ZiggyD's Etheral Knives Mana Shield Scion/Shadow Build Guide - Hardcore (Updated for 1.1)

I want to play this build next league, but have just been warned that I will kill myself to reflect sooner or later.

I have not seen anyone complaining about reflect in this thread but if anyone has any bad experience with EK and reflect then please let me know.

To my experience, only cold reflect is a problem if you are running hatred. Both the physical base damage of EK as well as the added fire gem bonus damage get absorbed by Arctic Armour.

Also, according to this patch preview video, the damage, cast time and mana cost of EK will be lowered by 20%, which means the skill will deal the same damage per time, but in smaller faster chunks. Consequently, Arctic Armour is going to be an even better protection against reflect, because it reduces the damage by a flat amount, so smaller chunks are great.

Furthermore, the new echo gem is probably a very good choice for EK. The gem comes with the downside of 10% less damage, which even amplifies the just mentioned tendency: EK turning from huge slow hits into a rapid fire of smaller caliber.


Speaking of the update: Ziggy, do you think the new staff is a good fit for the build? I definitely want to try one, all stats seem huge. In particular the doubled 100% increased mana pool probably really shines with builds like this one.

I would also love update on EK
whit usage of this stuff :)
aggre whit aRTy42 on his post

What do you guys think about the new spell echo gem of patch 1.1.5? My current 6L setup is (EK - Life Leech - Added Fire - Faster Proj - Faster Cast - Empower) I believe it's worth replacing something for it but I'm not sure if it should be faster casting or one of the others.

Replace faster casting, as spell echo's 50-69% MORE cast speed is stronger anyway.

What would the stat progress be for the Shadow tree? Thanks

Something like 10 level increments would be very useful :3

Anyone mind sharing their tool tip with spell echo in place of faster casting?

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aRTy42 wrote:

Replace faster casting, as spell echo's 50-69% MORE cast speed is stronger anyway.

This is true, but to squeeze out even more damage in total I dropped faster projectiles once I had enough projectile speed (20 from tree and around 50 from gear). This change made me go from 3300 dps with a 5l level 17 gem to around 5k with a low level spell echo. Faster casting and spell echo together is like putting your ek on steroids! Super fun :D

Edit: i am still able to reach the edge of the screen bit not any further which also would makes reflect more manageable. I should also note that even with the new cast speed changes ek still makes mini stuns on almost all mobs.

When chaning only faster casting (level 16) for level 1 spell echo my damage went from 3300 to 3800. Which makes it seems to me like the More cast speed on echo is also affected by the normal cast speed on faster casting and therefore amplifying it even further

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Priory wrote:

When chaning only faster casting (level 16) for level 1 spell echo my damage went from 3300 to 3800. Which makes it seems to me like the More cast speed on echo is also affected by the normal cast speed on faster casting and therefore amplifying it even further

I'd rather interpret it the other way around, but yes, echo and faster casting "buff" each other, so to say. That's because echo gives "more" cast speed, which is the key word for a multiplicative effect. Faster casting gives "increased" cast speed (like passives, haste aura and equipment also do), which stacks additively. And here is what those fancy words effectively mean:

[Final cast speed] = [Base cast speed] × [increased modifiers added up] × [more modifier]
(... × [more modifier] × etc. ... if there were several "more" modifiers, each one would be multiplied individually)

Lets say we already have 60% increased cast speed due to passives, equipment and haste. Our maths looks like:

Base cast speed = 1.25 (that's "1/cast time", so 1/0.8 for the new EK)
Increased cast speed = 1.6 (60% increased compared to multiplying by 1 which is neutral)
More cast speed = 1 (no modifier yet)

1.25 × (1 + 0.6) × (1) = 2.00 which means 2 casts per second.

Now what's the difference between adding further "50% increased" and "50% more" here?

If we add "50% increased" (like faster casting), we get
1.25 × (1 + 0.6 + 0.5) × (1) = 1.25 × 2.1 = 2.625

The 50% only affect (=multiply with) the base cast speed, the 60% and 50% don't affect each other. You could take the 0.5 out of the bracket, calculate 1.25 × 0.5 = 0.625, and then add up the original 2.00 + 0.625 = 2.625. Note the + here.

If we add "50% more" (like echo) instead, we get
1.25 × (1 + 0.6) × (1 + 0.5) = 1.25 × 1.6 × 1.5 = 3

The important difference is, that all effects multiply with each other here. The 50% not only affect the 1.25, but also the 1.6. The way I like to see it is that the "50% more" modifier makes 90% out of the 60% increased modifier. Of course you could also argue the other way around, but you have the whole bunch of "increased" and the one single "more" effect, so to me it makes more sense that the special "multiplier" improves the bunch.

That means that if you use "echo", all "increased" modifiers become more valuable, in particular once echo has a high level.

Suppose we have the following "increased" mods:
30% per passives
31% per haste (16% almost doubled by aura passives)
49% per faster casting gem (level 20 and 20 quality)
20% per wand mod

That's 130% in total, so 1.25 × 2.3 = 2.875

Echo on level 20 grants 69% "more", consequently 1.25 × 2.3 × 1.69 ≈ 4.86

To put that in perspective:
What percentage of "increased" mods would be necessary do get the same result, if we did not have echo in this particular setup (this is important, you can't express the "more" of echo in an universally valid "increased" value)

4.86 / 1.25 ≈ 3.89, 3.89 - 2.3 = 1.59.

To replace the 69% "more" of echo, you'd need another 159% "increased".

Probably the best 6L for EK *now* is:
EK
Added Fire
Added Chaos
Echo
Faster Projectiles
Life Leech


If you want to try using the Belt for Leech, you can add Faster Casting or Empower 3+. I wouldn't suggest that, though.