[0.10.0] Ethereal Knives Eldritch Battery Witch (Iron Will Strongwitch Edition)

There are many viable EK builds. My build focuses on attaining very high survivability, for safe solo map farming. It makes use of stacked strength through Iron Will, Eldritch Battery to support EK mana costs/auras and uses a separate EK with Remote Mine as a single target damage solution (with enough dexterity from gear you can use Bear Trap instead).

Eventually you will be able to use Righteous Fire for short bursts of massive spell damage boost in the pure regen version.

Or go for higher armor numbers with the Iron Reflexes version.

What skills do you use?

Spoiler
AoE :

Ethereal Knives + Chain + Added Fire Damage + Iron Will - For a 5-link I'd use Faster Casting, but Faster Projectiles is also viable

Single target :

Ethereal Knives + Remote Mine + Added Fire Damage + Iron Will - Aiming is quite erratic and the mine itself vulnerable to AoE, but it can deliver very powerful burst damage for cleaning up remaining yellows/bosses

OR

Bear Trap + Added Fire Damage + Added Chaos Damage + Culling Strike - Delivers burst damage on a completely different scale. Use this instead of Remote Mine EK if you can stack enough dexterity.

Curse :

Projectile Weakness - Level it when you can afford it

Auras :

Discipline - Free mana
Clarity - Level only as far as needed to attain ~100 mana/second.
Hatred - Damage for EK and Bear Trap
Vitality - Additional life regen (for regen version)
Purity - Raising resists for RF and overall survivability (for regen version and to swap for IR version)
Determination - Massive armor boost (for IR version and to swap for regen version)
Grace - Large flat evasion boost (for IR version)

You may need to use a Blood Magic gem to support some of these. With enough mana regen/raw life, it will be less of a problem later.

Buffs :

Righteous Fire - You can use this for short bursts of insane damage. You will need a Ruby Flask. If you use Saffel's Frame and maxed Purity, you should have enough regen to use it for short bursts even without Ruby Flasks. Don't forget to have another flask to dispel burning

Enduring Cry - Ideally use two of these to build charges fast, since each has a separate cooldown

Movement :

Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks - For movement and easy repositioning. Only with daggers, if you get one with good spell damage. Don't use this in HC due to desync.


What stats should I go for?

Spoiler
The priority on gear stats should be something like life, resists, energy shield, spell damage/cast speed, mana regen, in about that order. Dexterity will also be important to meet gem requirements.

Aim for at least 3k life by A3 Merciless. 66 maps were doable for me around 68 (but still risky so required more kiting) and more or less smooth at 71. Depending on gear your mileage may vary.


Show me some example numbers, DPS, life, etc?

Spoiler
At level 72, with a 55% spell damage dagger and life as the prioritized stat on everything (mana is currently suffering because of a large ES gear downgrade I had to make) ;

Ethereal Knives + Chain + Added Fire Damage + Iron Will - 1349
Ethereal Knives + Remote Mine + Added Fire Damage + Iron Will - 3205

3992 life
281 life regen per second
1768 mana
70 mana regen per second

74% fire
34% cold
21% lightning
-32% chaos


How does it look in action?



Enough already, give me the build!

Spoiler
Normal bandits - 40 life
Cruel bandits - 12% physical damage
Merciless bandits - 1 skill point or 1 endurance charge

102 point regen build - 6.2% life regen (7.4-7.6% with endurance charges), 6 or 7 endurance charges. This is the build I'm going for. Relies heavily on dexterity from gear, preferably Astramentis.

102 point IR variation - Picks up IR. If you prefer stacking armor to regen. Ends up with 104 base dexterity, will still need some dexterity from gear to meet requirements.

After 102 points for either build I'd just add 8% life nodes. Life is king.


I welcome any feedback or suggestions. I do tend to forget obvious things sometimes. :)
IGN : Jovial
Last edited by yhateful on Feb 27, 2013, 6:21:12 PM
Very nice,watched ur vid and looks amazing..
But,what kind of gear iam looking?thx
gonna try that as soon as u reply me
I've been doing a similar build since my EK shadow died in hardcore and didn't want to reroll the exact same thing so i decided to go for witch, currently lvl 58 in A2 Merciless, 3k hp, 1.3k armor, 65/75/65/-25 resists, 1200 mana

1.5k DPS with EK (added fire, faster casting, faster projectiles, iron will) i don't think chain is that good with EK tbh, will test it in later levels tho
3.4k DPS with bear trap (added fire, no culling strike yet)



I probably wont go down all the way to the duelist tree and instead get the other body and soul node because i think i will be lacking armor, i also pick up the increased cast speed near CI so i (hopefully) won't need faster casting later on with all the nodes i have, but I'll see how it goes.
The deulist tree has more armor around it that both body and soul nodes. You do get more ES but you will not need that much for EB to carry your pool high enough to use the auras you want. If you go into the duelist section and get iron reflexes you actually will have way more armor than this build. You will also have more life. This build gives you 1.2 ish more health regen and 5% more max resists with a lot more mana and some cast speed. Going to Iron reflexes gets you more health, more armor, and unwavering stance for chargers. This is an awesome build, credit to the OP. But you will kill yourself way faster with his build than the duelist side :(. Not that it offers much help. I used fork and 1 shotted myself on reflect mobs using the duelist tree build.
Last edited by Lachis on Feb 19, 2013, 6:07:29 PM
"
Lachis wrote:
The deulist tree has more armor around it that both body and soul nodes. You do get more ES but you will not need that much for EB to carry your pool high enough to use the auras you want. If you go into the duelist section and get iron reflexes you actually will have way more armor than this build. You will also have more life. This build gives you 1.2 ish more health regen and 5% more max resists with a lot more mana and some cast speed. Going to Iron reflexes gets you more health, more armor, and unwavering stance for chargers. This is an awesome build, credit to the OP. But you will kill yourself way faster with his build than the duelist side :(. Not that it offers much help. I used fork and 1 shotted myself on reflect mobs using the duelist tree build.


I did think about trying to go for iron reflexes but it's too far away, I would waste so many points in stats trying to rush it I would feel weak. If i wanted to get IR in an EK build i would start as a marauder or a duelist if i wanted it early, or a shadow if i wanted it mid-late game.

"
blekibum wrote:
"
Lachis wrote:
The deulist tree has more armor around it that both body and soul nodes. You do get more ES but you will not need that much for EB to carry your pool high enough to use the auras you want. If you go into the duelist section and get iron reflexes you actually will have way more armor than this build. You will also have more life. This build gives you 1.2 ish more health regen and 5% more max resists with a lot more mana and some cast speed. Going to Iron reflexes gets you more health, more armor, and unwavering stance for chargers. This is an awesome build, credit to the OP. But you will kill yourself way faster with his build than the duelist side :(. Not that it offers much help. I used fork and 1 shotted myself on reflect mobs using the duelist tree build.


I did think about trying to go for iron reflexes but it's too far away, I would waste so many points in stats trying to rush it I would feel weak. If i wanted to get IR in an EK build i would start as a marauder or a duelist if i wanted it early, or a shadow if i wanted it mid-late game.



Weak? You get more str, more life. use an iron will gem you will be doing more dmg. It too far away if you are trying to get into templar tree. The build i suggested ignores that tree. Run purity until you get good gear then run determination. You'll have enough mana to run disc grace and clarity also. You'll use freezing pulse till 50 or so maybe earlier than that you switch. IMO you will be really really strong. Actually not IMO because I leveled this character and 1 or 2 shot everything until I hit a physical reflect pack in a 72map and killed myself.
Last edited by Lachis on Feb 19, 2013, 7:40:07 PM
Took a break from this build for a while, but I'm back to leveling it now.

Iron Reflexes is viable, only 7 points away. However I don't think physical reflects are a large problem. I am exploring alternatives for single target, but so far Remote Mine EK's are very effective against things such as physical reflects, or bosses. The downside is AoE damage will destroy your mines, and there is a lot of AoE damage in endgame.

Anyway, I'll be updating this guide a soon. Thanks for the comments and feedback.
IGN : Jovial
do I need $ or items stocked up already to throw down on this? seems to be the going theme with builds these days.
You need very little items with this build to start out in A3 Merciless. If you want to get into maps and do them safely solo, you will need slightly better gear, but nothing special. The build has great survivability. You can't facetank map content, but you have very good safety margins starting out, and it only gets better from there.

I've updated the main post with the revised build I'm running now. It took out some 8% nodes and focused on getting another 1% life regen. There is also an alternative IR build. I may be making more updates soon, something about flasks, a higher level map run, numbers with better gear, etc.
IGN : Jovial
I just died to merci vaal on my bow duelist and was interested in this.. but that vid looks sooo squishy
^

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