[2.4] Pathfinder BV starting guide

This will be a quick checklist guide how to farm t16 maps without any expensive gear like ToH/Vessel/Shavrone/Carcass etc etc. You'll be able to facetank uber Izaro / Minotaur (if he has no +500% damage mods ofc) because pathfinder is super overpowered.

I've been an active poster in the Bogok's MoM based PF BV and started to get random PMs about gear and whatnot. People messaging me tell sorrowful stories how they get rekt on t8 maps with the Rathpith shield, MoM and Vessel, which shouldn't happen. If you've found yourself in that sort of situation, wondering why you can't handle the most FOTM build there is - this is for you.


fokitaBV vs Twin Kaom t15 Abyss


You absolute first priority is to get this flask setup:

1. Seething Divine Life Flask (of Heat)
2. Experimenter's Diamond Flask (of curing) / Atziri's Promise
3. Experimenter's Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline
4. Surgeon's Basalt flask of Iron Skin (!)
5. Surgeon's Granite flask (of Whatever. Two Iron Skin mods don't stack)

6. Rumi



Notes:

Before you can get the Rumi - get a regular Granite Flask. You must have Granite AND Basalt with +armor mod on Basalt. Check out your armor: you should be at 85%. That is 15% of physical damage being received. Get Chaos Golem for additional 4% and you should be closing on 90% which is the cap you should be aiming to acquire. The difference between 85% and 90% mitigation is 33% EHP, just like the difference between 99% and 98% is 100% EHP. This will be very noticeable on Izaro, so if you're struggling with getting through the Uber lab - GET ~90% ARMOR. Unless you do 4 Key Uber Izaro with Charges and Essences on Hammer day you should survive.


You should have an instant recovery health flask. I've had a person linking me some regular health flask - don't torture yourself and get the instant one. I'm 100% sure people look at that 950hp restore amount and are being repulsed by the number, but for pathfinder it will recover 2700+ health - more than a half. The flask has 3+ charges and refills ultrafast, so you can simply spam it during fights - unless you get one-shotted you won't die ever.
The suffix mod I have (anti-freeze) is a must before you take Master Alchemist, afterwards close to useless.

Diamond flask with anti-poison is great, because we have no chaos res and this flask lasts a long time. You can get the curse immune one if you want.

You also want to get a Bismuth flask for Elemental Weakness mods (swap diamond).

Ascendancy Nodes: Surgeon -> Alchemist. Nature's boon scales with your belt and tree nodes that give +flask recovery. Alchemist makes you immune to shock / chill / freeze / ignite, just take these nodes and thank me later.

fokitaBV vs Minotaur (didn't even use the vaal skills because pathfinder)


Since you play BladeVortex PathFinder you should have the entire bar available for random skills to use.

You want to run:

- [B+R] Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark. Endurance charges provide armor (This is a buff) and prolonged duration for Immortal Call as well as Health and Mana sustain - the only downside is curse immune enemies, such as Atoll and Volcano bosses. Get Atziri's Promise or Vaal Clarity if you want to circumvent that.

- [R+B] Flame Golem / Chaos golem, I have both and not on CWDT. Free Damage and Armor respectfully.

- [G] Hatred aura: DPS boost + freeze / shatter, also sounds cool.

- [R+R+R] Immortal Call + Increased Duration + CWDT (I use lvl5). Since we run Warlord's Mark we have 3 Endurance charges most of the time and since we have a ton of Increased Duration Of Skills nodes in our skill tree the Immortal Call lasts almost 3 seconds. Pathfinder.

- [G+R+B] 2nd Blade Vortex + 2nd CWDT (I use lvl1) + Power Charge on Critical. This is your source of Power charges, which is your source of crit chance and thus flask refill from Master Surgeon as well as DPS.

- [B] Vaal Lightning Trap. Poor Man's shock ("Shock is an elemental status ailment associated with lightning that causes the affected target to take 50% increased damage from all sources.") - free DPS on all encounters but Izaro. After you get Vessel, discard it as useless.

- [G / B / G / B] Vaal Grace / Vaal Clarity / Vaal Haste / Vaal Discipline. I run Grace and it helps a ton. With Clarity you'll have no problems on curse immune encounters. Haste is for clearing speed. Discipline for more tank on bosses.

- If you run a shield, which you probably should, get [R+R+G] Shield Charge + Fortify + Faster Attacks: Fortify is yet another mitigation source you might want to have. Shield Charge is better than Whirling Blades, and WB requires a dagger. With duo wands you can run neither of those, so your only choice is Flame Dash + Quicksilver combo. You can't use Lightning Warp because you have "Increased Duration" nodes in the skill tree.
Also keep in mind that without any movement skill you want to have a Quicksilver flask, whilst with a movement skill - like Whirling Blades or Shield Charge - you can probably get rid of it to spare that slot for another flask. Your choice, I think running shield is better, but I embraced the glass cannon gameplay until I can afford the ToH / Vessel.


fokitaBV vs Sulphur Wastes Vulnerability


GEAR:

Hat: any helm with resistances and life. Aim for 120 rez and 90 life. I've got this one for 10c a week ago.



Body: get a 6L body from poe.trade for like 30-60 chaos that has life and resistances or craft one with essences + scourings using Greed ones.



Your 6 link setup should look like this:
- Blade Vortex
- Controlled Destruction
- Increased AOE / Concentrated Effect (swap for bosses)
- Increased Critical Strikes / Physical to Lightning. I swap between them on Elemental Reflect / Physical Reflect mods.
- Increased Duration / Faster Casting / Spell Echo. This one is preferential and debatable, most people run SE, some advocate for the FC. IncDuration helps during no regen mods, but clearly the worst of 3, spell echo has the fastest build-up, FC doesn't reduce your damage on full stacks like SE does.
- Added Fire / Physical to Lightning / Crit Multiplier. Leaning towards one or another affects your life on Elemental / Physical reflect mods.

Weapons: I run duo wands. You can get a shield to be more tanky, but I personally run 2 wands and occasionally die to some weird volatile blood crits or something since there is no combat log I can't say with 100% certainty. Your choice between more health and more damage. Shield is definitely better. Rathpith will give even more tank, but since it has no crit it will cripple your DPS even further. Just imagine a slider DPS <--> TANK and manage it as you will.

fokitaBV vs another Twin Kaom

You want spell damage, crit chance, crit multiplier and cast speed. If you have no cast speed whatsoever you probably want to run spell echo and not FC/IncDur, because your build-up will be unbearably slow.



Rings:

Diamond Rings with Health, Crit Chance, Multiplier and Cast Speed. IF you can't cap rez for some reason, get a Ventor's gamble with like 120 rez or just another ring with rez / health.



Boots: Health and Resistances, don't forget the Movement Speed. A good pair is extremely expensive tho, I think in dire times you can get a 25ms ones and be just as fine.

Amulet: Health, Spell Damage, Crit Chance, Crit Multiplier. Rez if needed.

Belt: Get a good belt with Reduced Charges Used and Increased Flask Duration. Should look like this

Gloves: if you don't have enough rez - a regular pair will do, but aim to get Facebreaker. Facebreaker has no health and no rez, but gives a ton more DPS.

Jewels: 7% Health, Spell Damage / Area Damage / Damage. Really good jewels are expensive: if you can't afford good jewels - put the "jewel enabling" skill points into something else instead.


Buy Vessel as soon as you can - it's the Godmode button. If it's not a conversion one - run the Physical to Lightning gem as a part of your 6-link, otherwise don't since the leech comes from the lightning damage. Again, Vessel is OUTSTANDING - it is so good you won't be using a life flask and facetank through all the damage that doesn't one-shot you, such as Dominus or the WolfGuy projectile spam.

Also, after Vessel you can get rid of Warlord's Mark and run something else: for example Assassin's Mark for the constant Power Charges and sick crits, but the millisecond your Vessel runs off you pretty much die because you'll have no leech. Or you can run no curse and get an Essence Worm ring for hatred and the MoM keystone to become MUCH more tanky. Experiment with it.

Then aim to get BladeVortex 21-20. The difference between 19lvl and 21lvl is 38k/45k tooltip.

Tree. I basically followed the Bogok's build.

Questionable nodes: Path of the Warrior, Coldhearted calculation. Hard to say what to get instead, will most likely regret them later. Herbalism looks good.


So where do you go from there? Conversion Vessel + Taste of Hate -> LowLife / CI build. Or you can try MoM with Essence Worm, especially after Vessel, which is outstanding on its own.

But that's where expensive items come into play and where this write-up ends.

Some notes on maps:
Shaped Reef(14): Don't run Additional Projectiles since the boss will shotgun-oneshot you.
Estuary(12): For some reason I die to the boss in 0.01s, looks like he casts reflect or smth.
Atoll(8), Volcano(14), Plateau(12): Totem bosses = curse immune. In Atoll and Plateau they have a one-shot mechanic with that Ice Nova cast, so circle around a bit to learn how it works.
Crypt(9/15): the boss has Dota's Shadow Fiend ultimate - shotguns in melee range. Heavily telegraphed; the "souls" can't pass through doodads though.
Scriptorium: Shavronne surrounds herself with a reflection shield (red circle), does heavy magical damage - overall really shitty map as far as boss and layout go. Just sell it. Also don't run it with friends or double boss, learned the hard way.
Residence/Plaza - Dominus with Additional Projectiles + Cast Speed mods can be devastating.

What level CwDT gems do you run?

Very useful guide!
Thank you

Also, I assume for bandits you go Oak-Alira-Alira? Or Oak-Kill-Alira?

Oak-Oak-Alira
IC CWDT lvl5; BV CWDT lvl1

updated the main post with some new info

As far as gear goes, does it matter what base types we grab? For instance, I got lucky the other day and had a 6 link drop for me (my first ever, other than Tabula), but it's only an ilvl 56 ES base (Destroyer Regalia). I managed to alc it and get tri res and 50% ES, would that work, or do I want to grab an armor/ES base instead? Also, if I was gonna run a shield, would I be better off going ES shield for spell mods, or something else for additional mitigation?

Until what level will a tabula last?

Tabula will last right until you buy a decent body to substitute. Go to poe.trade, filter "body armor" + "6 link" + "maximum life" it should be not much more expensive than the tabula itself. Just be wary of color sockets since most of the gear is corrupted. Having a 6L body armor with rez and life will make your life much easier because you won't be starving for resistances and desperately trying to fit some on your jewelry or you can buy boots with 90 rez for 30c instead of 120 rez for 6ex etc. Your get really good bang for the buck by going this route first, and then as you farming high tier maps you can decide what the hell do I even want to do with my character.

Hi
you say rumi is we first need to get legacy flask
how about value of it is good?
I am see your rumi is block 30%
is only block important value?

other word...
can I get Vessel first?
or I will be monster slain?

Wow! What a great help. Thanks for post. Flask setup alone changed my toon from poking along carefully to motoring along with confidence.

Thanks
Giz