[3.13] Archmage Blade Vortex Hierophant | 20k EHP 40m DPS | Depth 2000 Delve Tank

So, BIG nerfs.

1. Dmg effectiveness 25% -> 20%: This is straight up a 20% less dmg nerf.

2. AoE -2 to base radius: With inc AoE taken into account this results in net radius going from 30 -> 27. Big QoL nerf.

3. Base Duration from 5 -> 4 seconds. Which means that without additional investment you'll lose a large amount of dmg uptime (>40%) on 10 blades. One of the changes below is mandatory, and even then you're gonna lose 10-20% dmg uptime depending on how accurate your BV timing is.
* Skip Unnatural Instinct and pickup the entire Potency of Will cluster. This incurs the cost of losing some AoE, and other minor stats.
* Use Unnatural Instinct as normal, but also use a Very Large Radius Thread of Hope in the jewel socket above EE, and use that to grab Potency of Will and Anointed Flesh.
* Use Indigon with BV duration enchant instead of the crit enchant.
If you manage to grab both the duration enchant and Potency of Will then you've negated the duration nerf.

4. Harvest crafting nerfed significantly. This one actually does not hurt this build as much. Most of our power comes from Unique items, and the rare items are by and large non-influenced statsticks with life + mana + resists (or crit multi in case of jewels). Compared to other builds that want multiple influenced mods in each slot, this build is relatively untouched.

Overall, this is still a strong build, but significantly less so than before. I will update the PoBs and the guide in due course, but no promises when its gonna happen.

Echo abuse and Plume crit, which gave us tons of free damage, have been nerfed mid-league and no longer work (except for still giving free AoE). The echo abuse section below is kept as is for posterity.

and 7x of these

This is a hybrid build utilizing all 3 of Life, Mana and ES in our hp pool.

We have Mind over Matter with 60% effect.
* 30% effect from MoM from Cloak of Defiance
* 10% effect from Cloak of Defiance
* 10% effect from Hierophant ascendancy
* 10% effect from Clarity Watcher's Eye

We have tons of Energy Shield from converting Life and Mana to ES
* 20% of Mana -> ES from Hierophant ascendancy
* 10% of Mana -> ES from Clarity Watcher's Eye
* 20% of Life -> ES from Corrupted Soul (Timeless jewel keystone)

So in the high-end PoB, our hp pool consists of 5629 life + 8444 mana + 5960 es = 20033 total. Corrupted Soul + MoM guarantees that any (non-chaos) damage is distributed among all three pools, allowing us to leech life, regenerate mana, and leech ES all at the same time.

We have 4 minimum endurance charges from the Ascendancy. We have decent spell block and small attack block chance from Pledge of Hands, and the tree. We can get a small amount of dodge and spell dodge chance from our boots and pantheon.

We have naturally high mana regen from having high total mana. Life leech is something that we have to invest in: either Anomalous Blade Vortex gem, Doryani's Lesson cluster jewel, Vitality watcher's eye, or Incursion jewellery with lightning leeched as life.

Our big HP pool allows us to use a lv 20 CWDT with lv 20 Immortal Call, which lasts almost 3 seconds due to our investment in skill duration.

If you prefer running a life flask for emergencies, run a mana flask instead. Since with Indigon, Mana flasks get more than double the value (mana recovery + life recovery + burst life heal).

Our damage comes almost entirely from Archmage Support with the help of Indigon. If you're not familiar with Archmage or Indigon I encourage reading the descriptions for those two carefully. One crucial aspect of Archmage is that the damage it provides updates dynamically depending on your current manacost, rather than what you actually spent the last time you cast the spell.

We have Blade Vortex linked to Unleash (with Thunderous Salvos on tree for +1 seals), and also supported by Greater Spell Echo (GSE) from Pledge of Hands. This means when we cast BV once, we get 7 stacks of blades: 1 stack from the cast, 4 from unleash seals (these take no animation time), and 2 from GSE (these do take normal cast animation time x2). For the purposes of this build, we will not be using the last 2 casts from GSE. To do this, simply left click anywhere to move just after casting BV, this will animation cancel the 2 casts from GSE and prevent us from being self-stunned for about a second. So we get 5 stacks of blades every time we cast BV.

The manacost for one BV cast is 1800 (in the high-end version). So upon casting BV once, this procs Indigon giving us 9 Indigon stacks, which raises our manacost temporarily to 9.4k, just under our total unreserved mana of 9.5k, for the next 4 seconds. This 9.4k manacost makes Archmage give massive amounts of flat added lightning damage to our BV blades. We wait 4 seconds for Indigon's effect to wear off, the manacost drops back to 1800 and we immediately recast BV again. We repeat this process throughout the entire map or boss or delve encounter. Each of our BV stacks last 8.25 secs due to the duration clusters we take on the tree, which just about covers two Indigon cycles of 4 secs each. Since we get 5 BV stacks each cast, we should almost always be at the cap of 10 BV stacks.

So, to achieve maximum damage, we need to recast BV precisely X seconds after the last cast, where 4.00 < X < 4.25 .

Failure case 1: If X < 4.00, this means Indigon's effect from the last cast hasnt worn off. So you end up spending the 9.4k manacost, Indigon gets 47 stacks and your manacost zooms to 44k. This causes Archmage to stop working since it only works when manacost < total unreserved mana. This means you do basically zero damage for the next 4 seconds.

Failure case 2: If X > 4.25, this means our BV stacks from the previous cast will expire before the current Indigon cycle is over. So we will drop to 5 BV stacks instead of 10 for some amount of time, depending on how large X is. At 5 BV stacks we do about 35% of the dmg at 10 stacks. Its not good but its nowhere near as bad as Failure case 1. Eg. if you recast 0.50 sec too late, you still only lose out on 0.50 secs of dmg uptime, but if you recast even 0.01 sec too early, you lost out on 4 secs of dmg uptime. So always err on the side of recasting BV too late rather than too early.

To achieve this precise timing I highly recommend using Lutbot overlay.

Besides scaling mana for our Archmage - Indigon combo:
* We heavily scale crit chance and crit multiplier
* Reduce enemy resistances and penetration, including wave of conviction and conductivity + elemental weakness curses
* Increase damage taken by enemy: big shocks, unnerve, bottled faith, and cinderswallow urn

The Hierophant ascendancy also provides 100% increased area of effect. With the help of a few more sources of AoE we achieve a large BV radius of 30 units (36 units if using Echo Abuse). The in-game BV animation unfortunately doesnt represent the real radius accurately. If your BV radius is 33 or higher it will show the outermost blade at 33 radius. If your BV radius is between 28 and 32, it will show the outermost blade at 28 radius.

3.12 update Assassin's Mark is no longer applicable using Awakened Hextouch support. Use Elemental Weakness as your 2nd curse instead, which is a bit lower dps. Manually casting Assassin's Mark on bosses is still an option and is the best for dps.

The minimum needed items for this build are: 6-linked Pledge of Hands, Indigon, Cloak of Defiance, Atziri's Foible and Essence Worm

League start viability: Pledge and Indigon are not available on day 1 of the league, so this cannot be a day 1 league starter. Indigon and Pledge both fall sharply in price over the first week of the league. So once you obtain enough currency to get these two, 6-link your Pledge, and about 100 chaos extra for the other pieces, you can start levelling this build.

I strongly advise not to attempt this build with a 5-link Pledge. While other builds only lose 30-40% dmg from one missing support, this build loses out in three ways: less dmg from missing support, less dmg due to less manacost, and less dmg due to less Indigon stacks.

The earliest that you can equip all the unique gear pieces is lv 69. So before that you need to level with a different build, and once you hit 69 you can do one big respec of tree and gear. PoB for a very basic lv 69 starter: https://pastebin.com/7aTW3KUH. The starter is strong enough to carry you into red maps without having to do any gear upgrades.

Before lv 69, theres isn't any one correct way to level a Templar/Hierophant. Any generic caster levelling build is fine, but if you do choose an archmage/MoM build, you will end up saving a ton on Regrets later. Some basic recommendations: selfcast Arc, selfcast Ball Lightning, Storm Brand (all of the above can be combo-ed with Orb of Storms, and can use Archmage), selfcast Purifying Flame, Arc totems, Freezing Pulse totems, Holy Flame totems.

Ascendancy Order:
This will depend on how you're levelling early, but here's one good plan for archmage style lvling builds:

Lab1: Divine Guidance
Lab2: Conviction of Power
Lab3: Once you've hit lv 69 and ready to switch over to this build, do Lab3 BEFORE switching, grab Sanctuary of Thought, and then respec into this build. This works around the fact that Sanctuary is bad for your lvling archmage build, but crucial for this build.
Lab4: Arcane Blessing

The damage for our build depends very crucially on our pre-Indigon BV mana cost. The way Indigon works, at every multiple of 200 we get a big damage boost due to one more Indigon stack. The ideal endgame breakpoint to hit is 1800 manacost. With 1800 mana spent recently, the math works out so that the post-Indigon manacost rises to 97-99% of your total unreserved mana, which is what we want (remember to divine your Indigon to 60%). We do not ever want to hit the 2000 mana breakpoint since that will very likely put the post-Indigon manacost over our total unreserved mana, and this will cause archmage to stop working.

To hit 1800 manacost, you need roughly 9625 unreserved mana (or 9690 total mana, assuming lv 1 clarity and precision). While you are gearing up you will likely have lower total mana, and will only hit the 1200 or 1400 or 1600 breakpoint instead. This is fine, your damage will be lower but the build still works. But prioritize hitting the next breakpoint if close to it.

Make sure to link all your side skills (Flame Dash, Wave of Conviction etc.) to Blood Magic so that they do not interfere with the Indigon balance, apart from the one exception mentioned below (Vortex, with caveats). This also means using Arcane Cloak in this build is an absolute no-go even though we have so much mana.

What if despite your best efforts you are sitting at a pre-Indigon manacost of say 1720? Read below for how to fudge it to 1800 with the help of Vortex.

Vortex is a very handy way to Chill, Curse and Cull enemies. Since we can put Vortex on our left click it will be automatically casted on cooldown as you click to move. The Curse and Cull are on hit, and only relevant for bosses and tanky rares in deep delve, since everything else dies too quickly. The chill however is pretty useful, especially for delve nodes where we can cover the entire node in chilled ground thanks to our enormous AoE. Theres two cases to consider here.

1. Vortex linked to Blood Magic. This is the simplest option. Assuming Wave of Conviction, Flame Dash etc. are also linked to Blood Magic, this ensures that no other side skills interfere with the Indigon balance. In this case you should level your vortex to 20 (or 21) for lower cooldown.

2. Vortex not linked to Blood Magic. This not only frees up a gem link, but allows us to pad our 'mana spent recently' to the next higher Indigon breakpoint that you could not reach with BV alone. But this imposes two crucial restrictions on the maximum mana you can spend on Vortex.

* Total mana spent on Vortex alone (post-Indigon) in any 4 sec period, should be less than 200
* Total mana spent on Vortex (post-Indigon) in any 4 sec period, plus BV manacost (pre-Indigon), should be less than 2000

If you fail either of the two above conditions you'll find that sometimes your post-Indigon BV manacost goes above your total mana, and you do zero damage. Fortunately since Vortex has a built-in cooldown, this is easy to ensure. For most cases a lv 9 Vortex is safe, but may have to be lower if you have several high multiplier support gems linked to it. If your post-Indigon Vortex manacost is 67 or higher, then you need to de-level Vortex further. Its possible to use a higher level Vortex in certain cases, but only do so if you understand the math behind it, and/or if you manually activate vortex instead of putting it on left click.

Apart from Hextouch + Curses, viable support gems include: Culling Strike (cull bosses at 10% life), Power charge on crit (for power charge generation if you skipped Conviction of Power), Awakened Unbound Ailments (more chill effect), Bonechill (even more chill effect), Blind (useless vs Sirus, ok vs Aul but unreliable), Increased Area of Effect (bigger coverage), Arcane Surge (for an alternate version of the build, frees up a slot in our BV 6-link for Awakened Inc AoE / Conc Effect).

This is a rough priority order in which to get the more expensive upgrades for this build. This order is not set in stone, feel free to deviate from it.

* Glorious Vanity with Corrupted Soul
* MoM effect Watcher's Eye (divining to 10% effect is crucial)
* Unnatural Instinct
* Fertile Catalyst all your jewellery
* Awakened Hextouch Support (note that its useless before it hits lvl 5)
* Bottled Faith
* Awakened Controlled Destruction and Awakened Lightning Penetration
* Cluster Jewel setup (reminder to get flat added fire dmg for Cremator, read FAQ 3 - Ignite)
* Elder/Hunter Stygian Vise with T1 % max life mod
* Indigon with a BV enchantment
* Double mod Watcher's Eye
* Rare amulet to replace Atziri's Foible (will also need Dex rebalancing)
* Unnerve Gloves
* Glorious Vanity divining (for good mods on small passives and possibly a nearby notable).
* Gem corruptions where applicable
* Cloak of Defiance double corruption
* Wise Oak resist rebalancing
* Triple mod Watcher's Eye

Meanwhile in parallel, you should also continually try to get more mana and more life on gear and tree, and more crit multi on jewels. Especially prioritize life over mana, unless you're very close to the next Indigon breakpoint. With 60% MoM, for every 100 life points you gain, you add 250 points to your EHP pool.

[UPDATE] This interaction was nerfed mid-league in 3.13, and it DOES NOT WORK any longer. The only thing that works is that it still gives us +100% AoE (+150% if swapping spell echo), but no dmg. This section is kept only for posterity.

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This part of the guide details a trick that gives the build 70% more damage, and 100% increased AoE. Makes our DPS hit absurd levels (~70m) and raises BV radius from 32 to 37.

The way Blade Vortex works, when you create the first stack of blades, any attributes from that first cast are now set on your Blade Vortex. Any future casts of BV only add to the stack counter, but do not reset whatever attributes are already set on your BV. This is the reason why Unleash's less damage multiplier, or Greater Spell Echo's more damage multiplier do not normally apply to BV. Because the first cast is neither an "Unleash Reoccurence" nor a "Spell Echo Repeat", your entire BV stack counts as not a Reoccurrence nor a Repeat. Even though some of the later stacks did indeed come from a Reoccurence or a Repeat.

Recall that Pledge's Greater Spell Echo (GSE) gives "35% more damage per Repeat" and "50% increased Area of Effect per Repeat". So what happens when your *first* stack of blades comes from the 2nd Repeat of GSE? You get 70% more damage and 100% increased AoE for your entire stack of BV. Permanently, as long as you never let your BV stacks drop to zero.

So how do we guarantee that our first BV stack comes from the 2nd repeat of GSE? There are several ways. The following is IMO the most reliable and convenient:

* Have Blade Blast linked with High-Impact Mine Support (Blastchain Mine Support works too) in your gem setup.
* At the start of the map (or whenever you enter a new instance) perform this initial setup.
* Cast Blade Blast near your feet, it will lay down a mine. You can also lay down 2-3 mines instead, this may make the timing for the next step somewhat easier.
* Cast your BV, and immediately after (0.2-0.4s later), press your Detonate Mine hotkey. Detonate Mine is an instant skill so it shouldn't interrupt your BV cast followed by your Unleash stacks followed by your GSE repeats. Do not interrupt your GSE repeats by moving like you'd normally do.
* If you got the timing right, you should be left with ONE single stack of BV. Blade Blast should have detonated all your earlier blades away. Your setup is now done, proceed to the last step.
* If you got zero stacks left, you detonated too late. Wait 4 secs for Indigon to reset, and retry the setup again.
* If you got 2 (or more) BV stacks, you detonated too early. In this case, recast Blade Blast followed by detonate to wipe away all your BV stacks, wait 4 secs for Indigon to reset, and retry the setup again.
* Once the setup is done, you can resume your normal cycle of casting BV every 4.25secs as you move through the map. Take special care to not let your BV stacks ever drop to zero, in which case you have to perform the initial setup again.

While all this may sound convoluted at first glance, its really pretty simple with a bit of practice. All it takes is < 10s at the start of a map and then you're set. Its up to you whether to use this trick always or only for big bosses or skip it altogether. Other alternatives for the setup are, using Arcanist Brand with Brand Recall, or freezing yourself.

If you're confident with the above process, you can get even sweatier to abuse this.

Note that this trick will not update the tooltip DPS in-game, or the AoE in the character sheet. Visually, if your BV radius normally was 32 or lower, now you'll notice a slightly larger visual with the outermost blade at 33 units. However if your BV radius was already 33 or higher you'll see no difference visually since BV animation radius seems to be capped at 33 units. But your actual hitbox will indeed increase by roughly 5 units.

If you want to see all these defensive layers together in action, take a look at my Ritual HC char: Rudy_ManaAddiction.

The character was exceptionally strong for HC and was rank #1 delve on Ritual HC ladder for a long time before I died from not paying attention to zombie degen (through +75 chaos res). The build is a somewhat different version; it skips Indigon (and therefore Sanctuary) to go for a more defensive helmet, since we already get so much damage from Echo Abuse and Plume crit (note that Plume crit has since been nerfed).