i’m a crazy person and love vitality drain essence so i’ve been playing a variation of this build that opts for the sigil vs doom bolt as @thaeril recommends, and uses the devotions from Epic Compendium of Epic set Builds - #95 by MergosWetNurse because i wanted scales, dying god, and rattosh
i’ll post a grimtools link after i finish leveling it and get it a bit more optimized. i agree that it’s possible to level with drain essence (but maybe don’t try to kill kyzogg with it, that was excruciating). it’s a bit squishy before you get the ascendant source and some of the endgame devotion procs.
sorry for the thread necro but there isn’t a more recent drain essence cabalist build that i could find on here