[3.0] HC/SC Nowlech's Trickster Essence Drain (LifeMoM/CI/LL) ~Shaper and Uber Atziri! Videos!

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I must be missing something about essence drain that I'm hoping someone can explain to me.

PoB shows most of the essence drain builds that people list here with extremely low dps compared to pretty much any other build. Importing this build directly, for example, shows a dot damage somewhere around 100-120k with frenzy and power charges up. Putting wither to full stacks in this case increases the dps from the dot+decay to something like 200k. The pob link uses gear that is reasonably mid-tier, so there could be some improvement from getting extra spell damage/chaos/dot/whatever, but nothing that is going to grossly impact the build. Ghazzy's version is more like 45k and goes up to ~100k with wither and gear..

Other builds that I've been looking into over the past few days have dps numbers ranging from this sort of number as the extreme low end of what you see from most. Many, many builds can comfortably move into the high hundreds of thousands for moderate investment, and of course there are quite a few that can easily reach into the million+, or higher still (although mostly crit versions and costly).

I'm not writing this to be conflicting or anything like that, I actually want to understand how it works. People have been using ED to kill high tier maps and bosses almost since its inception, and I can't work out how that works given the massive discrepancy in what builds _should_ do vs. the outcome. I'm hoping someone has some insight? How can you comfortably kill shaper on a build that is parsing in the low 100k's when many builds struggle while closing in on millions? Is it just slow but survivable? What's the missing link?

Does the skill just not work AT ALL in groups, when the monster hp goes up and contagion cant spread it?


The thing with essence drain for higher tier maps, is that you don't have to directly and constantly attack bosses. You can hit them with a contagion and essence drain and then run around to dodge - or kill ads that they spawn. Only hitting every 8-10 seconds or so to reapply the debuff.

Most builds that say "1MILLION DPS" or "200kdps super cheap!" are lying to you, those are with standard, or legacy characters that have been minmaxed to the fullest. Essence drain is more about safety on bosses and not facetanking.

This build is not slow though, I played all the way to act 8 yesterday, and with no currency, not buying anything yet just self-found gear, and I was one shotting everything. You just throw a contagion and an essence drain down and keep running! With tougher packs, I just add Abyssal Cry to the mix and they all die at once. Bosses you just throw down a wither totem and dodge away!

To be clear though, NO Essence drain build can compete with an insane facetanking build, that's for sure. But all those builds can only survive if you're hitting something. Essence drain is more skill based than just holding one button down!

Hope I answered some of your questions! If you have anymore just let me know!
Any ideas on how to pierce now?
Breath of the Council any good for this or is the attackspeed too slow for whirling blades?
IGN: GrrisRanger
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Any ideas on how to pierce now?


I never pierced in the previous version of this build. I don't think it's necessary. If you want to pierce, I would recommend using VoidWalker boots, they are BIS for our CI version.

But honestly pierce doesn't really do much for us.
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Breath of the Council any good for this or is the attackspeed too slow for whirling blades?


I have it selected in the PoB link, it's okay. A shield with spell damage, and a decay dagger gives us a lot of damage, as much as a Breath of the council. You also can't use whirling blades with a Breath, you have to use Leap slam, which I don't personally like too much.
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Nowlech wrote:
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Breath of the Council any good for this or is the attackspeed too slow for whirling blades?


I have it selected in the PoB link, it's okay. A shield with spell damage, and a decay dagger gives us a lot of damage, as much as a Breath of the council. You also can't use whirling blades with a Breath, you have to use Leap slam, which I don't personally like too much.


Right my bad, you could Shieldcharge tho? Was just wondering cause decay got nerfed yet again.
IGN: GrrisRanger
Seems like my post didn't get through?!
Anyways, anything specific to look out for when it comes to the atlas? As in what path/maps to aim for and which maps to shape?
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Seems like my post didn't get through?!
Anyways, anything specific to look out for when it comes to the atlas? As in what path/maps to aim for and which maps to shape?


Not too sure, I always complete every map up to tier 9, then I shape mesa and strand of course. But maybe in 3.0 I'll complete the whole atlas!
Any specific unique you would recommend for the life-based version of this build? also 1h+shield or a 2hander?
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Any specific unique you would recommend for the life-based version of this build? also 1h+shield or a 2hander?


Well there are no required uniques no, but the only ones I can think of are, Carcass Jack if you really want to increase the area of Contagion. But contagion is huge now so a rare chest with 100+ life and resists is probably better.

There is also a Rumis Granite Flask which is nice for block and spell block!

Also this is a 1 handed dagger or wand, with a spell damage shield!

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