[3.01] [HC] Dark Pact Slayer (tanky, low cost, self cast dark pact)

I have a feeling things will work out even with the nerfs to DP Damage/Area, will just require some innovation and hopefully we get some buffs from the new uniques :D.

Despair gem reveal almost made me go back to trickster/ed, but I really wana roll dp. Think its good enough to make up for the damage loss?

-Despair, an Intelligence Skill Gem, curses all targets in an area, making them less resistant to chaos damage and causing them to take increased damage over time. Cursed enemies also take additional chaos damage when hit. Existing Vulnerability skill gems have become Despair.

Going from the wiki: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Vulnerability

Lvl 1 vulnerability = 20% (Up to additional 10% for 20 quality)

We will likely be using this in a CWDT link for ease of use: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Cast_when_Damage_Taken_Support

After that it really is just a matter of what level of Despair you would want to use, assuming it has similar scaling to Vulnerability you will probably want a lvl 3 CWDT (which supports lvl 42 gems / requires you to take 661 damage) and a lvl 7 Despair which is a lvl 42 req gem (for 23% increased chaos which goes up to 33% with quality). This will ensure that you have nearly 100% uptime, you could go with higher level gems but you would need to keep in mind that your uptime will likely decrease.

With Dark Pact being lowered from 95% more damage to 76% more at lvl 20 it seems like Despair will easily make up for this damage loss for general map clearing, bosses are less effected by curses though. In addition, cursed enemies also take additional chaos damage when hit.

Won't know exact scaling until they reveal more information but it appears that Despair will cover the nerf to Dark Pact (as well as increase the damage of the CWDT ED/Contagion setup the build uses) which in turn will increase the overall damage in total. Seems good to me :), I am not yet sure if we would want to increase the effect of curses just yet but the build does path very close to some strong nodes on the tree (ie. Scion curse nodes). Might be a worthwhile consideration.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2036707

Can mouse over the Despair gem, its lvl 20 with 20 quality but gives you an idea atleast, that is a significant amount of flat damage.

Would Vaal Summon skeletons help with bosses maybe linked with minion life

I have tried it and it does increase your damage output during boss encounters. The main problems I had with Vaal Skeletons was the change in gameplay (how your dark pact bounces around skeletons instead of you) and the fact that it significantly lowers your personal survivability during that time. It may be something to look into again for sure, thank you for bringing that up :D.

Been testing a few different tree's out, at the moment I have settled on this but it is not the final version. If you have found something more efficient please post your pastebin (much easier for us to all see it in Path of Building).

https://pastebin.com/9FZcf1CV (At level 100)

Just some comments:
-This version does use the new Vaal Pact, will probably take it around lvl 60 and see how it feels, sucks to lose out on life regen though :(. It could very well require high amounts of dps/gear before working as intended so be careful if you switch over to Vaal Pact.

-Hematophagy has quite a bit of upside at a possible +6% max hp/sec max life leech rate with nodes before it so I tried to fit it into the build. I am not quite sure how required these will be, if they are not needed they will probably be the first to go.

-Vitality void does not give us attack damage leeched as life as dark pact is not an attack. You do get the +3% max hp/sec max life leech rate / 20% increased rate though, seems expensive for 3 nodes.

**Got this as a suggestion recently, seems like a good choice as well**

https://pastebin.com/drPLVksT

Got a late start today and I've only reached lvl 38 atm, abyss is quite interesting though and fairly rippy, lost 3 guildmates to some dangerous encounters. Gearing has also been noticeably tougher this time around with fewer essences available and currency shortage.

Yeah I'm mid 50s and im still sunder, trying to find links/tabula/spell dagger before switching n its a struggle :(

Been trying this build in Abyss and it's being hideous to level; facerolled my way to L50 baseically. 4 link dropped and running with poor dagger but best 1 handed that I've got hold of - 531 tooltip dps
Clear's white packs ok, but virtually no single target so bosses are just fatal.
Seriously considering re-rolling or swapping to slayer-cycloner.
Looking forward to an update to get this back to being playable