POE 2 ✧ Lahkesis Queen of Chaos ✧ "Essence Drain " Guide releas (Showcase video include)

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adavydow#2566 wrote:

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I have no idea why this never crossed my mind at the time, I was sad about losing my focus at the time.

You can look at my guide, I think I have found a couple of neat tricks for ED/contagion. Any advice / proofreading from experienced ED player is welcome, ofc.

I will, I'm Bloodmage so I probably value recoup a little less but some of the ideas from your tree and setup will still help me. Like mana recoup with the %dam to mana before life would be nice, but the base recoup speed is a tad slow.

I've been pretty on the fence about the curse nodes too, I pathed to the left and grabbed 'spiral into insanity', 'resilient soul' and 'lasting incantations'...but this was before considering weapon set talents.

I'll fish for my wand and a focus and then i'll bastardise your build with mine and see how it goes

EDIT: I also quite like an unearth setup for body blockers, have them setup with blind - corpse conservation - meat shield right now. I did swap envenom from the totem and blind from these guys for a while....was meh. But they're quite nice for helping spread contagion at points, again, unsure how this would play out in endgame

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I will, I'm Bloodmage so I probably value recoup a little less but some of the ideas from your tree and setup will still help me. Like mana recoup with the %dam to mana before life would be nice, but the base recoup speed is a tad slow.

TBF, I had trouble getting third ascendancy point for a while (if only honor could be recouped -)) and was running with 6 sec recoup. It was way nicer than I thought it would be.

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adavydow#2566 wrote:

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I will, I'm Bloodmage so I probably value recoup a little less but some of the ideas from your tree and setup will still help me. Like mana recoup with the %dam to mana before life would be nice, but the base recoup speed is a tad slow.

TBF, I had trouble getting third ascendancy point for a while (if only honor could be recouped -)) and was running with 6 sec recoup. It was way nicer than I thought it would be.

Meanwhile I suffered through the first ascendancy for blood mage doubling my mana costs...too stubborn to unspec it

Looking at your tree I can somewhat see where you are coming from however that wouldnt change the fact that I would already be in the Mid/NW of tree for Lasting Incarnation anyways.

Now granted saving the 7 Passives would let them be used Would let me hit Adverse Growth or Fated End or Impending Doom so that is somthing for me to think on.

I also noticed you seemed to skip alot of the spell damage/chaos damage nodes does the improved curses make up for the damage that much? Especially the 53% from event horizon which made me curious about that.

All that being said we definitely have different philosophies on how to build, although HC survivor builds may become the way of things if GGG keeps the one death locks people out of a map thing.

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I also noticed you seemed to skip alot of the spell damage/chaos damage nodes does the improved curses make up for the damage that much? Especially the 53% from event horizon which made me curious about that.

I got all the multiplicative ones and enough additive to feel comfortable.
Didn't like 53% event horizon at the time I testsed it due to the life loss. Other nodes are just too weak on per point basis.

As long as blue monsters die in one rotation I don't care a lot about more damage, saving some time on the boss or beafy rare is nice but don't make o break build for me. Will spec into more damage once I feel the need.

I played exclusively HC in POE1 for years, so my build philosophy is prob. a bit skewed indeed.

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improved curses make up for the damage that much

Just checked, my despair is at 72% atm. It's at least 72% more multiplier (even better if monster had nonzero chaos resist). Also, curse effectiveness doubles as defense (-36% temporal chains is really comfy, esp. with 20% slow from ascendancy and 37% hinder). I don't know, how strong is your despair setup, but I assume this is better than most of the damage nodes you can get from the tree.

Also, if you value damage more you should just use two talent trees: damage for ED, curse effectiveness for despair. There is zero reason for damage nodes for despair and curse nodes on ED are important only for your blasphemy defense.

I left some of the curse nodes in ED setup, as I didn't like the fact that monsters got haste when I was casting ED and was the most vulnerable, so nodes affecting temporal chains range are specced for both trees.

Overall haven't died to a boss since the campaign and my deaths on packs are mostly due to heavy overextending and testing my tank, so for me focus on the defensive side is definitely worth it.

Haven't read the whole thread so pardon if I am repeating known info.

I've been trying to make ED/Contagion work since launch. During campaign, there are good and bad parts, pack clear is great, but bosses go very very slow compared to better builds. Unless some new tech comes out to make single target better, I would probably start as something else and switch over in early cruel.

As for the build, I went Chronomancer as Adavydow did, and I think it is a very good class defensively. I went CI instead of the recoup route, and I feel pretty much immortal. I had budgeted 10 passive points for stun threshold nodes, but interestingly I felt pretty much stun immune after the first 5 points; by my count I have just over 6k stun threshold atm.

The problem I am having is damage. I didn't read your entire guide through and through Adavydow, but the whole "you either have enough dmg or you dont" is spot on. I am not too deep into maps, but right now I don't see ED reaching "enough damage" to deal with juiced up red map champions in one duration, but I could be wrong.

In any case, I have two tools you may want to try out and consider for your build. First is to use a Siphoning Wand to cull enemies, which can help get the chain started (I haven't found a use for the power charges yet, though...). Second is to use Soul Offering with a single skeleton summon, which can provide another powerful damage boost. The damage buff stays active even if the offering dies, so with extra duration you can get a pretty long buff. I don't know how much life it has, but with CI you only drain 1 life so you can trigger Minion Pact off the offering itself, since it is a minion.

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ou can trigger Minion Pact off the offering itself, since it is a minion.

You use dark effigy in your rotation anyway, so it is not too important.

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The problem I am having is damage. I didn't read your entire guide through and through Adavydow, but the whole "you either have enough dmg or you dont" is spot on. I am not too deep into maps, but right now I don't see ED reaching "enough damage" to deal with juiced up red map champions in one duration, but I could be wrong.

For now I'm farming around T10-T11, my puny +2 wand, +2 focus with 78% spell damage are enough there.
I don't forsee damage problem on packs, as I hope to get 3 more levels from gems, 2-3 more from gear and will probably go for event horizon.

Probably will farm where I am for a while though, mainly not due to the damage, but due to the hole in my chaos resist (I'm at 30% and it started to feel uncomfortable).

I thought about offering and culling, but 4 buttons in rotation is near my mental limit -)

Overall, I'm progressing slowly, but given the fact that I don't have time to play on the weekdays and on the weekend I play more It Takes Two with my kiddo than POE, I thing my pacing is good enough.

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Oaken#2581 wrote:

I went CI instead of the recoup route, and I feel pretty much immortal.

What does CI stand for? I too wanna feel immortal. I have big damange but get oneshot very often.

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What does CI stand for? I too wanna feel immortal. I have big damange but get oneshot very often.

Chaos Inaculation. It's a node which sets life to 1 but gives chaos immunity, so you use only energy shield as your defense. Currently ES values are looking a bit too high indeed, but it require investement in both talent tree (for ES nodes) and in gear.

By the way, given that chaos damage does not bypass ES now, is CI still worth it? Isn't hybrid better on low-to-mid budget setups?