[3.0]Elemental Blade Vortex Scion. A strong,cheap and fun leaguestarter. HC

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Delzeed wrote:

This is the build I am planning on starting out with in 3.0 for the hardcore league. It´s not super expensive and can survive without any uniques even if some boost it pretty well. I went with Scion because I thought it would be nice to give Scion another shot now that she is less bad compared to the other classes. For this build she even works out well due to good pathing and synergy between Pathfinder and Necromancer for quality of life playing, some chaos res never hurt, some phys reduction, flasks and damage.


Pros

Spoiler

Good damage without double dipping
Elemental damage
Fast clearspeed (not racewinning but very fast)
Kind of tanky (Fortify +3 Endurance charges + close to 7k life + MoM if you go the Herald + CoH route + 4% Phys reduction)
Cheap
Can level with the build easily or use some other skill for leveling if you prefer
Life based (199% + 5 jewels from tree for a potential 234% increased life)
MTX isn´t too bad
Good leech with warlords mark
5 Jewel slots
Easy to get resists from tree naturally so you can focus on other stats on gear, also helps while leveling.

Cons

Spoiler

Having to keep blades up can be annoying for some players
Having to be close to danger compared to ranged builds
No defensive curse or Arctic Armor
Hillock with Spectral Throw is awful compared to other classes :p

Map mods to avoid

Spoiler

Reflect elemental damage
No regen is fine but bring a manapot
Players have blood magic, can´t do this one.

And as with all builds, if you are playing hardcore you should avoid double damage mods since rares, and now the Heralds can have extra damage mods as well making that onehit a real risk. Depending on the boss I will run a generic damage mod + boss damage mods but on some bosses you should avoid it.

Vulnerability can be a pain for most builds as well if combined with strong phys mobs, or mobs with strong damage over time/ailments.

Other than that most map mods are no trouble at all.

Gem links
6Link setup: Blade Vortex, Phys to Lightning, Controlled Destruction, Increased AoE(Conc for bosses), Added Fire Damage, Elemental Focus

1+3Link setup: Hatred + CWDT,IC,Increased Duration

2+1Link: Blasphemy, Warlords Mark, Enduring Cry

3Link: Shield Charge, Fortify, Faster Attacks (Leap Slam for lab if you want)

4Link: Orb of Storms, Arcane Surge, Blind, Culling Strike

Alternative links

Spoiler

Orb of Storms, Arcane Surge, Culling Strike
Shield Charge, Fortify, Curse on Hit, Warlords Mark.
Enduring Cry, Herald of Ash

You can also go for the double herald (ash+ice) shield charge CoH Warlords and get a higher unreserved manapool making MoM stronger.

This will have slower movementspeed, higher damage and require you to shield charge to keep Warlords Mark up.

For more defense you can replace Herald of Ash with Arctic Armour.

Uniques
Divinarius, It´s a good and cheap one but can be replaced by a good rare for higher dps.
Carcass Jack, Life, resist all, AoE, damage and the Extra Gore effect.
Hrimburn, Elemental conversion so we go full elemental damage, some damage, cold res and strength. Have to get some other phys conversion to replace this lategame if you want more life.Important!
Kaoms Roots, Tons of life, Unwavering Stance and can´t be slowed below base speed. VERY GOOD
Belt of the deciever, increased damage, some life, strength, resist all and Nearby enemies are intimidated (It acts as a MORE multiplier)

Flasks

Spoiler

The Overflowing Chalice, this is very good for the build. Increased damage, 100% increased charges gained for your other flasks during the effect.
Taste of Hate, expensive but amazin since you get more cold damage and take less physical damage on use.
The Wise Oak, good if you manage to juggle your resists perfectly since it gives you reduced elemental damage taken and elemental penetration. But it´s situational and depends on your gear.

Aim for 1x instant life flask, 1 quicksilver flask with, 1 Sulphur Flask (preferably Overflowing Chalice), 1 Granite with increased armour or 1 Basalt. Basalt is better endgame for the flat reduction. For the last flask slot pick something you feel that you need, a second life flask, mana or hybrid flask, a second quicksilver or whatever suits you.

Remember to get bleed removal, freeze removal and curse removal in your setup. Depending on content and what you struggle with you might want a Chaos res flask with poison removal, Ignite removal or something else in that last spot.

Rest of the gear
Try to get double life rolls on your gear, cap resistances for Ele Weakness and then spelldamage/Attack Speed(for movementspeed with shield charge). Getting chaos resist is not a bad idea either and since we get so much ele res from our tree naturally we can go for a chaos res cap if needed.

Skill tree

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http://poeurl.com/bnVT

Path of Building

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https://pastebin.com/1cm6ZUQz

You can try other Ascendancies if you want but I prefer the Necro/Pathfinder combo for quality of life, good damage buffs, flask management and the 4% phys damage reduction and some minor chaos res.


Leveling tips

Spoiler

This assumes that you use Blade Vortex for leveling and that you have no hand me down leveling uniques.

1. Don´t forget to put 6 Blade Vortex in your weapon swap as soon as possible to level them up
2. Always preload blades before engaging in a bossfight.
3. Since you play a Scion you get your stats slightly later than other classes so don´t be afraid to pick up +Str, +Int or +Dex from gear since you get ok resists from your tree early on.

To get to level 12 you can easily use Frostbolt + Frost Bomb (Surprisingly good with the cold res debuff and you can drop it and keep moving to kill mobs chasing you). Also don´t forget to do you quest for the Quicksilver Flask since that is just too good to pass up. For movement pick up Flame Dash at level 10 unless you can trade for or get a lucky drop and get a shield charge.

You should try to pick up some kind of armour before fighting Brutus since it makes a difference, also get some cold resist before fighting Merveil.

At level 12 you can start running Blade Vortex, Added Lightning, Added Cold and if you got lucky with a 4link Added Fire. Once you get to Act 2 and level 16 you should get all 3 Heralds for a nice damage boost as well as an AoE boost due to the secondary effects of the heralds.

In Act 2 you kill all bandits for the +2 skillpoints from Eramir.

In Act 3 after you complete the library quest you get Blasphemy and Warlords Mark and then it´s smooth sailing. If you went for MoM by this point I would suggest using Herald of Ash with Blasphemy and Warlords Mark to have that mana buffer.

After that it is pretty straight forward, pick up the gems as you level and complete the quests. Focus on having resists capped or at least high while leveling (Act 5 and beyond has some nasty bosses that will instantly kill you if you have 0 or negative resists.)

Complete the library quest in Act 3 to have full access to all gems.

Make sure you have a freeze immune and a bleed immune flask since that makes a huge difference.

Damage
Damage is calculated with an active flask and the buff from Belt of the Deciever, slightly less without but still more than enough.

Damage with 20 blades and Increased AoE is about 300k endgame, 460k with conc effect. This can be boosted with top end gear but this is achievable by most players during the league.

10 Blades for general map clearing and increased AoE is 110k+ so more than enough to zoom through maps.

"

Yo, this build is being slept on.

This shit is actually so good, though I did change the tree around a little bit to suit my personal taste.

MyGear

282k damage, 179k against shaper.

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Songweaver wrote:

"

Yo, this build is being slept on.

This shit is actually so good, though I did change the tree around a little bit to suit my personal taste.

MyGear

282k damage, 179k against shaper.

And how do you fare against shaper with 179k total dps, if you don't mind me asking?
I would have never thought that vortex below 450-500k total could do shaper, thus the question.
I've seen 400k~ish sunder with max block taking him down and that took a while.
179k, assuming it's on 20 blades, and due to a fact that it's a BV, for that exact reason does not seem impressive and should take a while to take him down, if at all. The longer the fight, the more trash is on the screen, needs proper micromanaging etc etc.
Thus the question.

While I am interested in playing a Scion, and blade vortex, since I haven't played BV in ages, total dps rather seems on the lower end, specifically due to a fact that it is not a crit build.
But there lies another problem, if I aim to go crit, there goes my survivability down the drain, since I have to sacrifice life for the sake of crit, which would, in return, probably kill me on reflect.
May I ask you, the one who made this thread, is there any way that this Scion could perform on higher end damage to tackle the end of the endgame, or if you were to be forced to go crit route, how would you do it?
I kinda really wish to play a Scion BV, but whatever I do, I never pass the 200k mark with 20 blades (boss/shaper/guardians), and I really feel that it would not be enough, and that fact alone keeps me from starting the build, because I lie in fear that it would not be enough.
If I may be mistaken, I would like to stand corrected by you or community.
And if I am not mistaken, I would highly appreciate if you could make a crit variation of this Scion which still has decent survivability, or just pretty much give some advice?

EDIT:
https://pastebin.com/FwF4uiqz

This is the best I could think of (path of building code), it has around 530k dps on shaper/guardians selected, 740k with conc effect, buffed, of course. All affordable gear, nothing too crazy (ideal gear would yield around 1.3-1.5 mil in total on shaper/guardians selected, but it is nothing but a dream).
May I ask on your opinion over it? How do you think something like this would fare? Problem is, I would have to rely solely on vaal pact and nothing else, and with carcass or incandescent, I would barely hit 5.7k life, which feels quite on the lower end of life spectrum (even though the tree has 196% inc life I think)
I know Templar Inquisitor would have probably double the damage output, but I really want a scion, even at her mediocrity.
Also, if anyone else would have constructive advice that includes Scion and BV, I'd be happy to discuss the possible ways of building her.