[3.13] Archmage Blade Vortex Hierophant | 20k EHP 40m DPS | Depth 2000 Delve Tank

I don't really use Phase Run at all during normal playing, since its instantly cancelled by my Vortex on left click. Only times I use it are for sulphite rotas and autocomplete nodes in delve (cities and camps). Both cases I unmap Vortex from left click. WS isnt bad either, but im not looking for tankiness in the above use cases.

Cluster jewels are higher priority than 3-point jewel sockets. Normal jewels you can keep upgrading over time.

Ok, so i tried delving a bit. Only depth 900 so far. Dmg is lower than on my poison BV, but the survivability is clearly higher (poison BV is a one-shot). But hell on earth, do i get pissed about the stun-lock. Do you use Soul of the Brine King on the pantheon, or how do you deal with it? I don't know that problem on my other delver, since its defences are a combination of dodge/evasion/temp chains/blind and IF i get hit, i die anyway.

Hey, I just added FAQ on stun avoidance in the original post, go check it out. Short answer: combination of boot enchant, cinderswallow, and jewel implicits.

As for damage, are you sure you aren't bricking yourself by spending too much mana on Vortex? I see you have a lv 18 Vortex without blood magic. If you have this Vortex autocast on left click it will almost certainly brick your damage very frequently. I added a section on managing Vortex manacost as well in the guide.

Avg Damage from Blade Vortex on ingame tooltip is 294k, with 5162 mana cost. Just watched the tooltip with 10 blades up and spamming vortex, mana goes up a little, same does dmg, but it doesn't brick.

I didn't mean that the dmg is BAD (far from it). It is pretty good. I should have mentionned, that my poison BV does ~28m Shaper DPS and ~70m clear-speed DPS, even without Headhunter. Hard to compete. Just for comparison, i made a short video on depth 900:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-VZXR_7H-c&feature=youtu.be

I don't even have Headhunter stacks, and the dmg is insane. Got the shadowstep-HH-mod in the end, which sucks in normal situations, but in delve even more. It's poison though, so needs a sec for ramp up time. Still, it started at around depth 800, that it became increasingly harder and i died way too often... that's why i leveled your build. Now that i know how to avoid the stun-lock, i'll probably switch to this build for deeper nodes / the harder mods.

Aah I see now. 5200 manacost after Indigon is a bit low, Im guessing your unreserved mana is somewhere around 7k. So you have 1.8k-ish margin. As you optimize your build and your unreserved mana becomes 9k+, the manacost will also get much closer to that limit and the margin will disappear. Then you'll have to de-level Vortex back down, but its ok for now. You do have quite a bit of room to grow, my tooltip dmg in hideout is 1019k.

Also you should definitely switch your hybrid benchcraft on ring to Fire + Lightning instead of Cold + Lightning. That way you ignite enemies and they take 10% more damage due to Cinderswallow.

Yeah, got 7.1k unreserved mana, 4.5k life and 5.4k ES. Only level 86, without cluster jewels. Also, gear is mostly selfcrafted for now. Enough room to improve. Just wanted to see, how this build is playing before getting high tier rares. Also, i only got the normal curse on hit and not the awakened one. Have to sell some stuff before getting more gear for thit char. Got most of the expensive stuff already, but ACOH and ring will come next it hink.

Thx for the tip with the ring-craft. Didn't think about Cinderswallow Urn

Oh, and another thing... do you by any chance know, how to get the dodge-craft on boots? It's not in the normal craft-table on craftofexile. Don't remember if it was fossil-crafting or if it's a temple mod.

Ok... i'll be damned... i have SEVEN Auls atm, from depth 454 to 950... i gave it a last try, after re-watching your Aul Kill-Video... i did it with my poison BV One-shot build though, since i'm not used to the Hierophant-Indigon-playstyle yet, and paying attention to the playstyle AND to Aul made the fight even harder. But, long story short... i just got my first Aul-Kill ever since i started to play in Betrayal.

I always wondered, how you managed to only get 4 chargers... well... if you know, that you can make two chargers use the same lane if you flame dash on the last second, that makes it a bit easier... ;-)

How to handle with chaos damage?

How did you level

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Laere wrote:

How did you level

I leveled my char 2 days ago and used mostly a 6-link Storm Brand, supported by a 4-link Arc for additional single-target or rare mobs. Good thing about Storm Brand is, that you can rush through the acts. Took me 5 1/2 hours from start to Kitava kill, including the first three labs. Just put down your Storm Brand and continue running, while mobs die all around you.

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HornedTerrorist wrote:

Spoiler

Those were the items i used from start up to Kitava, without changing anything. I prepared a few rings which i switched. Started with Perandus Signet, because caster are lacking mana reg on low levels. At level 38, you can already switch to essence worm for wrath.

Rampage items are pretty neat too, like Bisco's Leash or Shadows and Dust.