How do I link my Contagion?

[Labrador]

[Loco]

In a piece of gear, put it in a gem slot, and any support gems you want, put them into linked gem slots.

Since I haven't messed around with contagion yet, I can't offer any suggestions for good mixes though.

[fmalfeas]

The main gem with contagion, really, is Void Manipulation. Other than that, it's a 'combo' gem, though it can stand on it's own with patience.

The real power, however, comes with Contagion + Essence Drain. Both Chaos damage, so ES and Reflect mean nothing to them. And Contagion spreads Essence Drain.

For chaos-resistant enemies, and bosses (and especially chaos resistant bosses) toss in a spell totem with Wither, and perhaps Temporal Chains.

But on it's own, Contagion is very, very fast casting with minimal animation and fair AoE. So you can toss it at a huge swarm of mobs as you sprint desperately in circles, kiting. Every 5 seconds or so, you toss a new one, and you'll eventually kill them all. Not 'time effecient' but effective. And if you're playing in Hardcore, that can really start to matter, as it will let you tear down overwhelming odds, so long as they dont' manage to stun or freeze you as you kite them.

[Labrador]

Originally posted by fmalfeas:

The main gem with contagion, really, is Void Manipulation. Other than that, it's a 'combo' gem, though it can stand on it's own with patience.

The real power, however, comes with Contagion + Essence Drain. Both Chaos damage, so ES and Reflect mean nothing to them. And Contagion spreads Essence Drain.

For chaos-resistant enemies, and bosses (and especially chaos resistant bosses) toss in a spell totem with Wither, and perhaps Temporal Chains.

But on it's own, Contagion is very, very fast casting with minimal animation and fair AoE. So you can toss it at a huge swarm of mobs as you sprint desperately in circles, kiting. Every 5 seconds or so, you toss a new one, and you'll eventually kill them all. Not 'time effecient' but effective. And if you're playing in Hardcore, that can really start to matter, as it will let you tear down overwhelming odds, so long as they dont' manage to stun or freeze you as you kite them.

Thanks for the suggestion of wither totem.

My current link now is Contagion + Void Manipulation + Controlled Destruction. Can I add any gem to make it better? It only has 496 dot at the moment.

[Draktok]

The thing you need to realize Spooooky is that witcher ramps the damage. Putting it on a totem is not utilizing the ramp very well. You should be self casting it. The totem casts the spell slower, and by default, it will only stack 2 times before the 1st drops off, meaning it ramps the damage 7% - 14%. Not good. At least, not as good as it could be. Running the totem with wither can be useful as it can help you reach that 20 stacks faster, but if you've casted essense drain and contagion, the only thing left for you to do is cast a curse (if you're playing solo... parties might have that covered) and then spam wither.

The totem is not going to ramp the damage enough to warrant ONLY totem casting it unless you are actively avoiding damage and running away, which is always a possibility. My point is that it's okay to have wither on a totem, but don't forget to self cast when able, as it really does ramp your damage.

If you cast your two spells, contagion / essense drain, you can then spell echo / faster casting / increased duration spam wither, and if you can get close to 20 stacks, you are talking about the damage increasing upwards of 140% increased damage!

Some other things to link to contagion could be faster casting to cast it faster, increased duration, and rapid decay. Another good one would definitely be "increased Area of effect" or if you're crazy, concentrated effect. Concentrated effect would technically be better against bosses, but not much else, so i don't recommend that. Rapid decay gives a "more" multplier of 20% damage at the cost of 15% reduced duration - but that 15% can easily be fixed via skill nodes or running increased duration.

HOpe this helps!

[Neunmalklug]

its better to use contagion to spread the dot of essence drain.

i linked it with
contagion
+increased aoe
+increased duration
+ whatever, i have void manupulation for a little bit more dmg

essence drain
+void manipulation
+rapid decay
+ controlled destruction

for 5l empower, no thoughts for 6l, dont have any.

[fmalfeas]

I'd say on ED, the next touch to it should be faster casting, since the most common complaint about it is that it 'takes too long to cast'. ;)