[2.1] Blade Vortex - Survivability Master - HC Viable [WIP]

Hi guys, I have a couple ideas about a build for Blade Vortex/Bladefall/Ethereal Knives, whichever you prefer.

This is the tree I'd like to use: https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYAsNii2cgU9W9qjBa_df2Eb9RCtUgmlWHiVUsPqySLwzoqOJu1hMUZivsJ9toaj4MJsZAtqL6A7Bhwu9kTL2-P-vDVSVFcQFS9Fe2Wi9W562M2PZ2qbIxirLTFwuwFtY2_UUcwfI19I_ZNkm8nmmpM_0Mx2sF07QUteu9AoF4T705hUobRJwuDtpOoV1SKs49g4J8FZhEvLlPTb9QjMHHdqEt4OkJfsMpKUUxvnqxHfVsqTQDuLOkVIIazPydKyG6qtfLb50cG0NA1kti9_o9N46ZXMZ7DM1oaPs-95gzypctqkxm0LYPWWF-YWW3PMv4K

It's plenty of life and phys dmg nodes, while also providing 20% less mana reserved, skill duration (for blade vortex, remove those 3 points in case you use any of the 2 other phys spells), life/mana leech, +3 max Frenzy Charges, VP, and Acro/Phase Acro.

My idea is to use Blasphemy with Enfeeble and Warlord's Mark, together with Hatred and Arctic Armour. Also, it's important to use Summon Chaos Golem for the extra damage mitigation.

The main skill would be (in this case) Blade Vortex, linked to Spell Eco -> Ice Bite (to gain FCs, freezing enemies with the cold dmg from Hatred, which will grant more dmg and cast speed) -> Blind -> Added Fire Dmg/Faster Casting/Poison/Increased Duration/Others


Also, you could use 2 CwDT setups:
1) CwDT + Increased Duration + Immortal Call (+ Optional) (you will consume the Endurance Charges gained through Warlord's Mark, making IC last longer)
2) CwDT + Glacial Cascade + Ice Nova/Shock Nova/Arc (+ Optional). This setup eases your job in terms of freezing enemies in order to gain more FCs, while also helping damage output by shocking enemies (if you choose to use Shock Nova or Arc).

Why Blind and Enfeeble? Because Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics provide a mean to dodge attacks, but when hit you should be able to endure dmg spikes. So, Blind provides another way to make enemies miss (together with the reduced accuracy from Enfeeble), while Enfeeble reduces the damage, Crit Chance and Crit Multiplier of the mobs around you (thanks to Blasphemy). Also, Arctic Armour and Summon Chaos Golem provide further damage mitigation, both from physical and from fire sources. This combo, together with Immortal Call, chances to freeze (frozen/chilled mobs deal no damage, so further dps reduction), high life leech %, and a notable life pool, should guarantee survivability in most cases.

As for the gear, you can use pretty much what you want, there's nothing really mandatory. What I would aim for is an Alpha's Howl, since it further reduces mana reserved, boosts your Aura level and provides a good chunk of Evasion. High Evasion will surely help, so you can stack it up. Also, I was considering to use a Doryani's Fist. This will grant more damage per hit on Blade Vortex, while also providing another chance to shock that does not rely on CwDT.

Let me know what you think :)

You put a lot into defenses, but I fail to see how you want to actually kill a single mob.

Your gem links are very defensive and you get only little damage from the tree, so scaling is rather bad (Ice Bite as support??)

Furthermore, you travel to the duelist area in your tree...which makes no sense to me. It seems your idea was to grab the Leech cluster, but if you look closely, it says "attack damage" is leeched. Not spell damage as you would need for Blade Vortex.

You should revisit your tree and idea first before caring about tons of defense options such as Arctic Armour, Blind, Chaos Golem, Enfeeble with Blasphemy (really, why not CWDT???).

My suggestion is to go for

a) a Bladefall trapper (most likely HC viable, using Shadow/Witch area)
b) a Blade Vortex crit char (less HC viable I imagine, also Shadow/Witch area of the passive tree)

Links if you want to go with blade vortex:
Blade Vortex - Faster Casting - Spell Echo - Inc. Duration - Inc. Crit Strikes - Inc. Crit dmg

P.S. if you use Enfeeble and Warlord#s Mark with Blasphemy, along with Hatred and AA, you are at 125% Mana reservation. Considering your 20% less from the tree, that is 100% mana reserved.
Even with Alpha's this won't work. Maybe if you go for Eldritch Battery...

lots of issues with your tree. First off, the leech nodes you picked up over in the duelist area dont apply to blade vortex because its not an attack. You are also missing damage nodes and Aoe nodes which are very important for hardcore with this skill. Ice bite is an ok support i guess on Blade vortex but honestly cast speed, duration and AOE nodes are your goto for this skill; frenzy charges are ok but something like bloodrage or blood dance would be better overall. My variant of the build uses the poison support gem to amplify my damage significantly (particularly against boss mobs), it also grabs all of the phys damage nodes up over the shadow tree and the ones below the shadow tree as well to help scale the damage into the late game. You can go crit with Blade vortex as well and because it hits so fast you don't need much more then 30-40% crit to make use of if as a large buff to the skill. I'm debating whether or not to go crit personally. Defense wise, my build is about 175% life as hybrid ES as well, decent block+spell block, iron reflexes, and immortal call + warlords on blasphemy. The problem with going evasion/dodge with this build is that thorns completely destroy you and so do physical spells; thats why i choose to go with the iron reflexes route rather then pure evasion. anyways you should check out my skill tree for some ideas.



To the guy above me, you dont really want increased duration as a support gem on blade vortex. You can get more than enough duration nodes from the tree to sustain about 35-40 blades while running around a cap at 50 while standing still. The key to this skill is mostly cast speed.