[3.6 Video Guide] Blade Vortex Inpulsa Clear Speed Build [Elementalist]

For gameplay footage & verbally describing the build, check out this video guide: Blade Vortex Inpulsa Video Guide

For the Inquisitor version click HERE!
For the Trickster version click HERE!

Path of Building Link for the build: https://pastebin.com/w4ug94Y7
Simply go to "Import/Export Build" > Click the "Import from Pastebin" paste the link in there, and then click "Import"

If you have any questions you can always come to my twitch stream to get them answered or just to enjoy the stream:

Ghazzy's Livestreaming Channel

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Is this build for you?

1. If you are looking for a top tier clear speed Blade Vortex build.

2. A build that is viable in both hardcore & softcore.

3. Insanely high clear speed with high eHP & strong defenses.

4. If you prefer a build guide that has a video linked to it.

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Build Enabling/Enhancing Items:

Inpulsa is the main big item we are using to enhance our general clear speed with. You can play the build without it but will be a bit slower.

The most important unique item is a super cheap pair of Hrimsorrow which converts 50% of your physical damage to cold, this combined with the support gem "Physical to Lightning" you are simply not dealing any physical damage at all, allowing you to run Physical Reflect rolled maps and you are both shocking & freezing your enemies reliably with crits.

Other enhancing items are the following:
Taste of Hate
Atziri's Promise
Bisco's Leash
Starkonja
Lightpoacher

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Defence & Utility

The build utilizes a lot of crits allowing you to reliably freeze & shock your enemies on top of a few other minor tweaks listed blow;

A simple CWDT setup combined with Immortal Call is there to help you vs Bone Husks & Porcupines.

Here is a link to a downloadable calculator for how much effective HP you'll have with Mind Over Matter: Mind Over Matter eHP Calculator

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Pantheon Choices:

Pantheon List

Major God:

- Soul of the Brine King
Helps you avoid getting chain stunned.

Minor God:

- Soul of Shakari
Makes you immune to poison damage if you upgrade it.

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Skill-gems & Setups:

Blade Vortex:

- Blade Vortex, Controlled Destruction, Physical to Lightning, Increased Area of Effect, Increased Critical Strikes, Increased Critical Damage

Note;
Gems are listed in order of efficiency.
You can use Vaal Blade Vortex as well which is highly recommended for this build!


Curse on Hit Herald:

- Curse on Hit, Warlord's Mark, Herald of Thunder


Mobility:

- Shield Charge, Fortify, Faster Attacks

Cast When Damage Taken:

- CWDT, Immortal Call, Warlord's Mark, Increased Duration

Utility:

- Herald of Ice, Summon Lightning Golem, Flame Dash, Portal

OPTIONAL:

If you're using Lightpoacher then you should get one with only 1 abyssal socket and link it with:

- Faster Projectile, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Physical to Lightning

This way you deal 0 physical damage with it & it deals good dmg on a wide spread area.

If you're not using Lightpoacher then you can use what ever you want, another CWDT setup, curse on hit setups etc etc, or you can sort an Arcane Surge setup which would look something like this:

- Arcane Surge (lvl 9), Immortal Call, Increased Duration, Phase Run

Note;
The phase run only increases the duration of arcane surge when you cast Immortal Call if you have Frenzy charges.

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Skill-tree & Ascendancy Nodes:

Ascendancy Nodes:
The way you start this is completely up to you, you have 2 options:

1) Pendulum of Destruction over to Mastermind of Discord.
2) Shaper of Desolation over to Beacon of Ruin.

I prefer to do it in the listed order but either way works equally well.


Leveling skill-tree, 31 points

Leveling skill-tree, 44 points

Leveling skill-tree, 91 points

Finished skill-tree

Note:

1. Once the skill-tree is finished, just focus 100% on more jewel slots.

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Leveling Tips:

If you wish, as of patch 3.3 we are able to rather smoothly lvl as Blade Vortex, in which case we start of by supporting it with gems like:
Added Fire, Added Cold,, Added Lightning.
The Cold & Lightning are later replaced by Controlled Destruction & Elemental Focus till we reach higher lvl & gearing to follow the gem section for the end-game gems.


Bandits:

- Kill them all, they don't grant anything worth the skillpoints you'd lose

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Gearing & Stat Priorities

What base items to use:

The base items of this build really doesn't matter as we don't care about the base defensive stats such as armour(str), evasion(dex) or energy shield(int). So instead the base items will follow the stat priority listed in this guide.
However, the attribute requirement of the items will base how hard it is to chrome (color) which will be the only thing we will think about when planing our gearing.
So, if you need 4 blue sockets in an item the recommendation is to get an item that has Energy Shield (int) base or a hybrid base which includes Energy Shield (int).

By using this chrome calculating website: https://siveran.github.io/calc.html you can easily track how hard it will be to chrome the colors you need. This YouTube playlist can help a lot for new players and also includes a few tricks when coloring items with the "wrong attribute requirements" for your build: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuu-MdPs0Af8A4e3gSsJ1xDKNNcdFwY1r


Defensive Stats:

1. Life
2. Mana
3. Resistances
4. Strength

Offensive Stats:

1. Critical Strike Chance for Spells
1. Critical Strike Multiplier
2. Elemental DMG (and elemental specific such as cold/lightning)
2. Spell DMG
2. Area DMG
3. Cast Speed

Jewels:

Same as the offensive stats unless you need defensive stats, then mix or follow that.

Flasks:

1x Seething Divine Life Flask of Staunching
1x w/e prefix Diamond Flask of Warding
1x Atziri's Promise
1x Taste of Hate
1x Ample Quicksilver Flask of Heat

Note:
Before you can afford Taste of Hate, you could balance your resistances to use The Wise Oak

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Recommended Unique Items:
Taste of Hate
Atziri's Promise
Inpulsa
Bisco's Leash
Hrimsorrow or Hrimburn
Darkness EnthronedHeadhunter
Intuitive Leap


Recommended LvLing Uniques:
Frozen Trail
Wanderlust
Goldrim
Lifesprig
Tabula Rasa
Abberath's Horn

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Outro:

For gameplay footage & verbally describing the build, check out this video guide: Blade Vortex Inpulsa Video Guide

For the Inquisitor version click HERE! The differences between Inquisitor & Elementalist version is this:
Inquisitor is faster in solo play and/or with an aurabot support, however, if you have someone in the party cursing, the elementalist will always be the stronger option.

Before you start posting questions I would recommend checking the video. I am as always available in my stream!

Hope you guys will enjoy the build! Below you can access my other build guides:

Build Guides


//GhazzyTV

* Reserved

NOTICE:

I've reached a point where I have too many build guides to keep up with responding personally on each comment as I've always done on my threads in the past. I will obviously continue doing this but on the youtube videos instead. I hope you guys will understand, sadly I'm not a fulltime streamer and for me to keep build guides like this posted this was an inevitable result!

first?

thanks Gazzy been looking for a comprehensive BV guide for 3.3

Thoughts on BV as a leaguestarter?

Would you recommend the templar version of this build for someone who often doesnt complete uberlab quickly? I seem to have terrible RNG and have a hard time to get all 6 trials. Elementalist seems to require both the ele pen/reduced reservation and proliferation requiring 8 points where the last 2 for inquisitor dont seem as necessary?

One option with Elementalist is to pick one of the 4-point paths at first (probably Mastermind of Discord, but maybe Beacon of Ruin if you get an early Inpulsa), then pick up Paragon of Calamity with Merc Lab. It will cost you 10 refund points to spec out of it later, but that's not a big deal. In the mean time, you'll get 0.5% life leech and complete immunity to reflect, which helps out a lot in early mapping.

I'm curious about your thoughts on some other gem options for the last two links for Blade Vortex. I think the mandatory gems for this build in 3.2 are BV, Spell Echo, Phys to Light, and Conc/Inc Area. For the last two, you're using Inc Crit Strikes and Inc Crit Dmg. However, using your path of building, swapping those two out for Controlled Destruction and Efficacy increased the DPS from 707k to 739k (all lvl 20, 0 quality). At 20 quality on all gems, the DPS goes from 767k to 813k.

The downside, of course, is that Crit Chance (without Diamond Flask) drops from 66% to 37%. You state in your guide that you want crit chance high to constantly freeze and shock, but Elementalist gets Shaper of Desolation to guarantee chill and shock at least part of the time, and Inquisitor gets +100% crit chance against enemies without elemental ailments. The upside from Efficacy is the quality of life from the 16% increased skill effect duration.

I'd also like to think ahead to 3.3, where we know that the maximum blades is dropping from 20 to 10, and we get a free +100% crit chance at 10 blades. This may eliminate the need for spell echo, and I think the optimal 6 link might be something like:

BV - Phys to Light - Conc/Inc Area - Efficacy - Controlled Destruction - Inc Crit Damage

Hypothermia is also another option in the place of Controlled Destruction or Inc Crit Damage for similar DPS. However, you can't guarantee Chill on endgame bosses outside of the conflux window, especially since the 3.3 changes to BV have it hit more often but for less damage.

TL;DR you can get roughly 20% more DPS if you're willing to give up about 40% less chance to freeze.

Hey Ghazzy,

Nice guide as always, this will be my third build of yours that i'm going to try out as the first two were spectacular.

As far as play style is concerned I was curious how something like this BV setup compares to a traditional RF build? I understand that the two skills are fundamentally different and that gearing and damage scaling are unrelated (crit based impulsa vs life and regen) but the game play looks similiar, at least from someone who mostly plays rangers and is inexperienced with these types of builds. Cast damage aura and shield charge into packs and watch things explode/melt seem at a glance similar.

Basically are there any pro/cons to going BV as opposed to RF? Is one build specifically better at doing x in maps while the other excels at y?

Sorry if these are complete noob questions, and thanks again for taking the time to do these guides!

"

As far as play style is concerned I was curious how something like this BV setup compares to a traditional RF build?

I am also torn between these two builds for next league. I'm not an expert, but my impression is that the trade-off is between damage and survivability. With RF, your life pool, physical damage reduction, and regen are insane, but your damage is kind of low without some pretty extreme investments into life/str.

In comparison, BV is much more damage on a fairly low budget, but you don't get a lot of the defensive layers. This build is better than most due to the high eHP using MoM.

If you want to be able to run uber lab, farm end game bosses, or play HC, I'd lean towards RF. If you want to clear maps quickly, play BV.

Thanks man, really appreciate you taking the time to respond. You have given me some food for thought, now I just need to figure out which one I want to go with.

"

vileArchon wrote:

first?

thanks Gazzy been looking for a comprehensive BV guide for 3.3

Thoughts on BV as a leaguestarter?

First indeed!

Awesome to hear, glad you're enjoying it. I will be using this as my leaguestarter, and I believe that it will be VERY nice to use for it.

"

dacamell wrote:

Would you recommend the templar version of this build for someone who often doesnt complete uberlab quickly? I seem to have terrible RNG and have a hard time to get all 6 trials. Elementalist seems to require both the ele pen/reduced reservation and proliferation requiring 8 points where the last 2 for inquisitor dont seem as necessary?

Inquisitor is closer to it's full potential before Uberlab than the Elementalist. Basically you just increase your effective HP and a small portion of penetration via the Elementalist.
In general, the Inquisitor is faster and better solo or with an Aura support. However, if you have a curse support with you, the Elementalist will be a lot better.

"

Bananaderson wrote:

One option with Elementalist is to pick one of the 4-point paths at first (probably Mastermind of Discord, but maybe Beacon of Ruin if you get an early Inpulsa), then pick up Paragon of Calamity with Merc Lab. It will cost you 10 refund points to spec out of it later, but that's not a big deal. In the mean time, you'll get 0.5% life leech and complete immunity to reflect, which helps out a lot in early mapping.

Absolutely a way to go :)

"

Bananaderson wrote:

I'm curious about your thoughts on some other gem options for the last two links for Blade Vortex. I think the mandatory gems for this build in 3.2 are BV, Spell Echo, Phys to Light, and Conc/Inc Area. For the last two, you're using Inc Crit Strikes and Inc Crit Dmg. However, using your path of building, swapping those two out for Controlled Destruction and Efficacy increased the DPS from 707k to 739k (all lvl 20, 0 quality). At 20 quality on all gems, the DPS goes from 767k to 813k.

The downside, of course, is that Crit Chance (without Diamond Flask) drops from 66% to 37%. You state in your guide that you want crit chance high to constantly freeze and shock, but Elementalist gets Shaper of Desolation to guarantee chill and shock at least part of the time, and Inquisitor gets +100% crit chance against enemies without elemental ailments. The upside from Efficacy is the quality of life from the 16% increased skill effect duration.

I'd also like to think ahead to 3.3, where we know that the maximum blades is dropping from 20 to 10, and we get a free +100% crit chance at 10 blades. This may eliminate the need for spell echo, and I think the optimal 6 link might be something like:

BV - Phys to Light - Conc/Inc Area - Efficacy - Controlled Destruction - Inc Crit Damage

Hypothermia is also another option in the place of Controlled Destruction or Inc Crit Damage for similar DPS. However, you can't guarantee Chill on endgame bosses outside of the conflux window, especially since the 3.3 changes to BV have it hit more often but for less damage.

TL;DR you can get roughly 20% more DPS if you're willing to give up about 40% less chance to freeze.

Spell Echo will have to go imo when 3.3 hits.
Controlled Destruction will be a pretty solid choice when 3.3 hits as well tbh. I'm not sure about the Efficacy vs inc Crit dmg. Keep in mind that crit dmg support gives more DPS with a higher crit chance in place.

"

Sigzul wrote:

Hey Ghazzy,

Nice guide as always, this will be my third build of yours that i'm going to try out as the first two were spectacular.

As far as play style is concerned I was curious how something like this BV setup compares to a traditional RF build? I understand that the two skills are fundamentally different and that gearing and damage scaling are unrelated (crit based impulsa vs life and regen) but the game play looks similiar, at least from someone who mostly plays rangers and is inexperienced with these types of builds. Cast damage aura and shield charge into packs and watch things explode/melt seem at a glance similar.

Basically are there any pro/cons to going BV as opposed to RF? Is one build specifically better at doing x in maps while the other excels at y?

Sorry if these are complete noob questions, and thanks again for taking the time to do these guides!

Hey,

Haha, that's awesome to hear bro, thank you!
First of, never apologize for asking questions, I always make sure to respond to each and everyone to make sure everyone gets the help they need ^^

With that out of the way;
This BV build freezes and shocks enemies making it safe for speed mapping compared to a slightly slower generic RF build however, RF builds are in general much tankier which makes them excel vs bosses unlike this build which can still handle bosses very well.

"

Bananaderson wrote:

"

As far as play style is concerned I was curious how something like this BV setup compares to a traditional RF build?

I am also torn between these two builds for next league. I'm not an expert, but my impression is that the trade-off is between damage and survivability. With RF, your life pool, physical damage reduction, and regen are insane, but your damage is kind of low without some pretty extreme investments into life/str.

In comparison, BV is much more damage on a fairly low budget, but you don't get a lot of the defensive layers. This build is better than most due to the high eHP using MoM.

If you want to be able to run uber lab, farm end game bosses, or play HC, I'd lean towards RF. If you want to clear maps quickly, play BV.

^^^This^^^