[3.7] SC/HC - ED/Blight Trickster - Up to 10k eHP, Layered Defense, 3m DPS

If you are investing in double corrupts, I'd do them on BotC for something juicy like this:

Heartbreaker and Divinarius are both fine for the build, but neither of them come close to BotC since this build relies more on Blight for boss damage.

No double corrupts and the opportunity-cost to vaal a Breath is much higher than a 1c dagger.

I'd choose a vaaled Heartbreaker for mapping over Brightbeak/Breath.

Also, I checked POB and Vaal Blight debuff gives more damage than Wither to Allelopathy Blight.

Do you think it's better to just drop Wither totem entirely (since it's too clunky to use and the totem barely applies the 15 stacks due to how squishy it is) and focus on Vaal Blight's duration (with Increased Duration + Efficacy)?

If you want to spam vaal orbs on a Heartbreaker over getting a well rolled dagger or a BotC, that just boils down to personal preference. I usually start out a league with a sceptre with an ok cast and attack speed roll, then move into a shaped dagger or BotC. Neither of the approaches are wrong.

As for the Wither totem; if your goal with the character is just to map fast and you don't care about t16 bosses, Shaper or Uber Elder, you can just drop it entirely. Dropping the Wither totem gives you a lot more flexibility with your gem setup as well. Even without any links, the hinder part of Vaal Blight lasts for around 9-10 seconds and is more than plenty of time to kill any tanky enemy or map boss.

You're right. It seems like a shaped dagger is the best option between the speed of Brightbeak and damage of Breath of the Council.

Hi Nedieth, thank you for great guide. What are your thoughts about +3 chaos staff and indigon?

Both +3 staff and Indigon will provide more DPS than my build. I considered including an Indigon alternative into my guide once I got to try it, but at that point, Rhaegar had already posted an excellent guide on Indigon ED. If you really want to do t16+ fast as an ED character, his build is the way to go for sure.

I am not entirely convinced on staff though. It will provide more DPS at the cost of movement. For me, that does not work, but if you can live with Flame Dash only, staff is a great option.

We'll see in the coming leagues if I will start recommending an LL transition as an alternative to Indigon conversion. For now, the guide will just cover the league starter and progress to a Shaper kill. I'll let djnat handle the LL guide and Rhaegar the Indigon one. Mix as match as you please!

I'd say +3 staff is worthless because we have +4 armors that make us pay much less for more.

3.4 patch notes made me very sad. They murdered max block, slowed shield charge down and doubled vaal soul gain prevention for us. They gave us absolutely nothing in return as far as I can see.

I had hoped for a damage buff or some better scaling for ED. At it's current state, ED relies too heavily on support spells such as Blight and Wither to feel even playable against single target. I have not had the chance to look too closely at the changes yet, but it just looks like ED will be the same as it has effectively been since 3.0.

Hopefully there will be some new items that can mix things up a bit more for us.

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Nedieth wrote:

I had hoped for a damage buff or some better scaling for ED. At it's current state, ED relies too heavily on support spells such as Blight and Wither to feel even playable against single target. I have not had the chance to look too closely at the changes yet, but it just looks like ED will be the same as it has effectively been since 3.0.

Hopefully there will be some new items that can mix things up a bit more for us.

I posted the same thing on my thread, lol.

My ED build is the same of Incursion, no changes at all.

ED itself is unplayable as a standalone spell unless you plan to go for an Indigon setup.