Ethereal Knife crit build, with daggers?

If you dual wielded daggers that had 80% + crit chance, would that be more valuable then the

25% bonus magic damage on a EK crit build? The build is also CI, with ghost reaver and iron

reflexes. I am currently playing this build, but currently only to level 15 as i just started

earlier today.


Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Totally doable and totally fun. I'd like to pivot my end game build to more crit, but playing onslaught and level 76 I need a bit more items first. When I leveled from 50-60 I focused more on a crit build since I didn't have to worry about killing myself on reflect. Here's my current build to get you an idea of it: link.

If you are on onslaught, the crit build becomes all the more fun by slotting powercharge on crit and then equipping this unique: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Victario%27s_Acuity

But, if you are going Iron Reflexes you are going in the opposite direction to get the yummy powercharge stuff in the witch tree. I thought about going to Iron reflexes but found it wasn't worth it. Opted to go spell block instead.

I would strongly suggest a Dagger/Wand/Mace + Shield combo for EK. Strongly.

You need the defences a shield offers, and if it's and or something like all the better.

You need Block / Spell Block and/or Armor. Not to mention the added ES, and the added value of LESS DPS.

I like the build posted earlier, this is what i came up with a few days ago

Here-



And so, defence more important then 160% increased crit chance?
Or could i have 1 kris and a good sheild on the other hand?

Defence is ALWAYS more important. Your build has so much Crit Damage, and so little ES, that every time you meet a Reflect pack, you'll crit, and you WILL die.

I have spork for physical reflect packs, and you can get alot of es from equipment.

Yes but you can easily one-shot yourself if you aren't super careful. I'm a Freezing Pulser but I use EK unlinked if I need to leave corpses to raise zombies, and even with just vanilla EK with no supports if I EK into a big pack of physical reflect mobs I can one-shot myself. That's even with 4000 ES, which is more than you can get from gear alone (you need the % boost from passive nodes.)

Warning: math

EK has 5% base crit.

A top end spell crit wand/shield setup has 80%SD 80%SC wand, 60%SD 90%SC shield, total 140%SD 170%SC. Plus implicits, which should add up to 20%SD give or take. (Or a Void Battery setup, but we're comparing rares here.)

A top end spell crit dagger has 80%SD 90%SC, plus implicit 80%SC. Two daggers for 160%SD 340%SC, though good luck finding such daggers, they are as confused as wands.

Trade-off: dual daggers offers 8% crit over wand/shield as well as similar/equal spell damage. Shield offers, well, ES and block chance? It's also WAY harder to get a good spell crit dagger than it is a wand; two is just insane.

Bottom line: use Void Battery. One or two, doesn't really matter.

And don't play reflect because you'll die.