[LHC] 2.6 Ramona's CI Essence Drain

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Ramona wrote:

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Giammafix wrote:

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Ramona wrote:

-Essence Drain only does chaos damage which means reflect is not an issue.

what about the likely introduction of "chaos reflect" in next patch? :(

Hi Giammafix,

Do you have a source for this information?
This is the first I've heard of it being a possible change.

If it were added to the game through Essence Drain would be fine.
Reason being the initial hit of Essence Drain which is the Chaos damage, is a minuscule portion of the damage.
Almost all of the damage comes from our Damage over Time that the Essence Drain causes.
This like any other Damage over Time (see ignite), is non-reflect damage which means we do not have any issues.
Also take into account that as CI we are immune to chaos damage, which would nullify any chaos damage reflected to us.
Even if it were possible that we could take this damage, a mediocre amount of ES for this build would be 10k (assuming decent Vaal Regalia).
This is a pretty large amount, and after the initial hit we wouldn't be concerned with any additionl reflect damage.
Now if you were Low Life with Shavronne's Wrappings it may be a different story, but this guide is for CI and I wouldn't worry about it.

tl;dr If they added chaos reflect, the initial hit of Essence Drain does not do enough damage to threaten us.

I've read about this in the global 820 chat, maybe I have to presume it's not reliable...I hope they won't introduce the chaos reflect, I'd like to play this build to ignore any kind of reflect (atziri included!)

oh and just another question.
Can this build do the guardians, shaper, uber atziri, breachlords, the pale court, vinktar square, vaal temple?

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Giammafix wrote:

oh and just another question.
Can this build do the guardians, shaper, uber atziri, breachlords, the pale court, vinktar square, vaal temple?

Hi again Giammafix,

I would say yes to all of these.
Shaper is the only one that will be very difficult as our Damage is not instant, you would need to use Abyssal Cry to effectively clear adds.
Some Guardians can be another hard fight but that is mostly for those using the Poison version of Essence Drain.
As my build is not, they are not too bad.
The rest should be fine, obviously for a fight like Uber Atziri you need really good gear and levels.

Hi Ramona,

I played ED throughout most of BHC, couple of questions.
I ended up with a build (level 94) similar to the following: poeurl.com/4nF

I ended up running quite a few more gems than you did (albiet I wasn't playing ssf), but I noticed you didn't take many life regeneration nodes to be used with zealot's oath. I found on doing things like uber/shaper that the 5% life regen +2% from boots = 7% ES regen was huge. Did you experiment with using that at all?

Also, was your choice of jewels (no energy from within), due to playing SSF? I assume you would recommend one if not playing SSF?

Could you explain why you would choose rapid decay to remove over slower projectiles? Slower projectiles has a 29% modifier as compared to a 39% modifier for rapid decay, and I hate the quality of life reduction of such a slow moving projectile, especially against fast moving bosses like chimera.

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eraic wrote:

Hi Ramona,

I played ED throughout most of BHC, couple of questions.
I ended up with a build (level 94) similar to the following: poeurl.com/4nF

I ended up running quite a few more gems than you did (albiet I wasn't playing ssf), but I noticed you didn't take many life regeneration nodes to be used with zealot's oath. I found on doing things like uber/shaper that the 5% life regen +2% from boots = 7% ES regen was huge. Did you experiment with using that at all?

Also, was your choice of jewels (no energy from within), due to playing SSF? I assume you would recommend one if not playing SSF?

Could you explain why you would choose rapid decay to remove over slower projectiles? Slower projectiles has a 29% modifier as compared to a 39% modifier for rapid decay, and I hate the quality of life reduction of such a slow moving projectile, especially against fast moving bosses like chimera.

Hi eraic,

Before I go into too much detail, this build isn't intended for SSF.
SSF was just something I did on the side for fun. :)

The jewels really comes down to having access to jewels good enough to beat nodes.
I didn't personally feel they worth taking at the time for the jewels I had access to.
That said, my last tree for CI does include 5 jewel slots, I believe your current tree has 4.

I did experiment with life regen, unfortunately I did not have a 2% boots enchant though.
Life regen is certainly a useful stat, and would prefer the boots enchant over any others.
Comparing between our trees, I would consider the life regen jewel by Scion to be worth while and I may take that over say like the mana jewel.
(I'll look into it tonight when I'm home)
But I personally do not personally find the Templar side of the tree worth while, which is the last 1% I'm missing when we compare. (My 3.0% to your 4.7%)
*Edit* I should probably mention it would probably come down to if I need the mana from the mana jewel near Hexmaster.
Unfortunately my build does run a pretty low mana pool and it may be more of a situational choice between the two.


Honesty I didn't find my defenses in need of a Energy From Within.
I personally find it to be lackluster in the Melding area early on.
I may find it worth while once I filled more of my jewel slots and have some flexibility.
I know a lot of people enjoy EFW in Melding, but I just didn't find it necessary at the time.

I recently updated some information in my guide, I'll be revisiting the Slow Proj versus Rapid Decay tonight as well.
This section is unfortunately outdated, thank you for reminding me. :)

Hope this helps!

*Second edit* Your life regen jewel suggestion inspired me to further optimize the tree.
Update coming tonight for the final version of my Skill Tree, just in time for GGG to ruin it! :)

Essence drain fuckin blows dude. [Removed by Support]

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Roltar wrote:

Essence drain fuckin blows dude. [Removed by Support]

Thank you Roltar for the valuable feedback!
I will make sure to keep this in mind for my next build guide.
(💮=◡=)

What do you think how will contagion be after the aoe changes? Seems nerfed

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ooDest13oo wrote:

I try RF(Shadow):

Gear:

Spoiler

T15 map (no deaths):

Spoiler

Hi ooDest13oo,

That's prettty cool!

How's it going for you so far?

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xAgility wrote:

What do you think how will contagion be after the aoe changes? Seems nerfed

Hi xAgility,

I'm uncertain currently as I have not done the math myself.
I can say I do not invest heavily into AoE radius, from my understanding it shouldn't change much for better or worse.
So far with the Contagion range going from 18->20 it definitely helps.
Worst case scenario, in a GG version of this build a Dying sun wont give as much as it used to.
Honeslty I'm not too concerned about the changes, I'll wait to play it to really have an opinion.