[3.19] Poison Blade Vortex Assassin | Early To Endgame

Just hit 89 with this build and liking it a bunch, currently using a Kintsugi for a more defensive option and usually fine in T14-16s. I'm still missing Asenath's so if I get it before trying to go for the +1 curse chest I'll just get Whispers of Doom since it's only 3 points away.

3 Questions:

1) How big is Asenath's? Does it spread poison somehow? I've never used it before and it seems like it'd be helpful but dunno if it's for poison spread or chains or explosions

2) Is there any way to keep totems alive at all? Or are they always going to be paper thin?

3) In the POB for this, under 'Calcs' -> 'Poison' -> 'Total More' there's a listing for 350% for 10 blades but I can't get it to show up when I run my own. Think that's a pretty huge damage difference when looking at total numbers (I'm sitting at ~2m dps) but wanted to try and activate that too if I could

Thanks all!

Edit: also curious what people are running on the Atlas since this seems to be not great for bossing but burning through maps. Currently doing Delirium/Breach/Harvest but might drop Harvest for Strongboxes
Last edited by cerealbawks on Feb 9, 2022, 8:46:55 PM
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cerealbawks wrote:
Just hit 89 with this build and liking it a bunch, currently using a Kintsugi for a more defensive option and usually fine in T14-16s. I'm still missing Asenath's so if I get it before trying to go for the +1 curse chest I'll just get Whispers of Doom since it's only 3 points away.

3 Questions:

1) How big is Asenath's? Does it spread poison somehow? I've never used it before and it seems like it'd be helpful but dunno if it's for poison spread or chains or explosions

2) Is there any way to keep totems alive at all? Or are they always going to be paper thin?

3) In the POB for this, under 'Calcs' -> 'Poison' -> 'Total More' there's a listing for 350% for 10 blades but I can't get it to show up when I run my own. Think that's a pretty huge damage difference when looking at total numbers (I'm sitting at ~2m dps) but wanted to try and activate that too if I could

Thanks all!

Edit: also curious what people are running on the Atlas since this seems to be not great for bossing but burning through maps. Currently doing Delirium/Breach/Harvest but might drop Harvest for Strongboxes


1. Chains explosions and the poison spread helps in doing so.

2. The cause for this is your low strength and getting it higher would not only make the totems more resistant but also give you more determination levels making you tankier. The totems do also die quite easily while mapping and are only really meant for applying 15 wither stacks onto bigger targets. Anomalous withering step could be used to apply 11 wither stacks to anything you come in contact with or 14 with the new amulet Ashes of the stars with max quality of skill gems roll.

3. Calcs > Socket group > your blade vortex setup > active skill > blade vortex (not vaal) > Skill part > 10 blades.

Bonus : my current Atlas tree
My strat atm
T16 strand, rusted abyss, harbinger and ambush scarab, Fortune favours the brave or harbinger from map device and any sextants adding pack size along with eater influence.

Rusted abyss scarabs are definitely worth it with this setup adding tons of mobs and xp and only cost 1c each, hard to say about ambush and harbinger scarabs have to do more testing with those, same goes for harbinger from map device need to do more testing with those.

Fortune favours the brave is nice giving occasional cheaper rituals and with the shaping the valleys notable from the atlas tree this option adds more quantity, rarity and pack size.
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hackergooby wrote:
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happens_ow wrote:
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How do we consistently sustain our energy shield? Is there a source of ES leech?


ES recharges automatically 20%/second, it's an in-built ES mechanic which remains even after Eldritch Battery - though it's reduced to 10%/sec instead from EB.


Edited: Realized that cruelty indeed loses out on Boss dps since the buff effect % is affected my max HP of whatever you're hitting.

So instead i'll ask something else:
How do you deal with Elemental Ailments?
This league is full of Ele Ailments and degens on the ground.
Personally i opted into foregoing the clusters for now and grabbing all the ele avoidance nodes below ranger as well as bench-crafting ele avoidance on the triple influenced chest for a total of 95% ele avoidance, which still leaves me with crappy degens on the ground until i can craft elevated boots for those.

If i went with the clusters, what would be the solution for E.Ailements? It's the main reason that i'm currently not specced into clusters for even more damaging goodies :(

Btw build looking great, i'm currently running these:
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Currently in the process to acquire an Aug Phys harvestcraft to craft a +2 amulet :D
Testing out the free Pride for now - MIGHT be increasing the damage but not sure. Might remove it to put back the totems, they should be a lot more damage in any case.


Yea there's not that many ailment immunity options on the shadow side of the tree sadly.

Looking into this there's one new option that caught my attention, forbidden flame and flesh allocating pyromaniac would give shock and ignite immunity for a pretty low investment on the tree and only cost 2 ex at current prices it seems. This could be combined with freeze/chill immunity on flask, cannot be frozen on boots or brine king, might be some other options which i can't think of atm.

Then there's also an eater of worlds implicit that gives up to 32% ailment avoidance and exarch implicit for 50% chance to avoid being frozen at highest tiers both of which could be combined with 25% ailment avoidance bench crafted onto boots, keep in mind that one of these implicits would have to be t4 but even at that the eater one is 26% avoidance.

Also, that double influence ring is a pretty good idea and i don't know why i never thought about that after adding a despair on hit ring into the build. Been also thinking about trying out a watcher's eye with life gained on hit or damage leeched as life while affected by vitality since a lvl 1 vitality could easily fit into the build with the mana that's left unreserved.

Hopefully anything mentioned above can be of any use, thanks for the feedback.

Edit : Swapping out malevolence with purity of elements would be another option and give full elemental ailment immunity on its own.


Yeah the double influence ring was something i said "F it, im only using 1 stat on this, if im gonna craft two 1stat rings might as well awakener orb them". Definitely works nicely since you can cap out res on the other one.

Also made the chest last night :D

Sadly no luck on the resistances but im already capped so no biggie. Worst part was loss of a prefix for the avoidance but ill make some changes at some point when i get the 2 medium clusters as well as the amulet.
Biggest problem RN is the lack of Vaal BV lvl 21 on the market so lvl 3 gem room alva it has to be...

If anyone is interested in grabbing it i'm selling the previous zodiac chest for 10ex. If you're not interested in self-crafting it ofc - it will be much cheaper.
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Edit: Sold it today. But i still have a non 6L with +1 curse/ +1 active gems / t2 spell crit up for 5.5ex

Can also confirm this MELTS GGG's servers.
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Last night i got an invulnerability shrine but didnt pay attention since the mob density was kinda insane... Kept stacking poisons of increased duration each time for a good 20-30 seconds until i realized they weren't dying from the shrine (insanely hard to spot btw, the mobs were blueish white and the shrine symbol wasnt spottable at all)
Once i picked up the shrine, server froze for a good 10 seconds trying to calculate all the poison damage and the corpse explosions KEKW.
Last edited by happens_ow on Feb 10, 2022, 7:38:55 AM
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1. Chains explosions and the poison spread helps in doing so.


Is the poison spread from explosions counting as a spell hit (with 100% poison making it work?) or from the non-aura curses part? Just curious

"
If anyone is interested in grabbing it i'm selling the previous zodiac chest for 10ex. If you're not interested in self-crafting it ofc - it will be much cheaper.


Are you saying it's much cheaper to self-craft it? I'm planning on doing that eventually but that's a step after Asenath's for me. I assume just getting a 6L base and then fossil crafting like suggested in the notes for the POB unless there's some easier option right? Thanks!

Last edited by cerealbawks on Feb 10, 2022, 9:26:29 AM
Hi,
I'm playing this build in SSF (currently lvl 88) and I'm having a blast. I managed to get a CIP from a Shakari-touched/treant horde loot explosion and I'm working my way to get diadem but I'm having a problem regarding the passive tree since I don't have the cluster jewels and the PoB only has a lvl 68 tree.

Are there any other nodes you can recommend ? So far I grabbed the chaos cluster under the shadow starting position and the notable on the big life wheel.
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cerealbawks wrote:

Are you saying it's much cheaper to self-craft it? I'm planning on doing that eventually but that's a step after Asenath's for me. I assume just getting a 6L base and then fossil crafting like suggested in the notes for the POB unless there's some easier option right? Thanks!


It's always cheaper to craft one yourself, especially since i'm currently the only one with any of these chests on the market - before i sold them, but i'm making more to sell for currency (and because i love crafting things :D).
Expect to spend AT LEAST 6-7ex for a sacrificial garb and another ex if you get it 6L-ed already. (i think they were like 1.4 or 1.8 last time i checked)



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Cippo998 wrote:

Are there any other nodes you can recommend ? So far I grabbed the chaos cluster under the shadow starting position and the notable on the big life wheel.


Yeah the biggest improvement this league is getting AT LEAST freeze immune/100% avoidance. So pathing towards Crystal Skin and Thick Skin isn't half bad - though quite a few travel nodes (though it passes by the VERY nice Graceful Assault notable that gives Onslaught on kill and Armour & Evasion Mastery - Gain 5% of eva as extra armor). Once you get the clusters you need you can always remove all of those. Also if you like more QoL, Exceptional Performance with the mastery 10% more skill effect duration. Along with everything makes every cast of BV last about 10seconds. Helps a bit with bosses that you have to keep moving no matter what.
As for the Diadem, i'd suggest rushing to the Atlas Passive that's eluded a lot of people - Intelligence Gathering. Every map you do takes you 1/40th closer to a Catarina fight.
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happens_ow wrote:

Yeah the biggest improvement this league is getting AT LEAST freeze immune/100% avoidance. So pathing towards Crystal Skin and Thick Skin isn't half bad - though quite a few travel nodes (though it passes by the VERY nice Graceful Assault notable that gives Onslaught on kill and Armour & Evasion Mastery - Gain 5% of eva as extra armor). Once you get the clusters you need you can always remove all of those. Also if you like more QoL, Exceptional Performance with the mastery 10% more skill effect duration. Along with everything makes every cast of BV last about 10seconds. Helps a bit with bosses that you have to keep moving no matter what.
As for the Diadem, i'd suggest rushing to the Atlas Passive that's eluded a lot of people - Intelligence Gathering. Every map you do takes you 1/40th closer to a Catarina fight.



Thank you for the suggestions!

As for the atlas I got to Intelligence Gathering today and might get to Catarina tomorrow, too bad I can't ever get jun missions despite the 10% chance from all the travel nodes :^)
By the way another improvement in the flask category is definitely to roll a 20% qual ETERNAL life flask but with the x% increased life recovered / removes 10% of life recovered from mana when used.
That prefix has no downside so for instance the T2 i have is a pure 51% increased life recovered from the flask. This puts it at 3769 Life over 2 seconds. It's an instant, more powerful Enduring Cry!
Especially since for us it's better to have a sustained flask recovery rather than instantly be at full so we can benefit from life gained on hit and kill for longer. This helps alot with juiced deli + harbinger + new influences in maps. Getting hit by 23094820394 mobs, an instant 900hp from the flask you're suggesting would do absolutely nothing there since damage is sustained and not burst. Even during bosses most things that kill us are degens/dots like ignite, chaos dot or burning/desecrated ground. For instakills neither flasks do anything so...
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Cippo998 wrote:
Hi,
I'm playing this build in SSF (currently lvl 88) and I'm having a blast. I managed to get a CIP from a Shakari-touched/treant horde loot explosion and I'm working my way to get diadem but I'm having a problem regarding the passive tree since I don't have the cluster jewels and the PoB only has a lvl 68 tree.

Are there any other nodes you can recommend ? So far I grabbed the chaos cluster under the shadow starting position and the notable on the big life wheel.


You could try using the Charisma notable to fit in some more auras before diadem + enlighten, other than that grab anything you find yourself needing more of. There's a few small life nodes to grab for a couple points, trickery, will of blades for dmg or even poison mastery 20% faster poisons.
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happens_ow wrote:
By the way another improvement in the flask category is definitely to roll a 20% qual ETERNAL life flask but with the x% increased life recovered / removes 10% of life recovered from mana when used.
That prefix has no downside so for instance the T2 i have is a pure 51% increased life recovered from the flask. This puts it at 3769 Life over 2 seconds. It's an instant, more powerful Enduring Cry!
Especially since for us it's better to have a sustained flask recovery rather than instantly be at full so we can benefit from life gained on hit and kill for longer. This helps alot with juiced deli + harbinger + new influences in maps. Getting hit by 23094820394 mobs, an instant 900hp from the flask you're suggesting would do absolutely nothing there since damage is sustained and not burst. Even during bosses most things that kill us are degens/dots like ignite, chaos dot or burning/desecrated ground. For instakills neither flasks do anything so...


Going to give this a try and see how i feel about it. Replacing jade for a granite flask with equal tier of inc armour seems to also be giving way more ehp, also replaced diamond with a quartz flask since i found the phasing to be way more valuable compared to the damage from diamond. So possibly updating most of the flask setup after playing around with it a bit more.

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