PoB is in 3.26 mode, opt into the beta branch to load it - https://pobb.in/v6y3nUNOsvI1

Hi,

I have seen a couple of the trickster variants posted now and I wanted to offer an alternative for those that are looking to play blight of contagion.

And I highly recommend you give it a shot this league if you have never played classic ED/C or the new Blight of Contagion + Contagion. As its probably the strongest it has been in a long time.

Why I think you should play occultist over trickster is because of the obvious power of Aegis Aurora. This shield has been carrying builds since it was released and this one is no different. You don't need to worry about getting t1 suppress on all your gear, you don't have to worry about hitting the 95% evasion breakpoint.

Vile Bastion has been buffed this league to state that our spell block is added as % increased energy shield, it is trivial to get to 80 spell block so thats a flat 80% increase just handed to the build. I saw there was some confusion as to if this was flat es or % increased. I got confirmation from the devs thats its % increased.

https://i.imgur.com/Q3btvMw.png

I have included some custom config in the PoB to simulate the broken nodes, please delete these once PoB is updated to have them work on the tree otherwise you will be inflating the numbers, its also simulating a half strength focused channeling which is replacing efficacy in the 6-link. Otherwise I hope you will look at the config and see it is incredibly undertuned. Incase you were going to compare 1:1 with the other builds.

No wither stacks, no flasks active, no killed recently for the 10% more multiplier on DoT damage. Guard skills are inactive.

One of the reasons people are not looking at Occultist is because we really don't have a good ascendancy notable for our uber choice. I have gone for Forbidden Power, but it really doesn't do alot. Feel free to change that around. I feel the rest of the choices make up for it, and the damage is comparable to the trickster variants while being significantly more tanky. This is a true mechanically challenged build if you want one. You just facetank everything.

Here is a video from last event in the 'yellow maps' spec, in this map I am farming a 8-mod T16, damage wise I have compared and its basically the same as Bog Shaman at this stage in the same gear with the new nodes we got access to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2UOV0FLqos

Here is a video in gear close to the 'Endgame Spec' doing a wave 15 simulacrum so you can see how it plays there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cESQ6Fs4xtc

If there is a request for me to go through the PoB in a vid I can try and find the time tomorrow, but hopefully its easy enough to follow through the loadouts. If you have any questions please message me and I can help you with crafting, or understanding what the purpose of some choices are.

Also I'm sure this is not the best version of this build, but it is mine, and it has served me well in the past.

When it comes to farming endgame incase you are curious

Mods you can't do

Cannot Regenerate Life, Energy Shield or Mana - We have no source of leech or mana recovery

Mods I avoid

Monsters are Hexproof - Its just annoying and lowers our DPS, you can run it but easy to skip. Can also take the unholy authority notable to stop caring about this at the cost of some minor power charge damage.

Reduced Recovery of Energy Shield - It makes us easier to kill, you can run this but you have to actually play a little carefully

This includes t17 mods which you can basically run all of, this is a fine build for t17 risk scarab farming once you get to endgame spec.

As I said, any questions lmk. Good luck exiles.

https://pobb.in/v6y3nUNOsvI1