[3.0] Phys Bladeflurry Pathfinder - All Content, solid all around (Shaper vid incl.)

Tree at 92

Leveling: grab phys%, attack speed and life first, scale up crit last. After initial ranger area go to Duelist and then finally Shadow. Get jewel slots when you actually have good jewels, get phase acro in the late 80's for harder content.

Vaal Pact: Get this when you have 'enough' DPS, likely in the 80s. You can use Path of Building to check if your VP leech greatly exceed your normal leech + life regen. The exact point is hard to pin down as it depends on DPS and how much random leech you might have on gear/jewels.
Note on reflect: DO NOT do phys reflect maps at all before VP, and be wary of phys reflect rares.

Ascendancy: Pathfinder gives us maximum uptime on our 4 powerful utility flasks, free bleed clear and some damage. However you can also run this with Raider, for everything that isn't an endgame boss your flask uptime will still be very high and you get some nice DPS and movement bonuses as well as consistent frenzy charges on bosses.

Bandits: Alira. Crit multi is very good, the resists make gearing a lot easier, and the mana regen is useful. If for whatever reason you don't need the resists, kill all for +2 passives is superior.

Tree at 100 - By late 90s you'll have enough points to run over to the Scion life wheel and the jewel on the way.

Blade Flurry:
1G 3R 2B (preferred), 1G 4R 1B (acceptable, my current links)

Core 5L: Blade Flurry - Melee Physical Damage - Maim - Ruthless - Increased Area of Effect(swap in Conc Effect for hard bosses, usually unnecessary)
6th Link: Increased Crit Damage, or Increased Crit Strikes for more consistent damage output. Chance to Bleed is also acceptable as a red option.

Using Blade Flurry:
-Maximum damage is to hold until 6 stacks (there will be an animation around your character) and then release and start a new channel. You'll get used to the timing (until you change swords or something).
-Blade Flurry does a second hit for every stack on release. Non-bosses will not live to 6 stacks. Release when enemies are at around 50% HP, the release hits should finish them.
-Ruthless will activate for an entire channel, every 3rd channel, and resets after zoning. This allows you to prep a Ruthless BF for bosses, and trivializes Izaro, as you can zone in, do 2 dummy BFs, then wind up a Ruthless BF stack right in his face as he emerges from the elevator.

Leveling: Use Sunder until you can get Blade Flurry. You can actually put off the sword nodes and use Sunder until the 50s if you like as it's a good leveling ability.

Other skills:
Whirling Blades - Fortify - Faster Attacks. Some people might prefer leapslam instead of whirl as it's better in some map layouts and more precise in destination control. You can give up a totem link or inc duration on Vaal Grace to get Blood Magic onto this as well.

Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Enfeeble: Pretty standard.

Vaal Grace - Blood Rage - Increased Duration: Keep this on your weapon so you can weapon swap to cancel Blood Rage.

Ice Golem: I have this attached to my Whirl setup but it's fine alone.

Hatred - Arctic Armor - Herald of Ash - Enlighten lvl 3 You can drop Herald of Ash or Arctic Armor along with Enlighten for budget reasons or to fit in Kaom's Roots more easily.

Ancestral Warchief - Melee Physical Damage - Concentrated Effect - Ruthless Does a lot of DPS (~300k in my current gear). However tends to die easily and is rarely used outside endgame bosses. Can be dropped entirely or used as a solo gem just for the damage buff if you want to use Kaom's Roots.

Links are to my current gear, most of which can be greatly improved.

Main hand: 1H sword, priority order: High PDPS, crit, attack speed, crit multi (lacking on my current sword)
Budget starter: Scaeva. Ok PDPS, crit, can give you either leech and crit multi.


Offhand: We use a stat stick which Blade Flurry cannot attack with. Death's Hand gives us Unholy might for a great DPS boost that synergizes with Atziri's promise for high leech, and also gives us power charges (though not on bosses).


Flasks: Instant heal with anti-freeze, Taste of Hate, Atziri's, Warding Diamond, Lion's Roar. Keep these up at all times, they are key to you defense and DPS. The Warding Diamond let's us ignore curse map mods, which is important because we won't be ele weakness capped.
Budget alts: Jade with evade% or Basalt instead of Taste. Silver Flask or Witchfire Brew for Lion's.


Gloves: Currently these gloves are giving me 82% damage, 103 life, 124 mana, 230 accuracy. Pretty hard to beat.


Head: Starkonja's is cheap, has good HP, evasion, and some DPS stats. It's easy to get one with a useful enchant.
However a good rare helm with high HP and resist will make it much easier to use diamond or steel rings, or it opens up the option of using Kaom's Roots. GG rare helm with good enchant + GG steel rings is the endgame goal rather than Starkonjas.
Lastly, as with all attack builds you can make the DPS even facemeltier with Abyssus but the DPS is not needed and the downside is substantial even in softcore.


Amulet: Need a base with INT. Crit multi and life are priority one, then high phys damage, with crit chance being a nice luxury.


Rings: If you are wearing Starkonja's or Kaom's Roots, at least one of these will need to do a lot of heavy lifting on resists. Otherwise you want life and flat phys. Accuracy and attack speed are also nice. Also a good place to get your 1 source of mana leech (otherwise you may need to spend a passive point southwest of the big sword wheel).


Belt: Belt of the Deceiver is a huge DPS boost from Intimidate, easily the best belt option until Headhunter.


Boots: Rare boots with high HP and resist, movespeed is a luxury but not required as we have Whirl.
OR Kaom's Roots with a high life roll. You'll need to give up a well linked totem and wear a good rare hat with resists instead of Starkonja's. Kaom's immunity to slows/freeze is amazing but stripping you of evade is a serious downside; with a just an evasion chest and Starkonja's the build hits over 40% evasion.
Attack speed or leech enchant is good, or a frenzy charge corruption.


Chest: Main priority is a 6l with acceptable colors, HP and resists. I have a corrupted rare EV chest which was pretty cheap as 6Ls go, but eventually you'll want a 6L Belly of the Beast (or prioritize a 5L Belly in HC), or a 6L Carcass Jack to maximize DPS and clearspeed.


Jewels: Priority order is Life - Crit multi - attack speed - damage% - crit chance. Of the jewels below the 1st is what you eventually want, the other 3 are what is more affordable.