Sorry for the lack of replies in the other videos! Been busy bashing my head on the keyboard! Tomorrows video will be a banger - Mapping Showcase and you dont want to miss this comedy special!
I gave it a chance cause I wondered why no one was playing it. And it's pretty underwhelming. Damage is poop and contagion only affects one target. Feelsbad. Props to you for going that far with it, considering how bad it is.
Yea. It is unfortunate. Its crazy how terrible it felt compared to PoE 1. Having Contagion affect only one monster with terrible targeting made a huge difference.
i was playing chaos bloodmage, the aoe felt fine but bosses took way too long with single damage was way too low trying both essence drain or double blasphemy hexblast setups. i have since swapped to a bone storm physical blood mage build and feel like my boss/single target damage is very good now while having mediocre aoe/wave clear so am having a bit more fun with this setup 'cus i don't have absurdly long boss fights anymore. i feel like bloodmage overall needs some adjustments though, sanguinmancy should not just feel like a nerf in boss fights yet it does due to how hard it is to collect your blood orbs and the crazy hp costs you get not to mention you still can run out of mana because it just adds the health cost instead of splitting it between hp and mana. on top of that the life leach node feels completely underwhelming to a point where you won't even notice it. i'm hoping to see some chaos build changes and blood mage passive changes soon 'cus it really hurts having these insane hp costs but still being able to run out of mana.
Yea. Essence Drain needs 50/100% more Dps for it to be an actual skill. That being said I switched to a different Chaos skill and clear and dps feels much better than EDC.
i really miss the occultist ascendancy. i played it for ages in poe... im running fire stuff right now, but infernalist doesnt really fit in my burning plans...
I'm playing through the campaign on normal with a Witch and can barely deal any damage to bosses with the chaos DoTs. That's with chaos damage nodes in the tree, too. Contagion + Essence Drain + Int scaling DoT on Enfeeble and Boss health bars barely move at all. Definitely the wrong way to get through campaign. I shred monster packs, but bosses feel like you're fighting harbingers/aberroth in LE with a low DPS build. Also, Profane Ritual and Raise Zombie are available early, but they are completely dead abilities against most bosses. Even the bosses with adds tend to prevent you from using abilities on their corpses. Contagion also needs two jumps to really get going. I see Witches having far more success with mage spells and going infernalist for demonform and just being a mage. Dark Pact, Sacrifice, and Last Gasp not being useable with Zombies is also really bad.
Ive been plinking away with the chaos bolt auto attack while the dots tick lol. It's not excellent but it worked for my normal campaign. You can buff it's raw damage or you can add envenom + bursting plague onto it.
Until you get Effigy Totem Linked with Withering Touch DPS is a bit of a slog and when you get Despair in Act 3 (I think) DPS is okay throught the Campaign but... I dont know what GGG were thinking releasing such a trash skill that doesnt scale very well. Also, make sure to use the Tradesite to get a +3 wand with Spell or Chaos Damage.
@@PartTimeExile I just realized with some testing, that decreased skill durations are DPS neutral and damage negative for dots. I tested this for both Essence Drain and Contagion. The DPS does not increase but the duration decreases, meaning it's a straight up nerf to your damage output per cast. I'm not sure if they did this intentionally or not. Let's hope not. Thanks for the ideas. I figured Effigy Totem might be a major turning point. The colossus boss felt like a 20 minute fight. If it weren't for the adds it probably would have been longer since I got fully powered Contagions on him with some empowered zombies. I do have a chaos damage wand I bought from an NPC, but I wasn't able to get +skills on it. It's honestly just bosses that I have issues with. I clear trash so easily outside of the occasional giga rare with no corpses around.
The only abilities I used from character creation until I finished the campaign were: - Essence Drain - Swift Affliction | Chaos Mastery | Chain -- I only take Chain because it makes running through maps easy - Contagion - Hinder | Persistence | Arcane Tempo - Dark Effigy Totem - Withering Touch | Font of Blood | Acceleration - Despair - Impending Doom | Magnified Effect | Heightened Curse - Your weapon cast (I pick Sigil of Power, always) I don't use skeletons but earlier I had a weapon that provided them. I linked them with Meat Shield and Envenom. The entire build is basically just keeping your totem down and maintaining Contagion, Essence Drain and Despair on your target. I would be very shocked if any Cruel bosses have lasted more than 2 minutes while I roll around like an idiot. I took all damage nodes because there is 0 need for any recovery. You cast your dots and move. You should have plenty of downtime to react to any incoming damage. If you're struggling buy a staff with +Chaos skill levels and you will be set. I will link a passive tree later once I log back in. Edit: For my Blood Mage homies out there I would advise you to just spend the gold to get rid of your Ascendency points if you have no recovery. Once I basically "turned off" the Blood Mage Ascendency it was infinitely better.
Idk what this guy is on about. I Clear the whole game with Contagion and Essence drain alone, some Bone-storm (bad for the build but strong Boss crushing ability) built in and a little frost to slow the enemies down. Games EZ Mode until lv.50, like this and it doesn't seem to get harder. Bad take, should not listen to it. More Number less "it felt bad", "it seems this and that".
![[PoE 3.25] Trick or Treat? Herald of Agony Occultist Loves Explosions](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QcOSQbytBiA/mqdefault.jpg)
Sorry for the lack of replies in the other videos! Been busy bashing my head on the keyboard!
Tomorrows video will be a banger - Mapping Showcase and you dont want to miss this comedy special!
I gave it a chance cause I wondered why no one was playing it. And it's pretty underwhelming. Damage is poop and contagion only affects one target. Feelsbad. Props to you for going that far with it, considering how bad it is.
Yea. It is unfortunate. Its crazy how terrible it felt compared to PoE 1. Having Contagion affect only one monster with terrible targeting made a huge difference.
@@PartTimeExile I'm sure they'll rework it, cause there is no reason they leave it in that state. A staple archetype that's missing atm.
i was playing chaos bloodmage, the aoe felt fine but bosses took way too long with single damage was way too low trying both essence drain or double blasphemy hexblast setups. i have since swapped to a bone storm physical blood mage build and feel like my boss/single target damage is very good now while having mediocre aoe/wave clear so am having a bit more fun with this setup 'cus i don't have absurdly long boss fights anymore. i feel like bloodmage overall needs some adjustments though, sanguinmancy should not just feel like a nerf in boss fights yet it does due to how hard it is to collect your blood orbs and the crazy hp costs you get not to mention you still can run out of mana because it just adds the health cost instead of splitting it between hp and mana. on top of that the life leach node feels completely underwhelming to a point where you won't even notice it.
i'm hoping to see some chaos build changes and blood mage passive changes soon 'cus it really hurts having these insane hp costs but still being able to run out of mana.
Yea. Essence Drain needs 50/100% more Dps for it to be an actual skill.
That being said I switched to a different Chaos skill and clear and dps feels much better than EDC.
i really miss the occultist ascendancy. i played it for ages in poe... im running fire stuff right now, but infernalist doesnt really fit in my burning plans...
Well... still one whole ascendancy left to be revealed eventually.
I'm playing through the campaign on normal with a Witch and can barely deal any damage to bosses with the chaos DoTs. That's with chaos damage nodes in the tree, too. Contagion + Essence Drain + Int scaling DoT on Enfeeble and Boss health bars barely move at all. Definitely the wrong way to get through campaign. I shred monster packs, but bosses feel like you're fighting harbingers/aberroth in LE with a low DPS build. Also, Profane Ritual and Raise Zombie are available early, but they are completely dead abilities against most bosses. Even the bosses with adds tend to prevent you from using abilities on their corpses. Contagion also needs two jumps to really get going. I see Witches having far more success with mage spells and going infernalist for demonform and just being a mage.
Dark Pact, Sacrifice, and Last Gasp not being useable with Zombies is also really bad.
Get bonestorm for some extra boss damage to start until you get to later levels where you get the extra chaos spells
Ive been plinking away with the chaos bolt auto attack while the dots tick lol. It's not excellent but it worked for my normal campaign. You can buff it's raw damage or you can add envenom + bursting plague onto it.
Until you get Effigy Totem Linked with Withering Touch DPS is a bit of a slog and when you get Despair in Act 3 (I think) DPS is okay throught the Campaign but... I dont know what GGG were thinking releasing such a trash skill that doesnt scale very well.
Also, make sure to use the Tradesite to get a +3 wand with Spell or Chaos Damage.
@@PartTimeExile I just realized with some testing, that decreased skill durations are DPS neutral and damage negative for dots. I tested this for both Essence Drain and Contagion. The DPS does not increase but the duration decreases, meaning it's a straight up nerf to your damage output per cast. I'm not sure if they did this intentionally or not. Let's hope not.
Thanks for the ideas. I figured Effigy Totem might be a major turning point. The colossus boss felt like a 20 minute fight. If it weren't for the adds it probably would have been longer since I got fully powered Contagions on him with some empowered zombies. I do have a chaos damage wand I bought from an NPC, but I wasn't able to get +skills on it. It's honestly just bosses that I have issues with. I clear trash so easily outside of the occasional giga rare with no corpses around.
The only abilities I used from character creation until I finished the campaign were:
- Essence Drain - Swift Affliction | Chaos Mastery | Chain -- I only take Chain because it makes running through maps easy
- Contagion - Hinder | Persistence | Arcane Tempo
- Dark Effigy Totem - Withering Touch | Font of Blood | Acceleration
- Despair - Impending Doom | Magnified Effect | Heightened Curse
- Your weapon cast (I pick Sigil of Power, always)
I don't use skeletons but earlier I had a weapon that provided them. I linked them with Meat Shield and Envenom.
The entire build is basically just keeping your totem down and maintaining Contagion, Essence Drain and Despair on your target. I would be very shocked if any Cruel bosses have lasted more than 2 minutes while I roll around like an idiot. I took all damage nodes because there is 0 need for any recovery. You cast your dots and move. You should have plenty of downtime to react to any incoming damage.
If you're struggling buy a staff with +Chaos skill levels and you will be set. I will link a passive tree later once I log back in.
Edit: For my Blood Mage homies out there I would advise you to just spend the gold to get rid of your Ascendency points if you have no recovery. Once I basically "turned off" the Blood Mage Ascendency it was infinitely better.
Idk what this guy is on about. I Clear the whole game with Contagion and Essence drain alone, some Bone-storm (bad for the build but strong Boss crushing ability) built in and a little frost to slow the enemies down. Games EZ Mode until lv.50, like this and it doesn't seem to get harder. Bad take, should not listen to it. More Number less "it felt bad", "it seems this and that".
Lol. What are u talking about. Skill sucks. Keep being delusional. Make a video and show me cuz i know u lying