[2.1] Black Hole - Vortex Pulling Coc, budget, good clear!

This is a full-charged physical vortex coc. I got asked in parties what I was running and decided to write it up. This is my first guide, and criticism is welcome.

Unusual - certainly
Survivability - check
Clearspeed - Oh yes
Budget - Got you covered
Scaling with equipment- YES YES YES

Surprisingly tanky, very good clearspeed, can start off cheaply: with 2 crit daggers and a 5-link or a tabula rasa. Can be run as the first character in a league. Currently running lvl 16 gems w/o any quality and clearing t8-9 maps without any trouble. I imagine it to be Atziri-viable in a few levels.


First of all, credit goes to FoxTactics for this:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1514839


The build revolves around several mechanics:
1. Vortex-pulling enemies into the cyclone range to proc coc
2. Increasing aoe with poison if going Bino's
3. Massive life regen from Bino's OR Vaal Life Leech
4. Full charge uptime from recasting Vortex-PCocC-War.Mark-CoH

Defence Mechanics


Playstyle


My Current Gear


Knockback on jewels is pretty important: more knockback directly translates into greater clearspeed, because it allows you to move faster. 2 jewels with 9-10% knockback chance total should be enough. Look for some crit/life/physical damage.

This Rat's Nest was just randomly vaal'd. It is nice but not build enabling. If short on currency, get a Doedre's Scorn Helmet like this:



And run Assassin's Mark - Vortex - Incresed Duration. Then you will self-cast 2*Vortex every now and then, get 45-60% increased damage on enemies.

My Tree


Planned Tree - Picking up some life, res, crit, 1 jewel node, and accuracy


Links


Bandits


Leveling


Q&A


Update

Hi, starting a fresh shadow here because this looks very nice, but I have a few questions regarding build choices. Firstly, why not take Phase Acrobatics? I realize that a lot of the gear is armor-based, but the 40% dodge is probably better IMO, especially because we are dual wielding. Second, would it perhaps be better to run faster attacks instead of poison in the 5L? More hits=more damage, and I'm not totally convinced that the poison would be more beneficial. Or, perhaps that could replace the Increased Crits. Also, could you maybe record some videos?

Playing this at the moment. I'm really hoping it'll start to do something once I equip the Bino's, cause at level 54 I've only learnt that:

1. I hate Cyclone, Whirling Blades, and self casting anything.

2. Everything kills me. Level 50+ with 1200 life is not fun.

3. I don't have enough crit, and Bladefall mostly procs once or twice per pack.

So let me see if I have it right... I'm supposed to be self casting two types of Vortex... between every other pack? Cause the power charge vortex dies out quickly.

Where's the mana come from, is the Clarity enough later on?

What are your life and defense stats?

When does Empire's Grasp start to feel like it's doing anything?

How are bosses to fight against?

Flasks?

Why not spec into more power charges?

It's a fun looking build and I feel invested in it so far. I'll drudge up a few more levels once I've killed Dominus by throwing my corpse against him a thousand times, but so far I'm thinking yeah... I'd rather self cast Bladefall than go through all this.

Edit: Ok, it's picking up a bit. Could be good :)

Disregard my surliness ;)

More things.

Path of the Warrior, right next to the Scion life circle?

Studious Combatant, three points for crit, physdmg and attack speed?

For that matter, Duality... we are dual wielding after all. Also three points.

I suppose Hematophagy might be too far, and overkill?

And Gemini, perhaps?

Only so many points I suppose..

Hi!

Been trying out the build, and enjoying it up to level 46 now. It doesn't look like the dagger damage/crit passives actually affect Bladefall, Ethereal Knives, or Blade Vortex. Do you know if that's the case or not? The wiki says they don't use weapon damage stats to calculate damage, but I can't find any info on weapon-specific passives for physical-damage spells.

I suppose it is a corner-case.

After picking up Adder's Touch and related nodes, I noticed my crit chances weren't going up for those skills, but were for basic attack. Basic attack crit is ~14% higher than all three spells, which have been stuck at 21%.

Have you found the same thing? Do those nodes provide anything to the build besides vortex/ethereal knives crit chance?

Edit: Cyclone gets crit bonuses from daggers, which triggers the cast-on-crit gem. Sorry, I've never run a CoC build before, and misunderstood how the gem works. That explains why nothing was triggering when I only had Bladefall-CoC linked in my offhand. I have to attach Cyclone as well and crit *with Cyclone* to proc CoC. Is that right?

On the upside, the build was still working in Cruel while I completely misunderstood the core mechanics, so kudos!

Hi guys, sorry for the late reply - my potato laptop has burnt right before Christmas :( Virtually impossible to get it fixed in Germany over the holidays. I still didn't have the chance to play and test further because of this :( but I'll try to respond to your questions.

Would be really nice if you drop me a word on your progress :D

Generally, reviewing the poison mechanics on the forums I'm inclined to think that the standard Vagan crit dagger path is better, especially in higher level maps. Then one could drop poison and Fatal Toxins wheel and gain Vaal Pact + Acrobatics.

2Wheeshnaw:
Faster attacks doesn't benefit the socketed spells. Besides, I found AS sufficient. Otherwise excellent suggestions.

2 genida:
hey, thanks for bearing with the build :D Generally, yes, the idea was to go cheap and compensate for it with self-casting Blade Vortex for free charges and curses. It didn't feel too clunky to me.
The nodes you suggest are inefficient for this build, since flat damage isnt used at all and the rest of the boni are underwhelming on their own. Generally, though, the pathing to the Fending wheel takes up quite a few points :D

2AtlasJackson:
You understood it correctly as far as I'm aware :D An attack needs to be linked to CoC and a spell. How's it going now?:D

Hello. I'll make a suggestion for your build. I noticed you're using a plain rare dagger with crit and spell damage. You need a Vagan dagger that he sells from his shop with Hits Can't Be Evaded mod. This will increase the amount of CoC procs you put out.

Sorry to hear about the laptop.

Great timing for your return, since I just hit a wall at level 66. The build is fun, but now I'm just getting one-shot by a lot of enemies. If enemies can't one-shot me, the life leech from Bladefall usually lets me hang on without too much issue.

I respecced for more a bit more life (currently only 1900) and Vaal Pact/Phase Acrobatics, and now I'm trying to pick up better equipment.

Unfortunately, I can't make much progress level-wise. Every now and then, I just get one-shot as soon as I enter a room, and lose all my experience.

My resists are low, but it's physical damage that usually kills me instantly.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance.

Edit:

Got some better equipment (Including a Vagan's dagger for "can't be evaded"). Ground out a couple levels to equip Doryani's Invitation, and stopped running Blood Rage. Survivability went way up. I'm still getting slammed occasionally, but it's less common now. I was finally able to finish up act 4 merciless and start running maps.

With Vagan's I've got enough passive knockback to drag enemies around with Cyclone most of the time. Next step: Get a six-link armor for Increased Area of Effect. I want to see screen-spanning Cyclones, even if it isn't optimal.

this build look sick i will defiantly make it but if you can pleas post some game play videos gorge run or anything i wanna see how it works before i start spending currency to make it

That build works crazy but I play my version. I'm lvl 90. I don't use knockback and another self cast.main attack only and blades with fortify.
My tree - I changed knokback for area, crit and life on the left side of tree:

I'll change it when I change belly of the beast for carcass, But now witch eva fasks(legacy + speed with eva% during flask effect is so good. Highest tier maps clearing like ledge on merci. Duble malfo boss in 5 seconds.

I'm no use crit chance and running witch all green and one red for BM in chest.
Defence: grace+ clarity for Wblades. 4850 live with belly 49% eva with grace (up to 64 with 2 eva flasks)
My gear witch gems(not every solts are actual)

Rat's nest is good too but i changed for life + accu helmet
I'm using shield for res, life spelldmge(Best possible boost)Shield is little slower attack speed but I'm more tanky and have no problem with res.
With bm damage is good still.

I planning change for carcass. Without belly my life is near 4300 but with litte changes will be near 4800 I think.