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

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Kesshi wrote:

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4L: CwDT (9) - Immortal Call (9) - Vaal Haste - Increased Duration

Just another note: You can no longer trigger Vaal gems in 1.2 so this may need to be changed.

This is intentional. I *want* to Self-cast it. It's for bosses, not random mobs.

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CantripN wrote:

This is intentional. I *want* to Self-cast it. It's for bosses, not random mobs.

That makes sense. Thank you for replying.

Also, which forsaken masters would you recommend having in your hideout for this build and why?

Just curious on your thoughts regarding MOM.

Ive seen a few builds with it, that seem indestructible and given the amount of mana regens and EB it seems like a no brainer other than the fact you have to wade through a lot of trash to get there.

Also, I noticed you avoided the crit line in the shadow starter area, do these crit chances not apply to the skill?

Lastly, I see just about every EK build put added fire damage...I often wonder how much better this would be over the other elements.

How do you deal with single target enemies like bosses? Having trouble with that right now :(

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RXXQ wrote:

How do you deal with single target enemies like bosses? Having trouble with that right now :(

Hello, I'm not OP, but I have a possible solution. I try to use Bear Trap from levels 20 to about 70. This new tree makes it even better because Bear Trap scales with +physical damage nodes and Herald of Ash; we will be using both. You may want to spec into 3 points into the trap node just south of the Shadow starting area and unspec out of them later on. Link it with Added Fire Damage and Culling Strike.

Once you get to about 70ish with your links EK's growth is based on EK's level and quality (and support gem levels and quality.) Meaning just put some time into leveling it and you can get EK up to the point where rares and uniques are no longer a problem.

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Kesshi wrote:

Also, which forsaken masters would you recommend having in your hideout for this build and why?

I'm leveling Vorici and Katarina so far. I'll probably replace one of them with Zana. It helps if you can share the leveling of Masters with friends, so each has a different set.

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CapitalPunishment wrote:

Just curious on your thoughts regarding MOM.

Ive seen a few builds with it, that seem indestructible and given the amount of mana regens and EB it seems like a no brainer other than the fact you have to wade through a lot of trash to get there.

Also, I noticed you avoided the crit line in the shadow starter area, do these crit chances not apply to the skill?

Lastly, I see just about every EK build put added fire damage...I often wonder how much better this would be over the other elements.

MoM is very strong, but for EK you have to both give up Herald of Ash, and either head over to the node (and pick up IR on the way, though) or use a Cloak of Defiance. Compared to a Belly of the Beast, MoM adds less "Life" if you only have 500ish spare mana, and you need a lot more mana regen to manage it (since you take damage to mana). In other words, I don't suggest it at this point, for EK. It's MUCH better for Elemental builds that have more spare Mana.

Crit nodes work on EK, and are a great boost to DPS. However, I have 2 problems with crit on EK:
1 - Overkill. Blue and lower get one-shot usually with ok gear without it.
2 - Reflect. You *need* IR if you're going for Crit, or you'll end up dead, eventually.
Crit in general gives a big boost to DPS but of a kind that's unreliable unless you focus heavily into it, which has a cost in Life/Cast Speed/Other. You either take a lot of crit, or none at all.

Added Fire scales with your Physical Damage and EK level, the others do not. It's usually going to be stronger than the others for you.

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RXXQ wrote:

How do you deal with single target enemies like bosses? Having trouble with that right now :(

What Kesshi said is true, Bear Trap is strong for single-target early on. However, if you have semi-decent spell damage / cast speed on gear, even a 2L EK is strong enough to level with. I simply suggest getting a Lifesprig wand for just this reason.
Also, that's what Vaal Haste is for.

Hi, I'm playing on the beyond league and was wondering if I go IR what should I take the points from?

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KosherRice wrote:

Hi, I'm playing on the beyond league and was wondering if I go IR what should I take the points from?

I haven't seen the beyond bosses yet, so I don't know how bad the Physical Damage is. If it's possible to play without IR in general, so can you. If not, I'd skip the Templar part of the tree altogether, Witch top-side incuded, and get to IR like so:


I only showed the path to IR. The points would come from the Templar/Witch top-left side.
Auras would be: Hatred / Grace / Clarity, and since you're getting IR anyway, you can *consider* taking MoM as a node and still use Belly of the Beast, but only bother taking MoM if your mana left is over the amount of Life you'd get from 3 Life Nodes (at least).

I created my own take on EK for this patch but I've spent my respec points to align with yours. Well done and thank you for the effort.

So let's start with the good:
I'm pushing 7.7k dps right now with Geofri's Crest (EK/Added Fire/Faster Casting/Spell Echo) all at level 16 with Hatred/Haste/Clarity/Herald of Ash.

I've purely self found minus the helm (which I did pay for with an exalt I found and broke down into chaos). I can say that an Atziri's Foible will make leveling so much easier. I've had to put strength (and more recently dex da fuq) on my rings from Catarina I believe. I just recently started leveling AA past level 2. I think I can sustain a level 9 right now but again, Foible + better weapons/jewelry will improve this.

Here is my gear @ 65


And now the less than good:
This isn't the most defensive variant of EK, as has been pointed out by some in this thread. If I were going HC I'd probably going the MoM/IR route and give up Herald of Ash. I'd take these points from the Sovereignty side and connect to the Scion life wheel from the bottom side (as opposed to the current tree in op). EK is extremely strong. So strong that 99% of the time heavy defensives aren't really necessary. However once deaths have a true impact on my casual play time (level 88ish up I'd say) I'm sure I'll have to evaluate the build and adjust as necessary. If the plan is to level up with this build well into the 90s then I'd suggest the same. It might even require situational use of Grace over Hatred on really tough maps. Coming from mostly focusing on hardcore play I can say slower clear speed on a tougher map is much faster than trying to regain 10% xp.

Anyway, thanks again for the build and good luck to all those playing. It really opens up when you get the basic links setup and truly shines with the Crest.

For HC, I'd strongly suggest using IR and/or Lightning Coil, that is true. You don't necessarily need both, though.