Essence Drain

Essence Drain (often referred to as ED) is a spell that fires a chaos projectile that applies a damage over time debuff when it hits the enemy. The spell also regenerates a portion of the debuff damage as life. If target dies while afflicted with both and Essence Drain, the remaining duration of both degeneration effects will be spread to nearby enemies.

Skill functions and interactions

• Damage over time: Modifiers to spell, chaos damage, and damage over time affect the damage over time component of this spell. Modifiers to Spell Damage apply to this skill's Damage Over Time modifier also affects other damage over time effects created by this skill, such as poison or ignite.
• Traps and Mines: Essence Drain can not be supported by and .
• Debuff Regeneration: The amount of life regenerated from the debuff damage caused by Essence Drain is calculated solely off the final amount of outbound damage dealt by the skill, not the damage inflicted on an enemy. An easy way to calculate the amount of regen provided is to multiply the tooltip amount of debuff damage by 0.5%. This will give you the amount of regen that Essence Drain will grant you per target effected. This means that using methods to increased the enemies received damage from sources such as , , or the Occultist Void Beacon notable does not influence the amount of regen provided by Essence Drain.

Strategy

The damage per cast of this spell is humongous, the damage it does per second is comparable to the damage of most spells and it keeps dealing damage (like with totems). Because this spell normally can hit only one enemy, it's not very useful alone unless the target is a boss or a player. However, it can be supported by or similar projectile support skills to hit more enemies at once and in the case of weaker monsters, can be used to spread it to the whole pack and kill a lot of monsters just with two casts.

Gem level progression

Level				Mana Cost	Chaos Damage per sec	Chaos Damage	Exp.	Total Exp.
1	12	14	21	8	31.2	9 to 13	0	0
2	15	17	25	9	40.6	12 to 18	15249	15249
3	19	21	30	10	56.4	17 to 25	41517	56766
4	23	24	35	11	76.5	24 to 36	81983	138749
5	27	28	41	12	102.5	33 to 49	147968	286717
6	31	32	46	13	135.7	44 to 67	250557	537274
7	35	36	51	14	178.9	60 to 90	405086	942360
8	38	38	55	15	217.5	75 to 112	447718	1390078
9	41	41	59	16	264.8	92 to 139	615318	2005396
10	44	44	63	16	319.2	114 to 171	834639	2840035
11	47	47	67	17	385.9	141 to 211	1570760	4410795
12	50	49	71	18	464.9	173 to 259	1633987	6044782
13	53	52	75	19	554.9	212 to 318	2151030	8195812
14	56	55	79	19	664.8	259 to 388	2812189	11008001
15	59	58	83	20	794.5	316 to 473	5099360	16107361
16	62	60	87	21	947.2	384 to 576	9400731	25508092
17	64	62	90	21	1063.7	438 to 656	15273366	40781458
18	66	64	92	22	1193.4	498 to 747	26286582	67068040
19	68	66	95	22	1337.8	567 to 850	62890590	129958630
20	70	68	98	23	1509.4	644 to 966	212046017	342004647
21	72	70	100	24	1689.2	732 to 1097	N/A	N/A
22	74	N/A	N/A	24	1888.9	831 to 1246	N/A	N/A
23	76	N/A	N/A	25	2110.5	942 to 1414	N/A	N/A
24	78	N/A	N/A	25	2356.2	1069 to 1603	N/A	N/A
25	80	N/A	N/A	26	2649.6	1211 to 1817	N/A	N/A
26	82	N/A	N/A	26	2954	1372 to 2058	N/A	N/A
27	84	N/A	N/A	27	3290.9	1554 to 2331	N/A	N/A
28	86	N/A	N/A	27	3663.6	1759 to 2638	N/A	N/A
29	88	N/A	N/A	28	4110.1	1989 to 2984	N/A	N/A
30	90	N/A	N/A	28	4569.8	2250 to 3375	N/A	N/A
31	91	N/A	N/A	28	4817.3	2392 to 3588	N/A	N/A
32	92	N/A	N/A	29	5077.4	2543 to 3815	N/A	N/A
33	93	N/A	N/A	29	5397.5	2703 to 4055	N/A	N/A
34	94	N/A	N/A	29	5687.3	2874 to 4310	N/A	N/A
35	95	N/A	N/A	29	5991.7	3054 to 4581	N/A	N/A
36	96	N/A	N/A	30	6311.3	3246 to 4869	N/A	N/A
37	97	N/A	N/A	30	6646.8	3449 to 5174	N/A	N/A
38	98	N/A	N/A	30	7062.6	3665 to 5497	N/A	N/A
39	99	N/A	N/A	30	7436.2	3894 to 5841	N/A	N/A
40	100	N/A	N/A	31	7828.2	4137 to 6205	N/A	N/A

Alternate skill effects

Name	Cost	Description
Arcane Essence Drain EffectArcane Essence Drain EffectSkill Gem EffectYour Essence Drain becomes a blue arcane effect.	80	Replaces the standard effect on a skill gem with a blue arcane effect. Preview

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Essence Drain.

Note that helmet enchantments are no longer obtainable since version 3.23.0 and can only be obtained in permanent leagues as already enchanted items from before this patch.

Name		Labyrinth	Stats	Spawn Weighting
Enchantment Essence Drain Damage 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	25% increased Essence Drain Damage	helmet 100
Enchantment Essence Drain Damage 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	40% increased Essence Drain Damage	helmet 100
Enchantment Essence Drain Duration 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	20% increased Essence Drain Duration	helmet 100
Enchantment Essence Drain Duration 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	30% increased Essence Drain Duration	helmet 100

Version history

Version	Changes
2.1.1c	Fixed an instance crash with Essence Drain [...]. Fixed a bug with Essence Drain spreading between enemies.
2.1.1b	Fixed a bug where players could get the Essence Drain life recovery effect stuck on their character until changing instances.
2.1.1	Essence Drain can now be supported by "Cast On" trigger support gems.
2.1.0	Added to the game.