[2.5][SC][INQ] Ele BladeFlurry CI, for beginners but not really.

When I start as a Templar, I usually pick up the Flame totem/Firestorm gem until I can get the Blade Vortex gem, then I use Blade Vortex all the way until I start doing maps. In Act 2 I take Herald of Thunder and eventually link that with Curse on Hit + Warlord's Mark. To me these are the most important skill gems for leveling up. I think Blade Vortex' damage mostly comes from leveling up the skill gem and the support gems you link it with, so eventhough my skilltree isn't made for BV, BV is my leveling skill of choice. Herald of Thunder is great because of the damage it adds to your BV and how it applies curses for you, in my case that is always going to be Warlord's Mark because I love the life and mana leech.

Usually, once you get your HoT + Cuse on Hit + Warlord's Mark you can stop using mana flasks and start using utility flasks like a Diamond and Silver flask. You will still need to keep at least 1 life flask though (I use 2), for boss fights or scary mob packs.
When your gear allows it you are also going to have a Herald of Ice + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark setup. Herald of Ice is great for the extra cold damage to your BV and when it's linked with CoH + AM it's going to generate power charges for you.
This means we are using 2 curses but can only apply 1 at a time. This is no problem though, because the AM gets applied to mobs that die fast, and if there are mobs that are more tanky (and thus pose more of a threat), that's when your HoT will apply WM and you can leech.

As you lvl up and get better gear with more linked sockets you can link BV with support gems such as Added Lightning Damage, Added Cold Damage, Faster Casting, Spell Echo, Physical to Lightning, Increased Area of Effect (kind of a luxury, I'd rather focus on more damage), Ice Bite (this will give you Frenzy Charges, only use in combination with Added Cold Damage), Increased Duration (also luxury), Increased Crit. Strikes/Damage, Life/Mana leech (only if you really struggle to keep hp or mana up). I can't exactly say which ones I would use because I just use whatever my gear allows me to. For example, if I want to use BV + Added Cold + Ice Bite, I would need at least 3 linked green sockets, but that can be quite hard to get on a pure energy shield body armor so I am not going to spend alot of chromes on it but I'll be happy with just 1 green and 2 blues and just use added lightning and spell echo for example. Anyways, I recommend playing around with a few and see which supports feel better to you (E.G. when you have a Tabula Rasa). Now that I've mentioned a Tabula Rasa, I want to say that I highly recommend buying one of these for lvling. I kept using it all the way to lvl 79.

As for defences, offence is the best defence. Yeah, ok, but you're still going to need more hp. While lvling you stay life based and slowly become hybrid, this will just depend on the gear you find while lvling. Early on I focus on life and resists on my gear, later on, when I start spending passive points in energy shield nodes I start to look for high ES gear with resists. Many people ask "At what lvl do you switch to CI?", but it's not a lvl related thing, it's more gear related. I switch to Chaos Innoculation when I feel like my ES is high enough, this is something you have to judge for yourself. A good indication is when you never start to cut into your life hp pool anymore when you take damage. This also makes your life flasks obsolete. So at this point you're going to want to focus on life leech. Ghost Reaver is a must have passive by now. You're also going to want to buy a Atziri's Promise flask, this will boost your damage and give you a bit more life leech. I used a Doryani's Invitation belt (for example, if you are using Phys. to Lightning + Added Lightning on BV, go for the lightning version) for the extra damage and life leech. If you feel like your HoT isn't applying enough curses/fast enough for you to get any leeching done, switching to Blasphemy linked with Warlord's Mark is a good solution.

Once I've reached Merciless Act 4 Aquaduct I farm the crap out of that area. I prefer Aquaduct over Dried Lake because it's linear, it has a waypoint on one end and entrance to town on the other, it's linear and the same lvl zone as Dried Like. You can also farm Humility divination cards here and sell the Tabula Rasa to get some extra currency while lvling. Did I mention yet that Aquaduct is linear? With Increased AOE on your BV you almost cover the entire lane which makes clearing Aquaduct a very enjoyable experience in my opinion. I farmed this til lvl 79 and with the currency I made here I bought a nice ES body armor and that's when I went CI and started mapping and when I started mapping is when I started using Blade Flurry instead of BV.

Body: Blade Flurry - Weapon Ele Damage - Physical to Lightning - Added Lightning Damage (4L) - Increased AOE (5L) - Ice Bite (6L)
Boots: Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Warlord's Mark (- Enlighten)
Gloves: Herald of Ice - Curse on Hit - Assassin's mark (- Enlighten)
Weapon: Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Ice Golem
Helm: Temptest Shield - Vaal Discipline - Vaal Haste - Increased Duration
Shield: Discipline (- Enlighten - Arctic Armor might be possible?)

If you are rich and can afford Skyforth, you swap Assassin's Mark for Poacher's Mark and Ice Bite for Faster Attacks. And add Enlightens to Heralds and Discipline and you might be able to use Arctic Armor then aswel.

Helm: ES, resists, flat accuracy.
Gloves: ES, resists, flat accuracy, attack speed.
Boots: ES, movement speed, resists.
Body: ES, resists.
Shield: ES, resists.
Weapon: Dagger, elemental damage, crit chance, attack speed, crit multiplier.
Rings/Amulet: Ele dmg with weapons, flat ES, resists, accuracy, attack speed, increased % es.
Belt: ES, Ele dmg with weapons, resists, flask duration, flask charges gained.

Vessel of Vinktar, a must have item, expensive but worth the currency imo.

Topaz flask of grounding, to remove shock from Vessel of Vinktar and also pop this flask when you see an elemental reflect mob.

Atziri's Promise, extra damage plus a bit of extra life leech.

Silver flask of heat, to avoid being frozen and gives extra speed.

Diamond flask of staunching, to remove bleeding and gives extra crit.

Stats to look for on jewels are:
Increased Damage.
Increased Melee Damage
Increased Lightning Damage
Increased Area Damage
Global crit multiplier
Melee crit multiplier
Crit multiplier with one-handed melee

Normal: Kill all, get the passive.
Cruel: Help Kraityn, get the attack speed.
Merciless: Help Alira, get the Power Charge.

Here's what the skill tree will look like when I'm around lvl 30:
Early skill tree
What I like to do is to just get the pathing done first, because to me, Normal and Cruel difficulty are so easy that it doesn't really matter where I spend my skillpoints in the tree. I take the 2 intelligence nodes at the start instead of the melee damage cause this saves me 2 points which can then be used to get a jewel slot which is more valuable to me as its more flexible aswel and the +20 intelligence still gives me 4% energy shield.
After the pathing I start taking alot of damage nodes (that would also apply to BV). Because I am a softcore player, the energy shield nodes have the lowest priority while leveling. I just want to clear content fast and faster. It doesn't matter if you die 4 times to Cruel Malachai for example, once you've killed him you'll be in Act 1 one-shotting all the mobs and you get that XP back in no time.
Your tree will look like this with some DPS nodes (I also included jewel slots, but you will take those as soon as you find/buy good jewels:
Skill tree with DPS stuff.
Next step? More jewel slots and a power charge.
Tree with more jews and PC
Your damage with BV will be pretty nice by now and the other damage nodes that are left to take won't really help your BV damage. At this point I could go 2 different routes. I could start taking the defensive nodes. Since you are still using life and energy shield, it might be a good idea to take Written in Blood and Melding first. Then you take the energy shield nodes and you will put a Energy From Within jewel in the jewel slot that's next to Melding. After this you're going to take Ghost Reaver, Vaal Pact and CI (if your gear allows it).
Your skill tree will look like this:
Defense route first.
Or... I can start taking the nodes that will help my eventual BladeFlurry build. I suggest taking Alchemist, Precision, Sanctity and Flaying first since they can still be useful while using BV. I chose this route for my character in Breach league.
The tree looked like this:
Flurry damage route first.

After taking one route, you add the other and you end up with the final build:
Final skill tree

After that you can still put more points in the energy shield wheel, or go for another jewel.

Ascendancy points:
1. Righteous Providence
2. Inevitable Judgement
3. Instruments of Virtue
4. Augury of Penitence