[2.3] Blade Vortex Perma Flask 626k dps, 10.5k EHP, and 75/75 block/spell block (With videoes)

Changes in 2.4
Now BV can only stack to 20, but has its damage increased by 63%. Thismeans that it will be better at clearing maps, were i was only running 20 stacks anyway, but its damage compared to the old 50 stacks will be a little lower. 1-20/50*1.63=35% lower actually. However, the we no longer need inc duration/spell echo to have max stacks. This means that one of these (maybe both) of these support gems can be switched out against hard bosses. The possible support gems could be added fire insted of inc duration, and/or controlled destruction instead of spell echo. Due to the reduced number of crits, it require some testing, to know how hte charge generation feels against long boss fights. For this reason, inc crits might be a viable option, instead of spell echo.

The life gain from cybils is lower now, but it is still there at least. With 120% spell dmg, and some life gain (while still having ghost reaver) i still belive cybils is our best choice. After all, the life pool is only a buffer to prevent oneshots. The heavy damage and leech applies to our ES. Also, i have 75% chaos res, 75% block, and fortify (total 95% chaos damage reduction) with this build, so the life gain from cybils is more than enought to outheal chaos damage.

For easy maping i think i will keep my old setup, just to be able to cast less, and move more. If i feel like i need more damage, i will switch inc duration for added fire. Agains bosses i might switch also switch spell echo for controlled destruction, or inc crits, depending on the battle, and how it feels. Without inc duration and spell echo, i can still get to 20 stacks (28 tested in 2.3). With that setup, i belive that the damage for bosses are about the same, or maybe a little higher actually, gaining 2 support gems with damage that we did not have before.

Feel free to ask if you got any questions. I will be playing league in 2.4, so i can only answer questions in a theoretical plane ;)

Changes in 2.3
Not much have changed. The skill tree and the skills we use has not changed. The only thing is the 2 ascendancy points, and they dont really open up for anything special.

Intro

This build is all about getting the most out of flasks. Normally it would be a problem to depend ond flask, as you would some times run out of charges, against bosses with no adds. This problem has been solved by the pathfinder, which grants 10% flask charge when you deal a critical strike. For this reason we need to hit very often, and Blade Vortex is perfect for that, as it can have up to 50 stacks, each hitting once per second, for a total of 50 hits per second.

To get the largest amount of effective health, without spending too much passives on life, I am going hybrid in this build. To gain life i use life gain on hit with Cybil's, and to gain ES, i use leech
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How to use all flasks at a time
This might seem stupid. How to use all flasks at a time? Just hit all the flasks keys at a time (or at least the 4 first, and then the last). Surprisingly, that might not work for you. Try open a text editing program (word, nodepad), and hit 4 keys at a time. You will find that depending on the kombination, it is not all keys that are actually pressed. This is due to the way the keyboard are wired. In my case (dont know if it is the same with all keyboards) i cant hit 1234 at a time, but qwer works fine. For that reason, i had to swich places between skills and flasks, so that my flasks are on qwert, and can be activated at once (i press qwer with 4 fingers, and then press t right after).
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Stats

Defencive:
4588 life
5899 ES
75% block
75% spell block
14 life gained on hit (with 50 hits per second per target, this is a lot)
45% of lightning damage leeched instantly (i do around a third of my dmg as lightning)
45% of physical damage taken as cold
84% lightning res
84% cold res
75% fire res
49% chaos res

Can take reflect like it's nothing
Lets find out just how much reflect i can take
I do a little more than half of my elemental damage as lightning, and i leech 45% of that, so in total, with the small leech from atziris promice, i leech 28% of the elemental damage i do. I have 84% resists in the elements i do, and i have 75% block. This means that only 4% of the reflected damage is done to me. This means that i can manage 28%/4%=700% reflect. Quite nice.


Offence:
The AoE support can be switched out depending on the situation, leaving different damages and crit chances. All these numbers (not the last one) are with all flasks up, assassins mark, elemental weakness, shock, and 4 power charges

Increased aoe
554k dps
72% crit
very good aoe

Increased critical strikes
626k dps
89% crit
small aoe, suited for bosses
High crit, good for sustaining charges

Concentrated effect
882k dps
72% crit
Too small aoe (dangerous)

Controlled destruction
756k dps
66% crit
small aoe, suited for bosses
Low crit, bad for sustaining charges

Increased AoE, worst case scenario (curse and shock immune, no charges, 75% all res)
61k dps
44% crit
This is the lowest damage setup we can have, facing the most defencive enemy possible.

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Flask and explanations

As we depend on flasks, we want to buff them as much as we can. With conqueror's potency and flask notes in both the skill tree and ascendancy tree, we can get the following:

53% increased flask effect
50% increased flask duration
40% increased flask charges gained
35% reduced flask charges used
Funny calculation
Lets try and multiply thise numbers, to find out just how much more effective our flask are, compared to normal: (1+53%)*(1+50%)*(1+40%)/(1-35%)=4.94. This means that our flasks are approximately 5 times as good as usual. Quite nice.

The reduced flask charges used, comes from a belt with 20% (can be 17%) reduced flask charges used, along with the 15% from the tree. This way, flask that would normally have 2 uses will now have 3, effectivly giving all flask 50% more charges. Now we just need to choose wich flasks to use. Here is my setup:



Atziri's promice: This is nice to have, as it provides chaos resistance, and a huge damage boost. It gives both 25% of the physical dmg i used to do, and 15% of the elemental damage i actually do after conversion, wich is roughly 40% (this is not exact). With 50% flask effect, this is 60% more dmg.

Rumi's concoction: This is a must for max block. With a 32% roll, we dont need to spend any points in the skill tree for block chance. A nice bonus is that it provides a huge dmg bonus, as we are using dual Cybil's

Grounding diamond flask: We need grounding, as we use Vinktar, and i have chosen diamond flask, as it provides the crit we need to keep up flask charges. I have around 50% crit without diamond flask up, and this is exactly the range, were it provides the most additional crit.

Vessel of Vinktar: This flask is flask keeps up our ES with gost reaper, and helps convert some of our physical damage to lightning. The 50% dmg from shock is also realy nice. If you cant get your hands on a legacy, you can suplement a new version with vaal pact, and you should be good to go. We dont have too mich life regen anyway.

Taste of hate: This flask is only luxury. If you are in a situation were you need a life flask, like in poison clouds maps, i sugest you swich this one out.

For those who love math
I said ealier that diamond flasks gives the most crit, when you already have 50% crit. If you do not belive me, dont worry, here comes the proof:

When we are lucky, the crit are rolled twice, and the better outcome is picked. This means that if the first, or the last, or both are crits, then we crit. These however are a lot of situations to calculate. It is a lot easier to find the chance of the one situation that is left out - when none of the two are crits. If your crit chance is p, then the chance to not crit, two times in a row, is (1-p)^2, and this leaves the new chance to crit P, when we are lucky, to be P=1-(1-p)^2

Now we know the chance of critting, when we are lucky, but we want to get the most out of this luck - we want to uptimize it. To get the most out of the lucky effect, is the same as to ask "when is P-p maximal?" This we do by deriving P-p=1-(1-p)^2-p in p, and here we get (P-p)'=2(1-p)-1. Setting this equal to 0, and solving for p, we get p=50%, exactly as i stated above.

For this value of p, we gain an additional 25% crit. For values below this, the percentage increase is better, but the starting value is much lower. For values above this, the starting value is higher, but the percentage increase in crit is much lower.

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Gear

Let us now take a look at the gear i use. I use a lot of corrupted gear, which are nice, but not critical to have.

Gear



Gear with the prices i gave for them

I will add the prices i bought the items for, so you have an idea what this build costs. The itesm are NOT for sale
40c:

1 ex:

1 ex:

5c:

1 ex:

28 ex:

2 ex:

1 ex:

1.5 ex:

a few chaos:




As you can see, i have a few special items. The most important ones are the 6% block cybil's. These really helps us getting to max, without spending a single point in the tree. Ofcause you can do without, but remember that more block chance is better, the more you have ;)

The amulet is way more show off than it has to be. Ofcause it does not need to be alt art, and you can do fine without the extra curse.

Failed corruptions

Some ok ones (They are all for sale)


...And a lot of trash


The reduced flask charges on use is important, and it should be at least 19%. This is normally easy to find, as people tend to underestimate its power.

For jewels I use Conqueror's Potency, and the other is just some rare jewel, that suits your needs. If you need resistances, get that, if you need block, get that.
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Skills
6L
Blade vortex - Elemental focus - Spell echo - Increased duration - Physical to lightning - AoE/Critical strikes

4L
Assassins mark - Blasphamy - Discipline - Enlighten

4L
Cast when damage taken - Ball lightning - Blind - Power charge on crit/something else

3L
Whirling blades - Faster attacks - Fortify

1L
Vaal clarity (to get 50 stacks before bosses)

I have not yet decided the rest
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Skill tree and leveling

Leveling
For leveling i used blade vortex, as it is very powerfull early on. It may seem a little squishy just before you hit 37, but once you can equip a set of Cybil's paw, the build becomes quite tanky. Get your hands on an empires grasp, as it really helps your clear speed, when you are not killing things in <1 sec (you can see in my videoes, that i dont need it anymore)

Bandits
Normal: 40 life
Cruel: Skill point
Merciless: Power charge

Skill tree
Here is a link to my current skill tree: Lvl 95 skill tree

Vaal pact, for new vinktar

When leveling, try to reach the flask notes and life ealy on, and then go for ES, dmg, and Ghost reaver, when you have some good ES gear to equip.
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Videoes

Malachai merciless kill
Hall of Grandmaster partial clear (Got stuck at some chaos immune aegis guys)
Atziri kill, deathless
Death and Taxes
Twinned Malformation boss fight
Gorge run, with flicker strike as movement (quite funny. Might actually be good with some practice)
Poorjoys asylum clear
Excavation bosses kill
Deathless 8 mod Core clear
Twinned Excavation with vulnerability
T13 Voll with inc dmg, temp chains, enfeeble, faster monsters, curse immunity
Colloseum double beyond, - max res, ele reflect, enfeeble ful clear (This is probably the most insane map i have ever done, and it was so much fun. I will be rolling a lot more double beyond from now on)
Village ruin NO LEECH (I just assumed that no leech would be impossible for this build, or at least extremely hard, but it does not seem so. I kill things way faster than they can attack me, and even with no leech, i still got 10k ehp and 75% block, so its no problem really, though i would try to avoid it while leveling)

Some videoes made by Symeon_Stareyes, who have followed this guide, and have similar stats to my own:
Deathless Shrine Run with Vulnerability,Elemental Weakness, No Regen)

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Future challanges

This build seems to manage everything i throw at it, so i wanna se how much it can do. The reason i have not already done these things, are because they are expencive.

Uber Atziri
(Done) Core boss (Malachais merciless was quite easy. Wanna see the difference)
Twinned Core boss (If single cores boss goes well... It did)
(Done) Finish Hall of Grandmasters (I have to find a way around those Aeigs guys)

I would really like to hear what you guys think I should throw at this char. If it is affordable, or if you are even willing to donate anything crazy (some vaaled map you think no one can do maybe), i will gladly risk a death or two, and make a video about it :)

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Changes to the guide

Added some more details about damage. The 187k dps was only a rough estimate, and was not including factors like assassins mark, elemental weakness, power charges, diamond flask, added elemental damage and penetration from the ascendancy tree. All these has now been included.

Changed the trees a bit, to get less crit chance and more multiplier. When i recently calculated my dps, i found that crit pultiplier is twice as good as damage, and that is twice as good as crit chance.

Updated my gear

Added corrupted hrimsorrows.

Found out that reduced flask charges used makes charges consumed be rounded properly, rather than always rounding up as i first thought (i have tested this). This means that the roll can be down to 17%, without making any difference.

Got some new gear. Just updated it. Elemental weakness really helps a lot. Things melt even faster than before.
Last edited by Willemoesium#2121 on Sep 2, 2016, 1:36:41 AM
Last bumped on Nov 21, 2016, 5:51:40 AM
Reserved
Is the Empire's Grasp actually important for this build?
"
Ithian wrote:
Is the Empire's Grasp actually important for this build?


I used empires grasp back when i was in talisman. When the leagues merged, i got a lot of better flask, and my dps is now so high that i dont feel their effect (they are really nice if it takes a few seconds to kill). Now min trying to get Hrimsorrow with ele weakness curse on hit, so i can get the last bit of physical damage converted to elemental.
Would you feel comfortable doing this in HC?
"
Lored wrote:
Would you feel comfortable doing this in HC?


I have never played HC, so its hard to say. The build is close range, so there will always be some risk, but with 75/75 block, and 9k EHP, im never really worried about dying. The most deadly thing i have encountered yet, is actually chaos degen from zombies when you kill them, but if i am carefull, its no problem.
What would you recommend for leveling with this build? All the flasks are so cheap on Perandus I think I might give this a go as my second character.
How gimped would this build be if I used non-corrupted Cybil's Paw? Would Atziri still be fine to do?
"
What would you recommend for leveling with this build? All the flasks are so cheap on Perandus I think I might give this a go as my second character.


Use blade vortex. Its really good early on. When you hit 30-37 it might seem a little squishy, but in 37, when you can equip cybil's paw, you can take most conten without a problem. The build really begins to shine, when you get some good ES gear and begind to leech with the Vessel of Vinktar. If you do it in perandus, i sugest you take vaal pact.

"
daved86 wrote:
How gimped would this build be if I used non-corrupted Cybil's Paw? Would Atziri still be fine to do?


Corrupted cybils is not needed at all. Its just a great addition that makes the build go from really great, to super great. I might try to downgrade my gear sometime, and see how i do against atziri with it (non corrupted cybils, tabula rasa, and maybe some changes to flasks).
Some advice for lvling?
Bandit choice?

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