(3.3) Full Lightning MoM Blade Vortex Inquisitor

Greetings Exiles!

This is my first guide, so any and all feedback is welcome. Blade vortex is a super fun, and obviously strong, skill. However, the tri-elemental witch that everyone runs is too squishy for my taste. I tend to like tanky builds that can get up in the thick of things. I also like well rounded builds. I don't tend to have time to produce a ton of different characters at the same time; things like dedicated lab farmers or boss killers are tough for me to justify. So, I present to you my BV Inquisitor. Let's go through some of the things that make this build unique compared to other BV builds.





Features

Reasonable cost - No super expensive uniques required to get the build feeling smooth (though some certainly enhance build strength significantly!)

Very high health pool - Around 8k combined hp, mana, and ES at level 90.

Lots of sustain - Tons of health/mana regeneration and respectable life/mana leech.

Elemental ailment immunity - Lets us run lots of great utility flasks without being at risk, plus the obvious defensive benefits.

Lots of elemental damage reduction - Between wise oak, the ascendancy ele damage reduction, and of course the ailment immunity, you feel very strong against elemental damage.

Good immortal call uptime - With warlord's mark endurance charge generation and high increased skill duration, every time you proc immortal call it lasts a few seconds. I level CWDT fully to insure max duration each time and enough time to rebuild endurance charges.

Respectable chaos resistance - 20% from the tree plus an atziri's promise. You can also run the pantheon power that reduces incoming chaos damage.

Lots of cast speed and increased skill effect duration - It helps this build run really smooth overall.

Elemental overload based - Makes for cheaper gear without having to find crit multi on stuff.

Pure lightning damage and tons of shock effect - You shock stuff pretty late into the game. Maybe not at the level of shaper/guardians, but I was shocking yellow elder pretty consistently when I fought him.

Nice balance of pack clear and single target - With vaal blade vortex and vaal lightning trap, you do tons of damage to single target. Decent increased AOE, herald of thunder, and Inpulas later, all contribute to solid pack clearing.

Highly mobile - I use both shield charge AND leap slam to be very mobile and provide flexibility depending on the situation and terrain.

Resistant to degens and lab traps - The high regen and MoM makes any hp based damage (traps, corrupting blood) a lot less scary.


That's a lot of features! It's not necessarily the best at anything, but proves above average at just about everything.





Path of Building Pastebin

https://pastebin.com/eMUErHxg


This has all my current gear, skill tree, skill setup, etc. Of course, I will go into more detail below.





Recommended Uniques - Stormcharger




These babies are super cheap, and help perform a full conversion of physical to lightning damage. The shock effect helps keep things shocked into mapping.





Recommended Uniques - Atziri's Foible




Another cheapo unique. Helps you meet your base stat requirements, and gives you tons of effective health and regeneration. Since you get just over 8% mana regen base (consecrated ground, existing base, arcane surge support), this gives you basically another 10% or so with the implicit.





Recommended Uniques - Inpulsa's Broken Heart




Herp derp dee derp. Obviously OP item, but even more OP in this build since it scales lightning damage a lot AND benefits heavily from effect of shock.





Current Gear Setup




The most notable addition here are some temple gloves that convert the last 20% of physical damage to lightning damage. Everything else is optional. A lot of it works very well with this build, but you can be flexible with the remaining slots. Sadly it appears this won't be available next league, but will hopefully make a return in 3.5!





Skill Gem Setup

Vaal Blade Vortex - Physical to Lightning - Arcane Surge - Lightning Penetration - Controlled Destruction - Added Lightning/Efficacy

Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Warlord's Mark - Blind

Shield Charge - Leap Slam - Fortify - Faster Attacks

Immortal Call - Cast When Damage Taken - Increased Duration

Summon Lightning Golem - Increased Minion Life - Minion and Totem Elemental Resistances

Vaal Lightning Trap - Increased Duration - Greater Multiple Projectiles? - Lesser Multiple Projectiles?


Alright, let me explain some of my rationale for these gem choices. I know the arcane surge support seems questionable, but we heavily benefit from all of the stats provided. It does damage, reduces clunkiness, and add a significant boost to mana regen (tankiness and utility). I absolutely love it, and every time I've tried to swap it out I hate it.

Herald of thunder pretty standard curse on hit setup. Blind is super nice as well. If I could get a godlike corruption on Atziri's foible to get a second curse I would run conductivity over blind most likely (another defensive option like temp chains or enfeeble is totally reasonable too).

Shield charge and leap slam combo is amazing! I love having the flexibility to switch between the two. I may end up using this setup in other builds.

Immortal call is fully leveled. I have nearly permanent IC uptime as I'm mapping since it lasts a few seconds. This gives me a chance to generate more charges before it would proc again.

The lightning golem may seem questionable, but I just don't have any need for other skills. Plus, the consecrated ground effects your minions, giving them tons of life regen, damage, and attack/cast speed. Your golem rarely dies!

I'm using a low level pair of Stormcharger greaves right now that are only 3 linked, so technically I haven't used these links on vaal lightning trap. Seems like it would make sense to increase the duration and area of coverage on explosion. Haven't tested this though.





Ascendancy

Instruments of Virtue - Sanctify - Pious Path - Augury of Penitence


Instruments of Virtue - Amazing for the hybrid build. The cast speed, attack speed, and damage gives you a great combination of damage, mobility, and quality of life.

Sanctify - Damage and regen. Tankiness goes up significantly here.

Pious Path - This is where things get really smooth - The attack and cast speed and huge boon to mana regeneration decrease build clunkiness and enable a super strong mind over matter with crazy regeneration. Ailment immunity is obviously great too.

Augury of Penitence - Obviously just all around strong. Ele damage and mitigation in one.





Pantheon

This is a very hard choice. Right now I'm sticking with Brine King for the main pantheon power for the functional stun immunity, but there are lot of arguments to be made for other choices. The Blood rage setup plus Arakaali for the big regen is potentially really strong for example. It's hard to test these too much, but I feel the stun immunity is a safe bet for now.

For the minor power I'm using Shakari, but Gruthkul and Yugul (For example against Atziri to prevent that reflect clone from murdering you) both seem interesting. Ralakesh can be good before running lab as well. None of them synergize especially well with this build, so probably flexing based on your encounter makes the most sense, but I've primarily stuck with Shakari.






That's it for now! I will come back and update this later. I'm about to head out on vacation but wanted to get something up and running so I can see everyone's feedback when I return! Also, a shameless plug for myself: I stream regularly on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/cowpimp). Come check me out if you want to see it in action. Thanks!

Last bumped on Aug 24, 2018, 11:15:21 AM
Arcane surge in the main links whaaaaaat
Love the sound of this build.

Would you recommend this as a league starter? I like to farm uber lab in Day 1-5 and tired of using the usual Jugg/Slayer.

What gear progression would you suggest on this build to make it uber lab farmer ready?
"
Arcane surge in the main links whaaaaaat


I know it seems weird, but other possible links dont give way more damage (except perhaps conc effect/inc aoe swapping), and the combination of damage, smoothness, and survivability added by this is totally worth it in my opinion. People are PoB/tooltip warriors far too often; sometimes the reality of having to cast another spell randomly instead of keeping your blades topped off all the time isn't worth it with this skill.

Furthermore, should someone try this and manage to nab an Indigon, the extra mana regeneration is even more important.




"
Love the sound of this build.

Would you recommend this as a league starter? I like to farm uber lab in Day 1-5 and tired of using the usual Jugg/Slayer.

What gear progression would you suggest on this build to make it uber lab farmer ready?


Totally viable as a league starter. The only thing I would say is thsy until temples come back an the phys to lightning conversion gloves come back, you will miss out on some damage. However, the 2 most important uniques are dirt cheap. Not to mention you can theoretically get away without atziris foible, I just find it super strong.

As far as farming lab goes, you need nothing special. If you want, you can turn on the reduced phys damage while moving pantheon, but this build wrecks the lab. MoM, very high regen, and somewhat long immortal calls are very safe in the lab. Damage is high enough to dumpster Izaro quickly, and effective HP means you can eat an accidental slam and not die.



Thanks for your patience to replies. As mentioned I posted this right before vacation. Cheers!

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