Tankiest Essence Drain Contagion Trickster

It’s been a while since there’s a new solid build for the Trickster, and now, Ultimatum, is the perfect time for that. The Ascendancy class is not known for being tanky, but the Tankiest Essence Drain Contagion Trickster Build changes that.

Pros and Cons of the Tankiest Essence Drain Contagion Trickster Build

Pros:

• Fast map clear
• Affordable gear
• Good against bosses
• Huge single-target damage

Cons:

• Boring gameplay
• Certain necessary pieces of gear are difficult to get

Gem Links and Passive Skill Tree

Here’s the Passive Skill Tree.

• Core Skill: Essence Drain (ideally level 21) with the following Awakened support gems: Controlled Destruction, Swift Affliction, and Void Manipulation; Efficacy and Empower support gems.
• Debuff:
  • Vaal Blight with Infused Channeling, Efficacy, and Awakened Swift Affliction support gems.
  • Contagion with Arcane Surge, Awakened Increased Area of Effect, and Intensify support gems.
  • Wither with Spell Totem, Multiple Totems, and Faster Casting support gems.
    
    
• Mobility: Flame Dash with Arcane Surge and Faster Casting support gem.
• Auras: Malevolence, Flesh and Stone, and Despair.

Gear

• Weapon: Rare Wand with Chaos Damage and Damage over Time multiplier, +1 to level of spell skills, and spell damage.
• Shield: Rare Titanium Spirit Shield with Life, Spell Block, and Energy Shield Recovery when blocking.
• Head: Rare Hubris Circlet with increased life, chance to avoid elemental ailments, elemental resistance, and chaos resistance.
• Body: Rare Sadist Garb with increased with increased life, chance to avoid elemental ailments, elemental resistance, +1 to level of socketed gems, and gain x% of life as energy shield.
• Gloves: Rare Gloves with increased with increased life, chance to avoid elemental ailments, elemental resistances, chaos resistance, and dexterity.
• Belt: Rare Belt with increased life and elemental resistances.
• Boots: Atziri’s Step (Unique)
• Accessories:
  • Rare Amulet with increased life, level of skill gems, and energy shield.
  • Two Rare Rings with increased life, elemental resistances, and mana regeneration.
• Jewels:
  • Rare Jewels with increased life, chaos damage over time multiplier, chaos damage, spell damage, spell damage while holding a shield, and increased damage.
  • Large Cluster Jewels with Touch of Cruelty and Wicked Pall, 8 Passive Skills, 2 Added Passive Skills are Jewel Sockets, and 12% Increased Chaos Damage.
  • Small Cluster Jewels with Flow of Life, 2 Passive Skills, and 4% increased life.
• Flasks:
  • Experimenter’s Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline for increased movement speed
  • Experimenter’s Quartz Flask of Curing for chance to dodge spells and hits and poison recovery/immunity.
  • Experimenter’s Jade Flask of Warding for +3000 Evasion for curse recovery/immunity.
  • Chemist’s Basalt Flask of Reflexes for damage reduction and reflection and evasion.
  • Bubbling Divine Life Flask of Staunching for life recovery and bleeding recovery/immunity.

A unique but effective take, those looking for a solid Trickster build should try this one out. After all, the best trick in the book is survival.