[3.9] Blade Vortex Max Block Poison Assassin - Very tanky running simulator



Hello and welcome to my Blade Vortex poison build guide. Poison is one of my favorite mechanics in this game and after I tried bunch of other poison skills I decided to give BV a spin (hehe). And after I fleshed out the survivability issue it turned out to be really good so here it is.

So, how do we actually survive?.
First, we try to not die from one shots and for this the build is utilizing respectable health pool (around 5.5k-6k life), Fortify what reduces the incoming damage from hits by 20%, Mind over Matter what makes 30% of damage to be redirected to mana, Eldritch Battery what makes Energy Shield protect mana and so MoM damage is redirected to Energy Shield and Silent Steps what reduces the incoming damage by another 5%. With all this we end up at really high effective HP. But this is just EHP + mitigation, we use 2 more defensive layers on top of this. First one is dodge and evasion. We blind everything with Flesh & Stone what means every second attack that is directed by us simply misses and on top of that we use dodge and spell dodge with Elusive and Phase Acrobatics what adds another layer of avoidance. And on top of this we also cap both spell and attack block with Kiloava jewel, Reckless Defense and some shield nodes. Kiloava jewel gives us Glancing Blows what doubles our block chance but also makes us take half of the damage from blocked hits what do not sounds that great but we also utilize shield with mod Recover 5% of life when you Block what makes this jewel absolutely amazing because this means we have huge life recovery when stuff is hitting us. And for another layer of recovery we get Feast of Flesh from Devouring Diadem what basically recovers full HP and ES every 5 seconds (as long as there are corpses around, and with CWDT + Desecrate we make sure that is always true).

And now, how do we actually kill stuff?
This part is a lot simpler, we just use Vaal/Blade Vortex, Plague Bearer, Wither totems and we run around bosses and they die (eventually). For clear, Blade Vortex, Plague Bearer + explody chest (or Bino/Asenaths) allows us to just run through maps, killing everything around.

Changelog

Spoiler

19th February 2020
- Added end-game optimization section

18th February 2020
- Added Increased Area of Effect to leveling section
- Level 70 tree now takes also Eldritch Battery and Mind over Matter as it assumes league start scenario without Devouring Diadem
- Starter setup is now using Cold Iron Point and Bino's Kitchen Knife as it assumes no Kiloava so we care less about block

17th February 2020
- Created the build


Pro's & Con's

+ Decent single target. The build can reach around 4.5M single target DPS with current setup (what has a lot of room for DPS upgrades) and additional 3M burst with Vaal Blade Vortex
+ Really good clear speed (because of very high movement speed, explody chest and Plague Bearer)
+ 230% increased movement speed
+ 8.3K+ EHP (5.9k life with 30% MoM)
+ 93% melee avoid chance, 93% projectile avoid chance, 94% spell avoid chance
+ Fortify (20% less damage taken from hits) + Silent Steps (5% reduced damage taken)
+ Can do all map mods
+ Can do all content (except Hall of Grandmasters)

- Requires some uniques for all defensive layers to build up and also for maximum clear speed
- Damage is not as high as on more offensive BV variations
- Enemies do not die instantly so sometimes we can take some dangerous hits (we combat this with our high defenses)
- Life sustain can be troublesome before getting either Maw of Conquest, Devouring Diadem or enough block chance together with life gained on block shield

Content Done

- All guardians
- All conquerors
- Atziri
- Uber Atziri
- Shaper
- Elder
- Cortex
- Sirus
- Delve depth 370+

My characters using this build

- Metamorph character

Path of Building

Path of Building is tool for PoE to plan gear, skill tree and calculate effective damage. It also contains Bandits and Pantheon choice. You can download it here. The guide is tailored for modified version of PoB with some additional features so after you download regular PoB head here for installation instructions for modified version. After that simply import below Pastebin URL into PoB:

Pastebin

Navigating through PoB (important, read carefully)

There are trees for level 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20 and 10. Bear in mind that low level trees are optimized for my playstyle and do not really prioritze taking a lot of life early.
Use dropdown in bottom left corner of Tree section in PoB to cycle between the trees.

The tree is utilizing Glancing Blows keystone in order to improve our defenses. Glancing Blows doubles our block chances and makes us take 50% of damage from blocked hits. To get Glancing Blows, simply get Lethal Pride jewel with modifier Commanded leadership over (10000–18000) warriors under Kiloava. The number of jewel does not matter, only the name is important.

There are 2 item sets:
- Default: This is regular version utilizing life on block shield and Devouring Diadem
- Starter: This setup is designed for league start, using Tabula Rasa as body armor for easy 6 link, Maw of Conquest as cheap way to get sustain and some damage and Bino's Kitchen Knife to aid with clear speed

How to configure PoB for your own character

After importing your character to PoB, follow these steps to properly configure it to show your actual stats:

1. Switch to your Blade Vortex setup in Main Skill section and set blades to 10
2. Enable all flasks in items section and switch to configuration section
3. Set Is enemy boss? to Shaper/Guardians
4. Set # of Withered stacks to 15
5. Set # of Virulence stacks to 40
6. Set # of Poisons applied recently to 30
7. Set # of Poison on enemy to 30


Pantheon

For your major god Soul of Lunaris is good pick as we are block/dodge build and extra dodge is always helpful. For bosses Soul of Solaris is very effective as well.

For your minor god soul of Ryslatha is great pick for extra charges for life flask and extra life recovery from it what helps a lot with single target sustain.

Ascendancy

Get Noxious Strike first. Then get Mistwalker and Toxic Delivery for some damage and mobility and finally get Opportunistic from Uber Lab.

Leveling and gearing

Leveling gear



Gem progression

The gems and setup below are sorted both horizontally and vertically based on priority, where stuff on right and bottom is less important in each level breakpoint section. Gem names that are italic are the ones that change since previous level breakpoint.

Level 1
2 link - Cobra Lash, Lesser Poison

Level 4
2 link - Cobra Lash, Lesser Poison
1 link - Dash
1 link - Steelskin

Level 8
5 link - Cobra Lash, Lesser Poison, Void Manipulation, Lesser Multiple Projectiles, Unbound Ailments
1 link - Dash
1 link - Steelskin

Level 10
5 link - Cobra Lash, Lesser Poison, Void Manipulation, Lesser Multiple Projectiles, Unbound Ailments
2 link - Wither, Spell Totem
1 link - Flame Dash
1 link - Smoke Mine
1 link - Withering Step
1 link - Steelskin

Level 12
5 link - Blade Vortex, Lesser Poison, Void Manipulation, Unbound Ailments, Increased Critical Strikes
2 link - Wither, Spell Totem
1 link - Flame Dash
1 link - Smoke Mine
1 link - Withering Step
1 link - Steelskin

Level 16
5 link - Blade Vortex, Lesser Poison, Void Manipulation, Unbound Ailments, Increased Critical Strikes
2 link - Wither, Spell Totem
1 link - Flame Dash
1 link - Smoke Mine
1 link - Herald of Agony
1 link - Flesh and Stone
1 link - Withering Step
1 link - Steelskin

Level 18
5 link - Blade Vortex, Lesser Poison, Deadly Ailments, Void Manipulation, Unbound Ailments
3 link - Wither, Spell Totem, Faster Casting
1 link - Flame Dash
1 link - Smoke Mine
1 link - Herald of Agony
1 link - Flesh and Stone
1 link - Withering Step
1 link - Steelskin

Level 24
5 link - Blade Vortex, Lesser Poison, Deadly Ailments, Void Manipulation, Unbound Ailments
3 link - Wither, Spell Totem, Faster Casting
1 link - Flame Dash
1 link - Smoke Mine
1 link - Herald of Agony
1 link - Flesh and Stone
1 link - Plague Bearer
1 link - Despair
1 link - Discipline
1 link - Withering Step
1 link - Steelskin

Level 31
5 link - Blade Vortex, Poison, Deadly Ailments, Void Manipulation, Unbound Ailments
3 link - Wither, Spell Totem, Faster Casting
1 link - Flame Dash
1 link - Smoke Mine
1 link - Herald of Agony
1 link - Flesh and Stone
1 link - Plague Bearer
1 link - Despair
1 link - Withering Step
1 link - Discipline
1 link - Steelskin

Level 38
6 link - Blade Vortex, Unleash, Poison, Deadly Ailments, Unbound Ailments, Vile Toxins
3 link - Wither, Spell Totem, Multiple Totems
1 link - Flame Dash
1 link - Smoke Mine
1 link - Herald of Agony
1 link - Flesh and Stone
4 link - Plague Bearer, Despair, Withering Step, Increased Area of Effect
1 link - Discipline
3 link - Immortal Call, Increased Duration, Cast when Damage taken

After you switch to shield setup (or dagger setup) switch to either Shield Charge or Whirling Blades together with Forify and Faster Attacks links.

Core setup

After you will be done with leveling, your core item setup will look something like this:


Try to get Devouring Diadem and good Life gained on block shield or The Surrender as soon as possible.

If you do not have Tabula Rasa but you have Embalmer Carnal Mitts and you want at least 5 link, put your setup inside Embalmer, with Vile Toxins from it you will have 5 link.

End-game optimization

You can get very nice corruptions on your Cold Iron Point, for example power charge on critical and as we are crit build, it is pretty powerful:


If you want some extra defense and ability to stack even more poisons on enemy you can get Hands of the High Templar gloves with Temporal Chains and Despair on hit together with Whispers of Doom annointment on your amulet (if you are rich, you can go for double curse and either +2 to socketed AOE gems or +1 to socketed gems for even more levels on Plague Bearer and Withering Step):


To improve clear speed even more, you can go for Tailwind boots:


To get even more damage you can replace Quartz flask with Bottled Faith:



Media

Mapping
Shore Lvl 88
Courthouse Lvl 88

Bossing
Elder Lvl 88
Shaper Lvl 92
A8 T16 Baran Lvl 90
A8 T16 Drox Lvl 92
Cortex




Delve
Delve Depth 376 Lvl 88
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Last edited by thedeathbeam on Feb 20, 2020, 6:10:28 PM
Last bumped on Jun 27, 2020, 10:17:01 AM
Small update:

Added Increased Area of Effect to leveling section at level 38 and changed Plague Bearer + Despair + Withering Step to 4 link at that point.
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Another small build update:

- Level 70 tree now takes also Eldritch Battery and Mind over Matter as it assumes league start scenario without Devouring Diadem
- Starter setup is now using Cold Iron Point and Bino's Kitchen Knife as it assumes no Kiloava so we care less about block

This makes the tree pathing a lot more league start viable, at around level 80 the tree is switching to block + diadem setup (of course if you have currency and/or items earlier, it is possible to switch sooner). Same thing goes for bino + cold iron vs bino + leper arms, without Kiloava and Life on block shield its probably better to just run double daggers to get more DPS before switching to defensive setup.

Main post is already updated with new pastebin and core setup changes.
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Another small update:

- Added end-game optimization section

This section is mostly for gear upgrades after you acquire some currency, but also for gear alternatives.
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Added new gameplay video:

A8 T16 Drox Lvl 92

Surprisingly quick kill
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
i imagine not many ppl are commenting because there are a couple of poison blade vortex assassin threads, but yeah i was going to league start this build next league and this is more the way i was going to go about it as well.

i really like that double block chance take half damage from blocked attacks modifier
"
xMustard wrote:
i imagine not many ppl are commenting because there are a couple of poison blade vortex assassin threads, but yeah i was going to league start this build next league and this is more the way i was going to go about it as well.

i really like that double block chance take half damage from blocked attacks modifier


Hmm you are right, there is quite a few. I was mostly looking at grubbs one when deciding if I want to make the guide or not and eventually I decided that I do because I wanted to make guide for poison BV that is actually tanky as that was my one and only issue with poison BV before I started to tinker with life on block and max block. For me that single shield mod basically completely solves the sustain part of the build what is amazing, having Kiloava and max block on top is just nice bonus :d
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
So I grabbed this one:



Do we have phasing already? If not - any way to get Haste in?


NVM: Withering Step. I'm stupid.
Last edited by clozzer on Feb 19, 2020, 5:51:37 AM
"
clozzer wrote:
So I grabbed this one:



Do we have phasing already? If not - any way to get Haste in?


NVM: Withering Step. I'm stupid.


Withering step and quartz flask, but withering step is not really enough mainly for delve, so if you do not have quartz for some reason, the phasing on kill works from abyss jewel.

Haste is not very good aura for this build as BV do not scales from attack/cast speed, but the extra MS is nice (but that would mean losing malevolence what would be retty big loss).
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
POB says awakened added chaos damage for vile toxins is 20% DPS increase. It's my first poison build so not sure if that's true or not.

Anyway, great guide and it's really fun to play. Charge in and everything explodes. :D

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