Hybrid Bladefall/EK Heiro 11k+ EHP and 40% MoM

Sharing a relatively cheap and effective build that I played through during hardcore essence. Although I did end up ripping to a physical reflect mob the build was otherwise quite tanky and effective at clearing when I was paying attention. The premise of the build at first was a pure physical life based EK with poison, MoM, and high mana regen to sustain; However I found it more effective to go crit based without poison.

Pure physical(not counting a bit of chaos) was a choice made based on reflect and ultimate damage effectiveness when considering enemy resistances. Using an added fire gem will certainly buff your tooltip higher than other alternatives, considering that it is essentially 40% more damage as fire, but will be partially mitigated by fire resist and preclude you from running elemental reflect maps. Poison was dropped first because a lot of my base damage scaling does not double dip, and because GGG announced intentions at the start of essence to further nerf double dipping in future patches. In addition to this all non boss mobs can be killed with a single cast of EK, making poison only usable for bosses.

This build focuses on scaling life pool but the energy shield is a great secondary layer because of our hybrid nodes, which would be taken without consideration of es; the Templar's sanctuary of thought ascendancy node, which will give us around 500+ energy shield based on our mana; and general intelligence pathing which scales both mana and energy shield as a bonus.

Additional defenses include a 40% MoM that comes into play when our energy shield falls off and is sutained through high mana regeneration; Arctic armour, which gives us physical and fire mitigation while attacking; shield block, which can be further buffed with Rumi's; and defensive CWDT setups, which should include a curse.

This build can work well with bladefall, requiring only a few changes to passive trees. In fact, bladefall may have the higher dps due to overlap but I generally prefer EK from a defensive aspect because a cast will stun/kill any non boss mobs that are running at you before they get to you. The second downside of bladefall is that it will require investment into dexterity beyond the standard node pathing- not much, but even having to grab 1 high dex suffix can make gearing up on a budget annoying.

Final stats for this build at level 90 are 6,000+ life(208% increased, not including jewel sockets), 5,000+ energy shield(dependent on decent hybrid gear), and 2,000+ mana(1500ish unreserved). Damage with level 20 EK using subotimal gem links and a weak dagger is 53k with no buffs, 67k with 5 power charges, and 80k+ dps with charges and an atziri flask. Around 76% critical which can be complemented by a diamond flask on bosses. Damage can be further buffed through the pursuit of faith ascendancy node. Nearly all of the damage is physical except for a small portion of chaos.

Nice build, wanna try it in new League HC, but what are the gem links? And any leveling suggestions?

Thanks

You can try leveling with EK, though the Templar doesn't actually get the gem and furthermore EK scales better with levels and items so it may not be ideal. Beyond that you'd also need a minor amount of dexterity, likely just a jade amulet, because the templar pathing does not give any dex- luckily EK is not a pure dex gem. Frankly, unless you can grab a few cheap leveling uniques such as karui ward I'd advise leveling early with freeze pulse while leveling EK in an unused socket. You'd probably be better off grabbing the damaging templar start nodes along with powerful precision while playing freeze pulse/flame totem and then grabbing the amplify node set, swapping freezing pulse over for firestorm and heading to the witch nodes. Crit nodes and charges should be avoided while leveling. Mana regen nodes are also weak early on compared to clarity/potions.

Gem links are EK-controlled destruction-increased critical strikes-faster casting-spell echo-faster projectiles. Faster projectiles probably stands out as a poor choice but I prefer it over pierce for several reasons:
1)We don't have to travel to the pierce cluster to hit 100% pierce
2)High dps comboed with spell echo will clear two waves of mobs with every cast anyway
3)Being able to kill mobs and kite bosses from further distances is a great defensive boost and without faster projectiles we'd ha'd have to make up the speed somewhere else

The skill tree does not have a lot of base damage scaling and you will want to make up some of the damage with a helmet enchant, brinerot whaler's, and a pair of gloves. Facebreaker's tend to give higher damage but winds of change are way better early on.

Oh, and one thing you definitely want to add if you are intending on leveling EK is grabbing added fire damage/herald of ash. The pure physical damage is pretty irrelevant until you're actually mapping.

TL;DR: Don't level with EK unless you like beating mobs with a wet noodle or have some gear set aside for leveling.

Edit: Facebreaker just got nerfed. Winds of change are probably the better choice now.

trickster seems like a better choice for this build
-doesnt waste uber lab points
-gives a chunk of mana
-frenzy generation and +1 frenzy
-250es bunched with more survivability
-cast and attack speed