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

Here is my Gear, currently level 84, I have the two passives he recommends etc, I have 6.3k dps. 3k heath and 10k armour. But I'm unsure where to go in the tree aftewards, Im not in nemesis so I dont mind dying too much, should I just get mana regen and cast speed, does anyone have a new passive tree?

Fairly new to PoE and it's all a bit overwhelming (especially on Nemesis). Trying out this build but I'm a bit confused on the order to get passives and the point at which to transfer from ST to EK. I'm currently at lvl 37 and still using ST and don't know that I'm that close to being able to switch over to EK but not sure how to tell when I am. I have added fire and weapon elemental damage for ST and I have been trying to level up EK even though I'm not using it.

For the passive tree I headed into the Templar area first to unlock the ES boost passives but should I go all the way to "Faith and Steel" or start heading for Eldritch Battery before then?

Any tips or details are appreciated.

*edit*
added some more accurate info now that I'm home. In summary these are a few of my questions on this build if anyone has any feedback;

-what level or other indicator(s) should I look for to start the transition to EK? (clarity level, character level, certain passives gained etc..)

-head all the way to "Faith of Steel" and then go to Eldrith Battery or sometime before?

-am I supposed to keep leveling Clarity ASAP or stop at points?

-when is a good time to start using arctic armor and should I be leveling that up now even before I start using it?

hey ziggy, thanks for the build, first since coming back from beta a couple weeks ago, currently at 74 HC. one of my fav toons ive rolled sofar in poe, very fun, flexible build. first scion, EK, MoM, so having fun with some new skills I hadn't used before. this is a very cheap, relatively safe build, for anyone who may be new looking thru builds, you could do a lot worse than this one.

@EQBallzz , I swapped to EK as soon as I got a good wand drop, which luckily, the first one I got was high sp, plus 25 proj speed. I would say as soon as you get something with around 30% proj speed, be it a wand, or the kurui ward, however. I swapped over around mid 30s or so and my dps was really good, but I used silverbranch with poison arrow until then, I really don't care for ST too much. good wand made the dif for me right when I needed to switch, so just got lucky.

I picked up life& mana and EB first after the center stuff, then IR, MoM, and south health. next I went up to north health and over to sovereignty. from there, I fleshed out the rest of my auras on the right side, and then worked into the main Templar faith n steel and health nodes. im 74 now and just starting on the body n soul nodes. running grace/hatred/clarity. 3k health, 4k dps, 50% armor, 200 mana regen, with really mediocre gear, been really lucky on wands, that's about it. been working on my 5 or 6 link for a couple days. life leach will make me feel a bit safer. if I can get some more proj speed, I can drop out faster proj. until I 5 or 6 link. the way you progress can vary depending upon your gear needs at the time EQBallzz. need more mana? head that way, etc. I found it to be really flexible in terms of how you prioritize the tree, so you should be fine just learning. keep in mind that some stuff only scales decent when you have some gear to support it, so that's why I took things like body n soul later in the build.

thanks again zig, great vids n stuff as well, nice work mate.

Pretty awesome build tbh, I've followed this and I'm enjoying myself at level 90 atm.
Gear


Spec:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAABLMIZxGWFE0VIBbzFy8YPBjbGjIaOBzcHRQdqh6UIcMmPCjFKPoppSpNLOktqC-dMZ41kjbpOtg_J0GHQ2NGcUp9SshMNU3YTeNOKlXGVdZX4Vj1W69k52aeZ6BuqnB9cLtxTXTxeLp_xoCkgW-CHoLHgwmFMod2iPGMdo9GkFWQ1pMnkzqaz53Enjyfe6IAoqOmV6cIp4Splaw_rFmxkLQMtfK3Mbc-t9a4k70nwBrB889l0NDa3dsL21ncV90N4Yjjaudj6-7sOPO--WX56PrS_MX-Cv6P

Deeps: http://i.imgur.com/zJOA7bN.jpg

Whats MoM?

"

Rnge_Frstr wrote:

Whats MoM?

Mind Over Matter - when hit 30% of damage is taken from mana before life. It is in the passive tree south of the Duelist start, west of the new Growth and Decay cluster.

Yo.
So I've been following the build perfectly, however I'm in huge troubles.
Check out my gear.

that's about it. I've got 3.4k HP, 3k mana, 3k armor.

My issue right there is that I completely do not deal any damage at all, yeah I know i'm only 68..my gems aren't perfect and i've been looking around for a way to increase my dps. it does roughly 1.5k with the non-fully leveled gems that ziggy talked about, and i deal 3.7k with the ones I have linked on.

I feel pretty shit, I can't quite run 3 auras, not even running discipline because my dps would be way too low, so i've picked hatred, clarity and haste. My attack speed is meh, but that's because I've got no Casting speed on any of my items, that might be the reason.
Also, it seems like my mana cannot quite regen despite shavs and my other ring.

SO yeah i'm in a bit of trouble, I've got no idea what's going on right now. Thanks for hinting me to the right way.

"

Wizmael wrote:

So well, i just got riped at 68 :/
As it was the first time playing again since beta im quite satisfied... but what i dont quite get...
I was doing pretty well... 3k dps, tons of armor (about 50% reduction) had 3 auras with 600 mana left, 55/75/73 resists i think...
Running through the normal game content was no problem... got some dmg dealing with Storm Herald Nemesis Mod Rare Mobs, but nothing that could make me worry. So i though well fuck this stupid xp grinding, lets see how a map works out... ran a harmless one, tropical island with monsters gaining endurance charges and some patches of ice. Ran through it without any problems, encountered the boss, one second lag, 3 hits later i was dead

is it normal to have such differences between normal game and map bosses? is it realy necessary to grind till lvl 70+ before starting playing maps? Was my gear too bad, was i too low level or did i just screw it? :D
Well as i realy liked this char and got my previous gear still in stash i guess i will give it another try.. any suggestions with gearing what to do better?

my gear at death ;-)

That map boss has an increased physical damage aura and hits very hard, he's easy with decoy brotem useage but if he gets some hits on you it really hurts as you found out.

I generally start mapping around level 69-71 or even as late as 74 if I feel my life is low. Maps and map bosses definitely reward the prepared - the chances of nasty combos and hard hitting bosses killing you is much higher than in normal content. Not to mention there is so much more room for the unuexpected when you start mixing map mods with monster affixes and random base mob types. I almost got 1 shot (around 100 life left) from a powerful crits monkey in a vulnerability map on my EK Scion.

So you might have jumped in a bit early but you also got unlucky due to the lag spike when near the boss though as well. You could prevent the same situation in the future by ensuring 100% decoy totem uptime and enfeebling on that boss (and most other bosses).

"

waynnn wrote:

Yo.
So I've been following the build perfectly, however I'm in huge troubles.
Check out my gear.

that's about it. I've got 3.4k HP, 3k mana, 3k armor.

My issue right there is that I completely do not deal any damage at all, yeah I know i'm only 68..my gems aren't perfect and i've been looking around for a way to increase my dps. it does roughly 1.5k with the non-fully leveled gems that ziggy talked about, and i deal 3.7k with the ones I have linked on.

I feel pretty shit, I can't quite run 3 auras, not even running discipline because my dps would be way too low, so i've picked hatred, clarity and haste. My attack speed is meh, but that's because I've got no Casting speed on any of my items, that might be the reason.
Also, it seems like my mana cannot quite regen despite shavs and my other ring.

SO yeah i'm in a bit of trouble, I've got no idea what's going on right now. Thanks for hinting me to the right way.

Your gear is definitely an issue, you really need at endgame for each of your pieces to be AR/ES (or ES type if you are desperate). Which sucks for you as you already have a nice 6L EV chest. You simply don't have enough mana to get everything running properly. No cast speed anywhere will hurt a little too but it's less of a priority.

HOWEVER, the real problem is your support gems on EK!

Physical Projectile Attack damage does not work at all on EK, EK is a spell and not an attack so it's doing literally nothing for you but wasting a gem slot.

Concentrated effect also does not work as EK is not an AoE spell (we use it as an AoE skill but it has no AoE field or tag in the skill gem description), it's a series of projectiles that travel in a cone.

So although the 6L is nice, it's not doing anything for you. You could run a 4Link AR/ES chest and you'd probably be better off since you'd be able to get your auras working.

I recommend buying a 5 link chets of the correct base type and running EK + faster casting + life leech + Added Fire + Faster Projectiles

To add to that, you don't have any cast speed on the wand, no damage on the shield AT ALL, and you seem to be trying to use +X Physical/Cold Damage on your EK char, which does NOT afect it at all.