[2.1] Ethereal Knives MF Build. Effectively >90k DPS, >20k EHP, 300 IIR, 43 IIQ, Triple Blasphemy

Wonderful to hear that my suggestion boosted your ES and DPS! Yes I have transitioned and with all of the mana reservations mods and Prism Guardian I am running 8 auras and having immense fun :)) I am still experimenting with auras and items so I can't give u exact numbers, but with the most stable setup right now I have more than 20k dps and 4200 ES which is more than enough for lvl 68 :)) I might drop some of the reservation nodes and invest skill points somewhere else. I wonder how will everything work with the changes that are going to come with Awakening. For now as far as Mikelat's calculator goes, with Prism Guardian and at least 1 lvl 2 enlightens everything might work out quite well.

Great stuff and good fun leveling so far!

Question tho...I got a redbeak with culling strike on it now but since the EK and rarity gems are not on the weapon itself but on the armor piece...do culling strike still apply?

thanks for the help

regards,

the epic noob!

Hey,

Yes, culling strike still works. Fortunately for us, the corrupted mod applies globally, so you don't need to attack with your weapon for it to work. You can easily test that on bosses or rares.

I'm glad that you enjoy the build! Hopefully it will transitition well to 2.0.

Will EK get any dmg buff or physical spell at all? How many auras/heralds can we run in 2.0 to stay at 20k dps?

have u considered going crit? any reason not to?

Also have u tried getting the shadow pierce nodes and gem? (u can also take the shield defenses nodes bellow ghost reaver since most of ur es would come from there early game)

i would say u should try to get more item quantity as it helps a lot on item and map drops

Im not very rich but im gonna start leveling it, any idea of a minimum budget?

Hey guys,

Sorry for the late reply. I will make significant updates to the thread once 2.0 is live, but until then, many possible developments are still speculative.

@Focusix:

From the data that is available now, it seems that EK will get buffed quite a bit in 2.0. First of all, quality on EK will increase projectile speed, and therefore the spell's range. That's great for us, as it becomes even less important to use Faster Projectiles as support. Also, it looks like EK's damage will be increased by around 10% at high levels.

I've obtained two lvl 3 Enlighten gems, which, when used in a corrupted Aurseize and/or Wondertrap with +1 gem levels, should allow us to run the same auras/heralds as before. It might also become optimal to run Anger instead of Herald of Ash + Herald of Thunder, as it will also add a significant amount of spell damage in 2.0.

@Archemage7:

I think going crit is difficult because it requires a lot of passive point investment and only becomes effective when using crit enhancing gear, which is difficult to combine with MF gear. But if you want to attempt it, I'd be happy if you would share your experience.

Taking the shadow pierce nodes below Ghost Reaver is an interesting option. Basically it's a tradeoff between less spell damage (or ES, cast speed) and 40% Pierce chance. I'm not sure whether Pierce is really important for EK once its damage output is high enough, but I haven't tried it out so far. I'll wait for the new tree in 2.0 however before making any experiments in that respect. Same for the shield defense nodes.

More item quantity would be highly desirable, I agree. A setup with 300 IIR and 100 IIQ would be awesome. However, I cannot afford the (mirrored) rings and or gloves/boots/helmet to achieve that. I will think about swapping Wondertrap for legacy Goldwyrm's, though.

Regarding a minimum budget: I think with 5 Exas investment, it's certainly possible to make the build work in maps. Possibly less. The basic gear is not too expensive, and there is a lot of room for gradual improvement once you build up wealth.

Hope this helps!

By the way, here is a link to the new tree I will likely employ in 2.0 (if no significant changes will be made any more).

http://cb.poedb.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMA34ptGRFQNbmnKx1P6QJLrhsl2VstH5UgwfNciqKjf8YRlg5IXfK29ysKES_rY5matUgGIx9BAx4Wv2qM9W_IFKLZsNgPqySLwzoqOBmK-wn22hqPlwbEoqEi9PiiQN-YYlrfsIIQj6ZEq1WuLJyTJ76KytO0DEZx4Ygdqv5Jgwnqug18NAo3ZiymkNYRLXyD6-6nCI9GHRT60hcvJLCApFXWZOcy0UVHwGbZ_AmqwJoHHpUu8NVJUY_6e9fQ0F9q7Bhwu9kTL29-WSepL50W8yY8SwqpNGEGt9m1BOQi1aY=

I really want to try this build out. I'm pretty new to the game, I just started playing PoE like two months ago and finally just raised enough currency to purchase a Shavronne's Wrappings! :)

I'm now saving for a few of the other pieces which shouldn't take long for me to get. After reading through the thread I came across Chedson offering suggestions about using Wondertraps and Auresize with +1 gems, and was wondering what gems should go in each of those pieces?

Also is it worth it get a Prism Guardian for the buff to auras / resistances, or stick with a high ES shield?

Thanks for the guide, has been a tremendous help!

Hi,

Glad that you enjoy the build!

Chedson's suggestion was excellent to further boost our damage and ES pool. I'm currently using a

+1 Gems corrupted Wondertrap with Discipline, Herald of Thunder, Reduced Mana lvl 21, and Empower lvl 3. With unlimited budget, I would upgrade Discipline and HoT to lvl 21, and Empower to lvl 4.



On my Aurseize, I run Haste, Clarity lvl 21, Blood Magic, and Reduced Mana. Corrupting this item to +1 gems wouldn't improve much (apart from giving slightly higher mana regen).



I've put the remaining auras to my shield: Hatred, Herald of Ash, and Reduced Mana.



I still haven't tried out to use Prism Guardian, so I cannot really comment on that. I'll wait for the patch to see where this build will head next ;)

have u thought about going blood magic down the tree and grab unwavering stance too? would free up some jew affixes and a neck slot, well it would be a 20~ points investment as u would need to grab life regen too probably... or maybe just self cast poachers mark to get frenzy charges too.