[3.17] Ethereal Knives Raider vs Bosses

Raider self casting Ethereal Knives converted to all three elements and using Secrets of Suffering for alternate ailments. Key elements of the build Ethereal Knives I don't use Ring of Blades threshold jewel, though I haven't played around with it. I usually feel like I want to throw a bunch of projectiles in a specific direction, rather than in a nova, so I was never tempted to try it out. Now that the jewel doesn't even add projectiles, I don't think it's worth it. You need a bit of projectile speed to make the knives reach off screen: Longshot and Ballistics should be enough, but if you want more you can find it on projectile cluster jewels. You can also craft projectile speed on your amulet. Conversion EK deals physical damage, but Raider wants to deal elemental damage. Awakened Added Fire is amazing. It gives 44% phys as extra fire, AND +1 level to EK at level 5. It's also super cheap. Stock up on facetor's lenses and use Tora research to get it to 5 ASAP. Make this your first purchase after lvl 21 EK. Cold Mastery near ranger convers 40% to cold. Physical to Lightning converts 50% to lightning. Divergent Trinity converts 10% to a random element. You can craft conversion on gloves as a prefix, and you can also get it as an Eater of Worlds implicit. Secrets of Suffering This special keystone makes you apply alternate ailments instead of ignite/freeze/shock. The biggest benefit is brittle (cold), which gives +15% base critical strike chance at maximum effect, which nearly quadruples your critical strike chance. Scorch gives -30% elemental resistance, and sapped makes the enemy deal 20% less damage. These are worth capping out if you can. Brittle doesn't necessarily need to be capped out. Check in PoB how much brittle you need to get to 100% crit chance. If your ailments are low, look for "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" modifiers to scale scorch/brittle/sap. The most important one you'll probably want is on Critical Mastery, which gives 50%. You can also find it on Elemental Focus (20%) near Shadow, on Redeemer boots (30-40%), Redeemer rings and amulets (15-25%), and on cluster jewels. Note that you will only inflict ailments on critical strikes, so you need to have a decent amount of critical strike chance BEFORE brittle is applied, else it will feel clunky while mapping. Secrets of Suffering is available for cheap on an Alternate Scepter experimented base. Look for +1 all/physical spell gems, crit multi, spell damage, added spell damage, cast speed. You can also get Secrets of Suffering from The Interrogation cluster jewel if you don't want to use a scepter, but it's way more expensive. Snakepit Snakepit boosts your clear. I recommend Fork instead of Chain, since density is so big this league that it's almost always going to hit more things. Heralds Herald of Purity: Decent use of mana reservation to boost damage, but more importantly the sentinels are amazing for drawing aggro while you're a screen away wailing at the enemy. Herald of Ash: Adds some fire damage and boosts your clear. Sniper's Mark All projectile skills really like sniper's mark, and it's just as good on EK. Unfortunately you have to manually cast it, since the new Mark On Hit support only applies to attacks. Mark Mastery also gives you frenzy charges against bosses. Get Forbidden Flesh/Flame with Focal Point (Deadeye) to push your single-target higher. Focal Point also has utility, in that you don't have to target your curse perfectly, so you can cast it on any random mob around an archnemesis/boss and it'll land on the archnemesis/boss eventually. Tornado Tornado helps a lot against bosses, and helps to generate power charges through Power Charge on Critical support gem. It's not reliable while clearing, but whenever you have to stop to fight a big baddie (like an archnemesis), it'll be up. I'm not sure how much damage Tornado adds, but I feel like it's around 30% more. It also seeks enemies around corners, so it can get to those dangerous rares you don't want to face directly. Bench craft trigger on your scepter and slot it in there with Increased Duration and Power Charge on Critical. You want the 8 second bench craft, not the 4 second unveil because of how Tornado ramps and gets reset when recast. Utility I use Sigil of Power mainly as a way to proc Arcane Surge, but also as a small damage debuff against bosses (17% less damage by enemies in sigil). Both Tornado and Sigil of Power need about 1 or 2 seconds to ramp, so they work well together. I use Anomalous Sigil of Power to get it to max stage faster (extra quality from Ashes of the Stars helps). I use Divergent Arcane Surge because of the long cooldown of Sigil of Power. It lasts 11 seconds, which is roughly the same as the sigil's cooldown. Stone Golem on a Cast When Damage Taken setup. I like the extra regen and the taunt. Defenses Avatar of the Chase for 10% more evasion, Grace and Defiance Banner, all evasion gear. Cap spell suppression with Quartz Infusion (40%) and get the rest on gear and passives as you need it. Easily get full elemental avoidance with Avatar of the Veil (50%), Thick Skin wheel (20%) and Shrieking Essence of Loathing crafted boots or influenced boots (30%). Sap makes enemies deal up to 20% less damage. Stone Golem and Sentinels from Herald of Purity draw aggro while you're far away sniping with your knives. Knockback on Projectile Mastery combined with high cast speed keeps enemies away. Sigil of Power at max stages makes enemies inside the sigil deal 17% less damage, but this isn't perfectly reliable. Useful against archnemeses though. Attributes Attributes are a bit annoying because the build wants good bit of Strength and Intelligence, but it gets almost none of it from passives. You might need to allocate some str/int nodes on the tree before you're ready to use high str/int rolls on your gear. At least 126 str due to Awakened Added Fire At least 131 int due to Alternating Scepter Mana Mana is annoying to solve, but an enduring mana flask works. I path to Druidic Rite AND anoint Repelnishing Remedies on my amulet to get lots of life and mana flasks charges. It feels good to be able to spam life/mana flasks though. Flasks A life flask. A mana flask. Taste of Hate, a useful all-round flask for both offense and defense. 2 utility flasks of your choice. Quicksilver if you wanna go even faster. Diamond flask isn't necessary, but it will make mapping feel better by helping you apply ailments more easily. Atziri's Promise is good. Wise Oak is good if you can balance your resists, otherwise don't. Bottled Faith if you can afford it. Amulet I use Ashes of the Stars. It's not the best, but it enables some of the other choices above due to quality and reservation efficiency. Feel free to use a life/crit amulet. Marylene's Fallacy might be best in slot against pinnacle bosses, but you'll need a bit more ailment scaling, and it makes mapping feel clunky. Other possibilities I haven't tested everything out, but there are other things which could work even better. Go for pierce instead of chain/fork with Voidwalker, Lioneye's Vision or Pierce support. Ghost Shrouds. Go for Veteran Bowyer flesh/flame jewels instead of Focal Point if you don't want to lean on Sniper's Mark, or maybe get Ricochet and replace Snakepit with a good rare. Go for Eldritch Battery/Devouring Diadem to solve mana issues. Fit in Blade Blast somehow. Use Hatred instead of the heralds, and then use a Hatred Watcher's Eye. Use Pinpoint and path towards Witch area to get Caster Mastery for intensify. Wind Dancer could be really good, since most of my deaths come for big legion hits. Go tankier, replacing Heralds with Determination and Vaal Molten Shell. Plenty of people are experimenting with EK. Check poe.ninja for more examples. Rich upgrades Forbidden Flesh/Flame prices are a bit volatile right now. Keep an eye on them. I bought mine for 3ex each. Awakened Spell Echo Use The Interrogation instead of an Alternating Scepter, and then you can use a +5 spell staff or Cane of Kulemak. Shaper Amulet with +1 Spell, +1 Phys and elemental penetration. Good luck. Tailwind boots. Body Armour with +1 Active skill gem, +1 curse and Elemental Weakness. Bottled Faith