Ethereal Knives Losing Lingering Blades

Hi guys,

I'm new to PoE and have been loving the content so far. Not sure how relevant this is, but I'm not using a build guide and am playing on Standard at present for my first character.

As soon as I saw the Shadow character, I knew this was how I wanted to play PoE. My build is a bit of a blade-storm kind of build, utilising Cobra Lash, Ethereal Blades, Frost Blades and Animate Weapon. (Please note here, I haven't looked at any PoE guides and am a low level in Act 1).

Ethereal Blades, followed by animating the Lingering Blades was my favourite way to play. Having a small army of blades fight alongside you looked amazing and did allow me to steamroll anything I've encountered so far. I can understand why this might have been a bit over the top, and why the skill may have needed such a heavy nerf. While weapons dropped can still be animated, it does depend on drops and doesn't look as interesting as when Lingering Blades are animated.

My suggestion is to add a Lingering Blade Support Gem to the game, allowing supported skills to drop 1 Lingering Blade (maybe increased above a certain gem level?), similar to how Ethereal Blades worked prior to the latest patch. It doesn't look like many skills are currently able to drop Lingering Blades which seems like such a shame given how fun Animate Weapon (and probably Blade Blast) are to use.


Just thought I'd have a crack at asking for a change that might only suit players like myself.

Thoughts?