Level 98 Hybrid Crit Ethereal Knives Inquisitor^3.17

Notes

===== LEVELING TIPS ==================================================================================================================================================================================
--- Selling a Magic Wand + 1 Alteration Orb + 1 Topaz Ring will yield you a Magic Wand with added flat lightning damage, this is a *very* important vendor recipe to utilize in order to have a smooth leveling experience.
 You will want to utlize this recipe multiple times throughout the early leveling process. A Normal topaz ring in the recipe will yield tier 8 lightning to spells, and requires level 8, a magic topaz ring yields tier 7, level 14 req., and a
rare topaz ring yields tier 6 with a level 20 requirement. You'll want to use the upgraded recipes as soon as you can because this will be hard carrying your damage throughout the first half of the acts.

--- There's No Socket Setup For Leveling??
Something you'll notice that is different about this guide vs. my earthshatter guide is that I don't really have gem links for leveling. For a build like this I don't think its super necessary, as most things are pretty simple to just fit in when you can and any
exceptions will be listed here.

--- Choosing What Spell to Level With + Link Setups
I've leveled this build 3 times, and used EK from level 1 each time. It does fine while leveling, not super great, just fine. 
Overall, spark is probably your best bet for leveling because it's less reliant on cast speed and will have higher singletarget damage earlier on due to getting multiple instances of damage per cast, which is impossible for EK.
Singletarget is managable but becomes quite good at level 34 when you can start using tornado. Tornado is very important for this builds singletarget, so don't underestimate it's importance. Slot it right at 34. 

  - Your 4 link whilst leveling will be Ethereal Knives/Spark - Pierce - Lifetap - Added Lightning 
 
 If Leveling as EK  - In Act 2, after killing The Weaver, replace Added Lighting with Physical to Lightning Support
                             - In Act 5, do the sidequest to kill Utula to receive the Unique Jewel Poacher's Aim, this let's you replace Pierce with Spell Echo, and this will be your final 4-link setup

Your 5th link isn't important until you've done merc lab and are transitioning to the crit setup. It will be Critical Strikes Support 
For this build, crit strikes is more damage than crit damage support because if we aren't critting, we aren't penetrating resists.
Your 6th link is Pinpoint Support, if you decide to use ring of blades (the threshold jewel for EK) as soon as possible (I do not recommend doing this) then you'll want to prioritize pinpoint higher, as you don't have enough projectiles to comfortably clear
without it if you're shooting in a nova.

--- Auras During Leveling
So honestly there's a lot of freedom on which auras to use while leveling. Doing a double herald setup isn't that bad until you can fit in hatred which is typically around level 50 or so, due to tree pathing. Herald of Ash is really comfortable while leveling
before you go crit for EK, whereas if you're leveling as Spark you'll probably just want to stick with Herald of Ice + Herald of Thunder. Obviously you'll want to grab determination right at 24 and start using it asap. Just use whatever feels best. 
I tried a bunch of different setups with each level-through and nothing really stood out as the best, so this is very preference-based. Just make sure to have the end-game aura setup running ASAP, which will be around late act 5 - early act 7 depending
on how much you overlevel.

--- General Tips
 - Start using Blood Rage as soon as you have the socket room for it, the general damage + cast speed it gives you in the build is a very nice QoL improvement for the build early on when you have low cast speed.
 - Flat damage to spells is going to heavily carry you while leveling, I suggest staying on top of wand upgrades a lot more strictly than typical spell leveling builds.

===== ENDGAME TIPS ==================================================================================================================================================================================

---Annoints
Cheap starting annoint - Fury Bolts
For a balanced annoint that is strong for both general gameplay and bossing - Ash, Frost, and Storm
For pure clearspeed - Longshot

--- Frenzy Charge Generation
After you take the Charge Mastery that gives 100% Charge Duration and you have the Searing Exarch implicit for frenzy charge generation every (x) seconds on your chest piece, you can drop Blood Rage and rely on that for frenzy charge generation. 
Once you get this bosses will be a lot more comfortable, and you'll be a lot tankier while mapping due to not having your regen heavily weighed down.

--- Divine Blessing Zealoty
Any time you use Divine Blessing, you'll pay a chunk of your life pool (based on your mana pool) to gain the Zealotry Aura for ~10 seconds. Basically just keep this buff up at all times. The self-chunking might make you uncomfortable at first
but you can pop your life flask as you hit it and instantly top yourself off. You also get life on on kill on the build as well so you'll instantly be full hp again if you cast on a screen of mobs after using the blessing. I brought the build to 98 in HCSSF
and had no close calls due to this mechanic, just play smart and if you don't feel comfortable, just use it preemptively. It's mandatory for the build though, as its about a 35% damage gain as opposed to not running it, it also caps your crit chance for
single target.

--- Why Don't You Have More Crit Chance?
The build achieves 100% crit chance on single-target relatively easily via its ascendancy paired with zealotry, which is the only time we really need to be crit capped. You'll absolutely destroy everything while mapping with your 70-85% crit chance,
and itemizing for it more does literally nothing for single-target so it's a very wasted stat.

--- Why Crit Strikes Support Over Crit Damage Support?
As an Inquisitor crit-based build, critical chance is already weighted more importantly than with other ascendancies simply because of how much more damage you get due to critting (bypassing all resists), when you pair this with the fact that we are
dealing damage of multiple different elements, it means that it's a lot harder to get exposure in the build, thus making the resistance bypass of critting even more important. Numbers-wise, the damage difference between the two is quite small, 
generally learning very slightly towards crit chance depending on your current gear, but even if it were to be a slight damage loss, it would probably still be worth taking crit chance over multi simply due to how much smoother it feels to play. 

--- Tornado Mechanics
Tornado is a very important part of the build when it comes to single-target damage. When linked with increased duration, you'll have around 3-4 seconds to pump damage into it after you cast it before it 'turns on' and starts targetting enemies and
dealing a percentage of the damage you dealt to it to enemies in an AoE around it. Basically, throw this out and keep 100% uptime on it during bossing. I also tend to throw it out during sustained spawn mechanics such as harbinger packs, ritual, etc.

--- Shield Options and Melding of the Flesh
The shield option has a few different interesting choices with varying levels of investment. You can see the shield that I have which is a really solid option, and will likely be the most common for most HCSSF players' budgets.
However I think using a Saffel's Frame or a Aegis Aurora are also very strong options for the build. A more common but decent early option to go for would be a Ahn's Heritage, though I wouldn't stick with it for the endgame shield.
One last potentially very strong option would be max-res stacking on a hybrid-base shield, prioritizing a high life roll with spell suppression and max-res, either max fire or max lightning, when paired with the eldritch implicits on other pieces of gear
and Melding of the Flesh you can get +4-5% all max resistance, but this is obviously a much higher investment option and harder to pull off in HCSSF and is only going to be an option for experienced players since the jewel drops from one of the 
pinnacle bosses, as well as resistance balancing becoming much harder when running the jewel.

--- Item Level and its Importance for Crafting
Gear in Path of Exile has Affixes. Craftable affixes consist of Prefixes and Suffixes. These affixes have Tiers that determine the strength of their rolls. Item level is important because higher tier affixes are locked behind higher item levels.
For example, a very large breakpoint to aim for on a melee builds is to rush T6 maps as fast as possible, as item level 73 weapons can roll up to T2 % increased physical damage. Note that higher item level bases are **NOT** more likely to roll
higher tier modifiers. However, they are ABLE to roll higher tier modifiers, so getting higher item level bases is always desirable, but not necessarily mandatory outside of certain key pieces of equipment.
You can check required item levels as well as possible affix rolls and the likelihood to roll them (A.K.A. its 'weighting') at https://www.craftofexile.com/en , this site is absolutely invaluable for any and all crafting. Learning to navigate this site 
will help you progress much faster on your crafting journey in PoE!

--- Experimental Full Cold Conversion
This is a small note for a potential build path you can take to get more damage out of the build, but is completely untested by me, so YMMV.
If you are able to hit a high enough tier of cold to physical conversion on gloves through the eater of worlds implicit, you can bench craft on phys to cold conversion on the suffix as well and hit 100% phys to cold conversion, which will allow you to
drop phys to lightning conversion and use crit multi support instead, leading to a massive damage increase. The caveat here is that you lose +1 pierce, so you'll need to use Hunter Influenced boots, since they can roll projectile pierce.
The other issue you'll have to solve is shock, losing 50% phys to lightning conversion will make your shocks much weaker, so increased effect of ailments will become even more important.


--- Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds Implicits
HELMET - Exarch: Cast Speed, Cold/Lightning to Spells, Max Lightning Resistance | Eater: Increased Effect of Ailments, Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency, Increased Spell Damage
CHEST - Exarch: +1 Frenzy Charges every (x) seconds | Eater: Determination Increased Aura Effect, Hatred Increased Aura Effect, Zealoty Increased Aura Effect               
GLOVES - Exarch: Freezes you inflict spread to other enemies within a Radius of (x) | Eater: Projectiles Pierce +1 Targets, % of Physical Damage Converted to Cold Damage (Bench craft on whichever one isn't on the implicit)
  (This mod is VERY important, defensively it will perma-freeze the entire screen, and it gaurantees EVERY enemy will proc a herald of ice explosion)
BOOTS - Exarch: Sapped Ground, Increased Onslaught Effect, Max Fire Resistance | Eater: Increased Life Regeneration Rate, % of Physical as Extra Cold



--- How Did I Craft My Wand?
So there's a TON of different ways to craft your endgame wand. I'm going to start by listing my suggested priority order. Flat Lightning to Spells > Crit Multi > Cast Speed > Spell Damage > +1 to Phys Gems/Spells >>> Crit Chance.
-Essence-
I've found the easiest time hitting strong affixes to be using Shreiking Essences of Torment to force on a high tier of flat lightning to spells and just hitting it until you hit decent tiers with a mix of the above affixes with an open affix to craft what 
you're missing. 

-Harvest-
Same rules as above, just hit the following plot crafts until you get the right affixes.
Physical > Caster > Speed > Critical > Lightning

-Vendor Recipe-
There is actually a final method to use to craft a potentially GG wand. By vendoring a white wand with Physical tagged gems that add up to 40% gem quality in total you can get back a magic wand that has +1 to physical spells.
The game absolutely vomits hundreds of quality gems at us this patch, especially when utilizing the new influence altars that increase gem drops. You'll basically want to hoard lots of good wands to craft on, and vendor recipe them for the +1.
After the +1 you will augment and try to hit one of the affixes listed in the priority list given above. If not, scrap the wand and restart. If you hit it, then you'll regal. If the regal orb hits one of the affixes you've past the hard part and you should have
your endgame wand. From here you'll just multi-mod and put on the 2 affixes you are missing. 

(Example: +1 to Phys gems, you use a augmentation orb and hit cast speed. From here you regal orb and hit an acceptable tier of flat lightning to spells. Now you multi-mod benchcraft and put on crit multi and spell damage. Finally you can slam with an exalt
to fill your last suffix slot and prayge for crit chance or another decent suffix.)

--- How did I craft my other gear? This will be a list of what harvest + essence rerolls to use to achieve the gear listed in the gear section of the PoB.

---HARVEST CRAFTING---                                                                             ---ESSENCE CRAFTING + GENERAL NOTES---                                                                         
(F/C/L = Fire/Cold/Lightning)                                                   
Ordered from best to least optimal:
Helmet - Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense                                                          - Using Shrieking Essences of Loathing can give you some extra mana wiggle room early on to use a higher level vitality earlier.                                              
Chest  -  Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense                                                          - On the chestpiece you want to make sure you get a nice life roll with a nice spell suppression roll. An open prefix is MANDATORY for the gravicius craft.                                                       
Gloves -  Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense                                                         - Depending on which influence implicit you have, you want to bench craft on phys converted to cold, or +1 pierce - pick whichever you don't have on the implicit.
Boots -  Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense                                                           - It's preferable to have no movespeed affix on your boots so you can craft on movespeed + onslaught on kill.
Amulet -  Chaos, Life,Caster, Critical, Speed, F/C/L, Defense                     - Try to get cast speed and crit multi on the amulet, along with high life and preferably chaos resistance.             
Belt -  Chaos, Life, F/C/L, Defense                                                              - Sorrow essences are also a good way to craft the stygians as dexterity isn't in their modpool, so you can force dexterity on with Sorrows.
                                                                                                                       Rage Essences are also really good if you don't need the dexterity, as getting more strength is more crit chance for the build.
Ring  -  Chaos, Life, Caster, Speed, F/C/L, Defense                                   - I like hitting the rings with Essences of Hatred to force on % cold damage, or Essences of Zeal to force on cast speed, just slam until you get a good life and resistance rolls.
Shield - Chaos, Life, Critical, F/C/L, Defense                                              - Using a armor/evasion hybrid shield might be worth using if you decide to roll a rare shield since you can get a hefty spell suppression roll on it

Crafting in PoE can appear very complex and hard to understand at first. If this section is convoluted or difficult to follow, feel free to reach out for additional help - in the comment section on youtube, in my discord (https://discord.gg/ywtwB2pM5a), or 
on twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/fizecs)

I'll try my best to explain these concepts in realtime with a different angle that might help it easier to understand. But it's important to note that crafting in this game will take practice to truly understand. As with most things dealing with PoE, 
knowledge and experience are king. Just keep learning and collecting information as you play - and don't feel disheartened if it's difficult to grasp at first! We were all there!