ZiggyD's Etheral Knives Mana Shield Scion/Shadow Build Guide - Hardcore (Updated for 1.1)

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fs84 wrote:

What gives bigger DPS? For 3 points.

here is my tree:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAACGcRlhUgFy8YPBjbGYUZihpsGo8c3B0UIcMkPCSqJ6ko-imlKk0s6S2DLagvbzGeNZI26T8nRnFJUUp9SshN404qVcZV1lYtV-FaUlptW69k52egbqpvnnC7dPF_xoCkgh6Cx4MJhTKHdohCj0aQ1pMnkzqXBptdm7WmV6cIp1yomqx_sZC0DLXyt9a4k70nwcXDOsSiykrPZdDQ2RPbC9tZ3Q3jauvu8pfz3fba-WX56PrS-wn8xf6P

the 3 cast speed nodes by Charisma (aka nimbleness)

Proj nodes in ranger?

or Inner force? (for auras, maybe?)

or Doom cast and the aura effects by Soverntiy?

All are 3 points, I just want to have more dmg.

I think the inner force or aura effects would be good hybrid dps and defense.

What do you guys think?

Inner Force may not be the best choice because it increases the mana consumption of Arctic Armour (but you might still be able to run a high level AA depending on your mana and mana regen).

Don't bother with Doom Cast; it's not worth your time unless you're doing a critical hit build.

You might head toward the spell damage nodes near the start of the Witch tree or the cast speed and spell damage nodes near the Shadow start. You'd have 3 extra points to play with if you got rid of the Scion life wheel points (by Path of the Warrior) and put 4 points into the life wheel below Reflexes instead. Or remove the 4 points to Purity of Flesh (I don't think they're worth it considering that you can get +16% life and +16% chaos resist with the same amount of points by taking Clear Mind and the nodes I mentioned earlier).

But with only 70 STR, iron will wont help much :S

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gildash wrote:

Level 67 checking in!

Not a ton of fun to level but the clear speed for trash is really starting to pick up now and I can basically afk anywhere besides around big dmg mods (bosses etc) so its nice an tanky.

I feel like this is much better as a solo build than group, which is perfectly fine with me just letting people know.

My only gripe is with bosses. It is soooooo slow dpsing down some of the more agile bosses. For example, how the hell do you do piety on this build? I did it once and gave up on the idea of piety runs. Lots of map bosses I'm going to have trouble with I think.

Any ideas for single target bosses?

Piety's really quite easy to do, as long as you're patient. As long as you don't stand in the lightning storm and as long as you Lightning Warp behind a pillar or a pile for the ice arrows, there's just no way she can kill you, even at level 67. In fact, if you can only run one of the two, run Hatred on her instead of Grace. You never take physical except when she's in her fire form (I think some of that is physical), and AA takes care of that pretty well anyway.

Yeah, she takes a while, but at least you can compensate by Lightning Warping all the way through Lunaris 3 to her. Once you reach a reasonable level you can get it done in the 8 minute window pretty easily.

Another thing to remember is that the EK scaling per level is ridiculous. At level 67 you probably have 4 or 5 more levels to raise your gem, and every time you do, your damage is going to go up significantly. Maybe 67 is too early to do Piety runs on this build, but it won't be long until it's a cakewalk.

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Eelbrook wrote:

But with only 70 STR, iron will wont help much :S

Well, there's your problem.

A 70 Str can only support a level 2 Empower, level 7 Reduced Mana or Life Leech, and level 10 Added Fire Damage and Iron Will. You don't need more strength to make Iron Will effective. You need more strength to make everything more effective. Worrying about having Added Fire Damage actually do something, or having Reduced Mana work well enough that you can actually run Hatred, is more important than the identity of a gem that you're only going to use in a 6L anyway.

Leveling this build now and am loving it. Level 72, and feel pretty much invincible. Quick question, though. I'm currently running Grace, Hatred, Clarity, and possibly a Purity aura if the situation calls for it. I can do Discipline instead of Purity, but I'm not really getting any benefit from it yet (my mana regen is fine without it at 275) and it leaves me with pretty low mana. My question is: at what level of Discipline and Reduced mana does Discipline actually give you a positive amount of mana? Is that even possible?

Thanks!

At around lvl70-75 you get benefit from discipline, not sure what gem lvl that is though.

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Anesthetize34 wrote:

Leveling this build now and am loving it. Level 72, and feel pretty much invincible. Quick question, though. I'm currently running Grace, Hatred, Clarity, and possibly a Purity aura if the situation calls for it. I can do Discipline instead of Purity, but I'm not really getting any benefit from it yet (my mana regen is fine without it at 275) and it leaves me with pretty low mana. My question is: at what level of Discipline and Reduced mana does Discipline actually give you a positive amount of mana? Is that even possible?

Thanks!

It's not actually even possible. Discipline is strictly for mana regen. For example, my level 80 character has a Discipline gem that's effectively level 22 (level 20, +2 from Alpha's Howl). I have a level 20 Reduced Mana gem and 28% worth of Reduced Mana Reservation via the passive tree (and the 8% from Alpha's Howl). Activating Discipline (with Clarity, Hatred, and Grace already activated), my mana goes from 4195 to 5641, my unreserved mana drops from 1884 to 1197, and my regen rises from 294 to 360.

So in a close to perfect scenario, I'm losing more than a third of my unreserved mana by activating Discipline.

I don't figure I need to run Discipline because my regen is good enough, but mana over 1200 is pretty superfluous anyway. If it's lowering your mana too far to run it though, I'd be pretty happy with 275 regen and enough mana to keep MoM effective.

Suggested level to get MoM? At level 52 right now, with 1.1k mana total and ~100 mana regen per second. My arctic armor can be used all the time as long as I keep an eye on it, but MoM may make it unusable for extended periods. Also, here's my skill tree and gear:





Will be using a better armor (5L) at level 58. Currently working towards Shaper, just 2 points away. Suggestions?

Also, why get Heart of Oak? Looks fairly cost inefficient, considering you also have to get the block and stun recovery leading to it.

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MaurEzekiel wrote:

Suggested level to get MoM? At level 52 right now, with 1.1k mana total and ~100 mana regen per second. My arctic armor can be used all the time as long as I keep an eye on it, but MoM may make it unusable for extended periods. Also, here's my skill tree and gear:

Will be using a better armor (5L) at level 58. Currently working towards Shaper, just 2 points away. Suggestions?

Also, why get Heart of Oak? Looks fairly cost inefficient, considering you also have to get the block and stun recovery leading to it.

I specced in and out of MoM at least twice, as running other auras and keeping AA up was more important. I permanently started using MoM around level 72, when I had between 700 - 800 mana left over after running AA, Hatred, Grace, and Clarity.

I didn't take Heart of Oak, didn't think it was worth it.

I'm currently level 84 and chose Scion rather then Shadow as Ziggy suggests. EK Scion/Shadow really doesn't begin to shine until about 75 and higher. Very tanky, but it takes awhile for the EK damage to scale. I'm doing about 7.3K EK dps with a 19/20q gem.

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Barandis wrote:

Another thing to remember is that the EK scaling per level is ridiculous. At level 67 you probably have 4 or 5 more levels to raise your gem, and every time you do, your damage is going to go up significantly. Maybe 67 is too early to do Piety runs on this build, but it won't be long until it's a cakewalk.

^This. The scaling is nice, just seems to take awhile cause you gotta level the gem. My EK Dps went from 6.6K to 7.3K going from a lvl 18 to 19 gem.

Also, GCP's are your friend. Getting 20q on my EK gem really helped. Faster casting is next, as get 20q on that gem is 10% cast speed extra, which gives you the option to skip the Nimbleness wheel and go for more life, or something equally as tasty.

Around what character level should I expect to get EK to 20? I'm 72 now and EK just hit 17, so it looks like I have quite a ways to go.