Blade Vortex: Now deals 3 to 5 Physical Damage at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 128 to 191 at gem level 20 (previously 86 to 129). Now has 30% Effectiveness of Added Damage at all gem levels (previously 20%).
The nerf to Unleash does not affect Blade vortex since it reoccuring simply adds more stacks.
Mostly updated for 3.17, amulet crafting might still need to change and will have to see if new eldritch modifiers are worth replacing any current gear with.
Will try to update more if needed as i play the league.
Changelog
Feb 14 - Updated amulet, flasks and boots section along with few adjustments on pob.
Feb 03 - Mostly updated for 3.17 now, removed Coralito's signature, Blood rage and added more sources of life regen to hopefully have better survivability against tougher encounters. Along with other small tweaks and cleaning up in pob.
jan 28 - Slight update for 3.17, will try to update more as i play the league
Pros
-Fast mapping.
-League start viable.
-Endgame upgrades possible.
-Can do easier bosses with practice.
Cons
-Needs strength from tree or gear as you get closer to endgame.
-Capping resistances is annoying for Headhunter version.
-Struggles with harder/multiple boss encounters.
Gear (Ignore gem links)
Helm
Get one with resistances to make gearing easier.
Allocate the notable "Influence" and Reservation mastery "15% increased mana reservation efficiency of skills" and lvl 3 enlighten as soon as possible after getting The devouring diadem to fit all auras.
Until you can afford it use Goldrim or any rare helm with life and resistances in combination with an enduring mana flask or Eldritch battery from tree (make sure to have enough energy shield from gear if using this).
Body
Triple influence mod sacrifical garb w/ spell crit, additional curse and +1 level of socketed active skill gems. crafting guide in pob notes.
Until you can afford an influence chest use either Tabula rasa or 6 link rare chest with as much life as possible.
Gloves
Explode from Asenath's gentle touch for faster clear speed, make sure to allocate whispers of doom from skill tree or acquire a +1 curse chest to be able to double curse after adding these to the build.
Until you can afford Asenath's gentle touch use either rare gloves with life and res or The embalmer.
Boots
Fill boots with res, life or whatever else you need, evasion base is preferred.
Searing exarch modifier "Drops brittle ground while moving, lasting # seconds" is a flat 5% critical strike chance to anything standing on it and is very easy to make use of as a Blade vortex character.
Lab enchant 80% chance to avoid being stunned if you've killed recently makes a noticeable difference and i recommend getting it once you got a good pair of boots.
Belt
Any belt with as much life and res as possible. stygian would be best base type and getting strength if possible helps with gearing.
Not necessary but headhunter can fit with enough resistances from gear and clusters.
Mageblood could also fit in place of Headhunter but im not sure what to change on tree or gear and i would assume someone who can farm one would be clever enough themselves.
Amulet
Retaliation charm gives a nice boost to damage and is very affordable.
Ashes of the stars is the endgame option giving damage along with other bonuses to every active skill gem, Max reservation efficiency combined with a Enlighten lvl 4 can be used to fit Herald of purity into the build to boost damage further.
Anoint Toxic strikes to cap chance to poison.
Rings
First ring should be a rare ring with "+# life gained for each enemy hit by your spells" and as much resistances and life as possible. If you cannot afford this yet get one without life on spell hit but it makes a huge difference.
For the second ring you want one with "Curse enemies with despair on hit, with #% increased effect, along with anything else you might need life, attributes etc.
Weapons
Two Cold iron points for most damage. damage over time is the best corrupt.
Use Bino's kitchen knife in place of one Cold iron point if you don't have Asenath's gentle touch for poison spread.
Weapon swap
Sinvicta's Mettle allows you to gain free rampage by weapon swapping to the axe and killing one enemy then swapping back to your cold iron points.
Shield
Mistwall or Replica Mistwall mainly used where damage doesn't matter as much (heist) or if you feel the need to be tankier.
Flasks
Main setup. Instilling and enkindling are both fine, i prefer mine automated.
Another alternative to bottled faith or atziri's promise if you are struggling against certain ailments
Clusters
Get as much resistances on these as possible if you plan on using Headhunter at some point.
Large
Overwhelming malice is first priority. Second would be grim oath and for the third one touch of cruelty, Wicked pall also works as a last resort if there is nothing else. Two notable clusters are okay to begin with and are cheaper.
Large cluster should also not have more than 8 passive skills since you will end up wasting skill points on any with more than that.
Medium
For mediums get Circling oblivion and flow of life.
For passive skills no more than 4 or 5 so no skill points are wasted.
Small
Get two with surging vitality for regen.
These should have no less than 3 passive skills.
Jewels
"#% to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence" adds lots of damage. "Damaging Ailments you inflict deal Damage #% faster while affected by Malevolence" is a cheaper option. Any other malevolence, grace, determination or precision modifiers on top of that is also good but gets way more expensive.
If using stygian vise get Phasing on kill, life, res and/or damage on abyss jewel.
Withering step - Plague bearer - Enhance lvl 4 - Increased area of effect.
Whirling blades - Faster attacks
Defiance banner
Enduring cry
Immortal call lvl 3 - Cast when damage taken lvl 1
Leave Cast when damage taken at lvl 1 and Immortal call at lvl 3 or so that it triggers when around 25% of your health is lost.
Weapon swap
Dash - Second wind For bosses or getting over ledges. Portal
Map modifiers to look out for
Reroll map
- -#% maximum Player Resistances
- Players are Cursed with Elemental Weakness
- Monsters fire 2 additional Projectiles
- Monsters reflect #% of physical damage (if you have high enough crit chance you can run these maps due to opportunistic)
Won't brick the map but slows you down
- Monsters have a #% chance to avoid Poison, Blind, and Bleeding
- Monsters are Hexproof
- +#% Monster Chaos Resistance
Can clear entire map but might stuggle with boss/tough targets
(as long as you have the devouring diadem and life gained on hit ring)
- Players have #% less Recovery Rate of Life and Energy Shield
- Players cannot Regenerate Life, Mana or Energy Shield
No need to worry about
- Monsters have #% increased Critical Strike Chance
+#% to Monster Critical Strike Multiplier
(with mistwalker you take no extra damage from crits as long as you are elusive which we always have up)
Pantheons / Bandits / Ascendancy
Bandits : kill all or help Alira for early game regen/resistances.
https://pastebin.com/A7EpVWX9
Im trying to follow the guide, can you please help fixing it ? the damage seems lower than what i'd expected
Here's mine https://pastebin.com/MBTgzTnL sitting at 8m DPS. I think you're missing a few things that would probably spike you a good chunk, though they may be various levels of expensive.
1) Prolonged Pain from Forbidden Flesh/Flame. Straight 20% damage increase
2) Overwhelming Malice on Large Cluster is pretty huge too. Without it I drop 1.7m dps.
3) If you get a 20% Ashes and slot Grace efficiency for evasion mastery next to Revenge of the Hunted, you should be able to use Herald of Purity.
Bonus) Get the Brittle Ground Exarch implicit on your boots. It won't show up in POB yet, but it'll help get more crits which already have better scaling for poison + more chance of getting Unholy Might from Overwhelming Malice above. Your crit chance is already way better than mine, probably thanks to Bottled Faith.
Thax so much for this build. Im having a blast playing this thing. REally well explained and the links for the trade are such a nice touch. Im still using purity of element atm to get my res capped until i can buy a good pair of boots, but the ailments immunity is also really nice.
Hello, Thanks for the build, I enjoy playing it.
can I have some guidance on which item should I sought to upgrade first from my current build right now?
Here's my POB pastebin: https://pastebin.com/1YqYE90z
Also can you give me some tips with dealing with a boss that have damaging aura/area of effect around its body? having a hard time try to apply my poison to the enemy without have to constantly dashing around in order to minimize damage taken.
Hello, Thanks for the build, I enjoy playing it.
can I have some guidance on which item should I sought to upgrade first from my current build right now?
Here's my POB pastebin: https://pastebin.com/1YqYE90z
Also can you give me some tips with dealing with a boss that have damaging aura/area of effect around its body? having a hard time try to apply my poison to the enemy without have to constantly dashing around in order to minimize damage taken.
That POB looks like the original one from the guide so I have no idea what you actually have equipped right now. Happy to help though!
Hello, Thanks for the build, I enjoy playing it.
can I have some guidance on which item should I sought to upgrade first from my current build right now?
Here's my POB pastebin: https://pastebin.com/1YqYE90z
Also can you give me some tips with dealing with a boss that have damaging aura/area of effect around its body? having a hard time try to apply my poison to the enemy without have to constantly dashing around in order to minimize damage taken.
That POB looks like the original one from the guide so I have no idea what you actually have equipped right now. Happy to help though!
Oops my bad, here's my POB : https://pastebin.com/tjTPmxaw
Should be the correct one now.
Oops my bad, here's my POB : https://pastebin.com/tjTPmxaw
Should be the correct one now.
Alright, unsure what your budget is and how much you want to prioritize damage increase vs survivability but have a few options at least. If I'm reading your POB right your damage is already pretty freaking good, but your max life and survivability seem lacking by a lot. 2.7k life is tough to be surviving on especially at lvl 86. If I had to guess I'd say you've probably been dying a lot.
1) All rare equipment is pretty baseline. You have the life on hit/despair rings, but they're missing a lot of good stats otherwise. Every rare item you have should be providing you with T3+ life rolls to bolster your health pool. Of your current Boots/Rings/Belt I'd say the boots are decent to keep (though I have a suggestion for them) but the others should be visited to see how much it'd cost to upgrade while still keeping your attributes + resistances in check.
2) Cluster Jewels are pretty bad and could be upgraded for decently cheap. Having an 11 passive large means you're spending 2 extra points just finishing it up. Getting an 8 passive with the 2 notables you have right now would be <20c. 3 notables would be much more expensive (2-4 ex i'd guess) but that alone would net you some points.
Medium jewels with 4-5 passives + Circling Oblivion and 1 other good notable wouldn't be too expensive either.
Later on (90+) you could possibly slot in some small clusters at the end of that chain to get a lot more life too.
3) You can get another Cold Iron Point instead of Bino's now that you have Asenath's. Huge damage increase.
4) Watcher's Eye instead of your normal jewel with a Malevolence mod (deals damage faster or DOT multiplier).
5) If your resistances are still capped after changes, I'd replace your Bismuth flask with a Granite Flask with +% to armour during flask effect. If you need more places to get resistances, you can find some on your abyss jewel.
6) You could probably sacrifice some damage for survivability by re-pathing some stuff. I would maybe nix Growth and Decay and the points leading down from it in favor of pathing on the right side of the tree (3 Int nodes) and plugging in Herbalism and Intuition down at the bottom. Will of Blades could also just turn into Blood Siphon and suddenly you're at 3.3k life without having touched your rares.
Bonus things) Do Uber Lab. Opportunistic is good for boss damage and survivability in mapping.
Spam Eldritch Embers on your boots to try and hit Brittle Ground. It'll be a very good QOL + likely damage increase.
There's obviously some way more expensive stuff like buying or crafting your own late game armour, but I think these are way more important for now. Let me know if you have any questions or follow up, cheers!
Last edited by cerealbawks on Mar 7, 2022, 10:05:22 AM
Oops my bad, here's my POB : https://pastebin.com/tjTPmxaw
Should be the correct one now.
Alright, unsure what your budget is and how much you want to prioritize damage increase vs survivability but have a few options at least. If I'm reading your POB right your damage is already pretty freaking good, but your max life and survivability seem lacking by a lot. 2.7k life is tough to be surviving on especially at lvl 86. If I had to guess I'd say you've probably been dying a lot.
1) All rare equipment is pretty baseline. You have the life on hit/despair rings, but they're missing a lot of good stats otherwise. Every rare item you have should be providing you with T3+ life rolls to bolster your health pool. Of your current Boots/Rings/Belt I'd say the boots are decent to keep (though I have a suggestion for them) but the others should be visited to see how much it'd cost to upgrade while still keeping your attributes + resistances in check.
2) Cluster Jewels are pretty bad and could be upgraded for decently cheap. Having an 11 passive large means you're spending 2 extra points just finishing it up. Getting an 8 passive with the 2 notables you have right now would be <20c. 3 notables would be much more expensive (2-4 ex i'd guess) but that alone would net you some points.
Medium jewels with 4-5 passives + Circling Oblivion and 1 other good notable wouldn't be too expensive either.
Later on (90+) you could possibly slot in some small clusters at the end of that chain to get a lot more life too.
3) You can get another Cold Iron Point instead of Bino's now that you have Asenath's. Huge damage increase.
4) Watcher's Eye instead of your normal jewel with a Malevolence mod (deals damage faster or DOT multiplier).
5) If your resistances are still capped after changes, I'd replace your Bismuth flask with a Granite Flask with +% to armour during flask effect. If you need more places to get resistances, you can find some on your abyss jewel.
6) You could probably sacrifice some damage for survivability by re-pathing some stuff. I would maybe nix Growth and Decay and the points leading down from it in favor of pathing on the right side of the tree (3 Int nodes) and plugging in Herbalism and Intuition down at the bottom. Will of Blades could also just turn into Blood Siphon and suddenly you're at 3.3k life without having touched your rares.
Bonus things) Do Uber Lab. Opportunistic is good for boss damage and survivability in mapping.
Spam Eldritch Embers on your boots to try and hit Brittle Ground. It'll be a very good QOL + likely damage increase.
There's obviously some way more expensive stuff like buying or crafting your own late game armour, but I think these are way more important for now. Let me know if you have any questions or follow up, cheers!
Thank you so very much for this in-depth look into my character build, I will try to follow your suggestion to best of my capabilities, but to be frank I don't have very much knowledge yet in POE as this is my 2nd character that I cleared the story act. And yes I die a lot even in T12 map, will pay more attention to the map mods and Archnemesis mods from now on. Should I try to re-roll my rare somewhat later down the line when I can get 80+ Ilvl Items? or hitting tier 2 life mod + necessary res is enough to get by to T16 maps and bosses? to be honest I never reach this far with a build before so its safe to say that this guide/your Inputs is very good. Once again thank you very much
Thank you so very much for this in-depth look into my character build, I will try to follow your suggestion to best of my capabilities, but to be frank I don't have very much knowledge yet in POE as this is my 2nd character that I cleared the story act. And yes I die a lot even in T12 map, will pay more attention to the map mods and Archnemesis mods from now on. Should I try to re-roll my rare somewhat later down the line when I can get 80+ Ilvl Items? or hitting tier 2 life mod + necessary res is enough to get by to T16 maps and bosses? to be honest I never reach this far with a build before so its safe to say that this guide/your Inputs is very good. Once again thank you very much
Happy to help! This game is hilariously complicated so kudos for being willing to learn. I'll also try to make it a bit less complex then and focus on the important baseline stuff:
This build is actually pretty fortunate in that there aren't any map mods that make a map a non-starter. Many builds have to look out for reflected physical/elemental damage but we're safe there.
What you really need to survive any maps is a good enough life pool + damage mitigation (75% elemental resists/armour/evasion/spell suppression etc) so that when you DO get hit, you can take it and keep on running/heal back up. If you look in POB on the left hand side you can see 'Effective Hit Pool' and "Eff. Maximum Hit Taken' which are big. Right now your pool and mitigation are low, so your max hit is low (~6k damage). Just switching to an armour flask like I suggested bumps that up by almost 50% which is a huge increase. For reference (i posted my POB earlier) my max hit taken is almost 20k, so I can shrug off a lot more.
If you're playing trade league, you can search for rings with modifiers you want such as this (opening the filters shows i'm looking for despair on hit, life, and total resists)
Finally, you've locked yourself in a bit on getting strength from a handful of sources (rings/belt). If you want I have a 78 life, 58 strength, 47 fire res stygian vise for free, which would take away some limitations on getting strength on one of your rings. If you'd need it to be cold or lightning res instead I could fix it too. Just ping me in game or message me on here
