I Cast Magic Missile! - Cantrip's guide to Ethereal Knives 2.0

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Alala wrote:

I have a lvl 80+ Shadow on standard I'd like to try this on but with totems. I'm not really sure if it would work for that with the totem changes. but what would you suggest dropping in order to pick up at least Shamanistic Fury (3pts) and Totemic Zeal (5pts)? Ancestral Bond is right there as well with could make a tempting tritotem, but I haven't played anything like that yet so I'm unfamiliar with how it works.

Well, EK is one of the few spells where Spell Totem actually works. I'd drop a few Aura Passives, since you'll need to keep a ton of spare mana to actually summon the totems, especially if going for 3.
That said, Shockwave Totem or Flame Totem is better in my opinion if you want to play a Totemist.

thank you cantrip, I'll look into all that. EK is such a pretty looking skill, so I shall see what wins out in the end as far as what spell to go with

So what about that Piercing Shots node right up from the Acrobatics area? A few pages back it was said that pierce from the tree is proven to be highly useful but then there's none in the current build.

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Vankesidi wrote:

So what about that Piercing Shots node right up from the Acrobatics area? A few pages back it was said that pierce from the tree is proven to be highly useful but then there's none in the current build.

It's not necessary, especially with Cantrip's damage, and there are more important nodes to grab (gotta make sure you have enough mana, for one).

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Tempada wrote:

...especially with Cantrip's damage...

Yeah, but what about mid-game.
I remember I was stuck at Tora's mission with SRS summoner, she sent me into the lair with 6-8 corrupted "zerg queens" and it ended stupidly: I wasn't able to kill them, cause they spawned a horde of "zerlings" fast enough to be protected with such meat shield, but slow enough to make them reach my toon. Spent like 10 mins then just walked away.
I see potential problem here as well, fast spawners in tight corridors in the mid-game might be a trouble. Pierce would resolve that.

So I haven't played EK in years. Yeah years.
Wondering how's the spell now we have spell echo and heralds.

How's the clear speed vs fotm's builds like KB or TS ?

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Vankesidi wrote:

Yeah, but what about mid-game.
I remember I was stuck at Tora's mission with SRS summoner, she sent me into the lair with 6-8 corrupted "zerg queens" and it ended stupidly: I wasn't able to kill them, cause they spawned a horde of "zerlings" fast enough to be protected with such meat shield, but slow enough to make them reach my toon. Spent like 10 mins then just walked away.
I see potential problem here as well, fast spawners in tight corridors in the mid-game might be a trouble. Pierce would resolve that.

That's an unusual situation... Perhaps you could swap in the Pierce gem in that case? Pierce is not something that's regularly needed.

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Isdp wrote:

So I haven't played EK in years. Yeah years.
Wondering how's the spell now we have spell echo and heralds.

How's the clear speed vs fotm's builds like KB or TS ?

The clear speed in most cases can't compare to KB or TS. EK is limited by gem power while the other skills can be brought to crazy damage levels with high physical damage weapons. The reason to use EK is for balance. The damage is good and with decent gear you can run Acrobatics and Arctic Armour, which is an amazing defensive combo. You could even use Cloak of Defiance on top of that, but it's overkill.

I don't really understand what you mean by balanced.

Balanced toward the investment in gear ?
Defense-wise you can run the same things as wander w/o trouble from what I saw.

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Isdp wrote:

I don't really understand what you mean by balanced.

Balanced toward the investment in gear ?
Defense-wise you can run the same things as wander w/o trouble from what I saw.

Balanced in all the ways.
Are there any wander builds that use both Acrobatics and a high level Arctic Armour?

EK is more flexible and well-rounded because of all the ways its damage scales, you don't need to worry about accuracy, you don't need crit to deal decent damage, reflect is no big deal (wander often takes Vaal Pact or Ondar's Guile), most of your power comes from gems rather than gear (well, a nice wand helps, but a decent spell wand is typically cheaper than a decent wander wand), and you can branch out to lots of aura nodes so you can get some crazy mana regen through Clarity (which is what helps you to run both AA and Acrobatics).

What he said.

Also, EK has a HUGE range and AoE when used right. As for Pierce, it used to be worth it before the renewed Templar Area, but it's just too good to skip now.

Now, if we could get it some other way, that would be nice, yes.