[3.0] I Cast Magic Missile! - Cantrip's guide to Ethereal Knives. Rage Mage Edition!

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Hello,

I was planning on making a similar build in Hardcore Prophecy. The plan is to use Kaom's and a staff instead of a dagger/wand and a shield. The idea is to just get a ton of life to survive with. Since you are basically a EK master I was hoping you could answer a question for me.

Should I use a Pledge of Hands or a staff similar to

Thanks,
Jones

If you wanna use a Staff for EK, most certainly a Pledge of Hands, as it's a 7L. Links are highly valuable on EK. Another usable option is Sire of Shards, since that's 100% Projectile Damage (which double-dips), and it should work great for clear speed. For a rare Staff to compete is nearly impossible for EK.

I wouldn't suggest you go that way, though. It's been tried, it works, but it's a LOT less DPS, and worse defences overall. DPS *is* a form of Defence, and you end up with more than 7k life if you get good gear anyhow (you take 10% more damage, so it'll act as less, sadly).

If you want to be as tanky as possible for HC (at least for Physical damage...), I'd go with the Armor variant, end up with 5 Endurance Charges (or even use the Prophesy Kaom's Rings for 6-7), run Temp Chains (and later add Proj Weakness when you get an addition Curse from the chest) and use Singularity + Spell Shield (or 2 of those). You'd be more or less immune to Physical Reflect with Charges on, as a bonus.

Overall, stacking different kinds of defences ends up safer than just Life - in this case Life/Armor/Endurance/Temp Chains/Hinder.

What I'll be doing is not far from that, just more SC oriented. For HC, at the very least Temp Chains + Singularity is a HUGE boost.

Yup, still intact after Patch notes :)

Hey.

How u recommend lvl this in new league?
And for hc u recommend to go with armor tree?

Thanks.

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Tunechis wrote:

Hey.

How u recommend lvl this in new league?
And for hc u recommend to go with armor tree?

Thanks.

Leveling is nothing special. Grab some INT and DEX for gems early on, get wands for leveling and go. Lifesprig is a huge boost, so is the Reverbration Rod, then either a 4L Geofri's, or a Tabula.

Either works for HC, I just hear people are paranoid on HC :)
I know people who made it to 94 on HC with the Acro version on a Tabula Rasa before, so it's viable.

Since I play my SC like it's HC, I'm going to consider using Temp Chains + Proj Weakness, and otherwise focus on defence, since you won't lack for DPS with good gear and levels.

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CantripN wrote:

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Tunechis wrote:

Hey.

How u recommend lvl this in new league?
And for hc u recommend to go with armor tree?

Thanks.

Leveling is nothing special. Grab some INT and DEX for gems early on, get wands for leveling and go. Lifesprig is a huge boost, so is the Reverbration Rod, then either a 4L Geofri's, or a Tabula.

Either works for HC, I just hear people are paranoid on HC :)
I know people who made it to 94 on HC with the Acro version on a Tabula Rasa before, so it's viable.

Since I play my SC like it's HC, I'm going to consider using Temp Chains + Proj Weakness, and otherwise focus on defence, since you won't lack for DPS with good gear and levels.

Ok thanks for the quick reply. Good luck with the new league:)

Hey,

I decided to try this build for my first prophecy character. Since I intend to go self-found I made a short table to see where you can get the required gems:



If you start with shadow, get him to act3 and complete the library quest you get every gem you need for this build.


And I have a question regarding int requirements: Lightning warp seems to be the only gem that needs 155 int for level 20 (also vulnerability, but I think I go for temp. chains as a second curse). Since lw gets reduced duration with higher levels, would it be better if I swap it with flame dash if I intend to go for only ~120 int or is a lvl12 lightning warp still better than flame dash?

this build works with bladefall instead of EK?

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erasem wrote:

this build works with bladefall instead of EK?

Of course. Grab the AoE passives from the Templar area, remove any and all Projectile Damage, replace Pierce with Conc Effect, and you're good to go. You should use Southbound in that case, and curses would be Vulnerability + Temp Chains.



I think EK is better, but it really is a matter of playstyle.


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@schmalka - Yeah, should be ok Self-found. Lemme know how it goes! Neither LW nor Flame Dash are a must, it mostly helps for labs and parties. Solo and outside the lab those aren't needed often, and I prefer LW due to it's range, since it's not about the speed as much (you have WB / Leap Slam for that).
I'm very likely to use a Sceptre myself, and just stick with Leap Slam.

Ty for your answer!
I just asked that because i think that bladefall deals more dmg single target

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erasem wrote:

Ty for your answer!
I just asked that because i think that bladefall deals more dmg single target

Not sure it does, what with EK scaling Poison a lot better. You simple have a lot more Projectile Damage (compared to Area Damage), and Projectile Weakness is a HUGE boost (that double-dips with Poison!).

Besides, Bladefall has a delay, which makes it less safe to use.