[Youga 2 SS7] From T7 to T8-2

UPDATE 12/01: I think I'm done with the game for now... The changes this season made it way too P2W for me. If you tried to follow my codes and didn't get the same DPS, it's because of that.

Pets are WAY too OP. I don't like seeing people with the same gear but 2-3x more damage and farming 2-3x more drops just because they swiped their cards.

It's a shame, because I genuinely like the gameplay, but XD's greed got too much for me to handle.

Might come back to play it casually later during this season, or maybe on the next one, I don't know, but I have 0 wish to grind right now.

This is my latest (and last) gear update, currently doing 11b DPS, 8-2 is doable but not instakill and I die a lot. Build Code: ClWCRNE5Ee+uJAAAAAAAFQ==

If you want to continue following a guide, check out https://www.twitch.tv/shadybroker he’s the Youga 2 GOAT.

If you’re just starting out, check out the previous guide from Zero to T7 [Youga 2] From Zero to T7

The previous guide was a translation from a bilibili creator, this one is original. I played Youga 2 several times, and I think it’s the easiest character for initial progression.

Last season, it took me 7 hours to go from 0 to T7 Traveller on SSF (can be done a lot sooner) and 14 hours to go from 0 to T7 Traveller on SSF-HC. It’s my favourite class to get the Primo rewards on other modes after I get them on SC.

The best advantage of Youga 2, in my opinion, is that you can easily build him from trash items from the ground. It’s probably one of the easier classes to get to T8. Also, his gameplay is satisfying and we don’t have to press buttons.

In this guide, we’ll go from T7 to T8-2, with probably a bit more than 20b DPS. And most importantly: WITHOUT ANY PRICELESS ITEMS (Budget).  We’ll start the progression guide from early T7 until we get to that point. This is where most people get lost, and my goal is to make it simpler to progress in the first few days/week.

I consider 8-2 to be the “soft-cap” for Youga 2, going to Profound (8-3) and scaling this build further will require significant investment. Maybe it’s easier now with SS7 changes, but we’ll have to see. Check out the rankings to see what people are doing.

My plan, like many others, is to start with Youga 2, farm as much as I can early, wait for people to figure out the meta, and reroll into the strongest character to pass floor 20.

So, let’s start the guide.

Build/Filter Codes

If you don’t want to read the guide, or don’t have time, and just want to follow the build codes, I’ll link them below as soon as I get to these points.

  • Finishing Campaign: awtMo88IEe+TdQAAAAAAHw==
  • EARLY FILTER: p_gcp_lowa|IrWqhJP6Ee-4iwAAAAAADA
  • Timemark 4 (~20M DPS): FQpSK88SEe+TdQAAAAAAHw==
  • T7 Traveler (~140M DPS): xhIOl88qEe+TdQAAAAAAHw==
  • T7-2 Farming Filter (Advanced): p_gcp_lowa|UYFV_88lEe-TdQAAAAAAHw
  • T8-0 Farming (~400M DPS): U2Auc8+1Ee+4RAAAAAAAIA==
  • T8 Farming lower survival (1b DPS): B7Tnac/SEe+4RAAAAAAAIA==
  • Farming T8-1 (4b DPS): LK2oT9B4Ee+zzAAAAAAAFg==
  • Farming T8-2 (11b DPS, Squishy): ClWCRNE5Ee+uJAAAAAAAFQ==

*Notes: To get all the auras I have, you need Off the Beaten Track pedigree and enough skill level on Restrain so the reservation is enough. I also added 1 Sealed Mana Destiny node in my pactspirit page, you can add more if you need to.

If you don’t have Off the Beaten Track pedigree, stay with the previous talent tree with Warlock to get it on the talents. Then use Twisted Belief or Forbidden Power pedigree like I had in the previous version. Also, if using Forbidden Power pedigree, change the talent node on Goddess of Deception for Subtle Impact.

For mapping, change Star Stalker for Arcane Circle. Supports are the same for both.

Mov speed belt and soul eater candle is also optional.

  • Farming T8-2:

T7 Progression

If you just got to T7, the most important thing to do is to start replacing ALL of your gear. This will be a progressive step, you’ll be doing it little by little as you advance. Your goal is to get the right affixes with the highest rolls possible, be it T3, T2, or T1.

You have two options:

  • Buy a base in the Trade Auction with the best Advanced Affixes, then upgrade them and craft to add/replace the basic affixes to the ones we want.
  • Set your loot filter to highlight the Advanced Affixes you want for all gear types, this is a must if you’re playing SSF/SSF-HC.

Like I said in the previous guide, the basic affixes from dropped items don’t matter, they are very cheap to craft. The important part is to have the Advanced Affixes you want.

I will update this section later with a build code as soon as I get to 7-2.

Stat priority 

  1. +1 Erosion Skill level on BOTH SCEPTERS (Advanced)
  2.  (Advanced)
    (Basic on Scepters)
  3. Affliction Effect (Advanced)
  4. Intelligence (Advanced)
  5. Erosion Damage / DoT Damage (Basic / Basic)

and Energy Shield + Resistances (Basic / Basic)

Just follow this stat priority and try to get as much of these affixes as possible on your gear, and you’ll be fine until 7-2.

Energy Shield Swap

While you’re progressing through T7-0 to T7-2, you should start picking up gear with Energy Shield instead of Life, look always for INT Bases (INT Helmet, INT Chest, INT Gloves, etc).

There are 2 main stats, both Basic Prefixes, that give Energy Shield. They are the +# gear Energy Shield and the +#% gear Energy Shield. If you have to choose between one of them, the flat +# gear Energy Shield is usually the better choice.

Eventually once you have most of your gear with Energy Shield, swap any talent nodes you have that give Max Life to the ones that give Max Energy Shield instead.

Then, swap one of your auras for Energy Fortress, and link it to Seal Conversion. This will greatly increase your Max Energy Shield and make the aura reserve most of your Life.

Legendary Gear

These are Legendary Gear that you should aim to get as soon as possible. They should all be quite cheap, even during leaguestart.

Boots (King’s Boon):

Ring (Traceless Pain)*:

⚠️*IMPORTANT: The CDR here makes a big difference, try to get one with 1 second cooldown. You can use two of these rings if you want to, but I’d recommend using only 1 or your resistances will suffer.

Chest Armor (Twilight Vestment):

Try corroding them if you can. The corrosion on the +1 Active Skill Level makes it +3 Active Skill Level (Corroded). If you hit the corrosion, it makes a huge difference. We’ll have to buy the corroded one anyway later, but at this point just the +1 will also do.

⚠️These 3 are all the Legendary Gear you’ll need. The rest of your gear is just basic crafted gear following the Stat Priority.

Skills & Energy

Once you have most of your gear affixes at T2, you should also start upgrading your gear’s Energy value. It doesn’t have to be perfect yet, since all of this gear will be replaced and Energy Cores are quite expensive early on, but if there are gears with very low rolls then you should reroll their Energy values.

Your skills should look something like this:

The actual skills and supports may change. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter that much, at this point it’s more a matter of personal choice. If you want to know what I was/am using, check out the codes in the Build Codes section.

Early Divinity Slates

Just add in whatever you can get. Don’t bother trying to get the good slates yet, they are probably much more expensive than what you can afford at this point.

Ideally, try to get some slates with Reap, so you have more sources of Reap that can proc your Reap Purification.

Other than that, you can try to equip anything that is related to the stats we have in the Stat Priority, that includes Skill Level (All, Spell, Erosion, Persistent), Reap, Reaping Cooldown, Affliction Effect, DoT Damage and Erosion Damage.

If there are extra slots, just add something like Max Energy Shield or Resistances.

T7-2 to T8-2

This is going to be in a single section, because the gear is exactly the same.

What do you mean by the same gear from T7-2 to T8-2??

It’s the exact same stats we’re following from the Stat Priority section, and the same legendary items. The only difference is going to be the Tier.

So, when you’re farming T7-2, most of your important gear affixes should be around Tier 2 or some Tier 1.

When you get to T8-0, your main goal is to get all the important damage affixes to Tier 1. You can do this by upgrading if the item has plasticity, buying bases with Tier 1 on the Trade House, or crafting yourself.

⚠️ We are not crafting priceless items! They are much more expensive. Just make sure that your items have enough item level to roll Tier 1 Affixes.

Gear Template

Since the affixes are exactly the same, you can use this gear below as a template for how you want to craft your own.

Once you get all the Legendary Gear, try to upgrade/craft the rest of the gear in the order we have the Stat Priority. Always upgrade the most important affixes first.

Helmet

Chest Armor *

*Note: Once all your gear is T1 and you have enough money (should be around 300 FE), buy the corrupted version of the chest with +3 Active Skill level.

Necklace

Gloves

Belt

Boots

Ring 1

Ring 2

Weapon 1 *

*Note: See here that we have “+# Affliction inflicted per second” instead of Affliction Effect. Well, there was this Chinese guy saying that you should have this on one of your weapons, and I just learned that from him, but I don’t know 100% if it’s correct.

*Note²: Also pay attention to our Dream Craft base affix at the top, we’re going for +8% Elemental and Erosion Resistance Penetration. This is a good DPS boost and should be quite cheap, do this once you have a 5-6 T1 weapon.

Weapon 2

Secret Tip - Corrosion

There is one thing most people don’t do, and it is extremely OP.

YOU SHOULD CORRODE ALL YOUR GEAR.

I’m serious. Once you finish crafting your gear, and all affixes are at the maximum level of that gear, be it all T2, or all T1, you should corrode it. There is a relatively good chance that you’ll be able to upgrade one or two of the affixes to T1 or T0. The corrosion material for gear is usually cheap, and you have basically nothing to lose.

To craft a basic 6 T1 gear should be around ~300 FE. To craft a priceless item with 6 T1, then to upgrade just one to T0, you’d easily spend more than 2000 FE.

So, if you manage to land this corruption, which will cost you basically nothing, you’ll gain a huge value from it.

I’d start with the Weapons first. Since they have the most impactful affixes.

Upgrade Order

If you don’t know how you should spend your money, and what you should do first, I’ll give you some suggestions in this section:

  1. Upgrade All gear to T2-T1: Try to get most of the important DMG affixes on T1 and cap your Resistances. Then corrode them once they’re finished crafting.

  1. Buy a Pedigree: If there is one on the market, and you can afford it, the Legendary Divinity Slave - Pedigree of the Gods will be the best upgrade you can make. You need one with the Twisted Belief talent. After you buy it, we’ll have to change our talents. Make sure to check the Pedigree part of the Divinity Slate section below.

  1. Basic Divinity Slates: Check the Divinity Slate section below and buy some basic ones to fill your board. We don’t need anything too expansive yet. Look for slates with Max Channeled Stacks, Skill Level (All, Spell, Erosion, Persistent), Reap, Reaping Cooldown, Affliction Effect, DoT Damage and Erosion Damage. This is still a basic setup, I would not spend more than 200FE on this. Max Channeled Stacks, All Skill Level and Reap sources are probably the most impactful ones.

  1. New Support Skills: Check out the price of Mind Control: Befuddle (Magnificent) and Mind Control: Concentrated (Magnificent). I don’t know what the price will be for these yet, but they are a significant damage boost. If it’s affordable, buy them.

  1. Soul Candle 1: Aim for something like Erosion Damage, DoT damage, Cataclysm Support, Max Channeled Stacks or Erosion Skill level. Check the prices and aim for one that fits your budget. The price for this will depend on how good the candle is. If it’s cheap, you can buy a second one to use until you have the money for the proper Candle 2 setup.

  1. Hero Memories: Try to get the Hero Memories with +2 to Hero Trait Level and some good basic stats. The price for this is going to vary a lot, so keep an eye on the Trade House.

        

        From here on, the upgrades will get expensive. I’d recommend you to have upgraded all your important affixes in your gear to T1 before buying these next upgrades.

  1. Soul Candle 2 + Curse Ring: Ideally, for the second Soul Candle, you should try to get You can cast 1 additional curse WITH a Ring that has the Dream Talking craft: Triggers Lv. 20 Entangled Pain Curse upon inflicting damage. Cooldown: 0.2 s. This will allow you to use 2 curses, the Corruption from the skill bar, and the Entangled Pain from the ring. It’s a significant DPS boost. But you can expect to spend around ~500FE just to get the curse on the ring, + the candle price. DON’T BUY THE ADDITIONAL CURSE CANDLE IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE RING.

  1. Good Candle Setup: Check out the Final 8-2 Setup section in the Divinity Slates section below. The prices for this will vary a lot, you can also buy them gradually. Keep an eye on the Trade House, sometimes you can snipe them for cheaper.

Divinity Slates

Pedigree of the Gods

As soon as you get your Pedigree, we need to make a big Talent Change.

This is because our best Pedigree option is one with the Twisted Belief talent node. And our current tree (if you followed the previous guide) was picking Shadowmaster as the second panel just to get this talent node. So now, we’re going to drop Shadowmaster and pick Warlock instead.

Final Talent Tree lv 95

This is our final Talent Tree for this guide:

⚠️You should NOT swap to Warlock UNTIL you have the Pedigree with Twisted Belief! Keep using Shadowmaster in the meantime.

This is all theory-crafting before SS7 started, there may be better talent builds out there. Check the rankings to see if people are having success with something else better.

Legendary Affixes

  1. The +1 Max Channeled Stacks is highly valuable.

Key notes

  • You don’t need to over-invest in Max Channeled Stacks, but +7–8 stacks is the ideal goal.
  • Each extra Channeled Stack provides +21.5% additional damage, and this bonus is multiplicative, resulting in significant overall gains.

  1. The +42% Reaping Cooldown Recovery Speed is also very good and highly recommended.

  1. The +1 Persistent Skill Level is also one of the most important bonuses.

  1. Other useful Legendary Affixes:

Other Affixes

For the other affixes on the Divinity Slates (blue and purple), here are some suggestions:

Final 8-2 Setup

This is just an example of what your setup may end up looking like. Don’t follow these affixes as “fixed”, it depends a lot on what you can get. This is not a “perfect” setup, it’s just an example. For which affixes are better, check the sections above.

If you have the money, and can find some better slates, you can replace the two Goddess of Deception for three more Corner of Divinity. But if you get lucky on the Goddess of Deception rolls, they may end up being better than the Corner of Divinity.

Soul Candles

IF you have the Ring with the Dream Talking craft to cast Entangled Pain curse, use one of these candles with Additional Curse. If you don’t have the Ring yet, just grab one with Erosion Damage, DoT damage, Cataclysm Support, Max Channeled Stacks or Erosion Skill level.

And keep in mind that the additional keyword is very important in this game. In the first candle example, +12% additional Erosion Damage means that it’s going to increase 12% of ALL your Erosion Damage multipliers. It’s better than just +48% Erosion Damage, like we have with DoT Damage on the second candle example. 

Hero Memories

The most important affix is to get the +2 to Hero Trait Level (or more). This is usually expensive, especially in the leaguestart. The other affixes can be anything related to our main damage affixes, like Affliction Effect or Reaping CDR. The affixes in the image examples ARE NOT the ideal ones, these are just examples of what you can expect to have going into 8-2.

Battle Pactspirits (Pets)

* Note: This is a copy-paste from the previous guide.

With the latest updates, each extra Channeled Stack Limit provides 21.5% bonus damage, making Channeled Stacks highly beneficial in the early stages of progression. This has made Swaying Bonnie one of the strongest early-game pets.

⚠️ Important Notes:

The Channeled Stack Limit refers to the number of stacks beyond the base limit of the Channeled skill itself.

For example:
If the base limit is 5 stacks, and you add +1 to the Channeled Stack Limit, it increases the cap to 6 stacks.

The bonus of 21.5% per extra stack only applies to the additional stack beyond the base limit.

The Curse Pet (Poisoned Omen) is also a good choice, as it allows you to apply an additional Corruption.

Click the Persistent tag in the top-right corner of the pet selection to quickly locate pets with duration-related traits.

Among these, Fire Swordsman and Greedy Chestnut - Radiance are the most suitable pets for our build. If you don’t have these, try to pick ones that provide damage amplification. Remember, Ailment Chance/Damage is useless to us.

Affliction Effect stats are not particularly easy to optimize early on, so pets serve as a convenient boost.

⚠️ Important Notes:

  • Ailment Chance/Damage is irrelevant, as we are not using ailments.
  • Duration is temporarily useless. We will start scaling some skill duration bonuses only after reaching around level 85 and unlocking advanced talent nodes or gear modifiers that allow for additional duration-related bonuses.