[2.6] Whaitiri's EK Madness - an insanely high exp/h Pathfinder - 20h 35m Lv100 Record - IIQ capable

This build relies on Ring of Blades coupled with Fork and Touch of Anguish to create a large amount of chaining projectiles. We get 9 base projectiles from EK and another 10 from Ring of Blades, each of them forks into 2 new projectiles upon hitting an enemy and can then chain up to two times when hitting another enemy.

The advantage over Pierce is that you will usually hit absolutely everything onscreen within one cast, even rares and bosses will die if there's enough mobs around.
But it also means that it will be worse whenever those conditions are not given, which makes it a suboptimal bossfarmer, unless the boss has lots of adds.

CI coupled with Vaal Pact, Pathfinder and an array of flasks gives us lots of defenses while rushing through maps, but shouldn't be seen as foolproof - Volatiles can still hurt while pushing!

All this results in a build that rewards you for running maps with as many extra monsters as possible all the way to Lv100.

This wasn't done by me, but a friend who asked me to stay anonymous.

He was using the 1H + Shield version with slightly better gear than mine listed below, and ran exclusively fully sextanted Shaped Tropical Islands with Beyond/Nemesis + random third monster-adding Leaguestones with an average Exp/h of 60-80m at Lv99.

It takes lots of investment, planning and determination, so please don't expect to easily replicate these results. If you do, and should happen to break this record please let me know!

Here's a few more screenshots of his level vs. time played progression, for those interested:

Gems are listed in order of importance!


Ethereal Knives is a hard-hitting, physical projectile spell which scales well with gem levels.
Fork helps creating lots of chaining projectiles at the expense of a minor damage penalty, Spell Echo comes with a similar penalty but doubles our casts and raises cast speed.
Inc Crit Strikes to raise base crit, Faster Proj to substantially boost both projectile range, and the speed at which they travel.
Inc Crit Damage as 6th link, other options are Faster Casting with top gear or Empower 4 if you want a red socket to switch in Item Quantity.



Pretty standard movement setup, Flame Dash is only needed to pass over ledges.
You can also use Shield Charge if playing 1H + Shield, i personally prefer Whirling Blades.



Standard CwDt + IC setup with Lightning Golem for more speed, keep them low level for more procs.



First aura setup. Hatred adds lots of cold damage which allows us to freeze, Discipline to raise ES.



Second aura setup. Whenever we shatter an enemy, HoI procs an explosion which will apply Poachers Mark to help us with flask sustain and frenzy charge uptime.



Can't go without Vaal Haste in a speed-oriented build. Add in Vaal Clarity for No Regen maps.

Required Uniques



Ring of Blades: This jewel enables the whole build by turning EK into a pseudo-AoE spell and adds projectiles on top. Put it into the jewel socket above ranger start.

Touch of Anguish: Our source of chain, also comes with some cold damage and helps with frenzy charge uptime. One claw + shield is safer and recommended for HC, dualwield them for true madness.

Since rolls don't matter for us, it's easy to get them with Culling Strike and additional Block Chance while Dualwielding corruption.



Optional Uniques



Skyforth: Great to sustain power charges and avoid getting stunlocked, while they also help with increasing the total unreserved mana pool.

Best enchantments are Leech, Attack + Cast Speed or Penetration.

Brinerot Whalers: Use those if you can't afford Skyforths yet, really solid boots after their buff. Look out for same enchantments as on Skyforths.

Valyrium: One way to deal with stuns if you can't afford Skyforths.

Victario's Acuity: Allows to gain power charges without Skyforths, and has some other nice stats.

The Blue Dream: You can also use this in the jewel socket below shadow power charge to gain power charges. Use the upgraded version if you want to minmax spellblock.

Headhunter: While the build is fast without, this will push it to the absolute top in terms of speed. Obviously not cheap, but this isn't a budget build to begin with.

Inspired Learning: Use this in the witch jewel socket until you can afford a Headhunter.
Not as good, but will still give you some nice buffs if you go fast.

Energy from Within: Nice ES boost when used near Melding, if you can spare the stats of a rare jewel.

Stone of Lazhwar: Can be used to maximize spellblock together with Rumis, if you don't need the amulet slot for Victario's Acuity.

Chest: All you need from chest is high ES and resistances.

Helmet: 30% increased Ethereal Knives Projectile Speed is the absolute BiS enchant here.
Just as Faster Proj gem it increases projectile speed and -range, and with that clearspeed.
Other than that, just the obvious high ES and resistances you want here.

Gloves: Essence of Insanity-crafted gloves with as much ES as possible, it's a huge boost for Whirling Blades speed.

Shield: If not dualwielding, go with a high ES shield with a good spellcrit roll, bonus points if it has spell damage and resistances too.

Rings: Essence of Hysteria-crafted rings are a great damage boost, but hard to get a good one with resistances and free prefix for ES%. If you can't afford it, just use a resistance heavy ring.
Ideally you'd want diamond rings here, especially when playing the dualwield version.

Amulet: Aim for Crit Multi, ES% and Spell Damage if you use a rare amulet, Crit Chance and flat ES are good additions.

Belt: If you can't afford Headhunter, use a double flask mod Crystal Belt like this.

Attack + Cast Speed and Crit Multi are main stats to look out for, you may also need some resistances or even ES% while using lots of uniques. Spell-, Physical- and Projectile Damage are also good.

A You cannot be cursed with Silence jewel is great to counter the most annoying curse for us.

Each flask is pretty self-explanatory, so i won't go into too much detail here.
First five are my personal setup, but you can switch Atziri's Promise with one of the others if you prefer that.

This build is capable to use the most relevant Item Quantity uniques without too many payoffs.
While it's possible to do with both versions, i'd highly recommend using 1H + Shield to keep a high ES pool and have an easier time with capping resistances.

Depending on which of the above gear you plan to use, you'll have to..

‣ use Blue Dream for Power Charges
‣ use Kiara's Determination for stuns
‣ use jewels with resistances
‣ get a red socket on chest

These are the only potential changes needed, everything else stays the same.

Not much to say here, just keep flasks up and whirl from screen to screen while killing stuff.
This build is made mainly for good layout shaped maps such as Strand, Tropical Island or Courtyard, but you can of course run whatever you want - it just might not work as well as in those maps.

If you kept the pace up, you should reach the boss with quite a few buffs up and can incorporate the adds or nearby magic pack to kill them fast.

Only mapmod to reroll is Can't Leech, but i also recommend to reroll both Physical Reflect and Elemental Reflect, they can quickly get nasty with too many buffs up.
No Regen can also get annoying, either equip a mana flask or go fast to keep Vinktar/Vaal Clarity up.

I haven't done any Lab Runs, Atziri or other stuff like that so can't say anything about it, but it's very obvious that the build isn't optimized for this kind of content.

Headhunter was unequipped for these!

DPS unbuffed


DPS w/ 6x Power-, 3x Frenzy Charges, Flasks & Vaal Haste


Defenses w/ Flasks

‣ 11th May 2017: IIQ Section added
‣ 5th May 2017: Gear Section reworked, Guide extended
‣ 3rd May 2017: Video Section added
‣ 28th April 2017: small Gear Section update
‣ 21st April 2017: Guide created