Dave/Kripp's 400 str Ethereal Knives Maraader

It used to be Glyph Wall for Witch and Shadows. And as far as I remember the normal quest rewards didn't change all that much. I have to check his stream record again to be 100% sure. But I'm pretty sure it was still there on his Shadow.

I parked my Marauder at 50 btw. It's getting really annoying right now. I'm not all that durable and my dmg is also not there. And without Chain or Fork for some nasty aoe, it feels really boring. Pretty much like a Freezing Pulse spammer without freezing stuff all the time and smaller area of effect.

Might be my gear though. My resists aren't all that good and Hatred is probably also not a good idea because it really hurts your hp pool. But without it my dmg stinks. So yeah, not sure yet if I really think this char is all that awesome. Might as well spamm LS if you want to be a tanky marauder. Should also hurt more without having to run %based auras.

There are few enough EK-specific points that there's no reason you can't put those off and just run ground slam/sweep/lightning strike + 2-hander until you have the gear and supports to make EK worth it.

That's actually not a bad idea. Basically you can do whatever you want because most skillpoints are defensive related.

Problem with that is, that going serious melee is even more gear dependant. So that won't help me I'm afraid.

Should just try to get a pair of decent wands with proj.speed (I still have none AND can't use the sup.gem which makes EK really bad aoe wise) and a 5L to get LL or Chain/Fork running. Maybe that'll help.

€:

Maybe I'm missing out on something, too. I remember Kripp talking about the option of Conduit. Does that mean he is using Blood Rage? I have no clue how I could possibly counter the dmg I get, plus my skills draining my life plus getting hurt by mobs. Not without a quality LL in a 5L I don't have.

I'm just using:

EK - added fire dmg - faster casting - iron will.
Bear Trap with added fire dmg

and Rejuvenation Totem/Decoy Totem when I need them.

Auras are Grace and Hatred (which hurts my max HP but it adds a lot of dps).

Maybe I'm missing out something that would obviously help me?

So I'm lvl 47 and this build really picked up at lvl 34 or so,

EK + Added Fire + Faster Casting + Faster Projectiles

I lose dmg if I swap added fire for iron will, maybe later it'll be better.

I use projectile weaknes & decoy tome with faster casting as well.

For single target I havent had that much of a problem, yet with the EK but for sure I could use something else.

This is my gear:



And this is my current build

"

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAnEEsxRNKS426DpSOuE8LT38RmlM_03jUFBYY1ivXz9gbWebbPZ343gNerh8uH1TgziHKYjxjAaMz52AogCkrKZXqW6sWa4-rpOvbLXytz653cWKxq7G2N0F37_nY-8O8B_yL_JF9kj-Cv6P

Kripp was talking about this spec again. I changed a few things - like not limiting my HP with Hatred, which was stupid in the first place :P

I also switched to TTerom's support gem layout. Faster Projectiles is really a must-have until you got decent wands with projectile speed - which I do not have yet. I scratched Iron Will, since Faster Casting is also a must-have(ish) thing (feels way too slow without it) and AFD is the strongest support. With very powerful wands one could go back to it later, ideally also add LL to it. At that point this spec might really start to shine.

Still, I don't really see why Kripp thinks so highly about this spec. Not getting what all the fuzz is about. Gameplay wise it just feels like a corky freezing pulse, nothing more. And the dmg is not higher as FP without the mentioned setup. Plus you don't freeze stuff all over the place. So yeah, might be a stable workhorse kinda deal but there is better stuff out there imho.

Unless I'm doing it wrong, which I wouldn't want to rule out.

Btw. are you using Blood Frenzy, TTerom? I tried but it hurts way too much. I need to like rotate 3 or 4 flasks just to keep me alive.

"

Unimatrix wrote:

Still, I don't really see why Kripp thinks so highly about this spec. Not getting what all the fuzz is about.

He has been playing alpha for a while now, he might know some changes we do not. That's probably why, also defensive wise this build is awesome and knowing how hard the game becomes with act 3 and other changes...

Well, idk man.

Mine is not all that defensive. I mean, you are like using your life to cast shit. I basically lose life while spamming EK. Just slowly but yeah. You got no fancy stuff like minions, just a decoy totem. I got some decent life and regen plus armor, yes. But how is that better than not using my life and freezing stuff? Plus FP pierces always, not just by chance.

I really start to get the feeling I'm doing something wrong. I just died in the weaver's cavern for instance.

But I guess Kripp is always looking at end-end-game. Given a 5 or 6L item to be able to bring a quality LL and dramatically up the dps of EK, this could indeed get nasty. But without fancy gear it's just a weaker version of a FP char. At least that's my experience so far.

€: A couple levels and new items later and I already have a slightly different view.

Finally got a 5L chest, upping my dmg by quite a bit. Faster Projectiles is getting really nasty, increasing my aoe by a lot. Was probably my biggest mistake, to not use it until recently.

This spec seems to be a late bloomer, the more HP you get the more reg you get etc. I also got back to using Hatred - for fellshrine farming only though. It's not good for my survivability but it doesn't need much to survive fellshrine as we know.

I see were you are comming from with the lack of damage, but I must say right now I've been crusing thru all of act 1 and start of 2 third difficulty with issues, most of not all of the white mobs I kill in 1 or 2 casts.

Another great thing is that you kockback them A LOT, at least they get interrupted by the EK, which is really nice.

Extra value is the aoe cover of the spell, once I learned to position myself better and pulling a big enough amount of dudes I just cast EK a few times and they are gone. Actually this worked even better when I tried linking Fork to the EK, I really wish I had a 5link to add fork, but probably at that point I'll rather have Life Leech for the surviviablity.

About the Hatred, yes it chunks away a lot of HP, but with Mana reduction support is managable for me, and heck the damage boost is so good, not to mention the chill and frozen chance!.

Now I always tap an extra recovery flask when I start casting to offset the casting cost and the few ranged/melee hits I get before finishing up the mobs, also I have 2 instant recovery while on low life ones for oh shit moments, and well I do use them a lot because I just can stand there and facetank most rare mobs using those flask.

What is really nice aobut the EK and why Kripp puts so much tought into it is the physical damage, you rarely run into mbos that wil lresist most of its damage which is great!.

I can't wait to do this in OB and actually get to super gear the char, imagine the ideal set of wands for example:

+Projectile speed
+Casting speed
+Spell damage
+Fire and/or Cold damage (Added fire / Hatred)

It will be a monster, I don't have problems as it is but heck think about this build with ideal gear.

Yeah as mentioned I'm doing better and better now, too. I'm lvl 60 now and it's really going good so far. Am going to hit some maps now, see how this goes.

But still, I see the benefits of having a physical spell but I usually had no problems with resistances because I tend to play casters with dual curses.

Maybe my "history" is also a problem here, because I happen to have played all builds that are now considered op and are getting nerfed ^^ And all of them but one were CI (the other one was a EB LA templar that oneshots 2 screens full of mobs with one attack :P). So yeah.. ^^

€: Oh forgot about the KB. Funny enough I feel like I'm never knocking anything back. But I one-/two-shot most things so maybe I just don't notice, idk.

Kripp mentioned in his latest stream that he would rather go with a witch EK than a marauder one. Here is the build: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAdwC4wUtB2MHpQj0DH0OrRB_ES0UUhjbG_ohYCQ8Jd8nqSfVKLUo-imlLJws6TGINYY6szrhO-FAoEGHQ5xHfklRSbJKfU3jValXK1ptW69gS2CIYSFhUmKsZU1noGz2bRlzU3TtdPF4DXkDerh673yDf8aCEIIegseE2YTvh3aI8Yt6jr6XtJ2qnrmfy6FtoqOkGaZXpyunXKluq8WsWay6rpO18rc-uJO5zb6KwFTB88RYxLjGnsauzfrV-Nad2wvdDd-w4dri6uL352Pr7u9O8kX8xf4K_o8=

He made some tweaks to this but overall this is how it looked like.

What do you guys think?