Ethereal Knives

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Vipermagi wrote:

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odin7 wrote:

Its called armor.

It is notably harder to stack enough Armor to get 75% Damage Reduction (let alone 80+) than it is to get maxed Resistances. The high Base damage on EK is probably just destroying Armor Ratings on the average monster (similar to two-handers), whereas an Elemental damage hit requires at least a Support Gem or Curse to reliably lower damage reduction.

While your point is valid this doesn't mean you can't mitigate the physical damage. You can and armor does that.

Working ok for my witch. Pleased with the DPS, but plan on testing against fire totem again soon. Lots of supports on it.

Faster Casting (dmg)
Faster Projectiles (range + dmg)
Blind / Fork

I was excited when I tried point blank... but then I learned that it's only for weapon attacks? That's kinda ridiculous because the description says exactly "Projectile attacks deal up to...."

And then the EK description, says it's a projectile.

So I'm guessing what needs to be clarified is "projectile attacks" and "Projectile spells", except that would mean rewriting every other skill gem description in the game (all of which train us that 'projectile' means spells and attacks both)

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mazul wrote:

What quantity and rarity bonuses are they running and what are you running?

I dont get exactly what you mean. (And I currently dont play this game anymore)

I did more than 6k DPS with 20% EK supported by Faster Projectiles + Added Fire + 20% Life Leech + IIR gem

about 150 IIR and 60 IIQ in total (without andvarius - with 2x andvarius I'd have about 280 IIR 60% IIQ and about 300-500 less DPS.



And the "phys dmg is better than ele dmg because of less mitigation" statement is totally wrong!
In fact ele dmg is much better because you can reduce enemys resistances A LOT!!
Even without "... penetration" gem and Elemental Equilibrium, a simple dual curse will remove all the mitigation from almost every monster. Most monsters even get a negative mitigation.

And you can get elemental effects wich give you a HUGE dmg boost (burning or shock) or a HUGE defensive boost.

atm. phys dmg is the worst thing, especially for a spell. As phys melee/bow char you could at least leech more, as spell phys dmg is just bad...

That are the reasons why almost no one does phys dmg builds: (less (base) dmg, no effects, only very few low phys dmg boosts (30% melee phys dmg vs. 60% ele weapon dmg??? LOL - and the phys curses are even worse than the gems)


@fasterfind:
Projectile dmg works and it doesnt matter at all wether you pick spell dmg, phys dmg or projectile dmg -> it is all the same for EK (even the converted cold and added fire dmg gets boosted by phys dmg)

@Vipermagi:
Yeah sign. EK has high phys dmg but low attack speed because of armor mitigation gets better and better the lower your dmg per hit is. You would have huge problems fighting bosses if EK would work like FP (low dmg, fast speed)

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Vipermagi wrote:

" In fact ele dmg is much better because you can reduce enemys resistances A LOT!!"
The point is, you don't need to cast two Curses and use a Support Gem to ignore resistances with Physical damage. That's QUITE a major advantage, since it allows you to run a defensive Curse when you need it, without hurting your DPS against resistant monsters (because there are no resistant monsters!).

Well thats kinda true... you dont have problems with curse immune high resist magic/rare bosses as phys char.
BUT "because there are no resistant monsters" is wrong. There are ONLY resistant monsters with phys dmg. Every monster has some armor and so some mitigation too, some only a few, some a lot.
And there is no way to reduce that mitigation at all. But you CAN reduce resistances, even to a negative mitigation = HUGE dmg boost)

AS elemental build, there are a a lot of monsters with negative mitigation even without curses!
And Ek with a defensive curse? LOL sure I have enfeeble as emergency curse, but I rarely use it (only for very few (special map) bosses.
Without a dmg curse your killspeed with EK is sooooooo low in comparison to e.g. FP (doesnt need a defensive curse anyway because of built-in defense) or weapon builds like Rain of Arrows (especially if elemental RoA!)

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Vipermagi wrote:

" In fact ele dmg is much better because you can reduce enemys resistances A LOT!!"
The point is, you don't need to cast two Curses and use a Support Gem to ignore resistances with Physical damage. That's QUITE a major advantage, since it allows you to run a defensive Curse when you need it, without hurting your DPS against resistant monsters (because there are no resistant monsters!).

@ bolded, magic/rare mobs' mods unless they removed that. also specially endurance charges.

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Vipermagi wrote:

Endurance Charges would work well yes, forgot about those.

They're so important. I find that eacgh endurance charge adds about 5,000 armor equivilent to my EHP.

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Vipermagi wrote:

Endurance Charges would work well yes, forgot about those.

Not sure how much of a difference Plated really makes. I... Never really notice it on hard-hitters, and EK fits that description quite well if you don't nerf its damage with meh Supports.

Well, you dont notice phys resistant monsters so much, because:
1. EK is NOT a pure phys-dmg spell
Added fire and Hatred are mandatory and so you'll deal about 60% phys dmg and 40% ele-dmg.

2. PoE uses the same gameplay system like D3 (wasting most of your time fightning white and blue monsters)
=> phys Dmg mitigation doesnt really matter because:
- white and also most blue monsters dont neither have a lot of life nor a lot of armour (and mitigation gets worse and worse with lower armour)
- more dmg doesnt really increase your 'killspeed' a lot as soon as you get 5++k DPS. You'll need 2 shots for most white monsters anyway. With 6k DPS or 7k DPS you just do more dmg than you need with the second hit.
=> More or less dps e.g. by mitigation only really matters while fightning bosses (unique ones and maybe even with some high HP rare bosses)


@ Endurance charges:
Imho enduring cry is a must have. I used it with almost every char. (dont use it as summoner because I dont want to pull mobs towards me)
But I dont think investing in more charges is a good idea for every char.
You mostly need it for hard bosses and it is very difficult to get 4+ charges and keep them up at single target enemys