Blade Vortex

58-89 at the moment. I guess low hits like that might be reduced to below 50 with monster armor. That might explain it.
Wasn't this skill supposed to gain AoE on higher levels? Because I'm pretty sure it doesn't right now.
I think that is what quality on the gem will do
I'm referring this post by Rory https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1484517 , where he writes "The skill also increases in radius as the gem is leveled, as part of an initiative to have players not need to focus as heavily on Area of Effect passives in the tree." This isn't the case right now, but may be an intended balance change.
Why does the damage for this skill plateau so badly with levels?

Most spells greatly increase their damage from gem level 10 to level 20, by over 3 times.

Blade Vortex only increases its damage by 2.5 times from gem level 10 to level 20.

Blade Vortex also really drops off after level 20, so that even using a Level 4 corrupted Empower in a +1 gems item, for +5 levels will only bring the damage up by 37%.

Most spells with +5 levels over level 20 get a massive boost. Bladefall, for example, gets +57%.

I really feel the drop off of Blade Vortex at high levels. Why is the damage progression so soft past level 15?

Actually looking at the skill as a whole, it's progression from level 1 to 20 is really flat. A level 20 gem does barely 5 times more than a level 1 gem. Many spells do 10+ times more damage.

Even Ball Lightning does 8.8 times more damage at level 20 than level 1.

Why?

It feels bad.
It's worth noting that +2 maps are a dangerous thing.
They can cause players to get out of their depth -
playing maps that are too hard for the items they currently have. Herp Derp.
Last edited by RickyDMMontoya on Dec 17, 2015, 7:00:27 PM
"Why" is most likely because you can get more stacks on higher levels: longer duration, more Cast Speed. Other Spells also scale with Cast Speed, but being non-following it's not as big a factor.
Ball Lightning does something similar, scaling with AoE radius, Projectile Speed reductions and Knockback.

Whether it should be adjusted or not, dunno, I am not commenting on that. :)
im currently travelling the western coast of the USA on my honeymoon, so i've yet to play the patch or this skill but i was planning a full build towards it.

im really concerned however. seeing the actual 15% damage effectiveness listed, as opposed to the 35% shown on its preview, and its damage from level progression compared to its pretty expensive mana cost for a multi-cast necessary skill...i feel like i might as well just use ethereal knives, considering it just got a significant buff.
sure EK can get really expensive in its casting cost as well but at least you'll kill everything in a very nicely sized AoE with one cast, where as BV you'll need to spend an exorbitant amount of mana to get a decent amount of blades spinning, as well as spending many resources on ways to keep them for as long as possible (passives and supports dedicated to increased duration).

cast speed has a hard cap on your mana consumption, which with this skill would again be quite extreme. my proposed plan has an incredible amount of cast speed, but i don't really think there would be a way i could sustain the mana in order to cast it, considering i'd really prefer to run 60-85% mana pool on auras.

with such low efficiency and base duration the best supports are focused on cast speed, duration, and MORE damage multipliers such as concentrated effect and the new controlled destruction (no way you could efficiently also spec crit for this build).

blade vortex, iron will, spell echo, inc duration, conc effect and cont destruction were my planned 6 but i have a feeling i'd need to include blood magic.
i'd be an RF build as well (for the MORE spell damage aspect) so i would absolutely have to run purity of fire, meaning a legit blood magic spec is out. however socketing blood magic would severely drop of some DPS and would increase the cost incredibly high. with such high cost and cast speed as well as the RF burn i'd be more than likely to kill myself than anything else.

im just not sure how i'd make it work - better than EK anyway. where as with EK i could link your typical supports and manually cast for straight up crazy (now boosted) damage at range instead of constantly casting for BV stacks and need to be relatively close to the action.

i'd also save approximately 7 passives that i would dedicate otherwise to HP/regen and the like (being RF and all) instead of placing them for skill effect duration, trying to get a 13 second duration on BV blades.

these are all things i'll need to try, and i likely will try them all because i do want to make this skill gem work in a build. im just not a fan of MAKING something work when something else works so much better and easier.
question regarding the mechanics of blade vortex....

its cast by a spell, but for the actual hits...are they attacks?

example: if i curse monsters with poacher's mark, which grants mana and life by hit from an ATTACK...will the blades from BV grant this effect?
Think it through.

Why would the hits from a spell count as an attack?
It's worth noting that +2 maps are a dangerous thing.
They can cause players to get out of their depth -
playing maps that are too hard for the items they currently have. Herp Derp.
EK is twice as good as this spell.
It's worth noting that +2 maps are a dangerous thing.
They can cause players to get out of their depth -
playing maps that are too hard for the items they currently have. Herp Derp.

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