[3.9] Somayd's Blade Vortex Assassin | Map zoomer | All content | Endgame Farmer | Video Guide

To anyone who's considering playing this build - don't. Like OP said in his first post, monster life increase, boss life increase and Metamorphs make this build feel like shit until you can invest 20ex+.

At minimum for damage you'll need 2x Void Battery and BoB which is already ~13ex, then consider the fact that the build has essentially zero defense layers and you'll have to invest in those. And no, casting Steelskin doesn't count as a defense layer especially when your STR doesn't allow you to go over gem level 15.

I decided to play around and make myself feel less suicidal, because the build as it is in OP can literally get annihilated in two auto attacks from a white skeleton.

Grab Acrobatics/Phase Acrobatics
Use Quartz Flask
Your AoE is 0 when you're dead, use Hyrri's Ire or Kintsugi
Learn how to use Withering Step
Invest more points in Life

This will keep you at 75/75 dodge and spell dodge, and roughly 45% Evade. I have 5400 life at lv92, DPS ~1,9mil on Standard Boss and it feels fine, but I can still get one tapped by a Metamorph or a boss.

Forget about doing Guardians with a lot of Watchstones, this is the wrong build for it. It's fast, but unless you spend insane amount of ex you'll get stuck on any proper boss/morph. It's not worth it.

I also chose poorly and decided to league start this build. I originally tried to focus on evasion and DPS. Although I had 65% evasion + flesh and stone stance (20% evasion from blind) and 60% dodge with Elusive + acrobatics/passives the result was that I would run 3-4 T15-16 maps ok and then I would just get splatted. I could not ever get enough XP to to level past 91. Additionally, I died instantly in both the Mastermind fight and Sirius. This was very frustrating to the point I was about to reroll a Jugg.

I ultimately realize that lack of armour is a real problem as Katarina attacks are fire/physical and I assume Sirius also has some physical component as I could not even touch the chaos storms, even briefly. The solution I came up with is: Militant Timeless Jewel "converted by High Templar Avarius."

https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Militant_Faith

This jewel grants 80% of mana to be converted into double the amount of armour. I have about 1100 mana unreserved, so that is 1760 armor (or from 0% mitigation to approximately 18% from the in game tool tip). Note that since this build basically reserves all its mana and uses diadem worth edritch battery, there is no negative to the keystone. Also note, the more expensive versions of the jewel (currently 2-3Ex) can also have spicy passives that add all elemental resist and area damage. Pathing through the area converts unused int stats to 40% area damage and 16% all res.


The game now feels a lot more fair and I have not instantly died since. I have actually been able to level again. For those who are stubborn and want to keep at it, I recommend giving the jewel a shot.

Looking forward, at some point if I pick up a Farrul's Fur or a redeemer chest that generates frenzy charges, I might spec out Keystone and use the devotion based abilities, which have some great notables that can be rolled such as arcane surge on hit, cold conversion, cold exposure on hit, +1 to max res, and +5% physical dam reduction, each of which could have multiple occurrences. This build basically has enough points in the jewel slot to the right of instability to hit 150 devotion.

is cold damage while affected by herald of ice or increased buff effect of hoa in circle of fear better for chain explosions?

I made this build and it's crap. I die all the time. I don't understand how you did to have the resistances in 75. (I have the resistors at 50 hopefully) 1 hit and u are dead. I spend almost 15ex for nothing.

Hi there, after spending a lot ! in this build I can say the following

Gear: Farrul's furr + devouring diadem + 2x void Battery + rare gloves, belt and boots.

Circle of fear, and badge of the broderhood, and also a nice watcher's eye with all u want it to have.

Also to avoid dying im using acrobatics an phase acrobatics


I can:

Delve till 380 depth, im really strugling to go deeper, so im just farming in 300- 320 aprox

Maps tier 16 without ele reflect. Watch out for bosses they will kill u.

Metamorphs are really hard to complete.

Im dying a lot.

Im super fast so im delving and making tons of currency worth in resonators and fosils.



I would really wish to have an upgrade to this build to make it more viable. In the mean time im leveling up a mana guardian.


C ya guys hope this helps.

PS. If u did this build just go delve u wont regret it.

I do a lot of dmg, but my ress are 75% and chaos ress -48. How can i fix it?
I was thinking of removing all pasives of life, and putting everything in energy shield and putting CI

I started the league off with this build and I must say I find it quite fun. It is fast and it can clear well. I did not have any problems going up to t12 maps. At the moment I am doing t16 maps but I did so far put around 40+ex into my gear. (was only playing for a week and a half at the start due to holidays)

The thing is, you can not afk with this build. You need to check the metamorph mods and know what they do or you die to chaos dmg most of the time, otherwise most of the stuff is doable.

So far I only had problems with Sirius as the chaos damage wrecks me. Guardians and the rest are not a problem.

I am fine with resists as I switch to another belt for hard maps with -res but yeah, still need to figure out how to fix chaos better.

All in all I think it is a solid build if you are willing to stick with it but you will hear it sucking the exalts out of your bank.

I would like to see a change in the moderate price of call of the brotherhood, 9 ex might be a little expensive i thin.

is this build :

https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/darktemplaru/BlackSpinGirl?i=4&search=skill%3DBlade-Vortex%26allskill%3DShield-Charge%2CHerald-of-Ice

better then the on posted here? you guys all post problem about the build in metamorph, but i found like 10 people on poe.ninja playing the build I linked

"

xenochaos1 wrote:

is this build :

https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/darktemplaru/BlackSpinGirl?i=4&search=skill%3DBlade-Vortex%26allskill%3DShield-Charge%2CHerald-of-Ice

better then the on posted here? you guys all post problem about the build in metamorph, but i found like 10 people on poe.ninja playing the build I linked

Tbh you can't say "better", because this is a different class and different approach to blade vortex. Clear speed better? Survivability better? Dps better? Without any context on the "better", I would say, I don't know.

I will start comparing with these 2 builds on a min maxed state, since you linked me a min maxed build so I have to use another min maxed assassin bv build on PoE ninja, so this is the one I found.
https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/sylove/Metamorph_bvassasin?i=4&search=class%3DAssassin%26skill%3DBlade-Vortex

Price
On first glance, this assassin build looks way more expensive than the pathfinder. I have no idea what's the exact price of their gears, but just a glance of both of the builds you can clearly see there's a difference there.

Damage
I guess I don't need to tell you much because you can literally see the damage on top of there. 7.5 mil vs 1.9 mil so uh, yeah.

Survivability
Pathfinder looks way tankier cus on the gem section I saw that he have arctic armour and fortify on shield charge, also the hp is significantly higher.

Clearing / mapping
No idea, cus I never played pathfinder bv. I don't know which one is better but I've looked some videos on the internet about the PF bv, assassin version looks way faster.

Also, I just quickly glance through the amount of people playing this version of blade vortex, I found about 20+ of them, I sort this out by looking at their damage, if they mostly deal cold damage I just count them in, because either you play a poison BV or this cold version BV, so if they deal mostly cold, I just count em in, I did not look through their gear 1 by 1.

We are struggling because of budget issues only, once we have the gear set we pretty much have the same result.