PoE 3.25 Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist Build

Looking for a good Essence Drain guide in PoE 3.25? If so, we have something for you! Path of Exile’s extensive list of skill gems would normally have you create fantastic builds that require more than two buttons to press.

However, what if we tell you that there is a PoE Occultist build that only needs one button to destroy map monsters? That is the main selling point of the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist.

Do you wish to know more about the inner workings of this build? If that is the case, then let’s go!

Why Choose the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist?

Despite the main skill gem you are going to use, most of the build’s damage actually comes from a unique item, which will be discussed shortly. In the meantime, let’s go over the properties of the Transfigured Gem, Essence Drain of Desperation.

The transfigured version of PoE Essence Drain fires a projectile that deals considerably more damage from its damage over time (DoT) effect. But unlike the original skill gem where you regenerate life based on the damage dealt, the Essence Drain of Desperation makes you lose life and energy shield instead.

Do not worry about the gem’s downside because you will use a proxy called Trap Support for it. When linked with this gem, the original self-cast spell turns into a Trap Skill, allowing you to enjoy the benefits without the life and ES degen. If there is one downside here, it would be that the trap playstyle is a bit clunky for some given the short delay before the damaging projectile is unleashed.

While Essence Drain of Desperation is great for single-target damage, you need another way to deal with map monsters all at once. That is where Death’s Oath comes in. This is a unique item that grants the Death Aura — a spell that deals chaos damage over time to the hostile targets in your vicinity.

As you can surmise, this Essence Drain Occultist build is played similarly to Righteous Fire builds in Path of Exile. You run around while Death Aura is active to kill any foe on the map and throw traps empowered by the Essence Drain of Desperation for more damage if necessary. 

To make these skills more lethal, you are going to take advantage of Despair and Blasphemy Support. This combination of gems gives you the power to emit an aura that reduces the chaos resistance of nearby enemies.

That said, how exactly does the PoE Occultist ascendancy class fit in? Profane Bloom is quite amazing here because it causes cursed monsters you have killed to explode! The resulting explosions aid you in fighting difficult bosses, especially when utilized with Vaal Breach.

Void Beacon and Withering Presence provide additional power to Despair, specifically when it comes to reducing the enemy’s resistance to chaos damage.

Unholy Authority lets you apply an additional curse. This enables you to link another curse spell with Blasphemy Support, though you may have to make adjustments to your PoE Gear to address the additional reservation cost.

If you are wondering about the ideal order of skill allocation for the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist, here it is:

1. Profane Bloom
2. Void Beacon
3. Withering Presence
4. Unholy Authority

Although the vast majority of Path of Exile builds only have the Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh jewels as optional upgrades, that is not the case for this one. The Shaper of Flames is needed to give you the power to Ignite enemies. This is important to leverage the Blackflame’s unique property for even more chaos damage.

Are you interested to know what modifiers you need for damage scaling on this PoE Occultist build? If so, look for any of the following:

• Increased Chaos Damage
• Increased Spell Damage
• + to Damage Over Time Multiplier
• + to Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
• Increased Minion Damage
• Increased Area Damage

Playstyle

The Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist is considered an auto bomber for its ability to destroy enemies without having to spam a set of buttons. If you want a comfortable build that only needs one button to play, then this definitely suits your needs!

Pretty much everything that you need is automated on this PoE Essence Drain build, except for the Transfigured Gem. For the most part, you just run around the map and see monsters explode in an instant due to the interaction with Profane Bloom, Despair (linked to Blasphemy Support), and the Death Aura.

Once you encounter the tougher enemies, then and only then will you throw your Essence Drain of Desperation traps. Do this until your intended target is eliminated.

It is important to note that the above-mentioned playstyle is only applicable if you have all of the necessary PoE items and skill gems. Until you have them in your possession, level your character up using Poisonous Concoction early on. When you have the currency for trading, buy the Poisonous Concoction of Bouncing for better map clear.

Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist Gear Recommendations

The chaos damage dealt by the Death Aura, as well as from Essence Drain of Desperation, is amplified by investing in items that have damage over time modifiers. You have to utilize the rare pieces of gear to sort out your elemental resistance, which is a bit challenging to do for this PoE Occultist build. Nevertheless, we will give you some tips on what you need to do in each of the subsections below.

Weapon

The Convoking Wand is a weapon in Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur that is typically used in minion builds due to its implicit modifier. With that said, you’re probably wondering why you are going to wield this for the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist.

Well, the explanation is very simple: Spiritual Aid. If you allocate this notable passive skill, modifiers that grant increased minion damage will also apply to you. In other words, your spells become even more powerful by also investing in the said modifier.

To craft a pretty good weapon for this build, grab an ilvl 82+ Convoking Wand and spam it with the Deafening Essence of Fear until you get the damage over time multiplier. From here, use Orb of Annulment to remove other modifiers except for minion damage and DoT. This process is easier if you have the damage over time mod fractured.

When the weapon only has two of the desired modifiers left, bench-craft “Can Have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers” and then put chaos damage over time multiplier, as well as increased damage over time. Spend an Exalted Orb to fill up the remaining prefix.

The endgame version of the wand has the Hunter mod that enhances the effect of the Malevolence Aura. To craft it, you have to use the Recombinator in Kingsmarch to fuse two Convoking Wands.

On the first wand, use Chaos Orbs until you get minion damage and Chaos DoT. For the second wand, do the same by using the said PoE Orb, except you need minion damage + mana and the regular DoT. After that, utilize the Recombinator and hope that you have these modifiers merged together in the final product.

Upon receiving the wand, you are not done yet! It is now time to use a Hunter Exalted Orb. The desired outcome here is the increased Malevolence aura effect.

It is important to note that you need to have an open suffix for this, which means that if you do not have one, you will have to use an Orb of Annulment. Furthermore, crafting the endgame wand is quite expensive, especially because it is heavily influenced by RNG.

Shield

When the Settlers of Kalguur League began, a lot of people were curious as to the power that the Svalinn possessed. Needless to say, it is one of the best shields in the game, so much so that PoE 2024 builds that equip a shield usually opt for this over others.

Svalinn’s incredible defensive capabilities are certainly put to the test as they help protect you from anything that might kill you in one hit. The Occultist ascendancy PoE is not known for defenses, so it is nice to see Grinding Gear Games adding this one to the roster of unique items to improve survivability.

Since you are equipping this shield mainly for defensive purposes, you might as well buy a corrupted one with “You Take % Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes” as the implicit modifier.

Body Armor

If the other items on this PoE Occultist build are replaceable, this next one is definitely not up for debate. The Death’s Oath grants that powerful Death Aura that works similarly to Righteous Fire. However, instead of dealing fire damage over time, you are actually dispensing pain via chaos damage.

There is no doubt that you can eliminate monsters quite easily with this body armor equipped, but how do you address its nasty downside? Although the chaos damage you receive per second is indeed deadly, you can resolve that by putting some life leech on your gloves.

It should be noted that the support gems that you put on here need not be linked. However, they still need to be inserted into the sockets with the correct colors. Because Death’s Oath is an armor-based gear, you may have trouble getting the blue or green sockets to appear. If you are struggling with this, get a corrupted version and use Tainted Jeweler’s Orb.

Helmet

You are going to activate at least three buffs, which is why you need to have enough mana reservation efficiency to make that happen. Fortunately, you can craft a helmet, preferably the Divine Crown for the best armor/energy shield values, with the Deafening Essence of Loathing for that reservation mod.

You can get the same on the implicit modifier by spamming the helmet with Grand Eldritch Ichors as well. For the Searing Exarch mod, use Grand Eldritch Embers to enhance the chaos resistance reduction of Despair.

Gloves

If you want to get a glimpse of what the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist can do, then go grab the Asenath's Gentle Touch. You can wear this as early as level 25. These gloves have a unique effect that is almost the same as Profane Bloom, albeit dealing physical damage rather than chaos on kill.

Despite its uses early on, we still recommend that you craft a pair of gloves to replace Asenath’s Gentle Touch. This is mainly to get a hold of that chaos damage leeched as life implicit modifier, which you can obtain by spamming Grand Eldritch Ichors.

Anyway, crafting the gloves requires the use of the Essence of Delirium. This particular essence guarantees the mod: “Socketed Gems Deal 30% More Damage Over Time,” which is amazing given that you will put the Essence Drain of Desperation in this piece of gear.

The other implicit mod is also non-negotiable because the Ignite Proliferation effect spreads the damaging ailment like wildfire!

Boots

Go get the Paladin Boots and make sure that they have an item level of 85. Next, continually utilize the Deafening Essence of Torment until you obtain INT and elemental/chaos resistance (depending on your needs).

If you are happy with your suffixes, put “Suffixes Cannot Be Changed” from the Crafting Bench and then use a Veiled Orb. Unveil it with Jun and hope that you get either the Onslaught mod or the added movement speed, whichever you prefer.

Do you want to know more about crafting in Path of Exile? If so, head to our ultimate crafting guide to get acquainted with this aspect of the game.

Amulet

As we have alluded to earlier in this PoE build guide, the Occultist is not really known for having impenetrable defenses. That is why you need to rely heavily on the items you use to address this shortcoming.

In this slot, we believe that there is no better substitute than the Defiance of Destiny, especially if we are talking about improving your chances of survival. This amulet, as absurd as it may sound, heals you before you get hit by the enemy.

Of course, you can further enhance its healing effect by using Fertile Catalysts until you achieve 20% quality.

The Beacon of Hope (Prismatic, Violet, and Crimson Oils) is a new anoint-only passive skill introduced in Patch 3.25 that greatly increases the area of effect of Death’s Aura, as well as Despair (with Blasphemy Support). Therefore, it is only fitting to anoint this on the Defiance of Destiny to greatly improve your mapping experience!

Rings

The Blackflame is a niche unique item that we believe will only work on the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist. To understand why this is the perfect item for this PoE build, you must learn about Ignite first.

Ignite is a fire elemental ailment in Path of Exile that deals damage over time. Normally, it is only applied through hits that deal fire damage. However, with Shaper of Flames, any damage you inflict upon your enemies, whether direct or otherwise, also causes them to suffer from Ignite.

Having said that, Blackflame's unique effect makes it so that Ignite now deals chaos damage over time rather than its natural elemental damage type.

One challenging aspect of putting this PoE Occultist build together is sorting out your elemental resistance. Don’t worry, you can go for a crafted Iolite Ring for the other slot. When crafting the ring, go for modifiers that you still need for your character. If you want, you can use the Essence of Envy for that “% Increased Chaos Damage” mod for maximum offense!

Belt

The Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist is a relatively affordable build with some upgrades you can take later down the line. At the start, craft a Stygian Vise using any of the attribute essences (Essence of Sorrow or Spite is preferred) to address your elemental or chaos resistance. Additionally, you can roll T1 life to improve your survivability.

When you have the means to do so, buy a Hunter Exalted Orb from PoE Trade for a chance to get the increased chaos damage prefix. It should go without saying that you need an open prefix for this, so you may have to annul one of the mods to fit this in.

The Stygian Vise highlighted above is already very good. But, you can make things even better by investing in the Mageblood. The constant uptime of magic utility flasks is just too hard to ignore, making the Mageblood the perfect complement for this PoE build.

Flasks

• Bismuth Flask
• Amethyst Flask
• Quartz Flask
• Quicksilver Flask
• Oriath’s End (Offense) OR Progenesis (Defense)
• Use a Life Flask early on

Flask Mods

• 20% Additional Elemental Resistances (of the Rainbow)
• 60% Increased Armour (of the Armadillo)
• 14% Increased Movement Speed (of the Cheetah)
• 65% Reduced Effect of Curses on You (of the Owl)
• Immunity to Corrupted Blood (on the Life Flask)
• 25% Increased Effect (Prefix, Alchemist/Abecedarian/Dabbler)

Jewels

With the crafted boots you have equipped, you can immunize yourself against Freeze, Shock, Chill, and Ignite by using the Stormshroud. Make sure to spend enough Divine Orbs until you achieve a 60% chance to avoid being shocked on the explicit mod.

After that, save your PoE Currency to obtain the Forbidden Flame/Flesh jewels with “Shaper of Flames” as the matching modifier. This is mandatory to give you the ability to Ignite monsters even without the Blackflame. If you do not want to deal with the uncertainties, you can just go to our PoE Store and have the currency to buy any weapon you want!

The Watcher’s Eye, particularly with “+% to Damage Over Time Multiplier While Affected by Malevolence,” is highly recommended.

For the rest of the jewels, you can purchase these as suitable upgrades later on:

• The Light of Meaning: Specifically one that has “6% Increased Chaos Damage”
• 12-Passive Cluster Jewel (Chaos Damage): Must have good explicit modifiers, such as life, STR, and life regen
• 8-Passive Large Cluster Jewel: Obtain this with Unholy Grace, Unwaveringly Evil, and Wicked Pall as notable passive skills
• Thread of Hope (Large Ring): Allows you to save passive skill points. Insert in the jewel socket next to “Savagery”

Tattoos

• Tattoo of the Rongokurai Turtle
  • You Take 5% Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes
• Tattoo of the Tukohama Shaman
  • Regenerate 0.3% of Life per Second
• Tattoo of the Tawhoa Warrior
  • 5% Increased Chaos Damage
• Tattoo of the Hinekora Storyteller
  • +3% to Chaos Resistance

Skill Gems Setup

Body Armor

• Awakened Void Manipulation
• Awakened Swift Affliction
• Efficacy Support
• Awakened Increased Area of Effect
• Less Duration
• Lifetap Support

Helmet

• Despair
• Awakened Blasphemy
• Efficacy
• Enlighten Support

Gloves

• Essence Drain of Desperation
• Trap Support
• Awakened Void Manipulation
• Awakened Controlled Destruction

Boots

• Malevolence
• Tempest Shield
• Flesh and Stone
• Enlighten

Weapon

• Shield Charge
• Flame Dash
• Lifetap

Shield

• Molten Shell
• Herald of Ash
• Vaal Breach

Pantheons

• Major God: Soul of Lunaris
• Minor God: Soul of Abberrath or Soul of Shakari

Passive Skill Tree

Spiritual Aid is a great way to boost your damage in the beginning. To maximize its effect, you have to equip the Convoking Wand to get two minion damage mods.

The Stamina and Vigour nodes on the passive tree are vital to your overall survivability. These nodes allow you to gain two additional Endurance Charges, which equates to +8% physical and elemental damage reduction.

Here are the Masteries we recommend for the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist:

• Mana Mastery
  • 12% Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills
• Shield Mastery
  • +1% Chance to Block Attack Damage per 5% Chance to Block on Equipped Shield
• Block Mastery
  • +1% Chance to Block Spell Damage per 5% Chance to Block Attack Damage
• Armour Mastery
  • You Take 30% Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes

Tips and Strategies

• Summon Enemies with Vaal Breach: If you need more damage to defeat bosses, use Vaal Breach to call forth more monsters to the scene. The explosions that occur when you defeat them all add up, contributing to the big bad’s demise
• Improve the AoE: While this build has Ignite Proliferation to spread this damaging ailment to as many monsters as possible, investing in items that improves area of effect bodes well for Death Aura and Essence Drain of Desperation
• Insert a Brutal Restraint: When you do not have the PoE Currency to purchase The Light of Meaning, you can settle for a Brutal Restraint instead. Get one that allows you to gain a Frenzy Charge on kill for more damage, as well as +4% to maximum life
• Utilize Another Curse: The PoE Occultist's Unholy Authority enables you to apply an additional curse on your foes. With that said, link either Punishment or Enfeeble along with Despair and Blasphemy Support

POB

Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist

Final Thoughts

Righteous Fire has always been the go-to when it comes to PoE beginner builds due to its easy “one-button” playstyle. If you like this archetype, you can definitely trust the Essence Drain of Desperation Occultist to do the same.

The Death Aura provided by your equipped body armor allows you to enjoy a similar style of play. Additionally, instead of hurling Fire Trap on your enemies, you exchange that with a much more powerful chaos damage spell that is linked to the aptly named Trap Support.

Despite its distinction of being a relatively fast mapper, this Essence Drain build in Path of Exile does have enough power to defeat the majority of bosses in the game. You just have to be crafty when it comes to dealing damage, such as utilizing Vaal Breach to cause more explosions.

We hope that you have enjoyed our guide. Don’t forget to subscribe for more tips about Path of Exile builds!

PROS

• Fast mapper that only requires minimal buttons to press
• Righteous Fire enjoyers will feel right at home with this build
• Max block chance provided by Svalinn and notable passive skills

CONS

• Can only kill bosses in T17s with the right map modifiers
• Good survivability is only achieved with the right investment
• Forbidden Jewels are non-negotiable