Ethereal Knives Totems [Build and advice] [Moonbender's Wing and Inquisitor]

Basically I'm thinking of trying Ethereal Knives with an Inquisitor and fully converting the damage to lightning/cold with the Moonbender's Wing and a Physical to Lightning gem and later on getting a Call of the Brotherhood ring to convert half of the lightning damage to cold.


I'd be using totems with this to avoid any issues with elemental damage reflection that the inquisitor might otherwise encounter.

Auras would be Herald of Ice and Hatred for the extra cold damage and I'd be using the Projectile Weakness curse for more damage that doesn't rely on elemental resistances and which the totems can take full advantage of.


The main issue is if -- even with the full damage conversion -- I'm simply crippling myself by not taking a main-hand weapon with more spell damage or crit chance/multiplier and only converting 50% of the physical damage or just converting 75% of physical damage to fire instead with Avatar of Fire and a Chernobog's Pillar or the Signal Fire, allowing me to use a main weapon better suited for Ethereal Knives as well as Added Fire Damage and Herald of Ash.

Another option is using one of the Fated uniques Hrimnor's Dirge or Cauterizer and gaining an easy 50% more cold or 70% more fire damage and only converting 50% of the physical damage to elemental by one of the other two methods mentioned earlier.

Last question, does anybody know if totems can gain Onslaught from the Innervate support gem?

Did you consider this one? http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Signal_Fire

Edit: Sorry, missed that in your post.

I had looked at that as an option, and pairing it with Quill Rain for the extra projectile speed but then I'm in a similar situation as before with one of my items being used for non-damaging buffs.

• Quill Rain: 50-100% Projectile speed.
• Moonbender's Wing: 25% of Physical damage converted to Cold damage and 25% converted to Lightning damage with a free Lightning Warp.

I also prefer freeze and shock to ignite.

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crystalwitch wrote:

Last question, does anybody know if totems can gain Onslaught from the Innervate support gem?

Even if they did, it would be pointless, since totems use your offensive stats. You need to get onslaught for them to benefit from it. (If totems kill a shocked mob you won't get the onslaught).

As far as general concept goes, I find it a bit counter-intuitive, since the main benefit of phys spells is that you don't need to worry about resistances, and the main benefit of crit Inquisitor is pretty much the same. In other words, you probably can get more from other ascendancy without converting your physical to elemental. Not saying the idea won't work, though, it's always worth it, if it's fun :).

Also, there will be a problem with getting all the needed dexterity for EK as a Templar. It's minor, but can be quite annoying when gearing, especially if you plan on using multiple uniques.

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PaperRat wrote:

Some very good points

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crystalwitch wrote:

Last question, does anybody know if totems can gain Onslaught from the Innervate support gem?

Even if they did, it would be pointless, since totems use your offensive stats. You need to get onslaught for them to benefit from it. (If totems kill a shocked mob you won't get the onslaught).

As far as general concept goes, I find it a bit counter-intuitive, since the main benefit of phys spells is that you don't need to worry about resistances, and the main benefit of crit Inquisitor is pretty much the same. In other words, you probably can get more from other ascendancy without converting your physical to elemental. Not saying the idea won't work, though, it's always worth it, if it's fun :).

Also, there will be a problem with getting all the needed dexterity for EK as a Templar. It's minor, but can be quite annoying when gearing, especially if you plan on using multiple uniques.

I always forget the full implications of totems using your offensive stats.

The dexterity's not an issue as I'd most likely grab a Karui Ward which would not only handle the early dexterity needs but also boost the range of Ethereal Knives.
(Another fact I'd forgotten before looking up the skill was that Ethereal Knives is a dex/int spell unlike Bladefall which is pure dexterity.)

Though that's a very good point you make about physical spells and the crit inquisitor being two ways of doing the same thing, just with a lot more faffing about.

I'd been thinking of another option and you may've just tipped me over to it.
I still haven't had a Hierophant build I've been 100% happy with.

If you want full elemental conversion, I'd personally go with Quill Rain + Signal Fire, ditch Karui Ward for a good rare (QR proj speed will be more than enough with a good roll), and equip a The Three Dragons so that your Fire Damage Shocks and your Lightning Damage Freezes.

The only drawback, other than gear opportunity cost, is that you could not Chill without Breath of Rime or some source of Chilled Ground.

But yeah, Hierophant sounds pretty good too

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adghar wrote:

If you want full elemental conversion-

With what Paper Rat's said I'm thinking I'll forget about converting Ethereal Knives to elemental damage for the Inquisitor bonuses and instead go Hierophant and Apep's Rage (two of them maybe?) for the extra chaos damage and cast speed boost with an Added Chaos Damage gem instead of the Physical to Lightning.

Heck, I could go a Necromancer witch instead and really ramp up the cast speed with Spirit Eater, Commander of Darkness and Flesh Offering. (With Mistress of Sacrifice, of course)

You may want to consider Bladefall instead of Ethereal Knives. It's also a physical spell so it benefits from the same modifiers, but unlike EK it ignores obstacles (like monsters) and can hit the same enemy multiple times (especially bosses which have large hitboxes).

Source: I started prophecy as a dual EK marauder but later switch to Bladefall and got a significant improvement in DPS.

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databeaver wrote:

You may want to consider Bladefall instead of Ethereal Knives. It's also a physical spell so it benefits from the same modifiers, but unlike EK it ignores obstacles (like monsters) and can hit the same enemy multiple times (especially bosses which have large hitboxes).

Source: I started prophecy as a dual EK marauder but later switch to Bladefall and got a significant improvement in DPS.

Yeah, bladefall's got better dps than EK, but it also requires a hell of a lot more dexterity than EK and I've used it in the past so I'm looking to try something a bit different.