Demon Form & Energy Shield Are SO Good I've Been Mapping With Negative Res - Essence Drain Version

[@Mathilification]

OH SHIT forgot to mention that while lvling we try to avoid the canlde bro at the end of Act1 for the quests that give you extra life. So... yea don't do that.

[@matthewdeklerk3457]

they need to have some way of turning on or off these buffs. One mission literally gives you lightning res, RIP doryanis....

[@twinmonkeycows9267]

@@matthewdeklerk3457 do those not give you an item that you have to use for the buff? just leave the item on the floor after the boss.

[@SpaceMarine113]

whats the quest called? why avoid it?

[@zankaa8031]

​@@twinmonkeycows9267nope, you just get the lightning res automatically after activating the statue

[@zankaa8031]

@@SpaceMarine113 candlemass boss. he literally said why to avoid it, it gives extra HP, this build minimizes HP to minimize demon form damage

[@lendial]

dash so smooth it looks like it came out of a korean mmo

[@cesarrivera286]

I love the Demon dash so much, but I get swarmed with mobs and unable to clip out like the normal roll. Skill issues I guess.

[@rairairai666]

korean back dash

[@drastikdreamz]

Stacking n wackin

[@miorioff]

@@cesarrivera286 they really need to fix it. My guess is that when they made changes to dodge they forgot to also do it for demon form

[@flare7202]

Crazy how blood mages have to spend health and mana to cast when es builds sit at 6-8x the health pool with no downsides.

[@Brumak4eva]

And Grim Feast is essentially just their ascendancy without the drawback. Bloodmage is dogshit.

[@calebhuizenga5123]

please come back GGG fix your game and nerf all these heretics into the ground

[@Ashtarte3D]

Blood Mage is so comically stupid it hurts. The first ascendancy point is purely negative as you will have no way to overcome to massive life costs without the leech node. I don't know wtf they were thinking.

[@btyler24323]

Yes blood mage is weak and underpowered, doesn’t make this an op exploit. Internalist builds are not even top 20 :)

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

@@Brumak4eva Life Remnants grant far more life per pickup than Grim Feast does, getting you to double hp much faster. And there's nothing stopping Bloodmage from running Grim Feast and ES as well, getting both double hp and double ES.

[@berkingurbuz1657]

i've been running something similar since the EA launch, here are some tips: cast ED first, contagions targeting system prefers enemies inflicted with ED. This way you don't need to run chain or whatever consider running blasphemy with despair, and hexblast with envenom. It really improves your dps on single target cases and some pesky mobs that ED just takes too long to kill. Poison is a chaos dot, so contagion spreads it too. Poison magnitude on the passive tree will naturally also increase this damage ED, Contagion, Hexblast spam would be the order, until needing to renew ED and contagion. Alternatively, bone storm will one shot any boss when you're at 150+ stacks.

[@MistAssassin69]

18:53 Demon Form snapshots your HP and ES it seems, you can take off all your items and youll have the same amount as when you transformed until you go to another zone. I used it in my first build but in another way, equipping a 400 hp chest and then replacing it for a 1700 armor 2.5% hp regen one

[@mikec670]

Just a note to the casuals who don't have the time or ability to level new characters super fast, I would be extremely cautious of the builds people are advertising that rely on absurd energy shield and item rarity stacking. Builds that surround these mechanics are on the chopping block after the holidays, if you have the ability to exploit them while they are available by all means go for it and farm up what it takes to invest and then profit, but if you are not sure if you will be able to meaningfully farm in way that make investing into a new build significantly more advantageous than whatever you are playing right now I would caution you to avoid. GGG said, they will nerf anything that makes fans feel as if it is the only solution to the game, right now MF and ES are those two mechanics. Life is significantly worse than ES and MF makes all builds feel like a waste of time with normal loot drops.

[@btyler24323]

They will buff life before they nerf es but go off doom boi

[@ignas205]

@@btyler24323 oof, you're not from poe1, are you?

[@ezet]

@@btyler24323 ES is in ridiculous place at the moment. It will 100% be nerfed. Question is then do they only nerf the amount of ES you can get from the tree, or do they cull some of the conversion mechanics like Ghostwrithe and Everlasting Gaze

[@rwerbicky]

Overflow will get the axe for sure .

[@toletroi333]

0:44 Math saying "demon waifu lady thing" was not on my 2024 bingo card

[@Haionsodium]

nearly spat out my water hearing him say that

[@ersetzbar.]

that name is taken now

[@ThaCousin]

@@ersetzbar. 🤣

[@ThanhLai5]

I'm also playing this build thanks to Mathil's inspiration. For single target, I combine Essence Drain with Bonestorm. There's a supp gem called Drain Ailments that removes a random ailment to deal 35% more DoT. I put that into Essence Drain. Then I'd use Bonestorm+Lacerate+Ignition to add ailments reliably thanks to high spell dmg bonus from Demon Form. Bonestorm's dmg is also respectable with Demon Form as well.

[@Noobwater]

holy jiggle physics on the demon dommy mommy lady

[@Goldmask-lm2sy]

hahaha ENCHANCE ZOOM ENGAGE! dang you are right!

[@MyNameIsSalo]

The dash is the only reason I'm still playing this game tbh. I've gone through a few builds but with the extreme amount of backtracking while mapping and often getting stun locked and swarmed I couldn't do much maps until I got bored. Demon form bypasses all this and I genuinely can't see myself playing anything else until GGG fixes mobility or having to backtrack to clear maps. You move atleast x2 faster and it is super responsive at dodging out of the way, and it can change direction mid-dodge so you can go through doorways or go backwards. It's a game changer The big downside is the clunkiness of having to reset demon form, if it drops mid-boss fight or breach you're basically fucked. So you need to pay attention. Or alternatively build your stacks up so high that they never drop off inside maps, which is my aim. I'm at 350 stacks atm which is enough for all maps unless it rolls with multiple league mechanics at once But honestly worse case scenario you just cap demonflame to 10 stacks and spec into more damage on tree. Yes it'll be much weaker overall but getting that dodge roll is what you're picking demon form for, there's a million other ways to solve damage. lots of highly abusable damage setups right now

[@Hermes50837]

Hey there, been playing this build (kinda, im hexblast) since launch of EA and i got around mana cost by going PyromanticPact and get +MaxFire Res and LifeRegenerationRate Jewels for anyone wondering where this can go :) Allows for even more ES on the Tree btw.

[@dangkolache]

dropping HP and getting flat regen reminds me a lot of the old 55 monk setup from GW2

[@Phenomatron]

Gotta get them UW ECTOS lol protective spirit HYPE

[@SoulxWeaver]

Perma invis Assassin Guild Wars 1

[@kennymai681]

thats what i thought too lol. isnt that from gw1 though?

[@dangkolache]

@@kennymai681 yeah I think you're right! I was in high school when I played it, seemingly 200 years ago

[@Prentach]

It is indeed from GW1. Great memories as a kid farming fissure.

[@Vyndetta7]

If you want a stronger Essence Drain dot you can use Envenom on your Dark Effigy for the Poison proc. Combine that with Drain Elements on your Essence Drain. It eats the weak Poison proc and gives your Essence Drain a 35% MORE damage increase.

[@MistAssassin69]

You needn't even use a support gem for poison, the dog burns everything near it

[@Mathilification]

That was going to be the plan for a 6th link if that ever happens or I suppose I could swap the chain for heavier fights.

[@razorzagaming]

Also chaotic freeze on Contagion is great.

[@miorioff]

@@razorzagaming correct me if I'm wrong but chaotic freeze is only for hit chaos builds, like hexblast for example. I does nothing for dots

[@razorzagaming]

@@miorioff Essence drain has a hit portion aswell. Quite a big one so you link it with drain ailments then it removes the freeze ailment and you get 30% more damage for the hit and dot from Essence drain.

[@exquisitecoffee6150]

Impending doom on the despair gives some really nice clear when the cursed enemy dies to the dot

[@moonsy-9733]

yep and you can cast a 100% crit hexblast (hourglass + inevitable crit is what I use) to trigger it early.

[@sonicmarsh232]

I dont know if it is intended or not, but thanks to decaying hex, you can spread your curse with contagion, You can also spread poisons this way. Contagion says it spreads ALL chaos DoTs, apparently that is truly ALL of them. There is an unfortunate weapon swap bug with curses, but you can use both decaying hex and the impending doom explosions together if you dont weapon swap and have exploding packs of enemies with chaos DoTs.

[@Daydream2142]

Contagion spreads curse even without decaying hex

[@sonicmarsh232]

@Daydream2142 if so that's even better

[@eshannumin]

This literalrly doesn't work. Hexbloom doesn't spread damage from decaying hex and doesn't spread doomblast. Only thr curse spreads, nothing else.

[@sonicmarsh232]

@eshannumin not sure what your setup was, but all the dots/curses were spread by contagion, and before I was using a curse weapon swap the doom blast support was chaining explosions

[@innocuous526]

had planned to remake my EC/Contagion blood mage build with an infernalist because imo blood mage feels like straight dog to play. Big thing that helped Contagion and essence drain late game was aoe nodes and gems with doom on curses, make mapping feel 10x better since contagion would chain like 4m

[@theholyvessel5736]

The Ten demon flame is good for early on then just spec out of it for the hound when you have regen at something do able.

[@Humaricslastcall]

Something funny you can try with contagion: Blackflame ignites. I wonder if the conversion from fire dot to chaos dot allows it to spread with contagion?

[@Auscheels]

Since you have the node that grants 11% more chaos damage, you can put the 'withering touch' support into the spell 'eye of winter' to quickly cap stacks of wither.

[@deviant324]

Since you have no supports on demon form right now, if it works like the chayula thing on monk it doesn't seem like any supports that add flat spirit do actually have a cost when used on these ascendancy auras. I have vitality, precision and clarity on my Into The Breach and they do not change my spirit reservation at all, based on tooltips you do actually get their effects though. It's free life and mana regen (precision obv useless on casters)

[@thehob3836]

You should check that, when I was testing some demon form things it seemed like the spirit cost supports were not applying their effects. Just have your character sheet open and watch your regen numbers when you slot in clarity or vitality to see.

[@cranberrysauce61]

from what i tested with demon form a couple days ago, adding vitality/clarity to demon form actually increases the casting cost to change into the demon form but doesn't give you the auras from them. so with vitality supporting demon form, you will need 20 unreserved spirit to shapeshift into the demon form, but while in demon form, you will lose out of the 20 spirit but not gain the life regen from it.

[@dshearwf]

@@thehob3836 it doesnt work on demon form, but it absolutely works with the chayula ascendancy from monk. can have every aura support running for free, but it does seem weird and I think it's going to be changed/fixed.

[@deviant324]

@ I went to his stream after and some people in chat confirmed it works on Into the Breach (I also double checked afterwards) but for some reason not with demon form. It’s either that there’s a mechanical difference between them that makes the difference or one of them is bugged

[@cranberrysauce61]

@@deviant324 yeah, i think its like demon form you are turning it on for weapon set 1/2 but then immediately changed to the shapeshift set with a different demon form skill to turn it off and not on. while into the beach doesn't change you weapon set. so it is active with the same set you triggered it with.

[@FunkehChicken]

Good to see you jumping on the Demon Form bandwagon Math :) FYI there is no benefit going below 200 hp. There was a patch a while back now where they capped the life loss per stack at 1minimum, which equates to the loss at 200 hp, so anything below 200 hp is not going to see any reduction in the life degen per stack.

[@btyler24323]

Yes everyone already knows this. Being at 201 is worse than 200 though. So

[@ChillAutos]

@@btyler24323I didn’t know that.

[@IIINEMESESII]

@@TheFierburn 9:05 dude... but mathil doesnt mention it?? actually pay attention.

[@FmboyOW]

The degen happens over 30 server ticks, meaning you can have way lower max life than ur stacks, the way my setup is built allows me to sustain stack cap (3k) on way way lower health

[@patshmear10101]

​@@FmboyOW is there a guide somewhere for what you are doing?

[@jeffrey778]

poison is pretty good on dark effigy because it counts as a chaos debuff, which allows the tower to self target. adding plague burst also counts as a choas debuff that spreads. only thing that sucks about dark effigy is it needs a choas debuff to start shooting the one mechanic of the skill i wish ggg would change. i like the idea the more stacks the faster and more it shoots.

[@Gandi2000]

GGG: we will not nerf this build because it has 2 buttons.

[@TH-dg2mm]

Yeah removing all the %life nodes from the tree was definitely a choice... I was a 2.7k HP build with really good HP gear... switch to ES, 15k overflow. Seems reasonable.

[@szymond2302]

I didn't know Aaron Paul plays PoE

[@LaymensLament]

Ive been playing capped demon form with flameblast. I recommend it if u can afford some cast speed and aoe size nodes. Sustain demon form will fix all the single target damage issues. (U can one shot all mob packs on l82 maps capped but im on +2 boss level and it can take me quite some time to kill a boss capped. U still get the mobility and have more flexibility on equip slots)

[@flobbingmaster]

holy shit the passive tree has a shapeshift spec option, so you can have damage for non demon form, and go back to pure defense when you shift

[@cranberrysauce61]

so, a couple days ago i did some testing with demon form, and demon form IS NOT effected by the shapeshift spec options, and only the vanilla passive skills. when i was testing, i had increased energy shield passives set to the shapeshift set, but when i turned into the demon form my es didn't change. a hot fix might of corrected this without knowing it, but just something to be warry of, as demon form has some issues around it.

[@Humaricslastcall]

@@cranberrysauce61 Demon form actually has a snapshotting issue, so that could be why.

[@ezmercopal5416]

they gotta give demon form some absolutely diabolical MTX like a pale angel maybe something holy/ innocence coded stygian? actual beidat skin? vaal Demon of atzoatle?

[@Raiunax]

holy beidat

[@Govakhelsborne]

Are you immune to bleed and poison with this build? Because normally they ignore energy shield so my assumption would be they would one-shot you unless your regen is just so high that you can ignore them?

[@abebuckingham8198]

The regen is likely enough for bleed but I think the reason he has 75% chaos resist is that it needs help with the poisons.

[@n0l0g1n6]

bleed can only apply if you take damage directly to life so he's immune to it

[@timproc9355]

@@abebuckingham8198 think that's because shield takes double damage from chaos also the chest unique has a chunk of chaos resist also

[@Murks33]

Bleed and poison can't be inflicted without doing damage to the life pool itself. With how little life he has, any hit that would apply a bleed or poison is probably a hit that kills him anyway regardless.

[@MyNameIsSalo]

ES builds are immune to bleed. The hit damage needs to hit your life pool for a bleed chance to roll, if you don't take hit damage to your life then you cannot bleed. Poison is countered by having decent regen + maxed chaos res. Chaos res is mandatory but it is super easy to get with x2 mings heart + ghostwrithe. Those 3 alone can cap it with max rolls

[@lordclif6649]

You can run mask of the stitched demon to get an insane amount of life regen, I am able to sustain up to around 500-600 stacks of demonform with the helmet

[@Benjignome]

With no ES and a health pool of 2500 with mind over matter. Absolute garbage for mapping vs ES

[@lordclif6649]

@@Benjignome mapping is good for me 1 shot everything in my screen and half a screen away

[@UnrealityDesigns]

Love your builds man!

[@rustyking23able]

I am currently running flame blast + cast on ignite dd. But I have speced into dps and defense on the tree. With around 5k es which is plenty and running it to where my my life regen is recovering my es. Feels really good

[@sayitdd]

I do have quick item which tells that “damage that penetrated energy shield takes your mana instead of life” or something like that. Basically, you are not taking damage as long as you have mana. If you would like to trade let me know, I can give it to you.

[@AcSlaytah56]

it would be really cool if they changed the demon form stack cap ascension node to a toggle ability that locks you at the current demon form stacks. This would allow players to freely stack to what they are able to deal with.

[@AIRpursuit]

if you do mind over mana, does demon form still drains life and not mana instead?

[@miorioff]

I use Mask of the Stitched Demon with Mind over Matter setup. Don't need any life regen nodes, just stack mana and ES

[@janbutala9519]

I tried to have kinda same build with my first play through. what ive noticed is, having spirit skills active (eg withering) it does not allow me to shift into demon form. bug or feature?

[@mattyryon]

Wouldn't spell cascade be better than unleash since it adds area?

[@Macronaso]

wtf I was just levelling up this exact same idea, up to my second ascendancy now. Honestly surprised by how good demon form feels, I thought it would feel a lot more dangerous.

[@rahc7319]

Does Grim Harvest feel bugged for anyone else? The energy shield remnants are there but when I pick them up my ES doesn't change

[@ЯрославМиронов-ц2р]

Ah mathil, so young and innocent. While the chinese on bilibili stack 2000 spell power buffs he is out there content with 200, real humble man.

[@Calekoflight]

I wonder if Demon Form works like Into the Breach for Chayula monks. You can put all the spirit supports in there for zero spirit cost.

[@cranberrysauce61]

sadly it currently doesn't work that way. with vitality and clarity supporting demon from, it makes it so you need 30 unreserved spirit to cast demon form but doesn't give you the effects of vitality/clarity while in demon form.

[@tiagoandre08]

What do you do if you take chaos damage? Won't it just go through energy shield and one tap you

[@ReallyNotAGoose]

In PoE2, chaos damage doesn't fully bypass energy shield. It "only" deals double damage against ES instead. If you have high ES and chaos resist (which ghostwrite provides) it's very manageable.

[@MyNameIsKeeper]

I just ascended and got about 33 life regen, and can't sustain demon form at all, at around 25+ stacks i start to degen real bad, at how much life regen does this become more "stable" ?

[@pon4411]

Depends on how many stacks you want to sustain. 100stacks = you need 50% of your max life as regen before it starts degening 200stacks = you need 100% of your max life as regen before it starts degening 300stacks = you need 150% of your max life as regen.... 400stacks = you need 200% of your max life....... Say your max life is 1000 then you need 500 life regen to get 100stacks, but if you were to have max 300 life, then you only need 150 life regen to get the same 100stacks. Hope that somewhat helps

[@MyNameIsKeeper]

@pon4411 very much so ty

[@Arezius]

You're choosing exactly the same spec I'm beginning to play after choosing Monk like you, nice :D

[@waveyzen]

same lol

[@zombiesnivy]

I also did the same after playing monk as well lmao.

[@mfsdmer9665]

How do you survive poison and bleeds that go through the shield?

[@ReallyNotAGoose]

They don't. Poison and bleed are only applied if your life is hit in the first place - so they are never applied on an ES build.

[@Lazris59]

Big overfight not having demon form degen ES as well. Since it's only HP, it leads to things like tinctures and getting the right amount to never degen more than regen. Health having no % scaling but all flat from levels and items is a big problem. ES is good because armor gives flat es and there is ES % on the tree. Major balance issue unless they bring back life nodes.

[@cyclogenisis]

Doesn't it bother you that movement speed in poe2 blows?

[@MyNameIsSalo]

not with demonform it doesnt

[@cyclogenisis]

@@MyNameIsSalo compared to poe1 its dogshit slow buddy

[@AIRpursuit]

have you considered life leech insteade of regen? If the math is right, your leach should always refill your life pool on low life when you are on high demon stacks since your damage is very high! than you should theoretically be in demon form forever as long as you constantly dealing damage. And also if you get your other ascendency points, you can actually take 2 of the reduced life nodes, which reduces your life by 50% and not take a hit on resistances from the ming rings

[@marae.o.9759]

Altered flesh would actually be a good idea because you have so much chaos res it's a bunch of phys mit. it'd mean you can try to just get fire res for some double dipping defence

[@MyNameIsSalo]

nah it gives 3% max life on the node before it which means less demonflame stacks. You don't want it. It's genuinely better to allocate nothing.

[@marae.o.9759]

If you catalyst the ming's hearts you can make up for it. I know you don't get the other catalyst options but it's still a possibility

[@Gumblethebear]

Why Chain on ED instead of Pierce?

[@blackmage999]

Pierce has a damage penalty after projectiles pierce (even the DoT) and chain only reduces the hit damage (not the DoT)

[@ELVIStheDotA]

Also chain has like high aim assist while pierce I found i had to line up the shot more so another qol thing.

[@AbsurdRenegade]

GGG entire identity revolves around BLIZZARD'S DIABLO

[@elosy_the_thoughtless]

I had a huge deja vu at 4:34, feels like i've already seen somewhere a character that needed to ramp with a transformation. I seem to remember there were community complaints about it cause it took to long and didn't feel good. It does not seem to be the case here though.

[@Psycorde]

Last Epoch?

[@rinaldskudlans7236]

you can get resistances as corrupted enchant on jewels

[@danielff3844]

the issue that i currently have with ES in poe2 is that you are bascially required to us grim feast. Without you just cant sustain enough es, especially during acts

[@Bombtrap]

question: Chaos dmg or Spark?

[@MyNameIsSalo]

spark seems to have better top end dps. I'm staying with hexblast CoI comet with the infernal flame nodes from infernalist. You hit certain breakpoints in your mana cost vs mana pool and you can proc comet every single hexblast cast and it is super consistent above 100 demonflame stacks. Rare and unique mobs get insta deleted being nuked by comets. It feels like you're playing pre-nerfed CoI builds. It even procs vs magic/normal packs half of the time but everything is already dead because hexblast 1 shots

[@neednot22]

well damn, gonna try this on my infernalist because I got 1 already on cruel that I didn't touch again because I just dont enjoy minion playstyle that much. wish me luck

[@jamesalton1903]

I love the d4 ads I get during this video

[@reyclorox]

Oh shit i was just gonna upgrade the demon form build i already had, gotta hurry before the video breaks the market

[@xanrilteneb7673]

wait don't ming's hearts give reduced GLOBAL defences? does that not hurt your ES pool as much as I think it should?

[@williamdutton8461]

would ingenuity be decent for this?

[@aimlessgun]

Probably, you could drop down to 1 Ming's and then use a rare ring with regen and other goodies.

[@yikesmcg1371]

Been running this build but add a blasphemy + hexblast setup for ST. Smooths out boss fights a lot.

[@Vashthalas]

Was just about to give this a try after seeing that reddit post talking about the build tech. Looks like so much fun compared to Corrupting Cry!

[@thehob3836]

GL getting any trade responses for those now at a reasonable price. Love Mathil's builds, but man do they hit the market sometimes

[@DoubleMeatpalace]

What do you think about hexblast instead of essence drain?

[@Unbelievableone1987]

All considered ED still needs a hefty buff if you compare it to most other spells.

[@Dante070890]

Ball lightning is fantastic for withher, can get 10 stacks instantly on bosses

[@b.stankov3356]

What happens if you go CI?

[@PSYCH0N4VT]

You can't use demon form

[@b.stankov3356]

@@PSYCH0N4VT Unfortunate.

[@chuckironsight3914]

if they would have that point cap it at 100 demon flame, id be good. my regen can sustain about 150 before it starts eating away

[@kyletilley5295]

I cant activate any spirit skills while in demon form.

[@psychobear10]

The one thing i dont like demon form beside all the bugs with it. But its you cant use any mtx on it. It will be cool like they had alt mtx for it later on

[@iamndb]

They’ve already said they’re going to do this for Shapeshift forms

[@moonsy-9733]

Wish I could use Demon Form as a Blood Mage lol, but am running the same skills. Solid build.

[@MySturmgeist]

hey Mathil can you make a really good ES build in poe2

[@genHawkeye]

man...i need...a guide on the campaign; like idk what the fk im doing but i am SLOW. about 55 hours on my witchhunter and im BARELY about to finish act 3 cruel, i know i've been taking my time but DAMN. i want to try other classes but don't want to be putting that amount of time in each campaign lol (like i want to try this cause it looks fun and i loved ED/Cont in POE1)

[@maggotthemadman8142]

Good build concept with cutting hp to have flat regen & base health as the same amount. 200 flat regen isn't hard to get.

[@LieutenantMerks]

You might as well put Despair into Blasphemy and make it an Aura and use Hexblast over Essense and just nuke the whole screen.

[@GladiatUnispect]

55hp monk from guild wars 1 vibe, I love it

[@samspirloff4764]

Damn, I can't have Buff in my demon form. I have 140 of sprit, no we pond, but I can't activate buffs/aura...

[@azamantes2025]

holy mother of.....that dash....i'm in love......

[@ErinRinArt]

chaos freeze support gem on contagion would be insane tbh

[@MyNameIsSalo]

Not for chaos DoT because DoT can't freeze but it is really good for hexblast setups

[@Humaricslastcall]

Blackflame exists in PoE2 last i checked, maybe it'll work with that?

[@henrikhogdahl]

Demon form had zero love until 0.1.0e. (Levers hell)

[@ТимофейРусанов-ы2ю]

what about CI?

[@kkplx]

meanwhile, here i am struggling to survive on my ES builds with maxed res and CI. completely different reality apparently.

[@cashandraven2369]

Yeah, the ES vs Life issue is absolutely nonsese right now, I know it's EA but some things are just in a really bad place for no real reason.

[@MyNameIsSalo]

Whats hilarious is the EXACT same situation happened in PoE1 which is deeply concerning. How did they repeat the same mistake? It is so much worse this time around too as in PoE1 going ES was very expensive and it was awkward to transition into. But in PoE2 it's literality free, people are doing it SSF no problem

[@ezet]

@@MyNameIsSalo The amount of things they messed up that had been fixed in PoE 1 makes PoE 2 look like it was made by different people - almost like a sequel by a different company which feels weird

[@ranielyfire]

You can get a bunch of cheap red jewels chaos spam until u hit regen and then Vaal in hopes of a resistance roll

[@MyNameIsSalo]

"cheap"? chaos orbs are 1 to 2 ex. They are very expensive to be rolling jewels with. The jewels might be cheap but rolling them is not

[@ranielyfire]

@ I mean you can try buying already corrupted jewels with res and life regen rate

[@megatoys7]

for those wanting to do this build currentl ming heart is 1 div at the time of posting this comment.... sooo if you dont got that its harder to do the build

[@AnActualDinosaur]

You can ACTUALLY DODGE shit with it. It feels like the game was balanced around it. Also, Chaotic Freeze on Contagion is INSANE btw. Oh and the "snapshot" tech works with the Mings as well, you can take them off after transforming and still have the reduced life, so you can take them off and add more flat life regen.

[@mertuygun4825]

So we playing Last Epoch Ward patch as early access 😅

[@meza6958]

Basically ES sorc from d2 playing with negative res almost like its nothing love it 🎉

[@mickgamehome]

add Blackflame to this build for total aesthetic

[@dengfixanros]

...and they deleted cast on freeze/shock/ignite/critical, ok.

[@miorioff]

It's so insane that we can have 160+ stacks, insane amount of spellpower and still have worse damage than probably any top build right now. The balance for spells is so sad

[@draakisback]

Es and ghostwrithe are too broken. I dunno why they didnt remember this being a problem from poe 1 (i still remember that patch where they nerfed all es nodes and items), but right now really dont have any way to directly get more life appart from using strength and gear. With ghostwrithe, getting a ton of ES requires very little gear investment, I have 12k on my witch. I also made a build that was doing CI, MoM and EB by taking advantage of how the life to es conversation applied first before EB and CI. This seems kind of insane to me since it really shouldnt be possible. Max es you can get on a pure es chest looks to be around 8-900 which means getting 20-30k es shouldnt be to hard, meanwhile hitting more than 3k life is pretty rough. It doesnt help that armor is also pretty trash for mitigating big hits in later maps. They need to do something about the armor crush mechanic for bigger hits as it trivializes all of the damage mitigation you get from trying to spec into armor once you get into yellow maps. I really don't envy the balance team and the work they've got to do to ckean up defenses. Feels like almost everything in this game needs a balance pass which makes sense for early access, but I can just imagine how pissed some people are going to be when their ES bulds get completely bricked. Maybe its worth waiting a few months for the population to drop before releasing a league reset along with all of the defense changes.

[@m.h.4907]

Demon Form and Bonestorm is broken on bosses. The damage is ridiculous.

[@JtotheDoubleL]

Demon form makes a bunch of peoples games crash.

[@moosecat00]

How to make Essence Drain good, get 3000% spell damage. 👍

[@MyNameIsSalo]

at best it makes essence drain usable. Good is an overstatement. Still can't do single target dps

[@joseluisdossantoscruz1102]

This is the only ascendancy that actually feels like and ascendancy. At least the character changes visually, not only background numbers calculations. Unfortunately, the rest of classes ascendancy feels underwhelming, both in numbers, visuals and exclusive skills.

[@yurisavun3776]

Bleed/poison insta killing this build lol?

[@Thebub44]

Absolutely hilarious your melee comments LOL

[@kylebusc3624]

+6 to all spell skills would be a lot more enticing if it didnt jack the mana cost through the roof 😂

[@MyNameIsSalo]

that's why infernalist has a node that removes all mana and instead turns it into damage taken. So you build for mitigating and sustaining damage, which funnily enough also increases your demonflame stacks if you invest into it via regen. Lots of synergy there

[@JustKaz2311]

Honestly, haven't played anything other than demon form since launch because of the movement. BUT for the love of god, slot anything but chaos dot. The spells are significantly worse than anything else. Targeting, damage, it's all bad. Spark, arc, flameblast/nova, barrier invocation comet, it's all better.