[Semi-Updated to Ritual]Poison Blade Vortex Assassin In Depth Guide

[/quote] Those are both flat increases to crit chance, which for single mod impact are really good.

For the chest you have to pick two influence mods to combine and running the numbers should show that the flat increase to spell crit is the best mod for your dps. It's not so much about the investment as it is the opportunity cost. The next best option for those two mods is a pretty steep drop off in terms of benefit. Also the currency cost to pick flat spell crit vs one of the other mods to target is minimal. For Bottled Faith it's less of a clear choice (and the guide says it's more of a final marginal upgrade), but as you point out the flask has a ton of other benefits. In this case the currency cost between Bottled Faith and Atziri's becomes more of the opportunity cost I think.

If you want to dig into the dps calculations, go into the Calcs tab in PoB. There's an orange box labeled "Poison", and if you hover over the stat in that box "Posion DPS" you'll see the breakdown of crit vs non-crit contributions to your dps. For me a 20% drop in effective crit chance would reduce my dps by 12.6%, which is huge considering it's a single item mod and a flask.[/quote]


Sure that makes sense, I was wondering if I was missing any other side effects, or if it really was only to trigger on crit effects.

For me the main issue was the trade-off between the spell crit mod on chest meant dropping +1 curses mod, which meant trading serpentine spellslinger for whispers of doom on the tree. I believe that trade off resulted on the drop of DPS
Last edited by AriGold2507 on Nov 9, 2020, 2:49:09 PM
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AriGold2507 wrote:
Sure that makes sense, I was wondering if I was missing any other side effects, or if it really was only to trigger on crit effects.

For me the main issue was the trade-off between the spell crit mod on chest meant dropping +1 curses mod, which meant trading serpentine spellslinger for whispers of doom on the tree. I believe that trade off resulted on the drop of DPS
Check out my tree; you can path through Blood Drinker instead of Coldhearted Calculation and get both Spellslinger and Whispers of Doom.

Also looked at your char, you should replace one of your CIPs with the "% increased Damage over Time" corruption implicit. There's no benefit to having two with "chance to gain power charge on crit".
Last edited by kevinbrightblade on Nov 9, 2020, 5:47:25 PM
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AriGold2507 wrote:
Sure that makes sense, I was wondering if I was missing any other side effects, or if it really was only to trigger on crit effects.

For me the main issue was the trade-off between the spell crit mod on chest meant dropping +1 curses mod, which meant trading serpentine spellslinger for whispers of doom on the tree. I believe that trade off resulted on the drop of DPS
Check out my tree; you can path through Blood Drinker instead of Coldhearted Calculation and get both Spellslinger and Whispers of Doom.

Also looked at your char, you should replace one of your CIPs with the "% increased Damage over Time" corruption implicit. There's no benefit to having two with "chance to gain power charge on crit".


Cool thanks for the tips, I had the CIP corruption in mind as well (which I got now) only had 2 power charge because they were super cheap.

Had a look at your character and I'm now hunting an amulet (already secured the gloves), to transition to your setup - should hit the 25M shaper mark. Also got the watcher's eye to apply poison faster. Any other improvements you could recommend?
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AriGold2507 wrote:
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AriGold2507 wrote:
Sure that makes sense, I was wondering if I was missing any other side effects, or if it really was only to trigger on crit effects.

For me the main issue was the trade-off between the spell crit mod on chest meant dropping +1 curses mod, which meant trading serpentine spellslinger for whispers of doom on the tree. I believe that trade off resulted on the drop of DPS
Check out my tree; you can path through Blood Drinker instead of Coldhearted Calculation and get both Spellslinger and Whispers of Doom.

Also looked at your char, you should replace one of your CIPs with the "% increased Damage over Time" corruption implicit. There's no benefit to having two with "chance to gain power charge on crit".


Cool thanks for the tips, I had the CIP corruption in mind as well (which I got now) only had 2 power charge because they were super cheap.

Had a look at your character and I'm now hunting an amulet (already secured the gloves), to transition to your setup - should hit the 25M shaper mark. Also got the watcher's eye to apply poison faster. Any other improvements you could recommend?
For the amulet take a look at making your own. I looked recently and it wasn't too expensive (6-7 ex for the two bases and an awakener's orb) compared to finished ones going for 8-10 ex minimum.

Other upgrades:
1. Drop one of your Surging Vitality small clusters for another Fettle.
2. On the passive tree, path through Entropy or Will of Blades to Blood Drinker instead of Assassination and Coldhearted Calculation. Then get Serpentine Spellslinger.
3. Get a divergent Vile Toxins gem for 5% damage speed and one of the new Malevolence gems. Anomalous is best for the extra skill duration, but Divergent is still better than the standard quality benefit.
4. Get boots with life, resists, 30%+ movement speed and one or more of these mods (in order of preference): Poison damage speed, Tailwind, spell dodge, attack dodge.
5. This may be more of a preference but I really like Anomalous Herald of Purity (for the taunt) + Circle of Guilt instead of Herald of Agony + Circle of Nostalgia. Just make sure you keep 100% chance to poison by picking up Toxic Strikes on the passive tree. You'll have to path through Entropy or Will of Blades instead of Assassination to do this, but it's worth it.
6. I like your belt, but I think 10-12% increased life would be better than flask charges.

In general these are the breakpoints at which I felt the build was able to do all content:
-5500 life (this will let you survive 95% of the single hits in the game)
-450 ES (350 feels bad, 400 is ok, 450+ means you don't have to worry about it)
-10 seconds duration for blade vortex (less than this and I was constantly at 8 stacks and it feels bad for both clear and bossing)
-30M Sirus dps (less than this and bosses don't die fast enough)
-70% damage speed (less than this and nothing dies fast enough)

Here's my PoB if you want to check the config: https://pastebin.com/JxrqQAJR
Last edited by kevinbrightblade on Nov 12, 2020, 4:17:58 PM
Hey, gotta say, this is the smoothest and fastest build i've played in PoE. I like it alot, though getting one-shotted now and then sucks at these levels (*cough* Legion *cough*).

I must be somewhere around 250~ ex in on this build, still feels like I need more damage...

Any suggestions on upgrades next? (dmg/qol/defence)

I don't have hundreds of exalts though to do major changes, like changing to HH, I would need to change enourmous amounts of gear to get the resistances, as I have alot of res in my abyss socket jewel as well as belt. (Got about 80 ex in pure ex/c)
Also since I started to enjoy Heist League mechanic with this build, I might need to invest 100 ex in 4% exalt trinket.

I was looking at Asenath's with Despair curse corrupt to maybe try crafting a rare amulet for more dmg, what do we use instead of despair-gem in gloves? It gets a bit confusing when changing curses among gear.



Rare Jewel on tree:
- Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you
- Flat life
- Onslaught
- Movement speed

PoB: https://pastebin.com/puyMX8DS
Is the enfeeble curse-on-hit really increasing mapping survivalbility? I have the 3-curse setup, but I don't really see any beneficial perks. Someone who also uses 3-curse setup?
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For the amulet take a look at making your own. I looked recently and it wasn't too expensive (6-7 ex for the two bases and an awakener's orb) compared to finished ones going for 8-10 ex minimum.

Other upgrades:
1. Drop one of your Surging Vitality small clusters for another Fettle.
2. On the passive tree, path through Entropy or Will of Blades to Blood Drinker instead of Assassination and Coldhearted Calculation. Then get Serpentine Spellslinger.
3. Get a divergent Vile Toxins gem for 5% damage speed and one of the new Malevolence gems. Anomalous is best for the extra skill duration, but Divergent is still better than the standard quality benefit.
4. Get boots with life, resists, 30%+ movement speed and one or more of these mods (in order of preference): Poison damage speed, Tailwind, spell dodge, attack dodge.
5. This may be more of a preference but I really like Anomalous Herald of Purity (for the taunt) + Circle of Guilt instead of Herald of Agony + Circle of Nostalgia. Just make sure you keep 100% chance to poison by picking up Toxic Strikes on the passive tree. You'll have to path through Entropy or Will of Blades instead of Assassination to do this, but it's worth it.
6. I like your belt, but I think 10-12% increased life would be better than flask charges.

In general these are the breakpoints at which I felt the build was able to do all content:
-5500 life (this will let you survive 95% of the single hits in the game)
-450 ES (350 feels bad, 400 is ok, 450+ means you don't have to worry about it)
-10 seconds duration for blade vortex (less than this and I was constantly at 8 stacks and it feels bad for both clear and bossing)
-30M Sirus dps (less than this and bosses don't die fast enough)
-70% damage speed (less than this and nothing dies fast enough)

Here's my PoB if you want to check the config: https://pastebin.com/JxrqQAJR


Thanks bud this is all great stuff, will make some simulations on PoB and see what can be implemented. I have about 50ex to invest now so will need to do a priority list but already noticed I'll have trouble balancing INT requirements due to my chest piece


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perK1 wrote:
Hey, gotta say, this is the smoothest and fastest build i've played in PoE. I like it alot, though getting one-shotted now and then sucks at these levels (*cough* Legion *cough*).

I must be somewhere around 250~ ex in on this build, still feels like I need more damage...

Any suggestions on upgrades next? (dmg/qol/defence)

I don't have hundreds of exalts though to do major changes, like changing to HH, I would need to change enourmous amounts of gear to get the resistances, as I have alot of res in my abyss socket jewel as well as belt. (Got about 80 ex in pure ex/c)
Also since I started to enjoy Heist League mechanic with this build, I might need to invest 100 ex in 4% exalt trinket.

I was looking at Asenath's with Despair curse corrupt to maybe try crafting a rare amulet for more dmg, what do we use instead of despair-gem in gloves? It gets a bit confusing when changing curses among gear.



Rare Jewel on tree:
- Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you
- Flat life
- Onslaught
- Movement speed

PoB: https://pastebin.com/puyMX8DS
Not sure what's up with your tree but Serpentine Spellslinger is one of the better notables for us of all passives. By the time you have two cluster setups Surging Vitality takes the place of the Growth and Decay wheel. So drop those three points, pick up Serpentine, and either Entropy or Will of Blades.

The two issues you mention are getting occasionally one-shot and feeling like your dps is low. You can address both of these in a big way with buying asenath's with despair on hit. You drop Blasphemy + Despair and add Anomalous Cast When Damage Taken (1/23) + Immortal Call (3/23). This will really help with your one-shots and make legions wayyy safer. With all the skill effect duration increases my Immortal Call lasts over 2 seconds!

This also allows you to replace Impresence with a rare amulet that has +1 to Dexterity skills and +1 to Physical skills, which will give you a serious dps boost. I loaded up your PoB and it looks like a 15% dps increase (about 2 million dps).

For other upgrades, I'd prioritize the speed at which our poison damage affects enemies. Like the guide says, we do a ton of damage but it's gated behind being applied over time. So here are some upgrades in order:
1. Watcher's eye with 15% increased damage speed while affected by Malevolence You shouldn't have two abyss jewels. Balance your resists elsewhere and stop using the one currently in your belt.
2. Divergent Vile Toxins for 5% increased damage speed.
3. Anomalous Malevolence for an additional 10% skill effect duration to keep your blade vortex duration at 10 seconds while allowing 2-3 of your Wicked Pall jewels to be swapped for more dps. If you take Entropy on your tree then you can drop 3 Wicked Palls, if not then drop 2. Ideally you'd get Grim Oath on the Overwhelming Malice large cluster, but if that's too expensive then get medium clusters with Wasting Affliction + Haemmorhage.
Last edited by kevinbrightblade on Nov 15, 2020, 10:57:45 AM
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Dragonsky8 wrote:
Is the enfeeble curse-on-hit really increasing mapping survivalbility? I have the 3-curse setup, but I don't really see any beneficial perks. Someone who also uses 3-curse setup?
It's hard to quantify the benefit since it's only really important for the biggest hits and we don't really know how many hits are dodged/survived due to Enfeeble vs our other defensive mechanics. But enemies doing 10% less damage to you is definitely going to result in surviving more hits than you would have otherwise.

In general PoE is about stacking different defensive layers, and this is especially important for dodge-based builds like ours. So Enfeeble is a very good thing to have. The question is if the third curse is worth the investment, which I can't answer for you since it depends on your budget and gear. It's definitely worth three points on the passive tree, but if I had to choose a chest with only two of these mods: explode, spell crit and +1 curse, I think I'd pick explode and spell crit. Personally I got spell crit plus three curses on my gloves so I was prepared to sacrifice spell crit on my chest until I got lucky with my armor that has all three mods.
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AriGold2507 wrote:
Thanks bud this is all great stuff, will make some simulations on PoB and see what can be implemented. I have about 50ex to invest now so will need to do a priority list but already noticed I'll have trouble balancing INT requirements due to my chest piece
Yeah it sucks but you need one big INT roll on your rare ring or amulet. By my calcs you get 137 INT from the tree and your Circle ring. Target an amulet with an INT implicit to get another 24-30. That leaves you needing 35-40 INT, equating to a t3 or t2 INT mod somewhere else, which should be doable.

If you're interested I have this up for sale at 30ex but make me an offer:

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