[3.1] My Memey EK Hierophant In The 3.1 Expansion, Fast Map Clear With 9k+ ES (Now with Video)

My Memey take on EK in 3.1 (Fairly expensive and certainly not the best build)


Greetings fellow Exiles,

I have read a decent amount of forum guides whilst learning how to play Path of Exile and today I have decided to make my own guide. It's my very first written guide so any criticism is appreciated.


(Video demonstration can be found further down!)

Let's move on to the build. Ever since the release of the EK nova jewel I've played quite a few EK builds. This time I wanted to remake it and put a different spin to it. Lowlife Hierophant out of every possible ascendancy. I started playing PoE in 2.2 and with a few breaks until now I've not played a single Hierophant. It always seemed to be a bit to niche to me. With the release of Watcher's eye I wanted to (ab)use it and invest quite a bit into mana to get it as extra energy shield. The mod says "Gain (12-18)% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield while affected by Clarity" and also with the Hierophant node Sanctuary of Thought: "Gain 30% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield" it. With these mods I thought I could get quite a bit of ES and also with Hierophant's Pursuit of Faith Esh's Mirror-ish effect "6% increased Damage per Enemy Killed by you or your Totems Recently" you could put together a pretty solid mapper. Additionally I could also use Lightpoacher which was released this expansion, in 3.1 with the abyss league.

Pros:
- Fast map clear, because of high attack speed with shield charge and cast speed with Ethereal Knives.
- High lifepool, 8-to 10k ES is very reasonable possible.
- Great damage for maps and off screen with lightpoacher.
- Making the muns with biscos since it's completely fine to lose an amulet.

Cons:
- Not the best boss damage, In Shaped Fields, Tier-11 the boss is doable but it takes quite some time since it is already not the best boss to do with the "phases".
- Not freeze immune (HC viable btw), 20% chance to avoid chill and freeze with Taste of Hate. Its probably better to use another flask here instead of ToH, with freeze immunity. In hindsight I'm not sure why I used ToH.
- Not the best life leech and no mana leech.
- Map mods that this build can't do, "Monster reflect x% of elemental damage" and No-regen maps can be a pain since no mana leech. While on full ES your spells cost 0 though so if you want to do no-regen it's doable.
- Almost no physical mitigation and little evasion.
- Not stun immune, I use Soul of the Brine King to not get stunlocked.

Here's the Path of Building link: https://pastebin.com/bUfBkdr2

If you don't have Path of Building I will list the gear and links under.

Items and Gems


Pantheons I use in this build "Soul of the Brine King" and "Soul of Shakari". Brine King to not get stunlocked as mentioned earlier and Soul of Shakari to not get destroyed by chaos damage. Capturing Puruna, the Challenger grants "You cannot be Frozen if you've been Frozen recently" which helped me out quite a bit since I rarely died in a freeze with such a high lifepool. Capturing Terror of the Infinite Depths gives poison immunity, a bit of QoL.

Leveling with this build was very easy. What I did was level with blade vortex from level 12 in a Tabula with random gems that give it damage. When you reach level ~50 ish, at Harbour Bridge you can equip a Lightpoacher and shield charge through the zone for an hour or so to reach 70+ and after that you can finish the story with Blade Vortex.

To summarise, I had a lot of fun playing this quite memey Ethereal Knives build. It was defintely an interesting build to make myself and I was happy with it. I ended up getting to level 94 before moving on to the next build. If you, yourself want to make this highly average build you are very welcome to and good luck out there Exiles.

Video demonstration of the build: https://youtu.be/TYYN7mqTMNg

If you have any questions feel free to ask me anything about the build or the mechanics below.

/Avaloneer