Level 97 CI Ethereal Knives of the Massacre Elementalist^3.26

Notes

We are making etheral knives work / feel good for mapping. It can do some bosses but it really isn't an all rounder skill. 

TODO: (you can ignore this stuff)
disentigrator merc
https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1lvs6ty/so_what_merc_are_people_using_and_why_is_it_good/
HEADHUNTER

REGEX
this is not a thourough regex. Just pick the mods I really hate / cannot do.
"!eir m|'v|gen|efe|non" "!y: (n|m|r)"



Spec 1: (initial spec)
video:
https://youtu.be/PrJHukqG6s4

key points of the build
4 heralds
4 auras (maybe more)
4 golems
the admiral + doryani on merc tech
stacking reservation on the tree
purposeful harbinger for aura effect
3 primordial bond large clusters
+4 all skills ammy and weapon
death's rush (on you) + worm ring on merc
lots of aoe with heart of destruction / golems + all hits can shock + generic damage scaling for oriath's end / herald of ash and ice satisfying explodes


Too Expensive?
everything in the PoB adds up this is not a cheap setup and I don't really recommend trying to start this build on a budget.
Notable shortcuts.
if you can't afford FF heart of destruction, path to it instead and get FF for shaper of flames / shock / or herald. You will have to give up shaper of flames or herald node. Tank or dps. May also have to get rid of herald of thunder from links.






Spec 2: (mageblood enters the chat) (see video 1 for merc setup)
video:
https://youtu.be/nT22A0RlBsA

key differences from spec 1
mageblood (lol)
tankier, more dps, way more expense
we dropped 2 heralds and run purity of elements

NOTICE IMPORTANT SPEC 2
We were running purity of lightning / elements but this is messing up our mercenaries res. I altered the PoB and gear and now we should be doing at least 2x the dps of what is shown in the video.





Spec 3: golemxodia variant
video:
https://youtu.be/i4eYjrlciW0

key differences from spec 2
this setup is geared for clearing juiced content with a lot of rare mobs. It is very good in that department. Please don't try to boss with this one!
I wanted an explode build that is still relatively tanky. Mission accomplished.
The explodes are most of our damage. We have a ton of aoe, ignite prolif, and two sources of explode. In simulacrums you will see when a big rare is exploded when Kosis hp starts rapidly going down.
The explodes are scaled through a crap ton of generic % damage and dot multiplier. All damage can shock / ignite. A lot of physical as extra elements. ETC.
Our mercenary is still the one from spec 2 with some slight gear changes. Ideally we would have winter deacon with hatred and a ton of hatred effect. Then swap our hatred for malev or purity of elements.

no mageblood
7 megalomaniacs with primordial bond (I will show you in above video how to find the ones on the left or right, we are tight on skillpoints so this is very important) (these are very expensive, 20divs+ a pop)
no elemental overload - why? because headhunter buffs synergize with crits
no longer stacking a ton of auras or heralds, now stacking a TON of golems














Initial Brainstorming stuff if you want to check it out or not. 

video for below:
https://youtu.be/3nnnea-ntaQ




Loadouts:

cheaper - 4 watchstones, maybe some ubers

expensive - mageblood tier

ignite - mapping, ignite prolif ftw



You can use many different physical spells with this setup. I have some of them listed in the main link.

Physical explode will be especially strong as we scale generic physical damage quite a bit.





Experiment with ascendency nodes!

Winter is more tank all rounder.
Flames is more tank against physical hits.
Storm is more damage. (with 100% ailment effect can get 50% shock?)
Bastion -> elemental defense