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

@csippedszkull: At the end of the day, ED is not the best build for hydra. Our wither totem never survives for long, and she goes away a bit too often. You still have quite a lot of damage potential in a level 4 empower and 21 ED/supports, but the bosses you are struggling with now are simply shit for ED builds. Phoenix, Chimera and Minotaur are all quite managable in my opinion, but the room for error is extremely small on the hydra fight for a regen based character.

@sourtimer: Essence of Delirium rerolls the item in it's entirety just like an orb of alchemy or chaos, so any badly rolled or white ilvl 84 item will do. If you want to read up on why the ilvls matter and what base items to choose, you can check out poeaffix.net to become a living wikipedia, just like me (though I would advise against it, as I feel abused by my friends).

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Nedieth wrote:

@csippedszkull: At the end of the day, ED is not the best build for hydra. Our wither totem never survives for long, and she goes away a bit too often. You still have quite a lot of damage potential in a level 4 empower and 21 ED/supports, but the bosses you are struggling with now are simply shit for ED builds. Phoenix, Chimera and Minotaur are all quite managable in my opinion, but the room for error is extremely small on the hydra fight for a regen based character.

@sourtimer: Essence of Delirium rerolls the item in it's entirety just like an orb of alchemy or chaos, so any badly rolled or white ilvl 84 item will do. If you want to read up on why the ilvls matter and what base items to choose, you can check out poeaffix.net to become a living wikipedia, just like me (though I would advise against it, as I feel abused by my friends).

Thanks again and yikes at the full reroll. So it's a very expensive endeavour to try and roll a wand with additional spell damage. So much to absorb in this game. I played a ton of D2 and it took me a long time to learn it all in that game as well.

Have another question about delirium on a wand. I guess you are at the mercy of RNG if get unlucky and it rolls with 6 affixes ? Because you then can't enchant additional spell damage on it.

Decided to leave some notes since I am playing ED in softcore this league. The playstyle is pretty fun for me personally and so it happens that this is my highest level char yet. Could be even higher, but this is the first league where I killed some endgame bosses, explored the atlas etc. Character should be public if anyone wants to take a look at it.

0. I levelled using Ethereal Knives, which works pretty well because of the phys% nodes we pick up early. Switched to ED+Contagion somewhere around lvl 50. Otherwise I did what Nedieth described in regard to progression from life to CI to LL. I actually sold my old 5-link Shavs and bought a 6 link because fusings seem to be bugged for me and I was able to generate currency very consistently.

1. Initially I was using Consuming Dark + Shield, but switched to rare dagger + shield pretty soon. Decay is still very powerful after the nerf. Dual whielding would be nice for single target, but I am quite satisfied with my current setup.

2. Went with dagger instead of wand because I cannot live without shield charge for mapping. Do not use whirling blades. Shield charge is faster, procs fortify more reliably due to larger aoe and you can control its distance.

3. I tried Slower Proj and decided to not use it instantly. The slow projectile speed is unbearable for me. Okay for bosses if they don't move too much.

4. Breaches are fun because Contagion makes you kill a lot of the mobs instantly, lowering the risk of dying substantially.

5. Abyssal Cry makes the game freeze a lot because it often causes a chain reaction and kills everything around you in one burst.

6. The Chayula 'pre-event' is impossible for me without Abyssal Cry. I have to rely on charging into packs and bursting the yellow mobs with Abyssal Cry.

7. I can reliably do every breachlord deathless now. Did the first 4 on a 5-link without quality gems and worse gear overall. Actually only died to Tul that night because I got frozen to death. Died to Chayula once because I spawned some adds and their degen effect prohibited my ES recharge for too long. Essentially just dodge their damage, rely on your high ES pool to carry you and keep the DoT up on the boss. Never spawn adds as they can mess up your day.

8. Clearing maps is very safe, but relatively slow. I usually don't run Temp Chains & no regen maps. Everything else is fine, even hexproof if the map is not too crazy otherwise.

9. Decided to not use Witchfire Brew because I see no feasible way of fitting in +1 curse as a trickster. Imo it's not worth sacrificing a ring slot for and corrupting Presence of Chayula seems a bit crazy :D


All in all a very fun and potent build and I want to thank the OP for compiling all the information. Main thing I have to improve on now is my RNG because I just can't get a 21/20 ED or a useful helm enchant. Will also craft %ES on some rings before I attempt Shaper. Already sitting at 11.4k ES though with room for improvement.

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sourtimer wrote:

Have another question about delirium on a wand. I guess you are at the mercy of RNG if get unlucky and it rolls with 6 affixes ? Because you then can't enchant additional spell damage on it.

Exactly. At least the decay effect seems to be a suffix, so that it doesn't compete with spell damage, which is a prefix.

@Guenselmann: Good to hear, and I am very happy you are have been able to progress this far with the build. I never got the chance to do all the breachlords, and It's nice to see that ED is able to take them all down. My goal in this guide is to let people make up their own minds on how to play their character outside of the core concept, and it seems you have been able to do just that. Keep it up, and good luck with Shaper. Personally I prefer to dual wield on Shaper, as he hits so extremely hard that ES is mostly irrelevant.

Thanks for the advice. Considering that Consuming Dark has become really cheap again I might as well try it out.

Would it be better for single target if I used poison over slower proj? My current gem setup is 21/20 ED, 21/20 void manip, 20/20 controlled destr, 20/20 rapid decay, 21/20 slower proj, lvl 3 empower. My poison is 20/20. I'm also using a decay weapon with 84% spell damage. I'd like to maximize my single target for shaper and uber atziri. I haven't tried shaper before so I'd like to make sure I have as much damage as possible before I step in. As for uber atziri, I can kill it but I'd prefer to be able to push her into split phase faster for safer runs.

Swapping slower proj. or rapid decay for poison will increase your single target DPS while standing still. However, on Shaper, you are running around quite a lot, and the only time you really have time to nuke him is during the beam. In terms of real DPS, I think that the usual setup will be stronger. You can dual wield with a Consuming Dark to get the poison without compromising your other damage.

How are the four guardians for you?