Scion build based on Essence Drain/Contagion - help with build?

Howdy! I have about 600ish hours in Path of Exile and usually each league I follow a build now days. I play exclusively Scion for no real reason other than I decided to one day and am stubborn.

I was having trouble finding a build/skill that felt "fun" or "interesting" to use as I am not a fan of "hands off" or "minimal" builds such as summoning pets or Cyclone "hold down a button to win" kind of things. I found a build I am actually enjoying just with the absurdity of how I am currently playing it (Weapon swap, apply curse, weapon swap, drop wither totem, contagion, essence drain, blight, reapply curse/drop totems as necessary all the while) however I have more deaths currently than I almost ever do when following a build, and I chalk it up to ignorance on my part.

Trying to make this build on my own, I have learned so much more about the game than I think I ever have in the past leagues so it's kind of exciting, but I am wondering if more trained and clever eyes would be able to make suggestions.

I am currently just starting Act 9 today and have roughly the following stats with all standard auras active. My account is not hidden so anyone can view it otherwise.

HP: 1,264
ES: 1,482
Recharge: 1200/second
Armor: 1,540
Evade: 472
F Res: 75%
C Res: 54%
L Res: 62%
Ch Res: 25%

I have Molten Shell (due to having a Vaal varient) bound to my LMB so it activates as often as it can while I move, though I have Vaal bound to another mouse button to use in emergencies.

I have yet to ascend as I am not sure what I should do in regards to this. I am considering going with Witch Necromancer and getting an offering to provide myself with Bone Offering to boost my ability to block attacks and spells. Doing so would also let me refund 10 passive points away from the Scion Starting point without sacrificing much (I can regain the DPS and ES in 4-5 points from where my passives are now).

My gear is nothing interesting but I find this is my weakest aspect of Path of Exile. I know next to nothing about crafting or modifying gear and I never trade with other players. I play "trade league" just so I can play with other players and throw free unique gear and 4 linked random stuff I found to help out. I am using a Goldrim cap, Victario's Flight boots, Tabula Rasa, and Bated Breath belt.

Any suggestions or insight would be greatly appreciated!


TL:DR

I'm squishier than I've ever been trying to make my own build and I'm looking for suggestions on how I can improve myself! Cheers!

Do you use Reddit? You should post your help request into there, but I'd suggest to install Path of Building, and work your way so that you could paste your build into Reddit sub called PathofExileBuilds. First thing they're gonna ask is PoB (which is your passive tree among other things in Path of Building, so they need a link from where they'd see it (typically a pastebin link).

There are helpful people who'd fix your tree and give some straight advice.
Good luck exile!

chaos builds are dominated by Occultist and for a good reason. Lots of synergy between chaos builds and occultist nodes.

Occultist ascendant is not even close in comparison.


If you are really set into playing ED/cont/bane, there's nothing I could help you here besides strongly suggesting you swap to Witch - Occultist.


But if you are set into playing scion, the strongest alternative is currently CWDT version, taking pathfinder/elementalist. Which is probably the strongest build you can make for under 10ex.

Cheaper builds you can consider would be physical dot scion (gladiator/necromancer, perhaps), this would definitely perform way better than ED builds.


Sad to see ED hasn't got an update, EDC is one of my favorite builds from back then, and it's nowhere near what other builds can achieve nowadays.

I've mostly went in with a hybrid of Bane/ED and so far I've been able to do up to T16 rare maps with some effort.

It's been fun and interesting to say the least. I wasn't sure I'd enjoy a "curse" style gameplay, but the use of bane has gotten me interested. I think when 3.19 comes around I'll be tempted to see what I can cook up as far as Scion goes.