Yeah, 64 base mana at 20 is pretty outrageous. It's more than triple most spells.
I was testing soulrend of reaping mines yesterday and it seems like it'd be pretty good clear if you could deal with the mana costs. The base numbers are pretty high, so single target would probably also be decent.
Mana's the big question mark. With them nerfing mana reduction into efficiency, no inspiration for chaos, and lightning costs getting turbonerfed, I'm not sure anything hit based is viable for those. If you don't need to chain cast maybe you can still get away with it.
The cold keystone also just seems busted. I'm really expecting it to get nerfed pre-launch. It shouldn't be hard to get 20-30 chill on any endgame build, and that's just a crazy amount of damage for one point. I've been thinking phys (with the 10% base crit) cold converting is the way to go, but I'm just not sold on any of the spells.
I'm interested in playing Assassin, but I'd prefer to have an attack for Deathmark, which really limits your options to some kind of CWC/COC/Spellslinger build. I just can't seem to make anything stick for starting out.
I wonder if the bigger aoe on contagion would make it good enough to actually play ED/contagion again. Probably not, and i have my doubts that the dmg would actually be good enough, but it would feel so good to play the build i used in legion league again on the legion rework that we got :D
Blight of Contagion clear was already pretty strong before any changes. I think captainlance had a video a few leagues ago. If you're fine with the playstyle, the main weakness is just the single target.
like I said I've never actually played a meta build before so I'll worb, now I gotta learn how to make currency fast because everything is going to be expensive.
I'm still unsure between Deaths Oath Occu, Phys-Dot-Elementalist or "Occultist" (probably starting with vortex for pseudeo walking simulator and later "some chaos spell").
Only 6h 30 min remaining, more than enough time to change my opinion another 10 times.
I ended up starting assassin bladefall/blade blast. Campaign was on the slower side, but I think that was more on me being distracted during a lot of it. New mechanic is interesting. You can get a ton of gold from it - some of the chests in mid level 60 areas had 10k and gold piles had 40k.
I actually managed to play something I tought about before this time. Phys-Dot-Elementalist .
Leveled with ED/Contagion, it really didn't feel very good until ~Act 4. Early on ED's damage is very lackluster and Contagions AE is way too small. Once in Act 4 with inc. AE, Decay and the Golem buffs from elementalist stuff got way better and kept being great till the end of the campaign. Swapped to phys Dot in early maps and just reached red maps, still wearing mostly utter crap and now saving currency for cluster jewels. Wondering if my tankyness or single target will become "the issue" to solve first.
The league mechanic is really not my cup of tea. Probably won't engage with it again until i'm in T16's/Endgame and see whats actually what. The crafting seems very strong but all else its just not a fun mechanic?
I've liked the charting part. They're quick 30-60 second runs where you just chase the lines the lanterns point to and hope for something good. Best I've gotten is a Hinekora's Lock out of a Message in a Bottle.
I haven't been a big fan of the voyages. Setting them up is tedious, you can't control where you start (so things you'd want to do early like golden lanterns are really awkward), there aren't enough lanterns to actually do the whole thing, and they're just way too big so they take forever to run. So far I've felt like just mapping would be a more rewarding use of my time.
On July 28 2026 01:39 Craton wrote: I've liked the charting part. They're quick 30-60 second runs where you just chase the lines the lanterns point to and hope for something good. Best I've gotten is a Hinekora's Lock out of a Message in a Bottle.
I haven't been a big fan of the voyages. Setting them up is tedious, you can't control where you start (so things you'd want to do early like golden lanterns are really awkward), there aren't enough lanterns to actually do the whole thing, and they're just way too big so they take forever to run. So far I've felt like just mapping would be a more rewarding use of my time.
Almost identical experience for me. Some people in our playgroup bounced the fuck off charting early, but we convinced them to try them better by changing that mindset to clearing as fast as possible, not as thorough as possible. Also popcorn div drops and selling Messages helped.
Voyages suck unless you're intentional with them, and being intentional is pretty tedious. "Adjacent areas contain a Message in a Bottle" is obviously great, but my biggest takeaway from voyages is that 8x lvl 40 charts and 1x lvl83 chart makes a lvl 83 voyage, so you can effectively turbo easier * t16 maps for experience and respectable loot well before you're actually clearing red maps.
*Of course you die horribly if you put shit like "Rares have a pantheon modifier in this voyage" and not beneficial stuff like "Players have soul eater", but yeah if you halfass set up experience voyages it goes pretty hard.
My biggest issue with this league so far: If you got the caster mastery to open chests and it opens the cursed chests, you don't get the Ghost buff.
Else... Still mainly completing Atlas ignoring league mechanic, still not sure what to skill on the Atlas... Did Breach/Abyss so far but thats mainly because they just sit on the map and can be done on the side.
I think that'll be fixed in the next patch since it's on their list of known issues. Not getting the ghost would be a buff for my build since the attack speed ruins my trigger rate.
I've mostly farmed Alva this league. It's been pretty steady money and I've made a few dozen div so far. I'm probably going to exhaust my remaining scarabs, but I am ready to do something else since it's getting stale. Abyss I probably won't touch until the patch buffing it, and my build isn't good for legion (plus I've never liked it much). I do have interest in messing with the enshrouded stuff eventually.
Harvest is usually a consistent money maker so I might go there next. It's also been a few leagues since I last did Blight, but I'm not really feeling it. Oils are probably good money? Breach looks like cheeks since the triple nerfs and I don't expect to touch that at all in its current state.
I couldn't play as much as I wanted because of work, so I'm playing SSF this league during the spare moments I have, just for a change of pace. The league is pretty nice for crafting your own gear.
I'm playing Lightning Tendrils in the end. I started with Soulrend, but then changed my mind because I've always liked the idea of playing as a kind of Palpatine. With the buffs it received, it feels pretty good now.
I want to try the transfigured “of Escalation” version, but I still haven't farmed Labs to get it.
Also I have forgotten how nice Lightning Warp (3-link) is as a movement skill when you have lot of cast speed in your tree and gear. In most characters is not worth it.
EPT
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