[3.11] Self-cast Blade Blast Critical Trickster - hybrid ES/life +8K EHP + good block chance [SSF]

Goal with this build:
- Easy to play;
- Good build for SSF;
- High damage to clear the content;
- AoE enough to have a reasonable area of damage and QoL to Blade Blast;
- Good defensive set based on Trickster (versatility) + good block chance + gear with life and ES + others temporary defenses (flasks + Immortal Call).

Playstyle and general considerations
You will use Bladefall in a 4L to kill white and blue packs, If you don't kill with just 1 use, blow up the Lingering Blades. Against rare or unique enemies repeat the Bladefall + Blade Blast process as many times as possible trying to hit enemies with as many explosions as possible. It is safe to say that at least 15 explosions hit these enemies. With 15 explosions the estimated minimum damage is over 2 million dps. For SSF it is very good damage.

From the moment you use Bladefall, you can already burst the Lingering Blades on the ground, you don't have to wait for the end of the volley spell animation to burst, the blades appear instantly on the ground when use Bladefall, that is, if you have fingers fast you can use the combo (Bladefall + Blade Blast) very quickly.

It is not a build with the highest clear speed there is, nor is it intended to, but it can be reasonably quick to clear if you have enough fingers. :)

Cast speed is not so necessary in this build, since the chain effect of Blade Blast does not need this.

This build has a defensive set with HC in mind or having defenses good enough to not die easily, but modify it at will if you want more damage.

You will have at least 34% chance to block attacks and 24% chance to block spells + 10% chance to dodge spells. Added is almost equivalent to Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics.

I was testing this build on SSF HC Delirium League and was doing very well (level 84) until I died for a combination of Delirium + Breach, I died of my own mistake.

This build was designed for SSF, but can be adapted for normal leagues with the possibility to buy items and make it much more powerful.

Path of Building:
https://pastebin.com/t7XXeVfN

Ascendancy
This build will cause pure physical damage (using Brutality), so it is unnecessary to get Harness the Void.
Ghost Dance (1) > Escape Artist (2) > Swift Killer (3) > Weave the Arcane (4)

With Escape Artist it is possible to make Shadow very versatile, if you find a good ES/EV chest you can to use it instead of pure ES chest. To be worthwhile the ES/EV armor must have at least 1500 evasion and at least 100 ES compared to an ES chest with 400 ES.

Pantheon
Personally, I like this combination:
Major god: Soul of Solaris
20% chance to take 50% less Area Damage from Hits. Very usefull.

Minor God: Soul of Abberath
Unaffected by Burning Ground. Very usefull to your ES dont to fall.

Bandits
Help Alira.

Leveling Guide
Play with Explosive Traps until get Bladefall killing Gravicius in the act 3. From this point on, have at least two 2L using Bladefall + Spell Cascade and Blade Blast + Controlled Destruction. Don't forget to get Blade Blast in act 2 to earn XP and levels for the gem.

Always keep an eye on dropped items, preferably two 4L, with two 3L the build starts to work well. Initially you need two 3L with 1 green and 2 blue both.

I recommend normal Izaro around level 35. Go cruel Izaro around level 55. Go merciless Izaro when you feel safe (I go from level 65).

Do you must have this passive tree before Kitava act 5:
Passive Tree level 46

Do you must have at least this passive tree before Kitava act 10:
Passive tree level 68

Final tree level 92:
Passive tree level 92

Before to farm maps, already have at least your CwdT set working (see Links section).

Unique items
If you were lucky enough to drop any of these items, you can use it as long as you don't use more powerful gear.

Rare Items
Give preference to items that give you life + ES (mainly helmet, shield and chest), that are your primary defenses. Use a good ES shield with life, ES, critical chance to spells and resistences.

Naturally the tree itself already reduces the disadvantage of resistance to -28. If you use Purity of Elements or have gear with good resistance, you can start using gear with chaos resistance, this guarantees excellent survival for chaos damage.

Syndicate is almost mandatory for you to craft good rare items in order not to depend on RNG.

With Escape Artist it is possible to make Shadow very versatile, if you find a good ES/EV chest you can to use it instead of pure ES chest. To be worthwhile the ES/EV armor must have at least 1500 evasion and at least 100 ES compared to an ES chest with 400 ES.

Anointment Amulets
For SSF I recommend Path of the Warrior (3 amber) or Heartseeker (1 teal and 2 crimson). Path of the Warrior is easier and guarantees strenght (need only worry about dexterity in gear), flat life (from strenght), generic physical damage and reduction in the physical resistance of enemies (equivalent to "more damage").

Jewels
The build is designed to not use any jewel. But feel free to modify it if you think it's worth it.

Links
4L: Blade Blast + Controlled Destruction + Brutality + Energy Leech
5L: + Increased Critical Damage
6L: It will depend on several factors, in terms of damage Concentrated Effect is the best you can use in this slot, but with this gem it will decrease the damage area of Lingering Blades explosions, which can decrease, on the other hand, its damage by reducing the amount of explosions that touch a boss or clear speed, for example. Arcane Surge level 9 greatly increases the damage, but not as much as Concentrated Effect.

4L: Bladefall + Spell Cascade + Concentrated Effect + Unleash
The reason for using the Concentrated Effect gem is to concentrate as many Lingering Blades as possible next to each other, the goal is for explosions to be close by causing a great deal of damage to bosses, for example, thereby easily increasing the area of effect of each subsequent explosion. The damage is just a side effect.

Is it worthwhile to use Awakened gem?
If you're lucky enough to get one, Awakened Brutality definitely pays off. Awakened Controlled Destruction and Awakened Unleash are worth using for sure. As for Awakened Spell Cascade, I think not, the Lingering Blades would be very spread out (need to test this hypothesis).

Other Skills
3L: Discipline + Clarity + Purity of Elements (to get chaos resistance in the gear) or Arctic Armour (if you have enough elemental resistance and chaos resistance using gear).
3L: Dash + Second Wind + Faster Casting
4L: Assassin’s Mark + Chaos Golem + Minion Life + Elemental Army
4L: CwdT (Level 1) + Immortal Call (Level 3) + Increased Duration (max level, if possible q20%) + Temporal Chain (level 5)

Flask
You can have at least Granite and Diamond flask. Jade and/or Sulphur flasks are optional. Pick flasks with "Surgeon's" prefix (20% of chance to gain a charge when crits). Try combining with suffix to remove bleeding and other good suffix.

Reserved.

Great guide man. This was my first ever build to try. I'm almost to red maps in trade league. Do you have some suggestions for stuff that I should prioritize buying? I lucked up and got a Divanarius already.

"

XanaxCrimea wrote:

Great guide man. This was my first ever build to try. I'm almost to red maps in trade league. Do you have some suggestions for stuff that I should prioritize buying? I lucked up and got a Divanarius already.

In trade league the options are much greater, you can trade items and craft items that are much more powerful. It is necessary to test, but I suppose that using items that give "gain X of extra physical damage as Y extra damage" are extremely powerful, hence you should remove brutality and use another gem, in addition to the possibility of using Harness the Void.

https://pastebin.com/fXxp3iJP

This is what I have so far. Any suggestions on what to upgrade next?

"

XanaxCrimea wrote:

https://pastebin.com/fXxp3iJP

This is what I have so far. Any suggestions on what to upgrade next?

This pastebin is broken, dont work for me.

I'm considering to use Intensity instead Unleash in 4L, taking the new Intensity notable in the tree. I will update this topic until tomorrow and test this build on this league again.

Will you be updating for 3.11? Want to use it again!

"

XanaxCrimea wrote:

Will you be updating for 3.11? Want to use it again!

You can use the same build, I was thinking of using Intensity, but you have to have very high cast speed to be worth it. If you want to test the 4L it would look like this:

Bladefall + concentrated effect + intensity (level 1 - have less area effect this gem) + faster casting or echo spell.

This this tree below you have much more cast speed and less area effect.

This Tree

Or https://pastebin.com/zf1sw1Xp

Hey, thanks for this build! I recently started mapping and so far so good. I've been using PoB to check my future performance with upgrades and all it looks good also.

I bought a lot of cheap uniques to get me going in maps and I feel like I found something that might work all the way up to end of endgame content with some upgrades.

this is what I am using atm it just feels really good, chaos damage stopped being lethal to me. Kalisa's Grace has in-built faster casting so my bladefall link is Bladefall -> Concentrated Effect -> Intensify -> Unleash. It doesn't feel clunky at all and blades are grouped fairly decently. (Hoping to upgrade helmet - belt and jewelries in shortterm)

I also have purity of elements but I don't really have to use it anymore, only resist lacking is lightning at 70% i think so I've some spare mana for another aura or for better MoM performance. I might switch purity with clarity so I don't have to chug mana potions so much maybe Anyway this is what I am doing with the build, thanks for turning me on to bladefall-blade blast combo its really cheap and great. (also pls don't judge rest of my links I haven't had time to tidy them up :C)

Edit: forgot to add 2.8k hp, 4.3k ES and 1k unreserved mana is what I have atm.

Can I play this build with spellslinger setup? And what should I swap to work it?