Put pierce support on essence drain asap. The clunckyness of this skill combo is insane and it really helps smooth it out. to put the passive tree in the video so here it is th-cam.com/users/postUgkxfuXUiUVWcIzS9hkbyzxTOIwYB-p_SYx-?si=9ehsdq1hPKSK4vUO
I used chain and scattershot to spread the essence drain to loads of mobs in a pack and then hit any one with contagion. First I would cast despair with impending doom. Then when the contagion spreads it transfers the ED and the curse to other enemies. The clear is really satisfying with the chaos damage pops of the curse exploding
I use the Unearth.. If you spread a bunch of Contagion on bodies and let it Kill them, their corps will have the Contagion. When you unearth then the Bone Constructs will have the Contagion as well.. At this point I just shoot ED with Scattershot while spamming Contagion with the couple spell cast along with the attacking of my infested Constructs and it smoothens out that clunky feeling. This worked for me. Minions and ED Contagion were two of my favorite builds, so I too really wanted to find a way to make this work.. Im going fire with the SrS now though the free 30 spirit from Freythorn via Hunting Grounds.. Then any fire you cast they will auto-populate.. using 2 Flame Walls w/ Fortress Support will populate 10x at a time... So much fun stuff to discover. Ive been poking around looking for new and exciting ideas.. Ghazzy has discovered a way to auto-bomb them, lol.. OFC he did. GL Doth, ill keep checking back..
I was just going to comment this, when I use contagion first it vary rarely hits the one in front unless they are far in front, but even if I cast it in a group if I hit one with essence drain first it will hit that minion. Just makes it tough if you are too high lvl or powerful and minions die too fast to essence drain
This was a huge help thanks. Still hope they fix the targeting though. It’s not just contagion that’s wonky, some of the monk skills also target randomly sometimes.
Use Unleash on contagion, and give it the aoe support gem. Unleash will aoe onto 3 targets. Then spam essence drain into the mass with pierce AND chain. Chain doesn't impact the dot, but it does impact the initial hit.
@@mercb3ast theres only 1 working damage link for essence drain currently, cutting dps on the initial hit is also a massive loss of dps until we get more support gems
use chain instead of pierce...the damage reduction only affects the hit, not the dot of ED put Decaying Hex support on enfeeble (later on decay) to make it apply a dot (which also spreads with contagion) (another nice support for the curse is impending doom) and grab Zone of Control cluster, makes cursing a lot easier
@@Palaryel I'm using pierce so it hits the enemy I aim at. Chain can bounce elsewhere. Yeah I threw decaying hex on despair and I'm using dark effigy with withering touch support
For some reason when I spawn from unearth they have chaos damage when they die from chaos damage when they hit people they get infected idk how I did it or if it’s a glitch
Unleash Support makes Contagion hit multiple different enemies, albeit Contagion will lose damage (which doesn't really matter)... Chain on ED helps as well, and only reduces "hit" dmg, huge quality of life
Can you try blasphemy + decaying hex + despair. It should give you a aoe decay aura similar to righteous fire but chaos dmg. I think you can scale it by stacking intel. Not sure tho as ive not tried it myself and have not seen anyone talking about it
@ripsy I did plan on trying this out when I get blasphemy! Seems like it won't be a ton of damage but who knows. I did plan on int stacking if there are good reasons to. There arnt any on the passive tree for my build so hopefully uniques/mods have some benefits.
@Doth_ I was going to try this setup as my second build after I've finished with minions. Doesn't seem to be many ways to scale chaos damage on the tree but maybe there is some stuff in the acolyte of chahula monk ascendancy that could work for chaos
I wanted to make an AIDS build with contagion. Loving it so far. To make essence drain easier I put scatter shot on it. 3 bolts a lot easier to hit the 1 contagioned mob
@@Lagencie sadly that will change and another commenter said contagion prioritizes enemies with essence drain on them so give it a try. seemed to work for me
I'm using Envenom with Dark Effigy totem (along with Wither and some other supports like totem placement speed and cast speed), seems to work pretty well. Of course I don't place the totem all the time, but with larger packs and bosses it's great.
waiting for new vid! im currently at same place with demon form + ed cont. Feels kinda dumb we lose our wepons and all buffs that weapons bring while in form. Idk what spells will be good in demon form aswell. But i like the from just only cos the mobility and giga dmg!
I'm not able to play much today so maybe ill do small update late tonight again cuz iv figured out a little. I basically just spam essence drain since it does have some hit damage in demon form lol
Its not clunky at all, if you cast essence drain first contagion ALLWAYS casts on the mob that allready has a dot on it. Then it is very hard to cast contagion on anything else then the dotted one.
Yeah recommended supports are damage ones, but the skill is unplayable without chain or pierce. This makes me think somehow this skill is expected to be this clunky ? PoE1 essence drain was already a bit clunky, making contagion single-target is absolutely overkill. Making it a small AoE (so not a big curse one like PoE1) would fix everything. It's a shame to have to use a support gem to fix this. I hope it's an oversight and doesn't reflect a game design state of mind.
everything skill wise feels clunky in poe 2 :(, the whole forcing you to use combos is a bit shit, I wish they would reconsider and let you choose to do combo damage or single skill damage or something.
@@joerocket10r I highly suggest getting cast/attack speed if it makes your skills go faster. I even picked up cast speed on my tree till I get a bunch on weapons and stuff.
I actually think the combos are good. I disliked poe 1because every build was essentially just spamming one skill and using a bunch of flasks. This is more interesting imo.
Put pierce support on essence drain asap. The clunckyness of this skill combo is insane and it really helps smooth it out.
to put the passive tree in the video so here it is th-cam.com/users/postUgkxfuXUiUVWcIzS9hkbyzxTOIwYB-p_SYx-?si=9ehsdq1hPKSK4vUO
Pierce on essence drain really made this build work for me.
pierce or chain?
I tossed scatter shot on it. Maybe pierce is better
I used chain and scattershot to spread the essence drain to loads of mobs in a pack and then hit any one with contagion. First I would cast despair with impending doom. Then when the contagion spreads it transfers the ED and the curse to other enemies. The clear is really satisfying with the chaos damage pops of the curse exploding
I use the Unearth.. If you spread a bunch of Contagion on bodies and let it Kill them, their corps will have the Contagion. When you unearth then the Bone Constructs will have the Contagion as well.. At this point I just shoot ED with Scattershot while spamming Contagion with the couple spell cast along with the attacking of my infested Constructs and it smoothens out that clunky feeling. This worked for me. Minions and ED Contagion were two of my favorite builds, so I too really wanted to find a way to make this work..
Im going fire with the SrS now though the free 30 spirit from Freythorn via Hunting Grounds.. Then any fire you cast they will auto-populate.. using 2 Flame Walls w/ Fortress Support will populate 10x at a time... So much fun stuff to discover. Ive been poking around looking for new and exciting ideas.. Ghazzy has discovered a way to auto-bomb them, lol.. OFC he did. GL Doth, ill keep checking back..
@@marksutherlandjr.2121 I noticed the minions get some kind of chaos from unearth. Wasn't sure what they did exactly so ill look out for that 👍
Contagion has a preference built into it, use essence drain first and after it has connected use contagion, you'll find it much more reliable.
I was just going to comment this, when I use contagion first it vary rarely hits the one in front unless they are far in front, but even if I cast it in a group if I hit one with essence drain first it will hit that minion. Just makes it tough if you are too high lvl or powerful and minions die too fast to essence drain
This was a huge help thanks. Still hope they fix the targeting though. It’s not just contagion that’s wonky, some of the monk skills also target randomly sometimes.
Use Unleash on contagion, and give it the aoe support gem.
Unleash will aoe onto 3 targets. Then spam essence drain into the mass with pierce AND chain. Chain doesn't impact the dot, but it does impact the initial hit.
@@mercb3ast theres only 1 working damage link for essence drain currently, cutting dps on the initial hit is also a massive loss of dps until we get more support gems
use chain instead of pierce...the damage reduction only affects the hit, not the dot of ED
put Decaying Hex support on enfeeble (later on decay) to make it apply a dot (which also spreads with contagion)
(another nice support for the curse is impending doom)
and grab Zone of Control cluster, makes cursing a lot easier
@@Palaryel I'm using pierce so it hits the enemy I aim at. Chain can bounce elsewhere. Yeah I threw decaying hex on despair and I'm using dark effigy with withering touch support
is minion pact working?
hey nice vid! i gave me some ideas i just need some clarifications so if u in demonform u cant use the skill that u get from your weapon ?
correct
For some reason when I spawn from unearth they have chaos damage when they die from chaos damage when they hit people they get infected idk how I did it or if it’s a glitch
yeah they basically carry contagion and spread it to other enemies. I put it back on the build but dont use it much still
Unleash Support makes Contagion hit multiple different enemies, albeit Contagion will lose damage (which doesn't really matter)... Chain on ED helps as well, and only reduces "hit" dmg, huge quality of life
yee iv been using it and its 100% the move
Does the DoT portion even scale with level???
@@r.d.6290 definitely yes
@@Doth_ its tooltip menu damage still stays on 24.6 dps, that's why this question even exists
@r.d.6290 I looked at a level 9 gem vs a level 16 and the dps was much higher
Can you try blasphemy + decaying hex + despair. It should give you a aoe decay aura similar to righteous fire but chaos dmg. I think you can scale it by stacking intel. Not sure tho as ive not tried it myself and have not seen anyone talking about it
@ripsy I did plan on trying this out when I get blasphemy! Seems like it won't be a ton of damage but who knows. I did plan on int stacking if there are good reasons to. There arnt any on the passive tree for my build so hopefully uniques/mods have some benefits.
@Doth_ I was going to try this setup as my second build after I've finished with minions. Doesn't seem to be many ways to scale chaos damage on the tree but maybe there is some stuff in the acolyte of chahula monk ascendancy that could work for chaos
@@Doth_ blasphemy - decaying hex - despair - chaotic freeze - drain ailments - swift affliction
Maybe u can make something work with that idk, just an idea
@@ripsy +
what are your links on ED and Contagion?
@@jccharrington 8:28
How do you get spirit for withering. I can't activate at 30 spirit?
@aethyst scepter have spirit. Also if you put support gems on it then it might make it cost more
You get 30 spirit from a side quest, don't use supports that increase the requirement.
Unleash on contagion helps to hit to 3 target at once
Put spell cascade on enfeeble to make it way bigger, I use scattershot and chain on essence drain for clear and switch to dps gems for bosses
I wanted to make an AIDS build with contagion. Loving it so far. To make essence drain easier I put scatter shot on it. 3 bolts a lot easier to hit the 1 contagioned mob
cast ED first, then use contagion on that. it work a tiny bit more smoothly
it depends if contagion wants to cooperate lol. I put pierce support on ED and still cast contagion first.
when I cast ED first the mob is dead before i can put contagion on it as my ED is level 11 lol ...
@@Lagencie sadly that will change and another commenter said contagion prioritizes enemies with essence drain on them so give it a try. seemed to work for me
Try using chain with essence drain to make it less clunky.
Is it any good to add poison to this combo? It’s pretty easy to get it on the tree, but I doubt it scales well with essence drain.
@@ShinPG iv been using poison on hexblast but it's pretty mid right now. Would be awful with essence drain
I'm using Envenom with Dark Effigy totem (along with Wither and some other supports like totem placement speed and cast speed), seems to work pretty well. Of course I don't place the totem all the time, but with larger packs and bosses it's great.
waiting for new vid! im currently at same place with demon form + ed cont. Feels kinda dumb we lose our wepons and all buffs that weapons bring while in form. Idk what spells will be good in demon form aswell. But i like the from just only cos the mobility and giga dmg!
I'm not able to play much today so maybe ill do small update late tonight again cuz iv figured out a little. I basically just spam essence drain since it does have some hit damage in demon form lol
Its not clunky at all, if you cast essence drain first contagion ALLWAYS casts on the mob that allready has a dot on it. Then it is very hard to cast contagion on anything else then the dotted one.
@numberline8063 when I recorded this essence drain would kill the enemy before contagion had a chance to cast
its the auto target that is making it clunky
Yeah recommended supports are damage ones, but the skill is unplayable without chain or pierce. This makes me think somehow this skill is expected to be this clunky ? PoE1 essence drain was already a bit clunky, making contagion single-target is absolutely overkill. Making it a small AoE (so not a big curse one like PoE1) would fix everything. It's a shame to have to use a support gem to fix this. I hope it's an oversight and doesn't reflect a game design state of mind.
Might be able to get pierce elsewhere and it was necessary in poe 1 also imo. I got pierce from an eldritch implicit on my gloves (in poe1 obviously)
skill more projektile and pierce... its feels better trust me
Someone stop this man he is going contagion again In poe 2
@@scooter-ic1nk it's all I know
everything skill wise feels clunky in poe 2 :(, the whole forcing you to use combos is a bit shit, I wish they would reconsider and let you choose to do combo damage or single skill damage or something.
@@joerocket10r I highly suggest getting cast/attack speed if it makes your skills go faster. I even picked up cast speed on my tree till I get a bunch on weapons and stuff.
I actually think the combos are good. I disliked poe 1because every build was essentially just spamming one skill and using a bunch of flasks. This is more interesting imo.
I think the combos are great, the targeting is just weird and buggy
if you want to play a game exactly like poe1, maybe you should play poe1 ;)