Questions about Ethereal Knives

I have a few questions about EK and was wondering if some people could shed a bit of light onto this subject..

Ethereal Knives

Fires an arc of knives in front of the caster which deal physical damage. *Multiple knives cannot hit the same target.* Despite the fact that it does physical damage, Ethereal Knives is a spell and not an attack. It does not utilize weapon damage in any way, even if you use daggers.

*So Chain does not let it hit the same target?*

Life/Mana Leech: Like all other spells, only the Life Leech and Mana Leech support gems will grant leech effects to Ethereal Knives. All other forms of leeching work only on physical damage from attacks.

So we know Life on Hit will not work, but can we use a Mana Leech Gem/Life Leech gem to help with the mana/life cost of this spell as we link more supports to it? Would the return leech value be worth it?

Physical Damage Spell: Because Ethereal Knives deals physical damage, it can be boosted by supports and skills that are more commonly used to modify attacks, such as the Added Fire Damage support gem and the Hatred aura.

Now with this statement, we can use an Added Cold Damage/Added Lightning Damage Gem/Added Fire Damage Gem to increase the damage output for this skill correct? We can also stack Hatred/Anger/Wrath with the respected elemental gem to further increase this elemental damage? Also Penetration Gem such as Lightning/Fire/Cold would also further benefit this would it not?

Projectile Speed: Projectile Speed will greatly increase the average distance that Ethereal Knives projectiles travel before they fade, effectively increasing the maximum range of the spell.

Again, Now if this is a "Projectile" than this spell should gain the bonus from "Faster Projectiles", "Increased Projectile Speed", as well as "Increased Projectile Damage" from the respected passive nodes should it not? As well as it being a "Spell" it should also gain the damage modifiers from the passive tree too?

Projectile Weakness
"Projectiles" includes arrows from any bow attack, shots from any wand attack, all projectile spells, and projectiles from the Rain of Arrows and Lightning Strike attacks."
More Damage from Projectiles: Targets will take more damage from any projectile type. Because this is an increase to the damage taken, it is multiplicative with your damage dealt and additive with any other increase damage taken effects.

Now since EK is considered a "Projectile" would Projectile Weakness be viable for this skill?

These are just a few things I did not get a chance to test/look into and was wondering if someone could just give a bit of insight to this.. I have always been interested in an EK build, but not having the time to test this right now..

Thank you.

"

Moeses wrote:

Life/Mana Leech: Like all other spells, only the Life Leech and Mana Leech support gems will grant leech effects to Ethereal Knives. All other forms of leeching work only on physical damage from attacks.

So we know Life on Hit will not work, but can we use a Mana Leech Gem/Life Leech gem to help with the mana/life cost of this spell as we link more supports to it? Would the return leech value be worth it?

Life and Mana Leech support do definitely help it alot. You should just try to only need to use one of the two since both just takes up to many support spots, and you only can link a maximum of 5 support gems to it.

So you will probably either go Eldritch Battery for massive amounts of mana and mana regen, then use life leech support gem.

Or you might use CI and take the mana leech gem.

"

Moeses wrote:

Physical Damage Spell: Because Ethereal Knives deals physical damage, it can be boosted by supports and skills that are more commonly used to modify attacks, such as the Added Fire Damage support gem and the Hatred aura.

Now with this statement, we can use an Added Cold Damage/Added Lightning Damage Gem/Added Fire Damage Gem to increase the damage output for this skill correct? We can also stack Hatred/Anger/Wrath with the respected elemental gem to further increase this elemental damage? Also Penetration Gem such as Lightning/Fire/Cold would also further benefit this would it not?

Well added fire damage is a special case since it is based of the amount of physical damage the skill does. With the other ones I am not so sure but I think they do both add flat amounts of an element and that doesnt work (not so sure).

Same goes for auras like Wrath as far as i know, since they do not affect spells.

"

Moeses wrote:

Projectile Speed: Projectile Speed will greatly increase the average distance that Ethereal Knives projectiles travel before they fade, effectively increasing the maximum range of the spell.

Again, Now if this is a "Projectile" than this spell should gain the bonus from "Faster Projectiles", "Increased Projectile Speed", as well as "Increased Projectile Damage" from the respected passive nodes should it not? As well as it being a "Spell" it should also gain the damage modifiers from the passive tree too?

You should really check out Invalescos Guide tells you about all you need to know

And yes projectile weakness is superb with this spell

Wicked. How could I have missed that topic. Thanks Mate.