[2.6] EK NOVA Pathfinder/Occultist Millions of DPS. UPDATED w/ Leveling Guide!
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Yeah you really need more life, or at least a good amount of ES. A tabula isn't that great for leveling, I got better returns out of either reverberation rod setup or just a 5 link ES chest. Search on POE trade for a decent ES chest piece and gloves with some life, shouldn't be more than a couple chaos each, and it will hold you over until you really start gearing. The primary leach on this build comes from Atziri Flask and Vinktar's, along with Warlord's Mark and the boot enchant. Eleron rings are better than mana regeneration rings, a mana flask should be good enough for that. If you really really want leach now, you could link a life leach jewel to your setup. Also Void Manipulation isn't too useful until you get levels or the Atziri Flask. Not sure why you are low on damage though, I was one to two shotting most things while leveling. Normic Strap Boots are also really subpar, I would switch to Brinerot Whalers ASAP. Also Wurm's Molt is near useless, as EK is a physical spell, not physical attack.
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my apologies if the guide is confusing, it's due to be re-written now that we're actually well into the league and I've leveled this build half a dozen times over. I know it's more work, but a lot of info can be found in the replies of this thread as well. I'll consolidate it all into the guide soon.
to the guy with 1k life, you should be using ES gear with +life on it. expected ehp upon reaching merc dried lake is around 2k life / 2k ES. with pure ES gear you can, of course, have less life and more ES. after you hit 68 you can start using T1 gear, which is why I recommend switching at 68. leveling: EK pathfinder is the actually fastest leveling build I've ever played. I can get to merc dried lake with some labs done in 6 hours. on my most recent HC char, I reached level 90 in just under 24 hrs played. the damage is great from the get go with lifesprig. Use 2 berek's rings at level 20 for a big damage boost. with reverb rod at 24 and amp rod at 36, it gets a lot better. and of course, more so around level 45 when you move to a 5L, with a good rare wand with spell crit + cast speed. I actually dual wield wands until merciless. when you hit merciless you want to re-gear to max your resists. I switch to a shield with life, spell crit, spell damage, and a resist or two. Tulborn can be a great choice as offhand weapon in Cruel/merc, it also helps with mana management ! if you're leveling slow, you're probably not doing it "right", or rather, efficiently. Maybe, it's just an issue of damage, which can be fixed by getting the cheap uniques mentioned here. You need a quicksilver of adrenaline, and a silver flask. Try to keep running for the entire duration of a flask, and kill a pack at the end of it to refill, only stopping during the quicksilver's duration to kill large packs, or if you need to refill flasks. Remember also, if your flasks are FULL, use them before killing a pack. In the leveling trees in the guide, I go straight to the Alchemist flask nodes after reaching the witch area. I've also been getting Natures Adrenaline as a first ascendancy to speed things up, as well as using Nomic's Storm until merc dried lake. This means by cruel you're already speeding through shit at ~ 150% MS. To reiterate, you want to run through everything as fast as possible (except lab traps). with a diamond and silver flask, and a good wand, your damage should be superb - In fact I've found the damage to be so good that I kill almost everything before it reaches me, which helps utilize the move speed from nomic's storm by staying on full ES. I finally switch to Brinerot Whalers at merc dried lake. furthermore, the Karui ward can be used until you get to merc at which point you will probably want to replace it with something that has resists. mana: I run a hybrid or mana flask until I switch to CI. then I run warlords mark until getting the leech enchant on boots. at that point, the leech enchant fully sustains mana against mobs, and vaal clarity + vinktars really make mana a non-issue against bosses. It is NOT necessary to get mana regeneration on gear. Better to use that suffix slot for Int or resists. It can be helpful in Less Regen maps, but it's not necessary to sustain mana. and on my current char: I've only temporarily ditched block and spell block with Rumi's. I've RIP'd many times this league and this is probably my 6th EK char this league. All from my own mistakes. Flask fail, saws+spikes fail, one shot by invasion boss, accidental phys reflect map ... anyhow my point is, I can't just do it the same every time. with every build there are always options. Look at my characters and you can see all of my variations. This is the first time out of like 6 ek nova characters that I'm playing without Rumis & spell block. This time I am trying Pierce. The overall new Pierce pathing costs 8 points. We sacrifice the pathing to the jewel node by Scion. By level 100 I will still get the DoT node, and the same # of jewel nodes. I think there is certainly some benefit to clearing from having 100% Pierce chance, although it's not a "massive boost" or anything. If I were to fight Shaper or something I'd probably regret orb out of it in favor of more damage. I think I'm going to keep the Pierce, but I'm definitely going to switch to Rumi's + Rathpith soon. Last edited by luckyshin#5078 on Apr 16, 2017, 9:26:10 PM
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Thanks for the detailed reply!
So flasks.. those are for later, lvl 68+, my problems was going from 50ish to 60ish. Warlord's Mark saved the day. Not very reliable leech though, sometimes I'm not shooting.. if this happens in maps, especially in boss fights, it can make me quite dead. : ] Like stun. Mana disability = stun = death. Probably I need more mana regen on top of mana leech. And using this is rather disappointing , I wish I could use temp chains or some more helpful curse, something for either offense or defense. Mana has to be sustainable though. Mana, life, resists, are core needs of a build, you can't rely on flasks for that. Flasks are great for a temp boost. But any build has to work properly without them, or u end up dead. I will try maybe some enchant, if I manage to GET one.. haha. But I had leech enchants before and I never noticed anything worth noticing. I guess, since we're not able to reach any skilltree nodes for mana leech.. the most solid leech is from Warlord's? I forsee butthurt times ahead.. : ] Btw, I use daggers. Anything with whirling blades basically. Consuming Darks, Doubting Knights, Binos.. none of these are worth a fok. A good phys dagger with increased spell damage is better. I guess increased attack speed would be even better but I ain't got one. |
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Thanks for answering the questions about Block/Pierce.
To the guy with mana problems, just use a mana flask till you get enough dmg to use Warlord's. I had a mana potion since lvl 1 til 70~, I switched when I got a Vinktar's, never had any problems. |
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For those trying to acquire their second curse, I suggest taking a look at:
These only go for 150-170c on PoE.trade right now, and provide a pretty nice damage boost. You can then use this to run Warlord's longer if you want, and then once you get the boot enchant, switch over to Enfeeble/Vulnerability as your 2nd curse. Also, unfortunately it seems that EK has taken off a little bit in terms of popularity. A white iLvl 84 Hubris w/the 40% EK damage enchant was about 40-50c a couple of weeks ago. Now they're 1ex+. Still, compared to some other builds this isn't that bad, so I highly recommend picking up one ASAP and essence-scour (remember you can use all the resistance essences)/alt-regal crafting it until you get something usable. The 40% Mine could be better, but the resistances are exactly what I need right now so I'm holding off trying to get more ES until I acquire some more currency. Last edited by CadmiumFlow#0683 on Apr 17, 2017, 2:55:58 PM
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" Wow, epicness. I could never craft something like that XD What do you mean by essence crafting?.. Which essence.. Can you be more specific a bit pls? I don't know almost anything about these essences.. I just collect them for no reason : D I think I want to craft some decent ES gear at some point.. I tried with a good vaal regalia base tho, and I ended up wasting a LOT of currency and got crap at the end. I don't get crafting in this game.. it's so wasteful both for ur time and ur currency. |
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" I suggest reading up on the power of essences - there are at least 5 different types you could use to craft a helmet fairly easily. You want to use Screaming or better for each type because otherwise the rolls are limited to lower level ranges. The basic types you could use are:
Essence crafting isn't really crafting in the traditional sense. It's just spamming essences hoping for something good to come out. You have to scour the item after each attempt (unless you have shrieking or deafening) so it gets a little expensive after a while. Last edited by CadmiumFlow#0683 on Apr 17, 2017, 2:34:55 PM
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OK I'm really split about this build. It's really powerful for general mapping and it's not a glass cannon, it has pretty good damage.. mainly because I bought a fancy Victario's Acuity, so I have all the charges up most of the time. Friggin' amazing.
Against bosses it's pretty bad though, I have no charges, I could use maybe an orb of storms.. but I'm too lazy. I use the wither. And melee in this game is kinda suicidal, I should stay on the boss, to leech and do any damage. But this build's leech is limited, and leech is unreliable anyway, and being close to the boss when he does his shitteries is the worst idea ever. The biggest problem is mana, I feel disabled most of the time. With Warlord's mark, Vinktar, Atziri's Promise, and a mana pot, I feel like mana is always insufficient, which means I'm afraid to shoot, or can't shoot, which eventually kills me. I also don't have room for Discipline, so I'm only at 8700 shield atm. And no Temp Chains.. In boss rooms the scenario is far worse. I usually end up without flasks reaaaaally fast. So I'm completely disabled. Can't complete Uber lab. And I didn't get to T13+ yet, so I haven't done any hard bosses. I die quite a lot, even in general mapping sometimes. Overall.. it feels unreliable and stressful. I can't chill and map on auto pilot. I'm always surprised by bad shit, especially whe she can't move or shoot, cuz she's out of mana : D I have to spam the mana pot. Oh, and it's pretty limited as to what maps it can do, I keep rolling phys reflect, no leech, hexproof [can do this one but it's sketchy].. |
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A big part of this build is flask management; if you just spam all your flasks without care for their duration during a boss fight you can run out before the fight ends. Also, a lot of your DPS is the poison, which means while clearing or in boss fights you want a flask up. Do uber lab as soon as possible so you get the immunity to elemental status conditions during flask effect, so you don't need random affixes on flasks. Also try to get boots with the 0.6% of damage leached as life and mana enchantment. A diamond flask and a vinktar's will enhance you damage like crazy, though be careful with vinktar's before you get the last ascendancy. Also since you didn't go for any real block or spell block, you will have to play a bit safer. Honestly I was able to farm uber lab and shaper guardians pretty easily with this build; you have so much block and as long as Atziri's Promise and Legacy Rumi's are up it is really hard to die.
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" There is one simple solution for it. Vaal Clarity with increased duration. You will now have 15 seconds of free EK casting without having to worry about any mana at all. Also Vaal Haste does wonders for the build. Pop both for bosses and even general mapclearing and it will become much easier. By the time your first set of flasks run out, bosses should allready be dead or close to dead, unless we are talking about guardians. Those you probably have to refill flasks in town couple times in the start. Also if you feel like your lacking dmg, getting a second curse will do alot. (At least all the people I helped ingame with said it double their dps if you go for phys/chaos version) I got myself vulnerability together with Warlords Mark very earily on in the league and even bosses melted after that. I also had pretty bad gear in the start! :) Forgot to mention, but you can also make this build very tanky. 2 items and you can become completely block close to spellblock capped and mitigate most of the damage. The Stone of lazhwar, together with Rumi's. In the start perhaps a non legacy Rumis will do fine, also a non curse lazhwar will be more than enough, althouh +1 curse Lazhwar should be very cheap at this point and it gives you 50% spellblock from your blockchance. I relied on those 2 simple items to become 100, where only a DC/Game Crash was able to kill me. Last edited by larsahh_#1574 on Apr 18, 2017, 10:01:20 PM
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