Blade Vortex

"

Vipermagi wrote:

The Curses need to out-level CwDT. Blade Vortex needs to stay below the CwDT threshold.

Awesome, thank you. That worked!

So, I've made Blade Vortex build (3.0 Harbinger). The goal was to test endgame capabilities of 'no-instant-leech' low mobility build requiring no league-specific items to work. And it seems 75/75 block 0/46 dodge is the only way to do that effectively as for melee range character.

Main suggestion - skill hit rate should never be lower than cast rate.

I understand the balance reasons why the skill has been made like that and now since CoC was removed from the game I think it's safe to revise BV again.
The skill at 1-10 blades feels underpowered and 'non-existent' even on lvl 95 character with 21/20 gems and 730% increased damage.
Leveling with BV from lvl 12 to lvl 38 was my second most frustrating PoE experience right after pure zombies Hydra kill.
It require at least one duration cluster, otherwise almost any other skill outclass it by damage and reliability at that lvl range.
Whole leveling process is a race to both duration clusters and spell echo, once the character able to keep up 20 stacks for 2-3 screens (at 30% ms) leveling becomes pretty pleasant task.
Non crit BV damage is barely enough for current endgame (even with full elemental conversion and EO)
The most significant upgrade is a culling strike.

I'm new to Blade Vortex and have a question about running multiple gems in different links. I've done some research but the skill has undergone several changes, so I'm not sure what I read was accurate. My thought is to use two four-link setups for a supportive BV. Not really sure on the setup but something like:

Link 1: BV, faster casting, spell echo, increased AOE (or maybe something to reduce cost like blood magic)

Link 2: BV, culling strike, onslaught (swap to blind for boss), life gain on hit

The idea is to spam BV1 19 times to quickly get the stacks up, then use BV2 once to gain the juicy support benefits for all 20 stacks, and regularly cast once to maintain 20 stacks.

Does the skill work this way? Pro tips, anyone? Character is a Cleave Duelist.

"

The_Witch_Hunter wrote:

I'm new to Blade Vortex and have a question about running multiple gems in different links. I've done some research but the skill has undergone several changes, so I'm not sure what I read was accurate. My thought is to use two four-link setups for a supportive BV. Not really sure on the setup but something like:

Link 1: BV, faster casting, spell echo, increased AOE (or maybe something to reduce cost like blood magic)

Link 2: BV, culling strike, onslaught (swap to blind for boss), life gain on hit

The idea is to spam BV1 19 times to quickly get the stacks up, then use BV2 once to gain the juicy support benefits for all 20 stacks, and regularly cast once to maintain 20 stacks.

Does the skill work this way? Pro tips, anyone? Character is a Cleave Duelist.

It doesnt. It used to work that way but it worked too well - someone on YT was showing how to kill shaper with white gear. It was changed rather quickly.

Now each BV will have own stack.

"

de99ial wrote:

It doesnt. It used to work that way but it worked too well - someone on YT was showing how to kill shaper with white gear. It was changed rather quickly.

Now each BV will have own stack.

Thank you. I appreciate the quick response.

After using the skill this league I have to say, it was relatively good leveling with BV. But it sort of soft capped by limiting its hit rate to 5 per second. The damage should be able to scale a little higher than it does. Even while making use of new shaper mods on weapons, chest, amulet, and abyss jewels, I am finding it nearly impossible to get much over 1 million DPS.



With this level of gear other builds are capable of reaching tens of millions of dps. Build is still decent, just not in line with what's out there atm. Other spells have no hit rate cap, and this one is pretty punishing at end-game.

Please redo the sound effect(hit) for this skill, it used to be so incredibly cool before the change, like sheering with a well oiled machine, so satisfying.

Also buff area.

I think in the next league, which will probably have a major review on most skills and support gems, BV could have 10 hits instead of 5 hit per second, it would be a reasonable midfielder between the old 20 hits per second and this new 5 hits which has lasted some time (pre 2.5 patch and post 2.5 patch).

Its duration could be 8 seconds, I instead 5.

BV will be getting a handful of interesting changes in Incursion league. Incase anyone missed the reveal of Vaal Blade Vortex (which sounds pretty cool, sentient vortex) here are the changes:

Max number of blades reduced to 10
More multipler per blade raised from 30% to 35%
More multipler per blade for ailments removed
Hit rate increase per blade raised from 10% to 35%
-New functionality added- Gain 10% Increased Critical Strike Chance per blade

The multiplier removal from ailments is probably going to be related to the revamp DOTs are getting this coming patch cycle, so that isn't too worrying. The real interesting bits are the lowering of the blade count but in exchange for a much better hit rate than current version along with a slight multiplier buff and the addition of crit chance ramping.

The lowered count also means that Spell Echo will be far less common of a need and opens up another link for non-cast speed stacking builds.