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

EK + added fire + life leech + faster proj + faster cast + (empower)
I tried iron will too but i hav only around 150 str so that hardly adds any dmg.

We can have another EK + Item rarity + culling strike in shield or wand. Why wud u say added chaos? Flat added dmg supports won't be that gud since EK cast speed is so low, and its base dmg is HUGE compared to any other spell. Faster casting adds a lot more dps.

With level 18 gems added chaos damage was giving more dps than faster casting but between gear and tree I already had around 60% cast speed putting EK around .63 casts per second. Perhaps someone can math it out. I came to that link setup by swapping gems in and out and seeing what gave me the best feel and tool tip #'s

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nosrek_scirocco wrote:

With level 18 gems added chaos damage was giving more dps than faster casting but between gear and tree I already had around 60% cast speed putting EK around .63 casts per second. Perhaps someone can math it out. I came to that link setup by swapping gems in and out and seeing what gave me the best feel and tool tip #'s

Ah I see. It has some 30% extra mana multiplier though, but I guess that wont matter much. A 20% quality added chaos wud give some serious kick esp. if u run a ming's heart.

I was curious about something, on both ZiggyD's and Isu's build they go to (or through) Heart of Oak instead of Primal Spirit. For such an intensely mana/ES build, wouldn't Primal Spirit be the logical choice? Or is stun resist that crucial?

Also, would this Shadow version of the build differ for equipment? Should you utilize evasion/ES gear or stay with armor/ES?, etc.

Hi ZiggyD and others,
Been running "legacy" Scion build for this EK setup and after 1.1.0 updates, been looking now the shadow/scion changes for Invasion scion.

For the legacy scion build, I tried to took most of the scion side + shadow side, ending somewhere around:
Scion "legacy" passive build variant


Above gives following stat breakdown


I think there are tradeoffs (such as no projectile speed/more life%/mixed evasion & armor bonuses/higher mana regen etc.) compared to Ziggy's legacy one.
Not trying to state which would be superior over another but it's all in name of theory crafting and science! :)

-KILLERI

P.S ZiggyD, thanks for all the videos and instructions so far - was trying in the closed beta times and truly started around nemesis - especially the survival guide series has been very useful!

Hey so I'm trying out this in ambush (was getting a little tired of my righteous fire dude and I like the new league box stuff) ...


Can anyone tell me why neither ziggy nor isu (though their trees appear identical) took the doomcast passive (the 60% crit strike for spells) even though they go right past it (and there's another 30% on near the starting area) ... seems that'd be a great thing to pick up and requires no detour to get to.

Also is Iron Reflexes really worth it? If Dex no longer provides any sort of buff to evasion rating, and you're not wearing any evasion gear then this must be a fairly minimal amount to convert to armour, no? (other than the times when you're using grace).

(And if it is worth getting then sentinel is only 1 extra point away (24% armour and evasion increase +10% ele resist) and surely that'd be a good addition?)

I'm sure I might have more questions later, I rarely follow builds exactly but am less familiar with some of the maths / reasonings behind stuff here to just plow away and make my own just of now, but those 2 things stood out.

Cheeeeers.

This build worked like a charm in Nemesis and took my Scion to 47 in Invasion, I intend to play it more like this:



Should be good for +2% life , +50% Evasion, +10Int and -40Str for the same amount of points.

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diablo3istakingtoolong wrote:

Can anyone tell me why neither ziggy nor isu (though their trees appear identical) took the doomcast passive (the 60% crit strike for spells) even though they go right past it (and there's another 30% on near the starting area) ... seems that'd be a great thing to pick up and requires no detour to get to.

Also is Iron Reflexes really worth it? If Dex no longer provides any sort of buff to evasion rating, and you're not wearing any evasion gear then this must be a fairly minimal amount to convert to armour, no? (other than the times when you're using grace).

Cheeeeers.

1. Doom cast will increase EK crit chance from 5% to 8% (assuming no other crit nodes/gear). And without any sort of crit multiplier in passive tree or gear, 3% extra crit chance is hardly any dps boost.

2. Iron reflex is worth it, because you are free to wear AR/ES or EVA/ES gear, so it provides more gear flexibility. Also as you said, you can swap out hatred for grace aura in harder maps/boss fights which will add a ton of armor with all the aura effectiveness nodes u get from this build. And IR works great with MoM, since it reduces some % of physical damage from all the hits u take. Without IR, physical machine gun attacks might still do some dmg to you, however with IR + arctic armor + MoM even rare/unique chimeraes or titty bitches do zero dmg.

Hey guys, small alteration to this build dropping the life cluster at the start to get a bit more damage from Path of the Savant. So at the cost of 24% life, you get +10 str, +18% ES, +20 Mana, +16% Spell Dmg. Worthwhile you think?

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYBEZYVIBXnFm8XLxjbGYUZhhmKGmwajxzcHaoelCQ8JKomlSepKPoppSpNLKYs6S1HLYMvbzQKNuk3ZjyORZ1GcUlRSn1OKlBCVUtVxlXWVi1XyVptW69k52egbXtvnnC7c7N08Xqqf8aApIIegseDCYPbhTKHdohCjDaPRpDWkyeXBprgm7WdrqcIp1ysP6xHrH-0DLiTu-PBxcM6xKLKSs5xz2XQ0NVP2RPbC9xX3Q3ed-GI42rquuss6-7wa_Pd9tr56PrS-wn8S_zF_ro=

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Lylz wrote:

Hey guys, small alteration to this build dropping the life cluster at the start to get a bit more damage from Path of the Savant. So at the cost of 24% life, you get +10 str, +18% ES, +20 Mana, +16% Spell Dmg. Worthwhile you think?

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYBEZYVIBXnFm8XLxjbGYUZhhmKGmwajxzcHaoelCQ8JKomlSepKPoppSpNLKYs6S1HLYMvbzQKNuk3ZjyORZ1GcUlRSn1OKlBCVUtVxlXWVi1XyVptW69k52egbXtvnnC7c7N08Xqqf8aApIIegseDCYPbhTKHdohCjDaPRpDWkyeXBprgm7WdrqcIp1ysP6xHrH-0DLiTu-PBxcM6xKLKSs5xz2XQ0NVP2RPbC9xX3Q3ed-GI42rquuss6-7wa_Pd9tr56PrS-wn8S_zF_ro=

Hmm, personally I think I like it.

At ~85th Level(skills endpoint) you would be like 180HP lower, which is about 7% effective Life reduction before considering any gear.
For that you would be raising the +EK DMG from 47 to 63% or about a 11% effective increase. Again without considering gearing.