Ethereal knives build 3.0 site www.pathofexile.com
I'm not a fan of Crit EK, as you know, but certainly not due to a lack of clear speed! Crit EK would have more DPS than this build, no question, and it would be able to move faster and clear faster overall and even rely on Flasks for movement if that's your thing not that you can't here, it's just a tad harder before you have really good gear and leveled gems. Why not do it, then? Crit also has to be a Tempo build, keeping up Power Charges even more so as an Assassin or it's damage falls down to lower levels than this build has by a LOT.
It's also considered to be a must to use Vaal Pact to not die due to the low Life pool as crit, which rules out Frenzy Charges unless using Victario's Acuity which I'm not sure is available as easily on Prophesy, or Atziri's gloves and Blood Rage , which makes you lose quite a bit of DPS. Add to that the fact that you have a huge opportunity cost for Crit you lose the glove slot for Facebreaker, your amulet and gear will need Crit modifiers, making it a lot harder if not impossible to get resists, you lose the afore-mentioned Frenzy Charges, and support gems for non-crit EK are all too good to skip so you often use the same ones even as Crit.
Can you make it to with Crit EK? Quite a few people I know have done so. Would I recommend it for HC? Only if you're Mathil. Spoiler Clear speed is actually top-tier Solo, and only slows down a tiny bit in large parties that have bad builds in them. EK has gotten so many buffs since you've last played it, it's a LOT faster than you think.
Of course, this is assuming you have good gear, etc. Do I suggest using Flasks for movement? Not until after the Merciless Lab, at the very least. Whirling Blades will be a lot faster, either way. Spoiler CI is a bad idea, imo. Given top-tier gear, it WILL work great, of course. Again, given god-tier gear, it's viable.
By the way, you can actually get VP for 1 point if you like on the Armor build. It clashes with the free Regen from Berserker, and makes you lose out on Blood Rage, but it's an option I'll explore. Unless the Recover actually means you can use it with VP?
Then I'd give it very serious thought! Might even go for it as Acrobatics if that works and use a tree a lot like the Armor one. Again, worth a try. Spoiler No. Bad idea. Not using Kaom's Roots and have some free sockets? Using Kaom's Root's and Unset Ring? Ring of Blades, as it's Mandatory for our build to work [ We socket it just on the left from Vaal Pact ] 2.
Best Jewel there is, yea, we are talking about Inspired Learing, our mini HH powering us for even faster clears [ Socketed right of the Nullification node] 4. Useful gameplay info Spoiler Try using your Immortal Call - Arcane Surge setup as often as possible, as it gives us pretty nice damage boost.
Look out for Proxy Shields, those are dangerous, as we can't leech through them, try using your movement skill to get inside it. If you are getting problems with bosses, feel free to just port out and refill. Swapping Faster Proj for Slower Proj is huge help too.
MACD FOREX TSD ASCTREND
This is my preferred variant for tackling Atziri see further below. Vaal duo and Trio are a joke, and it's possible to facetank Atziri even more so with a Ruby flask. The only real danger is to one-shot oneself by attacking Atziri's mirror form during her split phase.
Earlier updates: Spoiler [Update November 7, ]: It's been forever since the last update, but I have continued to work on the build. Here are the most important changes: 1 I realized that dropping Life Leech doesn't work very well for end-game maps. The auto-curse setup is simply not reliable enough in tougher maps. Hence, I have reverted to using Life Leech. This setup is really flexible though. Just mix and match as needed. My helmet with the curse setup is also new and helps to cap my resists.
See below for further gear changes. Of course, this required recoloring my Shavs. Moreover, I'm now using a shield with less defense, but massive amounts of spell damage, with cast speed master-crafted on top of it. This pushes the damage through the roof. The additional dexterity and chaos resistance are nice, too. Finally, I stablized my mana drain with two new rings, each of which come with very high mana regeneration rate.
My belt and boots stayed the same 4 I've optimized my tree and jewels for the new setup. The changes are quite minor, though. Maybe more important is that I've switched my Normal Difficulty bandit reward to the skill point. Here you can find my new tree I'm now level 93 : 5 I've obtained a lvl 4 Empower to further boost my damage by replacing Added Fire Damage. Given top-tier gear, it WILL work great, of course.
Again, given god-tier gear, it's viable. By the way, you can actually get VP for 1 point if you like on the Armor build. It clashes with the free Regen from Berserker, and makes you lose out on Blood Rage, but it's an option I'll explore.
Unless the Recover actually means you can use it with VP? Then I'd give it very serious thought! Might even go for it as Acrobatics if that works and use a tree a lot like the Armor one. Again, worth a try. Spoiler No. Bad idea. If you want to max movement speed, go Pathfinder Crit EK. That will work, and save you the Poison gem which is a bit redundant with the new chest, but hey.
Less DPS than Assassin, but it will move faster. You will die if you're being stupid, as usual. Spoiler Armor has the benefit of allowing you to, maybe, possibly, not die to Reflect Maps if you're stupid enough to forget to change to Elemental for those.
I think the Acro version is the far safer one, and it also has more DPS. Do I recommend spamming into a Reflect Rare without thinking? Heck no. You'll be able to survive a few seconds of that, no more, once your DPS is high enough. Armor also has zero defense against spells, which are a good chunk of the risk. I view that as the best reason to go Acrobatics. Spell Block, while viable, will require a lot more investment, ending up with far less DPS. How would a berserker deal with single reflect and double if it appears?
Just from the huge lifepool alone? My concerns are for the start of the league problems with EK, where gem levels are low and 6L isn't all that available. And I can see that the skilltree doesn't have much attack speed nodes as EK is a spell, naturally cast speed is the way to go, I currently play a CI COC Discharge trickster and I even feel that the whirling blades speed is slow with so much attack speed.
I am a tempo based player, gotta go fast or else I'll end up falling asleep or getting bored fast.
Sanos