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

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SapphireRyoko wrote:

Hi all! :)

First, thank you for sharing your build with us, ZiggyD! I'm having a lot of fun with it, and this is my first time to get this far on hardcore in any ARPG. I have a question :)

First, here is my gear:

Spoiler

here is my passive tree:

Spoiler

My Build

I'm putting my next 2 points in the 6% life + 8% mana nodes

and here are my stats:
Level: 78
Life: 4256
Mana: 3342 total, 928 unreserved
Mana Regeneration: 251 per second
Armor: 8507
Resists: 75 fire/cold/lightning, 11 chaos
Auras: Clarity, Grace, Discipline, Arctic Armor
DPS: 1878

I am playing on Nemesis. My question is: am I ready for Merciless Dominus solo? I've watched some videos of him, but they were all using completely different builds, so I couldnt get a good idea of how well I'd be able to handle his damage. Would I be able to survive, for example, his lightning stream attack and the touch of god? (Yes, I avoid them, but what if it desyncs? I'm trying to cover all my bases since I really do not want to die on him after coming this far) If I am not ready for him, am I close, or am I way below what I'd need to beat him? I've heard that he is way overtuned and people die on him even when they're like 10 levels over him, so I want to be sure before I take him on :)

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DrMagic wrote:

@ Trebel, its actually very viable. If your look up a guy named Cantripin on the forums he also has a ehtereal knives build that makes use of Clarity, Discipline, Hatred, and Haste. If your not in harcore i would definitely go for the aura nodes. If your in nem/hardcore, your hp might be a bit lower than Ziggies, but you could potentially throw in grace/purity of elements instead of hatred/haste to increase your defenses even further. I would really look up Cantripin's guide, while his build is overall more expensive, i would say that its a lot more fun, (higher dps, and more party support with more auras) than Ziggy's.