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

After I wrote what follows, I have to admit that I would recommend you keep the build as is. You can just focus on spell damage/projectile nodes earlier if you want to. If you wanna mix it up for Standard, check out Mathil's recent LL ED Occultist. His tree is really nice and plays to the strengths of Occultist. It has a few weak spots in my opinion, like relying on Sorrow of the Divine for regen. it's a bit uncomfortable for me in Uber Lab for instance.


I decided to throw a tree together, but I have to conclude that I would play Witch for sure if I didn't care about defense. Please note that I do not recommend using this tree at all, as you rely solely on the Sorrow of the Divine flask to get ES back outside of normal ES regen.

Silly tree

I tried to fit in some more cast, movement and attack speed instead of Zealot's Oath from the tree (Mathil did this, but he ran Occultist which manages ES in a different way than Trickster). I also changed Ascendancies away from the ES/evasion focused path as well as dropping aura nodes. We don't need those if we run without Arctic Armour.

With the different ascendancies, we can nuke more to stack poison, as the mana management and cast speed should be a bit better. While we are at it, we might as well dual wield Consuming Dark and some dagger with high attack speed (whirling blades), spell damage and Decay. We now have about 7-8k ES, and should be able to hit like a truck without relying on a mana potion.

For any kind of non Zealot's Oath kind of playstyle, I would go with Occultist.
If you want to dual wield for both poison and decay action, I would stick with my current tree, but consider swapping Swift Killer for Weave the Arcane, since the only reason to dual wield is to kill the two non poison immune guardians and Shaper (And for that I would also go Occultist).

Thanks for the response. I agree with your final assessment, I don't think weave the arcane is worth taking over ghost dance and if you're going to go that route you may as well drop walk the aether for shade form. Especially early in a league relying on a flask sounds like a bad idea. Here's to praying for an early CD drop

Thanks for the great guide.

Was thinking of using this in breach SC.

Whats your opinion on using decay bow instead of a 1hander+shield? To my understanding it will be cheaper since you can get a +1 all bow( and if going occultist the soul quiver )

Another option i suppose is dualwielding, so many options for someone who has never played ed+cont.

Your passive tree can be used as an occultist too right? just start with the ES nodes.

TL;DR: go with melee weapons or a wand. It will let you swap around depending on what you want or need instead of being stuck using a bow.

Decay bow is strong, but not that cheap. You need a master at level 8 to force the +1 to gems, and you also need to hit 2 prefixes and 2 suffixes on initial Delirium use. If you hit on your first delirium, you will spend 1 delirium + 2 ex + some additional currency for crafts (and you need catarina 8 to do this in the first place). Dual wielding is a cheaper alternative, where you can use whatever weapon you craft regardless of roll.

It is debatable what is strongest of dual wielding with consuming dark/decay and a +1 decay bow, as poison stacking becomes extremely strong at ultra endgame. With decay getting nerfed to 750 base DPS, and you are open to dual wielding, you can also try out breath of the council for some serious poison stacking and AoE.

Personally, I will play with a shield, and if I decide to go for Shaper I might dual wield for that fight only.

Occultist works just as well as trickster, and better for triggered boss fights (no frenzy charges available). I just feel that Trickster is better early league and general map clearing. I can reroll to something else later to kill the extreme bosses (which is easily doable as LL ED Trickster as well).

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah i think i'll go trickster too, and reroll occultist when i have endgame gear if needed.

I understand that essences will drop less now, i hope the decay essence wont be very expensive, maybe go with a consuming dark first if its significantly cheaper.

is it still viable build after poison nerf??

Yes, Poison was nerfed. Decay was introduced and then nerfed as well. At the moment they are pretty much on par, with decay being more practical and Poison having a larger damage potential. I did manage to kill even Shaper with a "traditional" Consuming Dark setup, but due to my personal lack of experience with the fight, it was very messy.

can this build be self found for the league start?

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Nedieth wrote:

This is also a great build for the start of a league. It can be played self found up to red maps easily, and has an extremely high damage potential as you convert to Low Life.

At the very least read the intro before you ask questions in the future please.

Thanks for making this. That's exactly what I was looking for to start the new league.