Hey all. I have long since loved eldritch knight, it's actually my favorite thing in the game, and I have heard much chatter from guildies/friends that it is bad. They claim they have not seen a good EK at cap. I decided that hopefully I can do my best to fix that. I have played EK more than any other build in my 5 years of playing, and I have done it on both multi completionists and low lifers. I like to believe I know EK better than anyone, but I am sure that I can learn much from you guys. I hope you find this guide helpful. EK is the melee tree for wizard and sorcerer, but I will only be talking about wizard. why?
Wizard vs Sorcerer
Wizard
- More spells means more selections (can take ALL the buff spells)
- 5 bonus feats so you can actually play as an ek (sorc doesnt get any so getting all the feats is difficult)
- Mainstat trance while being pure
- Mainstat is stat for spellcraft, your most important skill
- Int based so more skill points
- Inscribe spells so dont need blood of dragons or vip
- Palemaster cores all give +5 USP, while sorc savants give +10 to 1 element
- Palemaster lich form for healing, lots of defense sorc cant get, and undead immunities
- Potentially more enchantment DC from palemaster that sorc cant get
- Potential inflict weariness usage
- Can get pet for levers if you want
- Did i mention it can heal?
- More hp from palemaster forms and enhancements
- Death aura stuff
- More spell DCs than sorc due to palemaster form
- Id argue better past life than sorc, but thats more an opinion than a fact
- Can get SLAs from archmage if you wanted ig
- Not only is undead form healing, its easy healing
Sorcerer
- Main stat is main stat for umd
- A bit better spellpower and caster levels (CL irrelevant if pure as you should be, spellpower isnt as much due to wiz, see above)
- Arguably better filigrees due to raid cha fili being reverberation for +2 imbue dice
- Double cast times
- More spellpoints (that you probably wont need)
now some of you may be wondering, what's up with all this talk about spells? well...
Offensive spells?
EK looks like a spellcaster tree. 140+ universal spell power, DCs and spell pen in t5, and spell crit chance when you melee. All the things you could possibly want on a spellcaster. However, EK is not an offensive caster. The tree focus on melee damage with the imbue, as well as melee power, hit, damage, and hit points. This begs the question, why does EK give all these spellcaster stats? also, is it worth doing hybrid casting and meleeing? I can tell you with authority it is NOT worth casting offensive spells on EK. this is because it is impossible to gear the character to have competitive melee DPS and competitive spell DPS at the same time. anyone who tells you to cast say fireball is gimping you. you will do more damage with 1 swing than 1 fireball, not to mention the gearing nightmare that already is EK. this leads me into my next question, why does EK give these spellcaster stats. EK gives spellcaster stats because the imbue scales off of spell power, and the crit chance is for your healing spells. the DCs in t5 are also important, but I'll get to that later...
Why Wizard?
now that I have cleared up a common misconception about offensive spells, I can fully explain why Wizard. Sorc's biggest advantage is double casting speed and more spell points. Is this worth giving up PM healing/defense, wizard feats, and mainstat hit/damage/trance (Harper agent)? the answer is no, it is not. sorcerer loses too much over wizard for the MELEE EK I am building. you play sorc to cast big explosive spells, not hit people with a sword.
Offensive Spells? (continued)
just because I said we wont be casting offensive spells does not mean we will not be casting spells. Offensive spells to me are spells that do direct damage to mobs. This means buff spells/healing spells/CC spells/proc spells do not count (for me). in t5 EK, you can take +2 enchant/illusion DC as well as +4 spell pen. in the cores of PM, you can take 2 more enchant DCs. This means EK has the potential to get a competitive DC on powerful CC spells such as mass hold and Otto's sphere (and gcs if gnome). this is the main casting component of EK for me: mass hold. mass hold is a level 9 spell you get at level 17 wizard, and it is easily your most powerful spell. with enough DCs, many quests become an absolute meme due to its short cool down, big AOE, and large duration. even high reaper becomes a joke once you start pushing the DCs. now that you cast mass hold (and Otto's), you can fill a secondary role in your group, that being a CC character. that is not the only spell you cast. your other important spells are
Death Aura,
shard storm (primal avatar), and
cut the strings, not to mention all the buff spells.
Death aura is extremely powerful, both being a good health over time spell as well as a proc spell. There are many effects in this game that proc on spellcast, and death aura ticks sometimes count for that (I will not not disclose what and where because I do not want it to get fixed if its a bug, just trust me).
Shard Storm is just as important, because it gives you much needed temp hp, decent damage, and most importantly it stacks up arcane warrior and forces point. with shard storm these abilities can be kept at max stacks all the time.
Cut the Strings is an instakill spell in t5 of fatesinger, my recommended epic destiny t5. this instakill works on any monster and is an enchantment save, which you already have the DCs for for hold. It also applies a large amount of sonic damage on hit vs bosses, making it a great choice for raids.
What Weapon?
EK is mostly unique among melees in that it doesn't pigeonholed you into 1-2 weapon types. Monk has to be staff or fist, barb basically has to be thf (debatable), pally/cleric/fvs need favored weapon, rogues want twf light weapons and so on. EK is different in that it can use any weapon in any style almost equally. yes, some weapons are inherently better due to better crit profile and style and such, but let me give some recommendations for weapons and why
- kukris (or daggers) - combining EK with VKF and kukris is extremely powerful due to VKF being a great secondary tree and kukris having a great crit profile. main downside is you have few points to spend in PM
- Falchion (or other thf weapon) - with strong AOE cleaves, high single hit imbue damage, and great sustain makes thf a walk in the park for leveling. leveling a melee has never been so easy
- bastard sword or dwarven waraxe (my favorite) - with these weapons, one can take the swf feats for leveling for giga attack speed as well as thf specialty at 31, giving large attack speed and strike through all in one. this is what I would recommend for making reaper mode a total joke at cap (not bad in raids either, but kukris better)
- Longsword - with swf, longswords get good crit/multi with knights training, meaning you can get very good single target dps even without VKF. my testing (in a reply below) shows LS will kill bosses 30% faster than bastard sword. play bastard sword at your own risk! 30% is a lot! (take this with a grain of salt, my testing method isnt realistic so i doubt its 30%, probably lower)
What Style?
just like with weapons, EK can do any style it wants (I wouldn't recommend ranged, but this is a melee guide). I shall now breakdown pros/cons of the different styles and my personal thoughts on them
TWF
twf is great for single target raid and boss DPS, and it synergizes extremely well with kukris and VKF. Throw in all the EK cleaves, spells, and CC this is a very tempting style for those who want to carry a raid. However, even with the cleaves the leveling isn't great and you give up other defining features of the other styles. I like twf for when I need raid DPS or need to bring lots of debuffs.
THF
thf is what you take on a leveling EK, not a cap one. this is a very potent style for leveling for obvious reasons, and the imbue makes up for thf general reliance on critical hits for damage. obviously it underperforms at cap due to slow attack speed, but that's a well know fact. I am not a huge fan of thf, but that's because I make my builds for cap.
SWF
swf is my favorite style for many reasons. most importantly this is your bread and butter for the thf/swf bastard sword variant I enjoy, and I plan on writing a build for that in the future. In addition, swf gets good main stat to damage, MP, and high attack speed. this means it is the perfect style for taking patience, which can increase your DPS by a good amount. swf also gets vorpal range 19-20, which helps when proccing on vorpal things such as sov lightning strike or storm reavers thunderclap. Also, swf can be used with an orb or runearm in the offhand, which can potentially give you much needed stats, debuffs, process, or abilities depending on which you use. my favorite is alchemical orb with sov lightning strike and alchemical acid attunement.
Why Pure?
this guide is generally going to be about pure wizard. that begs the question 'why pure?' the EK capstone is extremely strong, giving 2 int, 2 imbue dice, and a proc that gives you 10% more damage and 4 more imbue dice. since you are already using eldritch strike for the transformation buffs, this is free damage, and a large amount at that. Sorc has a large problem where pure is not viable due to many issues, and this is one more reason for wiz over sorc.
What Race?
EK, being a generalist, can work with a wide variety of races. My personal favorite is gnome or deep gnome for GCS, illusion DC, +4 int, and mrr and dodge. deep gnome also gets 20 spellcraft which is very good. if not going the gnome route, tabaxi could fix the main issue with EK: its slow. EK is a very slow melee, and you feel it when you zerg. aasimar does NOT work for EK because ascendant cannot be active at the same time as PM shroud. last race i will mention is SDK because SDK with kukris and VKF is quite silly.
EK issues
EK, while great, is not perfect. as mentioned before, it is slow. some people do not like slow. i play as gnomes cuz they are small, cute, and feel like they are fast
. EK can have issues at range, like any melee, but you can potentially CC them with mass hold if they are in range. another issue is for some reason ssg gave EK 15% comp hp in t5. idk if this is wizard hate or what, but it makes absolutely no sense. you need all the hp you can get, and ssg doesnt want that apparently. the last issue I will name is you struggle against monsters resistant to your damage or immune to your crowd control. golems are your living hell, treat them with care and hope your physical damage is enough.
Which Imbue?
EK has 4 different imbues: acid, cold, electric, and fire. the main issue with these 4 choices is they all scale with a different spellpower and EK has no way to bypass resistant or immune enemies. you can swap between imbues, but that can get annoying. I personally like the acid imbue because very fem mobs are immune to acid. sadly, many monsters are resistant to acid, and stone guard champs can wreck your day. the other imbue i would recommend is electric because practically no monsters are resistant to electric. yes, some monsters are immune to electric, but its no where near as bad as fire and cold. if you use fire or cold imbue, you should seek professional help right away.
What Mainstat?
I know there are many people out there who say "if a melee isnt str based, its crap!" yes, i have heard this, and no i dont agree. going str based means giving up on your greatest tool: your CC spells. mass hold is busted, and with int based you can get enough DCs. not only that, but harper agent is an easily accessible way to get int to hit/damage, not to mention an INT trance. this is extremely strong because the trance is free damage and tactics DCs, and with my recommended epic destiny set up you need every last tactic DC possible.
Skills
EK is a wizard, and wizard does not get many skill points or class skills. however, as an INT based character you get many skill points, more than you realistically need. here is a priority list of skills
- spellcraft - more spellpower is more damage. damage go brrrrrrrr
- heal - this gives more negative spellpower which boosts your heal spells. PM healing are small heal over times, so you need every last ounce of spellpower.
- tumble - EK is slow, you desperately need the movement speed and evasion this provides
- umd - while you get access to teleport spells, you need this for when your dumb party member eats a roar or walks into spikes and dies. they will thank you when you resto and res them.
- balance - this is especially important if you are getting the swf feats. if not, take this to prevent being tripped as long. if you are CC too long, you are dead
- search - you are an INT based character, and with a swap can easily find all the secret doors in the game. special mention to MA opt door
- swim - this isnt required, but i like swim to move fast. personal preference
- jump - you get the jump spell, this is just if you die during skellies and are doing the jumps
- concentration - this is just if you have low lives/bad gear and need to res people with scrolls
- everything else
Viable with Low Lives?
EK, as a DC character, is dependent on good gear and past lives for DCs, just like any other caster. However, the melee aspect of EK needs neither, and can be great fun on a low lifers. I have been able to hit good DCs on CC spells for older content, but modern content needs help from past lives. don't let that discourage you, you can hit no fail DCs for leveling on a first lifer no problem. endgame DCs are just so outrageously insane that it's a struggle without lives.
Is EK Good at Cap?
this is a tough one to answer. to me, EK is an acquired taste, and I have definitely acquired that taste. its not something that everybody will love, it just meets all the criteria I have for something I like: CC, DPS, healing, and defense. EK at cap is, to many people, a sub optimal option compared to other melees like dragonlord and barbarian. yes, the imbue might pull aggro, and your DPS isn't #1, but that isn't your purpose. EK as a class is designed to fit any role the group needs. it can be a trash clearer, a boss killer, a reaper/raid CC bot, a buffer, or a debuffer. depending on your gear and build, you can do most of if not all these things. EK isn't about hitting the biggest DPS numbers, its about making every group complete and making difficult solos easy. EK is an amazing class to solo with, and I have soloed endgame raids and midskull reaper with EK (if I cared to solo r8-10 I bet I could). EK may not be for everyone, and it definitely isn't the strongest thing, but it is a generalist. it is a jack of all trades master of none. with EK, you can give your group a stronger chance of succeeding, and r10s become a meme. This doesn't mean EK is perfect. I would not take it into push raids due to imbue aggro problems and not #1 DPS, but that's ok considering push raid builds are so cookie cutter anyway.
EK Has Imbue, Therefore is Imbue Build, Right?
I wish it was that simple. pure imbue EK has many, many problems, with the biggest one being aggro. with 40 imbue dice and 1k+ spell power, you strike a boss once and will never lose aggro again. the deeps may be good, but immune/resistant monsters and the insane build you need make it not good. you are much better off going for both melee and imbue stats, with a good mix of them. I generally hit 22-28 imbue dice depending on gear, and around 300 melee power with buffs in reaper (no prowess). yeah, that doesn't sound good on paper, but when put together with all the procs, CC, and debuffs its actually quite good. you have enough physical DPS that immune mobs get killed, and you have enough imbue damage that your damage per hit is very strong. if you want an all imbue build, go play alch. if you want an all physical damage build, go fighter or barb. EK is a mix of both, for better or worse, but it allows you to be more flexible in your damage, and the multiple imbue toggles allow you to switch damage type depending on the monster.
Final Thoughts
I'm sure I will think of more topics to put in this guide, and I will add them when I think of them. EK as a build is not the strongest, but that is ok given how much of the game you can do. the healing of wiz EK from PM is strong, and you get lots of temp hp from epic destinies. this is a build designed for solo players who want free leveling and can solo raids at cap. it might not be the flashiest build, but I'm sure if you follow my tips your opinion on EK will change for the better. all hail EK!
