1.1UPDATED- ETHEREAL KNIVES CRIT & MAP GUIDE - ES TANK w/ CHAOS INOC- LVLING INFO + PASSIVES + VIDS

i think getting IR is do-able but US is impossible.

You'd have to sacrifice like 8-10 points to get IR. Getting IR would only be worth it if you found an END game godly Carnal chest piece + 2 good EV/ES pieces. I suggest you not to do this... Even in regular hardcore league that's hard to find. This current build is really good b/c it optimizes at a very low level (lvl 70's). From there you can pretty much customize it to your liking. anything within 4-8 passive points is do-able but past that it starts damaging your build. This logic can be used with any build.



You just can't have CI + IR + US + crit on one character. That would be Overpowered.

If you want to play that play style then your better off following Etups ek marauder.

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Benshin88 wrote:

i think getting IR is do-able but US is impossible.

You'd have to sacrifice like 8-10 points to get IR. Getting IR would only be worth it if you found an END game godly Carnal chest piece + 2 good EV/ES pieces. I suggest you not to do this... Even in regular hardcore league that's hard to find. This current build is really good b/c it optimizes at a very low level (lvl 70's). From there you can pretty much customize it to your liking. anything within 4-8 passive points is do-able but past that it starts damaging your build. This logic can be used with any build.



You just can't have CI + IR + US + crit on one character. That would be Overpowered.

If you want to play that play style then your better off following Etups ek marauder.

Ok thanks. I'll stick close to the build. I'm playing in hardcore and was worried about not having eye of chayula.

Any chance of someone posting an updated Passive Tree for this build please?

Well, one thing I am thinking about doing is a vaal pact CI ES leech EK build with blood rage. With this done you would also be very hard to kill because of the insane amount of leech, I mean your talking about leeching your full life with every crit. I just do not know if the leech from a gem is enough. With blood rage and power charge on critical you should be able to keep a large amount of charges constantly up and honestly you should be hitting an insane crit chance. The main issue is reflect still, I think that you might be fine with a life leech support gem, but it is iffy, if only the blood rage/warlords mark leech worked on it, it would be fine.

Do the vaal pact build if and only if...

- You have 2 good wands you want to use and want uber DPS.

- low ES pool. Remember you can only regenerate 20% of your total life per second unless you have a Q20 life leech then its 30%. I had only 5000 HP and would crit and leech around 1200 at the time.

- you crit yourself to death after potentially hitting 2 - 5 mobs at one instance. This is more of a glass cannon build if you get my drift.

- This build is ONLY useful if you have a lot of elemental damage to compliment your EK (ie hatred or added fire or hrimsorrow). I want to say its mandatory to have hatred + added fire damage for this build to be useful. B/c you probably aren't MAXing your life leech out which is 20% of your total life per sec.

DONT do the vaal pact build if your using a WAND and a HIGH ES SHIELD.

I am now doing higher level maps so i respeced to the standard CRIT EK build. I got a new 40% projectile wand w/ faster cast and spell and an ES shield. I grabbed more ES nodes so i have more life. I do less damage then before but i have a pool of ~7500 ES. I think it is enough for me to react to reflects even if its accidental.


I'd recommend getting the eye of chayula. Only CI build that doesn't need it imo is any dual totem build.

The whole point of eye of chayula being unavailable in the new leagues is propanly to see how mandatory it really is.
CI builds aren´t supposed to be "get stunimmunity or die". You´d think block/stunrecovery would have a purpose. The other ailments of minimal HP are "remedied" via Flasks but stuns are a real issue.

Melee CI builds are clearly intended but are they really shouldn´t be expected to make the trip to literally the opposite side of the skillmap.

Hey guys I managed to replace mana leech with another dmg skill :) EK is just so awesome! I'm at 16k dps now and not having mana problems without mana leech. I use clarity and a lot of mana/manareg passives but I'm able to run EK with faster casting+incr crit dmg+power charge on crit/incr crit chance+added fire+life leech and it's really fun :) I dont think that faster proj is really neccesary so I replaced it by another dmg gem :D Thanks for the guide, it pushed me to start this char and now its my main :)

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Dravok wrote:

How would you set this build up for Onslaught to grab IR and US so you don't have to worry about stun locks?

Hey guys sorry for the lack of response the past few days. To setup IR I would drop probably almost all the straight crit passives(the ones with only crit themselves, no crit + multiplier) and maybe a bit of cast speed. To stack survivability can always be a good idea and less stressful. EK is a strong spell and if you find yourself a good pace it should be consistent even without that many offensive nodes. A few normal casts to kill or 1-2 crits to drop most monsters.



Eye of chayula is a nice item for CI to prevent the stun. Stun lock can get you killed but if you don't run ahead too fast it isn't necessarily needed. The stun animation is what gets prevented so you won't get held in place being hit consecutively. This mostly happens from physical damage monsters. It can be a life saver but it does take up an amulet spot which I find very important(iir / iiq / other stats). Just being cautious of what enemies you are facing can prove to be just as useful as having the "cannot be stunned". Similar situation applies to the "cannot be frozen" from dream frags and using heat flasks. :)

Crit reflect will always be devastating unless you got ghost reaver + vaal pact to reflect heal the damage. I cannot say it will prevent you from getting killed instantly unless you reflect / leech enough HP back. Personally have not tested a crit reflect with pact and ghost reaver.

would be a good idea use Ghost Reaver ( Life leech to energy shield ) ??

Yes. It adresses a key weakness in CI builds, being unable to restore midfight and migitates one of EKs main vulnerabilities - physical reflect.