[3.6] Whizzy's Bow Blade Vortex Chieftain [9k+ HP & 10mil+ Shaper DPS]

Chieftain has insane scaling for fire damage and works extremely well with blade vortex. This build has the highest 1st month BV dps in Syntesis by a long shot and can easily clear all content. I do think crit would beat it long term with much better gear.

Pros:
Extremely high damage
Significant clear speed buff from new bow implicit
Phase run up almost all the time

Cons:
Requires a mana flask
Have to stand close to enemies
Highly recommend the mana leech enchant on boots

Bandits:
Kill all

Pantheon:
Major - Arakaali
Minor - Shakari
These are not set in stone, Arakaali is only for the Immortal Call/Blood Rage interaction for 50% increased health recovery

Gems:

Bow:
[G] Blade Vortex
[R] Empower
[B] Intensify
[B] Concentrated Effect
[B] Elemental Focus
[B] Controlled Destruction

Gloves:
[B] Armageddon Brand [only used on bosses, cast four times for arcane surge]
[B] Combustion
[B] Arcane Surge
Faster Castiing (shaper gloves)

[B] Flame Dash [don't link to combustion and arcane surge]
Faster Castiing (shaper gloves)

Helm or Boots: [+1 level of socketed gems craft in helm would be good for herald and zealotry but then you can't get all three life prefixes. Both gems gain 1% more damage at lvl 21.]
[G] Enhance
[R] Herald of Ash
[G] Phase Run
[B] Elemental Weakness (flamability if you aren't using enhance)

[B] Zealotry
[R] Cast When Damage Taken
[G] Blood Rage
[R] Immortal Call

If I had more sockets, I would use Wave of Conviction in CWDT.

As mentioned by TyroneSwaggins in the comments, CWDT, immortal call, increased duration, and phase run where phase run is higher level than CWDT (so it can be cast manually) can be useful for permanent phase run and longer immortal calls.

If you prefer to autocast your curse, you can put it in CWDT. Make sure not to link Zealotry and Enhance. You can also replace Blood Rage with a lightning golem since it's only here for the Arakaali pantheon - Queen of the Great Tangle interaction which can be messed up by the forbidden taste flask.

For Delving I recommend Blasphemy instead of Zealotry.

Super Budget Path of Building Pastebin (<100c & over 1mil dps)
https://pastebin.com/H2uFrezR

I wanted to play a budget build in Delve that could clear all content and this is what I ended up with. A full fire conversion Blade Vortex (BV) which uses Signal Fire instead of Avatar of Fire. The maximum damage output with this build is not as high as dual stat sticks but for <100c (way less than the cost of one six link chest) I believe the dps is much better (easily over 1mil).

Base Setup Costs: (Note these prices are from 2 weeks into the league)

6L Short Bow* - 50c (or farm "The Porcupine")
Deafening Essence of Woe - 6c (vendor 3 "shrieking essence of woe")
Aetheric + Scorched Fossils - 5c (alternative to essence during delve league but may take a few tries to get 20% more spell damage and damage penetrates fire resistance)
Signal Fire w/ 30%+ extra phys as fire - 3c
Amulet w/ 16%+ extra phys as fire - 5c

Total: <65c

All other items just look for:
- life
- resistance
- strength (for life)
- dexterity (since BV is a dex gem and we don't have much dex on our tree)

For jewels look for:
- % Maximum life (expensive)
- % spell damage (does not affect your explosions)
- % area damage
- % damage
- % global physical damage
- resistance (only if needed)
- dexterity (only if needed)


With the above items, you will have 1mil dps

*When crafting this short bow, first alt until you get the suffix "Worthy" before chroming for the colors. It could take ~300 chromatic orbs to get RGBBBB. It took me 350 chromes on my first bow and 15 chromes on the second. I would either use single chroms or craft 1 blue socket.

While leveling I usually go straight up from Maurader to the Templar area and respec later. Make a beeline to elemental overload then get the rest in this tree. After this I like to get the duration nodes by Scion.
https://pastebin.com/hgBMZmhC

If you ever have issues with being stunned, we're only 4 nodes from Unwavering Stance

lvl 90:
https://pastebin.com/H885uDbP

lvl 95:
https://pastebin.com/UcdkUetF

lvl 100:
https://pastebin.com/JX1H0QYy

On every piece of gear, focus on life, strength (for more life), and dexterity (gloves, boots, and amulet).

Bow: I plan to use the +1 bow as a weapon swap for bosses, its mocked up in PoB. See crafting section if you have questions.

Quiver: The corruption is not necessary but is a decent cheap boost in dps

Helm: Purchased with enchant, crafted with Pristine + Scorched Fossils

Chest: Kaom's Heart - ideally higher fire damage

Gloves: Shaper w/ Faster Casting (needs high dex)

Boots: 30% move speed (needs high dex) highly recommend the leech implicit

Rings: Check your own PoB to determine breakpoints for %buff effect

Amulet: Aim for high life with 16%+ extra fire (needs high dex...)

Belt: Aim for high life (and strength) - damage mods are from Scorched + Prismatic Fossils + Pristine for life

Flasks: I swap out for warding on curse maps

Jewels:
7 jewel slots in tree and 1 in belt. Without Might of the Meek you would still have 8.5k+ hp. A corrupting blood jewel can help since we aren't using a staunching flask. I swap out my belt jewel for onslaught when mapping.

This is less a "guide" and more my journey through ssf. A leveling section was requested so I just copied my SSF character's equipment here as I leveled. A lot of these choices probably weren't optimized but were what I had available to me. You'd be better off sticking with another skill until end game probably.

Overall takeaways:
- Blood Magic will solve all mana issues but comes at a cost of a ~40% more damage multiplier
- Wave of conviction debuff is pretty good on cwdt


lvl 1-17: any skill you want, picking up added fire herald of purity, and herald of ash from quests
lvl 18: equip "hrimsorrow" and two "the princess" and in a "tabula rasa" blade vortex - concentrated effect - controlled destruction - elemental focus - arcane surge - added fire
lvl 24: hatred (level up zealotry) and temporarily remove herald of ash
lvl 23: elemental overload and first labyrinth
lvl 26: avatar of fire and malachai's artifice with herald of purity (remove ash for now) and first labyrinth
Note: I do not use avatar of fire in my final tree. I only use it while leveling for its interaction with hatred causing my herald of purity to apply -50% fire res through elemental equilibrium.

lvl 28: armageddon brand + combustion
lvl 31: intensify and unleash replace arcane surge and added fire. link arcane surge to flame dash and faster casting. herald of ash and blasphemy + flammability replaces hatred. Need a minion abyss jewel that adds cold or lightning damage to minion attacks.
lvl 38: immortal call + cwdt

For implicit mods, look for bows with <159 dex (lvl 21 BV) so you don't need too much dex.

Implicit crafting: Below are the most guaranteed ways but you can also try to get lucky by using bows with more mods.

Killed Enemies Explode:

Explosions comes from three items with 15% increased light radius. Technically you only need 40% total but that introduces an accuracy mod in the pool of possibilities so I would avoid 10% increased light radius bows.

1) Buy three bows with 15% increased light radius as the only fractured mod.
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Synthesis/KoOg2PI5
2) Scour and Regal
3) If the new affix isn't life/mana gained on kill, annul (annul will keep the item rare)

Synthesizing these three bows will have a 50% chance of getting the explosion mod

+1 to Level of Socketed Gems:
Same thing as explosions except you need +1 to level of socketed gems as the only fractured mod and theres a 100% chance to get the implicit.
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Synthesis/vYLzkzcE


Finish coloring your bow with the jeweler method while it has the suffix "of the apt". I personally then spammed perfect fossils for 26%+ quality then crafted +18% quality and spammed fuses for 6L before moving on to crafting explicit mods.


Explicit mods: I have bad luck so I went with the low variance option

Low variance: (4ex + annuls and aetherics)
1) Spam aetheric fossils until you get one with just 20% more and 3 suffix
2) Annul so that you have 20% more and 2 suffix (repeat steps 1-2 if you lose the prefix)
3) Craft "Cannot roll attack mods" then exalt
4) Craft "Prefixes cannot be changed" then scour

High variance: (2ex + annuls and LOTS of fossils)
1) Spam aetheric, corroded, metallic, and prismatic fossils until you get +1 to level of socketed gems and 20% more as the ONLY prefixes
2) If you have 3 suffixes, annul (repeat steps 1-2 if you lose a prefix)
3) Craft "Prefixes cannot be changed" then scour

At this point you can craft "can have multiple crafted modifiers" and craft the other mods.