Is Pierce worth it on Ethereal Knives?

Trying to plan out my EB-MoM Ethereal Knives Shadow...and i'm having trouble deciding if Pierce is worth it as a support gem AND in the passive tree.

I notice when normally using EK it just hits the outer layers of the groups and i have to cast multiple times shedding of layer after layer.

Was wondering if Pierce would make things quicker for farming.

No, use projectile weakness instead. You would not want to use the pierce gem even in a 6L because empower/added chaos/faster casting will increase your clear speed by way more.

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Innovation18934 wrote:

No, use projectile weakness instead. You would not want to use the pierce gem even in a 6L because empower/added chaos/faster casting will increase your clear speed by way more.

What about the passive nodes for the passive 40% pierce?

Personally I would not take it because it takes a few wasteful nodes to get there, especially since my build starts as witch.

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Innovation18934 wrote:

Personally I would not take it because it takes a few wasteful nodes to get there, especially since my build starts as witch.

hmm...its only 4 nodes away on my shadow...but 8 points just to peirce seems rather lack luster. Maybe I'll use chain or fork...

You don't need Chain or Fork. You already shoot 10 projectiles, you don't need more. Also Chain or Fork will drastically reduce your boss killing speed.

(Opinion) This is how your EK setup should be:

EK + Faster Casting + Spell Echo + Added Fire

For a 6 link, take any 2 of the following: Faster Projectiles, Culling Strike, Added Chaos Damage

An exception is if you have a leveled Empower gem. That should be your 4th or 5th link, and then only take 1 of the three listed above for a 6 link.

And don't get the pierce nodes. They're the opposite direction you need to go.

All true, Projectile Weakness is *the* DPS curse, if only for the Pierce. For large packs of bugs and such it makes the difference between 2-3 casts and just 1.

Sadly, the nodes are not well placed, so it's a waste to get. If we ever get it as a possible gear mod, it would be good to have. Maybe if GGG changed the Pierce Gem to have Increased Damage + Attack/Cast Speed, just like Faster Projectiles, people would use it.