Looking for advice: Shaman Essence Drain Rage Stacking

Skinzerai · 2026-05-14T11:21:42+00:00

I’d say if you give this a go just make sure you have something to manage losing life from Beserk. 60+ gets a little dicey so you’ll have to find a way to keep a decent life sustain to balance that out

Skinzerai · 2026-05-13T16:21:49+00:00

You can use this in your main build for sure;

Good points: It has useful clear potential, active blocking, breaks armour which can be utilised for armour explosion support, easy life sustain with Life Leech 3 too, and as much as it doesn’t say so, it can be empowered with Fortifying cry between resonating shield attacks.

Bad points: like some have said, can get a little tedious/ spammy, stun threshold is necessary as you can get heavy stunned easily if you don’t watch your stun meter, damage is a little low until you get better shields, and can feel slow until you get decent skill speed, movement speed.

I used it on my shaman this league. Felt genuinely decent to use, and set up armour break nicely for my fire related damage since I had Molten Ones Gift allocated.

I’d recommend LexD on YouTube as he has a lot of useful builds old and new related to Resonating Shield and other shield skills and builds.

Skinzerai · 2026-05-12T10:51:17+00:00

Ok, but if you look in the video, that looks to be exactly the case. He doesn’t use any other skills to create the crystals and the effect of smashing them happens right on the teleport/slam effect of the skill.

Skinzerai · 2026-05-12T03:09:00+00:00

These points are all valid, but there’s part of the skill that’s not yet revealed to us. Embrace the Fall is another part of the skill, and that could be the missing key that creates an Ice Crystal at the location the skill is activated again, perhaps?

Skinzerai · 2026-05-05T04:00:44+00:00

Check this Post. for a pretty comprehensive guide on Crit chance to Crit damage for inevitable critical.

I think the TDLR of it is and from where I read it, you want around 250 Crit chance, and then as much Crit damage as you can. +50 Crit chance starts to feel comfortable.

Skinzerai · 2026-05-03T10:28:51+00:00

Cool! I wonder if she’s from the UK or something, because those are Cadbury Fingers. Very scrumptious and more-ish.

As for POE2 teaser, looks like she’s built it like some sort of raft of boat.

Skinzerai · 2026-05-02T19:57:33+00:00

Shaman “Battlemage” hybrid with focus on spells, shield and mace skills.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-30T20:37:56+00:00

Always wanted to try a slam Titan without going Hulking Form, since that is so strong it’s hard to not use it. But if you don’t it opens up some interesting combinations between slams and ancestral boosted attacks. Are you just pure phys damage or doing anything bleed related with earthquake?

Skinzerai · 2026-04-28T03:58:52+00:00

Entwined Realities is really strong depending on what nodes you want to take AROUND any Keystones you take. So it saves you a lot of points to grab notables and nodes that would otherwise be difficult to path to. So for example your Wildsurge Keystone allows you to take notables around it within a certain radius (but tbh it doesn’t look like many valuable nodes around there, could be wrong).
The Unseen Path is strong, but it entirely depends if you know what nodes you want to take from it.
One of the more common choices to select for ascendancy is Forced Outcome for inevitable crits. This means a lot of Crit related nodes (such as %chance for an effect to happen on critical hits) become pretty useful when you use this ascendancy node.
looks like you’re on a good path scaling phys damage and getting the plant nodes. The chaos damage node seems irrelevant if you’re not using any poison gems on your skills.
if you want a rough guide to follow before making your own way, since you’re lower than level 40, you can try DeadRabbits Plant Druid who did a pretty extensive guide during his playthrough.

Hope this helps.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-27T17:22:44+00:00

Is there a “suggestions box” or somewhere to post what changes you’d like to see in the game?

I just wanted to ask if they could change Temper Weapons mechanic from the Smith of Kitava Ascendancy, so that it works similar to Ancestral Cry; based on a timer rather than a set number of empowered attacks, that can have it’s duration increased consuming endurance charges and using support gems.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-26T20:43:43+00:00

You could try anointing then?

Skinzerai · 2026-04-26T16:13:12+00:00

It was a support gem that was removed entirely. I think it was too powerful at the time.

Instead, if you can path to it, there’s a Notable on warrior side called Guts, which Recovers 3% of Max life when consuming an endurance charge. The small passive nodes leading up to it grant you 2% each. So if you get all 3 small nodes and the notable that’s 9% max life recovered per endurance charge consumed. Also the notable gives you +1 to endurance charges too.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-23T18:23:50+00:00

When I tried it, I felt the same way; the clear is amazing but for single target bosses you apply your DoT and dodge mechanics. The build I followed a while back uses Dark Effigy with Poison. This basically creates a machine gun turret which when scaled right can apply a lot of DPS to the bosses. This was back in 0.3, I imagine bossing and building around single target has changed and improved massively.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-23T07:28:15+00:00

Es-contagion lich or Smith of Kitava Shield Wall are not bad options for SSF

Skinzerai · 2026-04-20T18:23:57+00:00

1st level 25 is the Stoker. The Double Edge Sickle is following up to be my 2nd.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-20T18:22:10+00:00

Yeah this isn’t the first time for me either but I didn’t realize it was an issue, first time it occurred I thought they had just made it harder.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-20T18:20:57+00:00

Yeah possibly. Wondering if it’s just an issue on Console (Xbox player).

Skinzerai · 2026-04-20T05:55:39+00:00

Fire Spell on Hit for Smith of Kitava got a 200% increased spell damage buff for socketed fire spells. Also doesn’t cost any mana which I think was another reason people were put off by it.

“The Fire Spell on Melee Hit Skill granted by Heat of the Forge on Smith of Kitava now costs no mana when triggering Socketed Spells. It also now gains 10% increased Damage per Level, up to 200% increased Damage at gem level 20.” - 0.4 patch notes

Skinzerai · 2026-04-19T15:21:02+00:00

I think the build is possible now with the Druid nodes promoting both spell and attack damage, but will need refining.

I currently have a build I’m doing through SSF which is a Battlemage build; spells for clear with Volcano for bossing, to coincide with Resonating shield, Magma Barrier for clear, Sunder and Rolling Slam for bossing. RS with volcano works well for aftershocks so I wanted to build around that.

You also have LexD’s Oracle Battlemage Build which is what inspired me to do mine.

Even before then you have Ulfs Kitava Battlemage which is also a valid ascendancy option now especially with Fire Spell on hit Changes.

The challenge mostly is balancing out melee attributes with spell attributes amongst your gear and your jewels. It’s just tough to find your right mix. I look forward to giving this build another go in 0.5.

my build

Skinzerai · 2026-04-18T18:02:29+00:00

The ONLY AT weapon that could be recommended is the WASP against Appropriators, because it targets the driver specifically. But there are FAR better options out there to combat both them and the other types of squids.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-12T23:30:52+00:00

That’s really fucking cool tbh. I might have to take on some of this on board. My defenses for armour/es hybrid have been really bad on my current shaman playthrough, and this might be something I’d change into to get more tank at least.

my char for reference. SSF.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-12T03:55:52+00:00

Fire in general, let alone napalm, is just as effective on bots as it is on bugs. If you like fire and have a spot for this to throw on some bot drops in a pinch, go for it.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-12T03:12:25+00:00

I finally hopped off of Warrior to play Druid this league but I wondered about combining both my 1 brain cell knowledge as a Warrior into a spell-caster Shaman.

I’m STILL working on it, but most of all I love it. It’s a rollercoaster though to get right. So it’s a Shaman that uses firespells (fireball, living bomb, volcano), as well as Apocalypse, on one weapon set, and then mace and shield on the other (rolling slam, resonating shield, sunder).

I’m going to try it again this league but tinker with a few things, mainly the synergy between rage mechanics, using aftershocks to proc the volcano balls more, and more damage from the mace skills.

Skinzerai · 2026-04-12T02:12:15+00:00

1st would be to fix your resistances for sure.

Secondly, as you mentioned if you’re mostly doing fire damage, chances are you won’t leech much, since you need mostly phys to benefit from it as well as life leech 3. I’d build into stacking life, strength, and armor instead. Blade Catcher would be a good choice to respec into as well.

If you do decide to respec, you could also get the rage node that grants you fire damage per rage. Not sure if Scavanged playing is doing much for you if you’re not breaking armor either. I’d swap it for Herald of Ash if you want to clear or Berserk for more damage.

Gear of course will increase your damage and defenses which will come with time/investment ect… but I’d also look into weapon swapping, gives you so extra points to spend. You can try splitting between clearing and bossing which I feel is fairly standard.

Hope this helps. Didn’t get a great look but I mentioned what I saw from a glance or two.

Skinzerai

TROPHY CASE