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

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ZiggyD wrote:

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Xavr0k wrote:

By my calculations you would need 3900 mana to be able to run all those auras and still have 700 unreserved for MoM. I'm not sure how achievable that would be after losing the 80% increased energy shield from the templar area as well as the energy shield from the helm slot. The 15% energy shield reduction from Ming's Heart would make this even harder.

Also in the situations where you would be running grace in ZiggyD's build, he would have a lot more amour due to the 104% increased armour that you're losing.

Yeah this is my exact reasoning behind not going the route that fatshady suggested.

Isn't 700 mana a pretty arbitrary cutoff though?

I don't see how 250 more free mana is worth all of the benefits listed.

Between always having grace giving you 5900 baseline armor before equip (and ~1k from alpha's howl) Your new mitigation should more than make up for the loss in available mana.

When I look at the pros vs cons I just don't see how 250 mana is better than 2 more extremely strong auras, and stronger versions of auras that you already do run.

Not to mention Alpha's howl has some very strong stats in its own right, can't be frozen + aura levels, and ~1000 armor (after nodes).

I was wondering would spectre throw be viable too instead of EK for the extra damage using a 2h axe? I know it would decrease the defensive capabilities but hopefully it may balance out from the increased attack damage that the character would get. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Please anyone can chime in I just want some opinions on this :).

Apologies if this has been answered, but since this build takes so little damage, would it be viable to invest less in life nodes and more in spell or crit nodes?

I'm not sure if it was already mentioned, but how do you feel about using an Immortal Flesh belt on this build?

Great build Ziggy! I was inspired by your build to go EK myself. I've transformed my aura support into an EK build! I have 20k armor, will have 83 all res once purity of fire, lightning, and ice hit lvl 20. I have horrible gear and so i have about 1k unreserved life but I can support the party and do decent damage too! EK is boosted tremendously by hatred with 102% increased effectiveness. I have 5.3k dps on EK with only my EK gem being 20/20 and everything else underlvled w/o quality. My build does not run arctic armor which loses the immortality your build has though(very possible to run a mid lvl AA since clarity is doubled in effectivness, if i get mana regen on everything/passives). Just thought I'd share this with everyone :D

Current Passives- was melee and haven't respecced out of scion's atk spd starter nodes yet


My Gear- alpha's and prism guardian are needed for running many auras. Everything else was thrown together.

Hey Ziggy, i just had a question about the differences in this thread and the video with the final build you posted.

In the video, you say to first go to the templar area and get the life and armor there, ignoring the aura and mana stuff until later, then rush for EB.
However, in this thread you kind of switch that around completely, and say you should go templar last, and go big life wheel -> EB -> reflexes area -> templar

So whats the best way to it? seeing as you won't be using AA until mid cruel, i would think the life nodes are more important, but then again, i'm not sure. What level do you reach EB if you don't go there "first"?

I love your videos, and when i noticed i was catching up to the latest one, i was a bit sad. now i have to wait for your amazing vids!

Richard Dain (and Sunday Tyrendel in this case!)

Been following your build tis pretty good (pretty immortal apart from a few nasty's like piety in high maps when she manages to shock stack or dominus lightning still rapes me but everything else tickles especially with a whopping 73% chaos resist atm), lvl 72 so far with about 6k dps on EK, playing SC though so gonna try and squeeze some survivability off for more dps as doing 75 maps seems fine.



Spec so far:


Gear:


Any advice on how i can mod the build to squeeze a little more dps out would be apperciated.

I wonder why you don't go for the Ranger's Aura Nodes, Heart of Oak, Projectile Speed +20%, etc. Granted, you can get more Life and/or Armor, but it feels like it's worth it.

In my guide, I suggest getting those, so I'd like to see your reasoning.

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CantripN wrote:

I wonder why you don't go for the Ranger's Aura Nodes, Heart of Oak, Projectile Speed +20%, etc. Granted, you can get more Life and/or Armor, but it feels like it's worth it.

In my guide, I suggest getting those, so I'd like to see your reasoning.

If your projectiles hit the edge of the screen you probably don't need them to go further.

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Phatshady wrote:

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ZiggyD wrote:

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Xavr0k wrote:

By my calculations you would need 3900 mana to be able to run all those auras and still have 700 unreserved for MoM. I'm not sure how achievable that would be after losing the 80% increased energy shield from the templar area as well as the energy shield from the helm slot. The 15% energy shield reduction from Ming's Heart would make this even harder.

Also in the situations where you would be running grace in ZiggyD's build, he would have a lot more amour due to the 104% increased armour that you're losing.

Yeah this is my exact reasoning behind not going the route that fatshady suggested.

Isn't 700 mana a pretty arbitrary cutoff though?

I don't see how 250 more free mana is worth all of the benefits listed.

Between always having grace giving you 5900 baseline armor before equip (and ~1k from alpha's howl) Your new mitigation should more than make up for the loss in available mana.

When I look at the pros vs cons I just don't see how 250 mana is better than 2 more extremely strong auras, and stronger versions of auras that you already do run.

Not to mention Alpha's howl has some very strong stats in its own right, can't be frozen + aura levels, and ~1000 armor (after nodes).

700 mana is arbitrary given mobs do not have consistent damage levels.

However, if you do not have enough mana to both cover MoM and enough to cast your spells and keep AA going then AA will shut off, you wont be able to spam EK and you will start to take a lot more damage.

It is still possible to die if something is hitting you hard enough. You do not really want to ride close to what is the equilibrium point between sustaining everything and things shutting down.

I do have an end-game variant which has more aura nodes and allows you to run more auras and get a bigger buff from them but it is only viable once you have some very good gear, you would need a substantial titanium spirit shield which my variant build adds an additional 235% of ES, which EB converts to mana. It wont work with a mediocre shield but with a high end shield will give you 2.5k+ mana from just the shield and also requires the use of a Cloak of Defiance.

ZiggyD's build is great because the gear requirement is very low which means even new players can pick it up, as long as they don't try to level with EK. :P

I think whenever an Alpha Howl becomes a requirement it is not really a general purpose build.