Blight (usually bosses or problematic rares), then jump to safety. Repeat if necessary (rarely needed). It's a complex and involved playstyle without being overbearing or unwieldy. Probably why it's my favorite.

the main resaon i started using blight over contagion were "allies cannot die" rares.
they arent a problem but sometimes they anoy me a bit too much.
another good thing with blight is when you use all 3 curses with blasphemy (elder amulet <3) it always profits from all the curse ocultist bonuses (10%more dmg and 10%less dmg taken) and the -chaos resi.
with the exception of elder,shaper,their guardians and uber atziri going into "melee" with those buffs doesnt have much risk in it.

while using high level arcane surge on contagion is nice lately i droped leapslam+fortify for level 4 arcane surge + flame dash + inc duration + effcacy to keep the buff with a "better" movementskill (only for t16+ or uber atziri,elder,shaper i swap to fortify setup)

the biggest pro of the blight gloves is their easy access early in a league while giving you a level 22 blight no linking or skill gem leveling required atleast for the skill itself

when i dont play ssf this is my starter build (even though i didint start in delve with it CA/Toxic Rain hype^^)

the build works very well with no eq (except the gloves) and does good dmg with no eq to easy do mid or even lower red tier maps. ofc without elder amu i only use 2 curses but i have to wait for passiv points anyway for 3rd curse

i didint notice until later this leauge that the new option to scale over minion dmg and the templar area was a gigantic buff to that setup (around 20% more dmg at level 90)
its easy to get a bone helmet no need for the enchant anymore