[2.1] Apathae's Flicker Poison Blade Vortex

Character Name using this build is MerrillHowardKalin currently in Talisman League.

Character Profile:
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Apathae/characters

My Current Skill Tree (Level 94):
http://poeurl.com/vub

Video Demonstration + Atziri Kill (Run starts about 5 minutes into video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AaNBeHrBxE

Video of an Arsenal (Tier 12) map run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f60FWfYpik

Video of Necropolis Merveil to show single target potential (sorry for stream highlight)
http://www.twitch.tv/apathae/v/33705608

Video demonstrating Bino's sustaining both Blood Rage and Righteous Fire (sorry again for stream highlight)
http://www.twitch.tv/apathae/v/33707344

Probably go Trickster, maybe Assassin

Hello Everyone,

( This is just a big wall of text about the build, if you're only interested in gear and passives skip this part! )

I've been working on this build in the talisman league and it has far exceeded my expectations. With this build I was able able to beat Atziri with 0 deaths pretty quickly, and was able to complete Death and Taxes (a map I had never done before but had heard was pretty scary). I also feel that with enough skill a good player could probably beat Uber Atziri; but I think I'm a little too casual to take it that far myself. If I get the right fragments though I'll definitely try!

Blade Vortex really is a magical skill, paired with a bit of mobility it both has good clear speed and good single target damage, a very hard to find synergy in this game.

I don't consider this build safe for hardcore without some adjustments to it; as well as under the control of a player more skilled than myself.

I decided to put together this guide because when I was broadcasting my character on Twitch I was getting a lot of interest from my viewers about it (something I'm definitely not used to).

I've played in a few leagues now and with the implementation of new skills and mechanics I was given a rare opportunity to try to create something with them without a lot of information being available from all the pioneer players this league.

The number one thing that makes this build so great is it has different stages of growth to it pending the availability of your gear at the time as your character grows in power. The other amazing thing about this build is it's like buying a new car, the base model works just fine but if you decide to add more and more accessories to it, it makes it amazing.

So let's talk about blade vortex. I'm not the type of player that meticulously crunches numbers; but I do try to observe how something functions. Mechanically, blade vortex is all about mobility and positioning, which GGG has advertised it as such; but why that important?

So what we know, blade vortex casts a blade that spins around your character that lasts a certain amount of time and when stationary will hit an enemy two times every second. The spell can be cast repeatedly to stack multiple blades with a hard cap of 50. If the caster is able to achieve 50 blades any new blade cast will replace the closest one about to expire. So the easiest way to achieve the cap is by having good combination of faster cast speed and increased duration.

Why is mobility so important? So one thing I've noticed about blade vortex and its interaction with mobility skills or simply moving your character is, passing by or through an enemy causes your currently active blades to sort of "cleave" through them. What I mean by that is, if you take however many blades you have active at a time, and simply move next to an enemy you can easily calculate your sustained dps using a formula, but when you use an ability like whirling blades to quickly pass through an enemy or flicker strike to shift your character around an enemy it seems like you're getting a sort of burst damage, forcing more hits over a shorter period of time simply by moving around a bit.

So while getting more damage out of it is amazing; why poison? Poison was changed this patch and is mechanically much stronger now. Poison without any other modifiers inflicts 20% of the initial hit's damage over two seconds. Meaning 10% damage a second per second. There are a lot of ways to improve poison's potential in the skill tree now but the other major change is that poison stacks have no limit. When linked to blade vortex you have two advantages, stacking a lot of DOTs very quickly and being a spell your hits never miss so every hit is guaranteed to apply poison.

Cleaving is a term I used to describe the mechanic of how mobility skills interact with Blade Vortex. When using a skill like Whirling Blades or Flicker Strike to quickly move your character through or around enemies, the change in position of your vortex causes a majority of your blades to hit quickly over a shorter period of time potentially increasing your damage.

So the one mainstay curse in this build is your Vulnerability aura. Vulnerability is a curse that increases the physical damage and damage over time that enemies take. Because it's worded as such, it is not in fact an increase to your own damage but a multiplier. The other great thing is the fact that both parts of the curse separately multiply both parts of your damage. The increased physical damage they take will let you hit harder which makes the poison inflicted higher which is then multiplied by the increased damage over time taken. Awesome, right?

So, if you happen to have a Bino's Kitchen Knife, the life regeneration it provides will allow you to comfortably sustain Righteous Fire if you play aggressively. I would recommend having a Ruby Flask and Dousing Flask if you wish to attempt this. Righteous Fire provides a massive multiplier to your spell damage and thus improves clear speed.

So there's only one really required unique for this build and you're in luck; they're really cheap. What item you might ask?

Cybil's Paw.

As of writing this sentence you can get Cybil's Paw in the Talisman league for as little as 1 Chaos orb. Cybil's Paw has a couple unique properties. One, it grants increased spell damage based on your block chance, but the more important one is that it grants your character life on hit with spells. So it turns out because blade vortex hits so many times, life on hit is AMAZING! With adequate life pool you can get away with a lot of things that you probably shouldn't. On my character for example I stood and outhealed the laser from the boss on the torture chamber map.

So while the spell damage increase from block is nice, the variation of the build I'm running doesn't benefit very much from it so the most important mod is the life on hit from spells. I definitely recommend trying to get one with 8 life on hit as the range it can roll is 5 to 8. The cast speed range is very small but if you're min maxing you can try to get a good roll on it too.

To put this into perspective, if you can stack 50 blades, you hit 100 times per second, that's 800 life per second with only one enemy, 1600 life with two enemies etc. In regards to how blade vortex "cleaves" when you sweep through enemies you hit many times faster, simply using whirling blades through a pack of enemies with many blades active is effectively an instant full heal for your character.

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So I have my one Cybil's Paw, what off hand item do I use? Well you have options.

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You want more defense? Use a shield. Keep in mind that with Acrobatics the chance to block will be reduced, that said it doesn't make shields completely useless, even with less chance to block they still offer the most defensive potential.

The original plan for the build however will ideally take advantage of dual wielding, there are many weapons with useful mods on them that make the build more effective.

[Dual Wielding]

~A Second Cybil's Paw~
So the obvious first choice here and pretty strong for how cheap it is. Get a second Cybil's paw, this alone doubles the amount of life on hit you have (as if one wasn't ridiculous enough).

~Heartbreaker (Royal Skean)~
Heartbreaker I feel is pretty undervalued, this dagger gives your spells culling strike. Culling strike is an ability in the game that makes it so when enemy reaches 10% of the remaining health the next hit will instantly kill them. With an ability like blade vortex or any fast attacking build, culling strike is a very effective way to increase your dps. Builds that hit very hard less often dont benefit from culling strike as much because of the nature of the damage they deal, you either far exceed the 10% life threshold on the enemy or you fall just short of it. With poison on blade vortex, you're hitting very fast, the poison stacks are also draining their health down over time so once the enemy reaches 10% the next tick from any of your blades will finish them off.

~Rare Dagger~
Next option here is any well rolled caster oriented rare dagger. The mods you're looking for here in order of importance:

Spell Damage
Crit Chance for Spells
Global Crit Multiplier
Mana Regeneration
Attack Speed

Local crit chance on the dagger doesn't matter nor does the physical damage portential of it. Why attack speed? Attack speed improves your mobility with whirling blades, but out of all the mods it is the least important.

~Divinarius~
One of the original plans I had was to try to obtain a Divinarius, this dagger is basically the unique equivalent of a rare dagger, it offers spell damage, spell crit, and also a bit of increased area of effect making your blade vortex bigger.

[End Game Options]

~Bino's Kitchen Knife~
The first of which is a Bino's Kitchen Knife. Bino's offers a bit of damage over time increase, some global crit multipllier and a little bit of chaos resistance. The big thing though is the insane amount of life regen you from killing poisoned enemies (which for this build is every enemy) Cybil's paired with Bino's covers a lot of bases when it comes to keeping your life pool topped off.

~Death's Hand~
The second option I use for more damage is Death's Hand. Death's hand gives your character Unholy Might for 2 seconds whenever you crit, with Blade Vortex running you crit constantly so the buff is always active, Unholy Might grants you 30% of your physical damage as extra chaos damage.

~Corrupted Cybil's Paw~
Because Cybil's were so cheap this league, I bought several paws with the intention of trying to corrupt them with Vaal orbs and gain Culling Strike as an implicit. This basically adds the benefit that Heartbreaker provides without the need to use one. That being said, the reason this is expensive is because you have no control over the outcome of corruption, it may take one try it may take one hundred tries; your mileage may very.

So armor you can fill out completely with rare items. Try to prioritize evasion based gear, this build picks up the Acrobatics keystone, so the effectiveness of both armor and energy shield will be cut in half.

The general rule of thumb with rares is to try to cap your character's elemental resistances first. Afterwards try to get some increases in life. If all that is covered there's only one other stipulation for this build.

To meet the stat requirements to level the gems you use all the way, you will need to try to have at least one piece of gear with strength on it (easily done with a rare belt) and one piece of gear with dexterity on it (can be done on any rare piece or even your jewelry). If you do not have these you can easily grab the 30 strength and 30 dexterity stat nodes and spec out of them later when you get the gear you need.

~Gear recommendations~
So if you'd like to implement some additional uniques you're more than welcome to. When it comes to armor I only really have one recommendation. My current character uses a Belly of the Beast which is a decent defensive option that offers a large increase to %life, up to 40%. Anywhere you can find to add more life to this build, the better!

Jewelry pretty much follows the same rules as armor, cap your resists, try to get life, and if you need the stats still as mentioned for armor you can get it on jewelry as well. I would also recommend trying to get mana regeneration as well if you can. Pending your other gear, the more mana regen, the better.

Because it's the talisman league, I tried to make it a point for my character to free up the amulet slot to try out all the neat talismans I find. If you find one that compliments this build, great! Conventional amulets are still good though.

[Recommended Jewelry]
I do have a couple recommendations for jewelry that may be implemented into this build. If your other defensive requirements are met these can potentially add a lot to the build.

~Doedre's Damning
This build runs dual curse. This ring allows you to apply a second curse on an enemy. If you use this you can save 7 of your skill points on the tree to put elsewhere. Highly recommend it.

~Ming's Heart
This is more of a glass cannon option. Ming's heart provides you with 20% of your physical damage as extra chaos damage, it also gives a large amount of chaos resistance. The downside is it reduces your life by 15% which can be pretty scary.

[Belt]
For your belt a good rolled rare will suit you fine, try to get resistances and life, you can also easily get your needed strength roll here. If you get a good roll you may consider using a belt with an increase in physical damage as well (I think they're rustic sashes?).

As for a unique belt. I use the physical version of Doryani's Invitation. This covers most of the bases but I do not feel it's better than the right rare belt with a life roll on it. The physical life leach that the belt provides is negligible compared to the amount of healing that Cybil's life on hit or Bino's life regeneration provides.

For jewels you want increased life paired with anything that increases your spell's damage. Mods in order of importance:

-Increased Life
-Physical Damage / Spell Damage / Spell Damage While Dual Wielding / Area Damage
-Cast Speed

After all that, extra resistances or possibly some strength/dexterity to help cover your stat requirements.

Attack speed is very low priority but isn't entirely useless, if you end up with it from regaling a magic or on a rare with other useful mods, it can still help with speeding up your mobility.

I admit, I need to work on my flasks a bit. I currently use three life flasks and two mana flasks. Ideally you want to make all of your flasks surgeon's flasks whenever possible as well as have one or two that remove bleeding, one that removes freezing, the rest is up to you, curse removal and shock removal is also very nice.

-Life Flasks
For life flasks I have two that heal over time and one instant (seething) flask.

-Mana Flasks
In this build I run two different mana flasks to cover when I take a hit or when I'm not gaining any from my mana on kill.

My first flask is a 50% instant (bubbling prefix), this is to make sure I'm not in a situation where I'm completely unable to use an ability either through casting or if Mind over Matter dunks my mana I can use this flask to be able to escape. This works perfectly fine for me; however, if you're concerned about it you can always link Whirling Blades to a blood magic gem.

My second flask is just a regular mana over time flask, this is effectively my mana regen when the instant flask isn't necessary. I use a catalysed flask here which adds 50% recovery speed so I'm able to sustain my casting.

There are a lot of purists that feel if you have to use a mana flask at all in this game, the build is completely garbage. Those same people also spend all of their chaos orbs rolling reduced / no regen mods off of their maps.

Normal - 40 Life
Cruel - 5% Cast Speed
Merciless - +1 Frenzy Charge

Regarding the Growth and Decay cluster:
For 3 points near shadow you're granted an additional 2% life regen and an increase to damage over time. These passives are very good but I opted to phase them out late game as the healing with Bino's makes the degen from blood rage a non issue. With this cluster you would have 3.8% life regeneration. Whether or not you decide to keep the passives comes down to personal preference.

Regarding the Alchemist cluster:
Utility flasks are amazing... if you remember to use them. I am unfortunately one of those players that only remembers to start using flasks when I'm in danger or if I need more mana. If you're someone that is better about remembering than I am. This is a strong consideration for three skill points as it grants 30% increased effect to your flasks. Both Atziri's Flask and Taste of Hate would provide a lot of benefit and if you can utilize them properly; putting points here would amplify their effect.

For this section I'll give a run down of how I currently have my links set up, however things can definitely be moved around or adjusted to suit your needs.

In my chest armor I have my Blade Vortex setup, the links are as follows:

-4-Link (Colors: G,B,G,R)
Blade Vortex + Spell Echo + Poison + Increased Duration

-5-Link (Colors: G,B,G,R,B)
Add Faster Casting

-6-Link (Colors: G,B,G,R,B,B)
(A damage gem is honestly overkill so this link is your choice.)
I'd use either Controlled Destruction or Concentrated Effect for more damage if you don't mind the loss of area. I'm currently leveling an Item Rarity as well since it's the same color. Increased Area of Effect is also a nice option for a larger Vortex coverage.

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For my first four link (currently in my boots) I run Bladefall as a ranged attack for dangerous enemies (looking at you fire guy in the Atziri trio fight). I used to use all four gems to improve the spell's damage but have since replaced the fourth gem with Vaal Grace for additional defense.
The links are as follows:

-4-Link (Colors: G,B,G,G)
Bladefall - Spell Echo - Poison - Vaal Grace
Replace Vaal Grace with Rapid Decay to get my original damage variation.

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My second four link (currently in my gloves) is my CwDT setup as well as Blood Rage which is used to generate Frenzy Charges. Because Blood Rage will be leveled all the way, it will be too high to work with Cast when Damage Taken and you will be able to cast it yourself; the links are as follows:

-4-Link (Colors: R,R,R,G)
Cast when Damage Taken (Level 10) - Immortal Call (Up to Level 12) - Increased Duration - Blood Rage

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For my last four link (currently in my helm) I have one of my curse auras as well as my Flicker Strike setup, the links are as follows:

-4-Link (Colors: B,B,G,R)
Assassin's Mark (or Enfeeble) - Blasphemy - Flicker Strike - Multistrike

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For my first weapon three link (currently in my Cybil's Paw) I run one of my curse auras linked to enhance for more quality. Quality adds more damage to the curse, but this is optional. The one downside to including enhance is the mana multiplier. Blasphemy by default reserves 35% of your mana and with enhance it will reserve 40%. The links are as follows:

-3-Link (Colors: B,B,G)
Vulnerability - Blasphemy - Enhance

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For my last three link (currently in my off hand weapon) I have my Whirling Blades setup, the links are as follows:

-3-Link (Colors: G,G,R)
Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify

So the process is as follows:

1. Enter Area
2. Make sure your auras are running.
3. Cast Blood Rage
4. Rev up the helicopter (blade vortex)
5. Use Whirling Blades to cleave through enemies and to travel. (procs fortify and kills them)
6. Flicker Strike to annihilate groups or even single target enemies.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 as needed.
8. If an enemy is too scary, use Bladefall to snipe them.

For bosses/single target.

1. You can preemptively stack blades before engaging most bosses.
2. Sweep in use Whirling blades to cleave through boss (procs fortify)
3. You can just repeatedly cleave through them or use flicker strike occasionally.
4. Collect treasure.
5. If boss is too scary, use Bladefall to snipe them.

*Remember, this is a poison build, if things get too hot, stack some DOTs and dip out, your damage is still there even if you aren't.

So Blade Vortex is a wonderful skill to level with as soon as you're able to acquire it. Once you get Spell Echo in act 4, it really takes off and will make cruel difficulty a breeze. The same can be said for Bladefall as well.

Up until then, I think I just used Ethereal Knives combined with a Flame Totem.

I've run a lot of other mods and they're definitely still doable with some adjustments.

-Curse Immunity
This will hinder your damage but it doesn't make the map impossible; disable your curse auras and use Clarity instead.

-Reduced Regeneration
You'll either have to use flasks more often, or replace your second curse aura with Clarity.

-Vulnerability/Extra Damage
If you're confident in your potential, you can make no change and try to play carefully. If you're too concerned, replace Assassin's Mark with Enfeeble as your second curse.

-Elemental Weakness
You may want to avoid this one unless your resistances are overcapped and it doesn't affect you at all.

-Temporal Chains
I swear 80% of my maps roll Temporal Chains, it's annoying at best. The maps will go a little slower, but with Whirling Blades and Flicker Strike it isn't all that bad.

-Minus Max Resistances
This one can be pretty dangerous, play with extreme caution. Run Enfeeble.

-Blood Magic
-Disable your auras. Play with caution. I generally still avoid this one just cause it's annoying.

-Beyond
Depending on how much you spawn this can get a little scary. Just say no to Haast.

-Two Additional Exiles
lol I'll be honest, this build does so much damage the exiles last about as long as trash mobs do.

-Elemental Equilibrium
Does not affect you.

-Elemental Reflect
Does not affect you.