Essence Drain is a widely recognized and appreciated build with a large chunk of the community. It is generally perceived mainly because of its potential in most areas of the game. When built correctly, it excels in clear speed, killing some easier bosses, and staying alive. While there is a ton of Essence Drain content available, I feel just like a lot of it concentrates on non-optimal things. I feel like scaling Essence Drain out of control through purchasing the nuttiest perfect what to do what's, inside a best-case scenario, about 10-15% more damage while quitting survivability will just lead to you playing a build that still doesn’t do top tier damage but feels more squishy of computer should. The skill / build archetype wasn't made to be considered a top-tier damaging build but concentrates on doing its damage rather safely and looking after its top-tier clear speed perk. So, instead of grabbing that 10% approximately extra damage, I went full-scale and stacked as numerous defenses as I possibly can. In the end, I landed on about 8K Combined HP/ES, Capped Block & Spell Block with Recovery on Block affixes to become permanently full HP, a lot of Regeneration, near to 40.000 Evasion to almost permanently evade any incoming attacks, just a little chunk of Armour in case random attacks come through and also to round it full-scale, capped Spell Suppression which effectively negates about 40% of incoming damage.
The best benefit about tackling the build in this manner is that just about all your gear is self-farmable or craftable and may easily be purchased for relatively low as well. The build runs just one Unique item that is easily obtainable from killing normal Atziri, and most of their Rare merchandise is some resistance, Life along with a Beechcraft. If you’re searching for something that is rather durable, excels at clearing maps, and kills bosses at a decent pace while being extremely difficult to kill, this Essence Drain variation is certainly what you’re searching for!
Build Summary
Pros and Cons
Pros
+ Exceptional map clear
+ Functions on very cheap/accessible gear
+ Does very potent DPS bosses while being durable
+ Ridiculous single target & sure relatively limited gear
+ solid at pushing clear-speed on league starts
Cons
– 2-Button build – you have to spam both to pay off maps
– Some multimode pieces can be considered a tad annoying to acquire
Map Modifiers to Become Avoided
No Regeneration can be quite annoying to operate as you’ll need to drop a Flask for any Mana Flask. Other than that, this build excels at coping with most map mechanics!
Playstyle, Mechanics & Strengths
Essence Drain’s playstyle is extremely dependent on Contagion Contagion. When you cast an Essence Drain, it’s likely to just fire just one projectile right into a massive amount of mobs. As you expected, that’s not likely to go well. However, while you cast a Contagion Contagion right into a pack after which Essence Drain is in it, you’re likely to proliferate your damage which makes it so you can clear multiple screens at the same time. The contagion will expand as monsters die while relying on it. That is why this build requires you to press two buttons just about all the time.
On bosses, however, you’re just using one Essence Drain every couple of seconds while casting Blight Blight around the boss as much as you possibly can. This deals a decent amount of harm once you provide time to ramp up. As casting multiple Essence Drains on the boss doesn’t help your cause, you may as well channel some Blight damage into them. Outside of the extra DPS, you’re getting from Blight, you mainly reach just dodge mechanics while Essence Drain deals damage over time for you to the boss(es). This allows you to play fairly safely when you have to, and aggressively when you are able!
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