[2.5][HC/SC] Triple Blade Vortex Pathfinder - easy HC Shaper/Uber/T16
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On my quest to find the absolute strongest and most broken HC bosskiller I landed on yet another BV Pathfinder. The build ended up exceeding even my wildest expectations so now that I've foolishly ripped the character I am sharing it here. The build utilizes several neat little tricks that may or may not be here next patch so enjoy it while it lasts!
Profile: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/asdfman Character name is bug_abuse, 94 Pathfinder in Standard League (RIP) Videos (all recorded in a single session in Standard for demonstration purposes) Shaper: https://www.twitch.tv/gcdhack/v/116535507 Uber Atziri: https://www.twitch.tv/gcdhack/v/116535239 Minotaur: https://www.twitch.tv/gcdhack/v/116533719 enfeeble vuln boss life +light dmg facetank Phoenix: https://www.twitch.tv/gcdhack/v/116535801 enfeeble boss life Hydra: https://www.twitch.tv/gcdhack/v/116534573 2nd hydra kill ever for me, messy Chimera: https://www.twitch.tv/gcdhack/v/116534033 vuln+dmg The T16 clears should give you an idea about general map clear speed, you can do some really nasty dmg mod combinations safely due to perma flasks and high leech combined with a huge EHP buffer. I did not record a Chayula Domain run while the character was still alive on HC but they were trivially easy, 35-40sec left on timer and boss died in 2 seconds. Why is this different from all the other BV builds? The following broken mechanics are utilized: - 3 BV gems (explanation below) - Scourge for the double dips and fast movement - Flask effect + Sin's Rebirth/Atziri's Promise combo, the extremely heavy chaos damage focus lets us utilize chaos damage nodes, jewels to a point where they are not far off from fully double dipping damage mods. The leech from just Atziri flask is enough to outleech anything. - 15k+ ES pool and curse effectiveness TC/Enfeeble for tanking shaper slam and whatever else may come your way - Obliteration combined with the of Blades glove enchant for fast map clearing 3 BV gem explanation
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Current BV mechanics seem quite broken - Every BV gem shares stacks globally and casting just once with a gem will do the full 20 stack damage for the gems own duration. What does this mean? We can stack using a lvl 1 gem linked with FC-Echo-Duration to make maintaining 20 stacks trivially easy and require zero investment in mana. A lot of people have already utilized this but this build takes it a step further. The main reason for playing a pathfinder is that we use 2x fully leveled BV gems in our main 6L (7L due to our ascendancy), giving us the full damage from 2x 6L's. This is incredibly powerful because a 7L non crit poison BV link doesn't have a good 7th gem apart from Increased Duration and the since stacks are not a problem the increased poison duration alone is very lackluster compared to DOUBLING your damage with a 2nd BV gem. How to play specifically: 1. Stack with your cheap 4L stack link 2. Cast once with your main 2 BV gems The stack durations are different for the stack link and your damage link, never letting the damage link stacks expire is very important (suddenly do zero damage and leeching since your stacks are all from the lvl 1 BV gem). This is in fact how I ended up dying on this character, timing mistake and relying on leech where there was none. Tree level 94 (scourge tree, switch to this for T16 farming) Obliteration "leveling" tree (Templar AoE nodes for clearspeed) Spec the obliteration tree initially for better clearspeed (and no minion damage nodes). There is zero reason to use scourge before T16, your clearspeed will be far greater with obliteration and every boss will die instantly even without scourge. The main reason for scourge for T16/Shaper/Uber is not the damage but the mobility and fortify. You can drop %es nodes for damage but I never felt a need to increase my damage. If you have perfect 3 prop or good 4 prop jewels you can pick up 2 more jewel slots at Scion (I had plans to do this at 95-96). Bandits : Kill all Gem links
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6L damage link: BV - BV - Conc/AoE - Void Manipulation - Added Chaos - Controlled Destruction For a 5L I would drop Added Chaos 4L stack link: BV (lvl 1) - Faster Casting - Spell Echo - Increased Duration 4L Wither: Wither - Spell Totem - Faster Casting - Increased Duration 4L Utility: Blasphemy - Temporal Chains - Enfeeble - Vaal Lightning Trap 3L Utility: CWDT - Immortal Call - Vaal Discipline 3L Movement: Whirling/Shield Charge - Faster Attacks - Fortify Unset ring: Discipline 2nd Unset ring (if you have a +1 curse Chayula) - 2nd Vaal Discipline / Flame Dash / Flame Golem Utility skills are up to preference, these are what I find most important specifically for endgame bosses. Current gear
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Jewel stats in priority order, assuming resists are capped: Prefixes: 1. ES / Minion damage 2. Chaos damage 3. Physical Damage Suffixes: 1. Area damage 2. Generic damage 3. Damage over time 4. Spell damage Leveling
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Just use 2 BV gems in a Tabula with Elreon jewelry. At 38 start using a stack link with spell echo and drop the elreon jewelry. Do not try to poison while leveling, just use added fire+chaos, aoe and controlled destruction with your 2 BV gems. Do this up to and including Merc Dried Lake. I switched to poison when I did merc lab (right after going CI).
If you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll answer to the best of my ability. IGN : asdfman Last edited by asdfman#0810 on Jan 23, 2017, 2:53:11 PM Last bumped on Mar 1, 2017, 2:13:28 PM
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I knew about the stack damage swapping off the secondary gem, but it stacks ALL current BV charges?
Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezus. Last edited by PhillipJokar2#0768 on Jan 22, 2017, 2:56:45 PM
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Best build guide EU.
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How does having 2 BV gems in the 6L double the damage?
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Do you mind explaining the BV casting mechanics a bit more? specifically the part about spamming cheap link -> once cast with damage link for the deeps/leech. is that just for bossing or for general mapping as well? After doing that combo, is it the same for refreshing the stacks? thanks!
Also, I play on sc, any changes you'd make for that? is it possible to fit in a dying sun for some more aoe? Last edited by Aevra#1974 on Jan 23, 2017, 3:58:01 AM
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" I know it sounds absurd but you'll just have to test it. A good way to test it is to remove support gems entirely, just use 2 plain medium level BV gems. Stack to 20 using a lvl 1 gem (you'll see it does close to zero damage with those 20 stacks). Try killing something like Voll, first cast with only the first gem after stacking to 20, then try it with casting once with both gems - he will die about twice as fast. " So you have a stack link with FC-echo-pen supports and a lvl 1 gem, lets say the blade duration is 13 seconds on that. Your damage link has a duration of 10 seconds without the Increased Duration support. A typical sequence would be as follows : 1. Stack to 20 with the stack link 2. Cast once with each gem in the 6L 3. Refresh stacks with the stack link as needed for the next 9 seconds 4. After 9 seconds, your damage blades are about to expire and you need to recast once with each of them Simply put, focus on the duration of the damage blades, spam the stack blade in excess whenever you have time (it has a very low mana cost anyway) For softcore you should drop ALL excess 6% ES nodes (that dont lead to more powerful ES nodes), you will be completely fine with 10-12k ES. What you pick up instead are the chaos damage nodes above Vaal Pact (4 points) and the chaos/dot damage nodes near extra curse (4 points). You can also use plain damage jewels without %es rolls. Try to avoid cast speed since it doesn't provide much benefit due to the stacking link easily reaching 20 stacks regardless. I know I put HC in the title since that's what makes the build special, very few builds can do effortless HC Shaper, but I do believe this is also the strongest type of BV for softcore, you just go even further with the damage. This easily outperforms necro BV, assassin BV, crit pathfinder BV. A Hidden Potential zerker BV using Cospris Will for the 7L that utilizes the same mechanics would probably have higher damage but you sacrifice tons of defenses for it. You can certainly use Dying Sun, you will have to use Death's Door or Blasphemy Vulnerability to free up a flask slot for it. I would aim for Death's Door and Dying Sun in SC personally, in HC I prefer my 15k ES + Basalt Flask. If you look at the T16 clear videos you'll see that the clearspeed is quite good already. IGN : asdfman Last edited by asdfman#0810 on Jan 23, 2017, 4:51:29 AM
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How would this build perform against a possible nerf around the multiple BV vortex gems stacks? would it be enough to just change the linked gems in the setup?
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" At that point you'd replace the second BV gem with Increased Duration to help with both stacking and poison duration. You could also use Spell Echo as the last link or just swap between Spell Echo and Added Chaos if you have troubles stacking. It would certainly be a performance hit but you would still be able to do all content quite easily, this was considered an overpowered build before the most recent discovery. Check out Waggle's BV PF he's farming HC Shaper on, it's using a single BV gem so this is a way to do it if they change the interaction somehow: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/dsfarblarwaggle/characters charname DsfarblarNOTBROKEN You can also check his YT/Twitch for damage comparisons to see how big the impact of the 3 gem setup is exactly. Another option, especially for softcore players, would be converting to a crit variant such as https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1795223. IGN : asdfman Last edited by asdfman#0810 on Jan 23, 2017, 5:22:17 AM
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Nice build, just a little question
Is your build still viable without Sin's Rebirth Flask? |
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" It's certainly viable to get started without it, obliteration does most of the work anyway. It is, however, an extremely good flask for the build since flask effect increases work on it for some unknown reason and you have plenty of those. It provides an absolutely insane damage boost and you should have one before you attempt guardians in HC at least. IGN : asdfman
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