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

Noob question:
Why do you use a Wand? And not like a sword?^^

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Polypropylen wrote:

Noob question:
Why do you use a Wand? And not like a sword?^^

Because Swords can't roll Spell Damage, Cast Speed, Projectile Speed or Spell Critical Chance? :D

Your weapon's actual damage has no bearing on the damage of spells you cast.

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CantripN wrote:

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Polypropylen wrote:

Noob question:
Why do you use a Wand? And not like a sword?^^

Because Swords can't roll Spell Damage, Cast Speed, Projectile Speed or Spell Critical Chance? :D

Your weapon's actual damage has no bearing on the damage of spells you cast.

Yup, it's not like in d3, where wd bats or archon wizard can use a Skorn like a WW Barb to get their DPS.

You can use a dagger, as they can get some of the useful stats.
I don't think they can get all of them though.

I will probably try this build again (or a modified variant of this build), when the new season starts.
I liked it very much.
I would like to have more killing power/kill faster but i don't want to sacrifice the toughness.
Anyone tried some similar variants that you can recommend?

hmm, a question if i may (im new, so please bear with me) :)

I tried this build, and with Spectral Throw, i was chewing through enemies like no tomorrow, with very few if any problems. Then switching to your suggested Etheral Knives once i reached Eldritch Battery, and everything more or less went into the crapper, hehe.

Distance of the throw with EK is much less than with ST, so forcing constant relocation to hit mobs. Normally i never took any damage (due to the shield). With Eldritch Battery killing that shield, i now struggle to even stay alive. And so on :)

I imagine that this will become a vastly superior build at some point, but hitting Eldritch Battery was like dropping my razor sharp longsword and picking up a dull spoon (i also discarded my sword for a wand due to spell damage increase)

So there must be something that im not getting :)

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Jessail wrote:

hmm, a question if i may (im new, so please bear with me) :)

I tried this build, and with Spectral Throw, i was chewing through enemies like no tomorrow, with very few if any problems. Then switching to your suggested Etheral Knives once i reached Eldritch Battery, and everything more or less went into the crapper, hehe.

Distance of the throw with EK is much less than with ST, so forcing constant relocation to hit mobs. Normally i never took any damage (due to the shield). With Eldritch Battery killing that shield, i now struggle to even stay alive. And so on :)

I imagine that this will become a vastly superior build at some point, but hitting Eldritch Battery was like dropping my razor sharp longsword and picking up a dull spoon (i also discarded my sword for a wand due to spell damage increase)

So there must be something that im not getting :)

More than likely, you have shitty caster gear, where as a ST you had decent gear. Also, gem levels and links matter a lot. EK needs to level and have ok gear, ST just needs the gear (and less gear).

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CantripN wrote:

More than likely, you have shitty caster gear, where as a ST you had decent gear. Also, gem levels and links matter a lot. EK needs to level and have ok gear, ST just needs the gear (and less gear).

Most likely it, yes. Thanx for the explanation :)

Sorry if this has been asked before, since I have not went through all the pages in this thread.

I am trying to reverse engineer this build but I cannot figure out where all the mana regen is coming from. I took a look at ZiggyD's video and he seems to have 3567 mana and 271.4 mana/second regen.

In the video he states that Clarity would account for about 70 mana/sec regen, although it should be less according to my calculation, but even so, 200 mana/sec regen would mean around 5.6% mana regen.

From his gear he seems to have 94% increased mana regen from gear and 80% from the tree. With the base 1.75% that is not enough to reach 5.6%. 5.6% would mean 3.2 times the original regen, which means 220% increased mana regen.

Where is the extra regen coming from? What am I missing here? Or do I just fail at math?

Edit:

Dang, I just realized that Clarity is also mana regen and affected by mana regen increases. It accounts for a lot more mana regen with all the buff increases (about 30%). Just ignore this post :D

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Jessail wrote:

hmm, a question if i may (im new, so please bear with me) :)

I tried this build, and with Spectral Throw, i was chewing through enemies like no tomorrow, with very few if any problems. Then switching to your suggested Etheral Knives once i reached Eldritch Battery, and everything more or less went into the crapper, hehe.

Distance of the throw with EK is much less than with ST, so forcing constant relocation to hit mobs. Normally i never took any damage (due to the shield). With Eldritch Battery killing that shield, i now struggle to even stay alive. And so on :)

I imagine that this will become a vastly superior build at some point, but hitting Eldritch Battery was like dropping my razor sharp longsword and picking up a dull spoon (i also discarded my sword for a wand due to spell damage increase)

So there must be something that im not getting :)

Just keep going with Spectral Throw a little bit longer and lvl up your EK gems in some spare slots in the mean time.
I waited to do the switch quite some time and when i did do the switch to EK i noticed higher damage but slower cast/attack per second.
The EK also didn't travel very far in the beginning but when i got a better wand with projectile speed it got better.
One trick you can do is use a fork gem as when the EK forks it restarts the projectile so it travels a full length further from that point.
When you find more decent gear it will get much better.
EK is said to do quite bad damage at lvl 50-60 compared to other skills but get much better at endgame lvl 70 and onward.

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Mateo_swe wrote:

Just keep going with Spectral Throw a little bit longer and lvl up your EK gems in some spare slots in the mean time.
I waited to do the switch quite some time and when i did do the switch to EK i noticed higher damage but slower cast/attack per second.
The EK also didn't travel very far in the beginning but when i got a better wand with projectile speed it got better.
One trick you can do is use a fork gem as when the EK forks it restarts the projectile so it travels a full length further from that point.
When you find more decent gear it will get much better.
EK is said to do quite bad damage at lvl 50-60 compared to other skills but get much better at endgame lvl 70 and onward.

Great, thanx a lot for the thorough reply :)