TbXie's Poison Blade Vortex Assassin Build Guide (PoE Necropolis 3.24)

TbXie

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Summary

Poison Blade Vortex Blade Vortex had been rising in popularity because it was incredibly broken at some point in the past! It has now stagnated to the point where it can be considered as a build you can comfortably play, yet no longer something completely busted. The reason for this is that it combines really good clear speed, very high survivability on an ascendancy that offers a lot of QoL in its movement speed, and conditional effects that are really strong.

Because Blade Vortex Blade Vortex inherently has a lot of “hits”, it makes for an incredibly reliable way to apply a lot of poison stacks very fast. This makes it very suitable for a build that relies on stacking a lot of poisons on enemies to scale damage. We will be providing a build that offers a very good balance between clear, boss damage & survivability. Whereas there definitely are ways to increment either of those aspects, we felt that the build was strong enough in all those aspects to get away with being balanced between all of them.

Build Summary

You probably all heard or saw a Poison Blade Vortex build before! You run around with a decently long-lasting Blade Vortex Blade Vortex, running through a pack and seeing it melt to your applied Poisons afterwards. Because of the time it takes for the Poisons to be applied and whittle the enemy down, you will need a decent amount of tankiness to be able to not die in those 2-3 seconds the enemies live.

The main mechanics you need to understand are Duration and amounts of Poisons stacked on the enemy. As there is no limit to the number of Poisons one can have running on an enemy, getting Poison duration really helps your (mainly single target) damage. Therefore, Assassin’s Noxious Strike is really important to keep up as much as we can. We do this by using a fast hitting Poison applier such as Blade Vortex. Because our Poisons last longer, eventually we will be getting to 40+ Poison stacks on an Enemy making them take 40 times the damage they would with a single stack!

Now, since you are a Blade Vortex Blade Vortex build, you’ll have to be rather close to the Enemies at all times. This also implies you need to stand next to bosses or circle around them for a decent amount of time to do maximum damage as you want to stack up your Poisons. Therefore, it is mandatory that we build a decent layer of defenses.

This build guide, when followed correctly, will offer you a super tanky iteration of the Assassin ascendancy! You can reliably hit around 4000 Life while having mechanics like “75% Spell Block if you haven’t blocked Recently”, “35% Less Damage Taken if you haven’t been hit recently” and close to Evasion-cap paired with capped Spell Suppression. This means the character will rarely actually be hit to begin with, after which if it gets hit takes 40% Less Damage with a really high Life Pool. Hence, it is surprisingly hard to die on this Assassin.

Lastly, the main reason what makes this build attractive is its cost. Most of its items are very not sought after which prices them attractively in the market. There are some outliers, such as The Devouring Diadem The Devouring Diadem but in reference to other builds which pack this punch, I’d argue this build is almost for free.

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ Reasonably easy to gear & accessible early

+ Conventient powerlevels for its investment

+ Viable in all scenarios

+ Very fast gameplay because of Assassin

Cons

Damage isn’t instantaneous, monsters will always live 0.5-2seconds

A lot of people already have played a lot of Blade Vortex Blade Vortex and are a little bored of the skill

Playstyle, Mechanics & Strengths

Blade Vortex Blade Vortex‘s mechanics changed a little after the release of the Unleash Support Unleash Support. Since Unleash gives you 3 Blades every time its fully charged, you now don’t need Mana to cast 10 Blades all the time which frees up a lot of Mana. You will notice that your blade upkeep isn’t too important when running through mobs in maps and that you’ll only really care about this when you are hitting a Boss. Even then, hovering at around 9-10 is very easy and you’ll get the hang of it really fast! Additionally, in situations where you’ve fought enemies before running to a boss, you’ll arrive with charges of Vaal Blade Vortex Vaal Blade Vortex which will let you dump both of your charges on the boss as well as approach with 10 precharged stacks which will almost instantly make you do all of your damage and will be super convenient when it comes to killing speed.

After explaining how to keep up your Blade Vortex Blade Vortex, I’d like to talk about the layering of defenses this build offers. So, first of all, because you play an Assassin you get to use Mistwalker which gives you Elusive. Elusive is a buff that grants 15% chance to avoid all damage from hits as well as 30% Movement Speed which sadly decays over time.

Next up, you can get up to 150+% Movement Speed on the build, which makes you incredibly fast and makes it easier to avoid all incoming damage mechanically. However, should you not manually Dodge or roll an avoid in game, worry not, you’ll have 4000 Life and a huge amount of Damage Reduction from Kintsugi Kintsugi & various other aforementioned layers of defense which makes it that you will not get one shot almost ever.

Lastly, through Replica Mistwall Replica Mistwall, you alternate Spell & Physical avoidance through Spell Block and chance to Avoid Physical Damage. All of this layering makes you incredibly obnoxious for enemies to kill. Obviously, if you stand still in a Legion or in a Sirus storm, no build or build guide will ever be able to keep you alive!

Passive Skill Tree, PoB, and Gem Links

You can find an optimized Path of Building here. Every build I release will use the community fork of Path of Building. You can find PoB’s Fork, by LocalIdentity, here.

If you are not comfortable with Path of Building, PoePlanner’s website offers you a non-PoB alternative to import the code from the above link. It is highly recommended you install Path of Building to follow builds most optimally.

More information about the Passive Skill Tree, as well as all the Gem Links can be found on our dedicated page.

Passive Skill Tree, PoB & Gem Links

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheons

Our Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheon Powers

Gear Summary / TL;DR

A lot of this is explained more in depth in the Gear Page, however we will provide you with a basic idea of what gear you’re looking for in this short summary.

Gear, Jewel and Flasks Breakdown

Our recommendation:

Item Slot Item Name
Head The Devouring Diadem The Devouring Diadem
Amulet Replica Dragonfang's Flight Replica Dragonfang's Flight
Chest Kintsugi Kintsugi
Gloves Asenath's Gentle Touch Asenath's Gentle Touch
Boots Rare Boots with 30% Movement Speed, high Life & Resistances
Belt Stygian Vise Stygian Vise or Heavy Belt Heavy Belt with a lot of resistances & a benchcraft
Rings Ideally 2x Ming's Heart Ming's Heart – Optionally a single rare to fix attributes/resistances
Weapon 1x Cold Iron Point Cold Iron Point
Shield 1x Replica Mistwall Replica Mistwall

Questions & Support

If you enjoy my content to such an extent that you’d like to support me and my work, or you have a specific question you request my private time for, *you can buy me a coffee over at Patreon *. At no point should you feel pressured to contribute, but if you do, your support means more to me than you will ever imagine.

Even though we try to make our guides as complete as possible, obvioulsy it’s possible you still have questions. We have an entire mod-team readily available to support you & your questions on Discord. You can find us on the ARPG Vault Discord. Make sure to open a Guide Help thread so things stay clear in the main channels.

Leveling

Since we are very adamant about trying to give you a leveling experience that lies as close to your endgame playstyle as possible, we will be providing you a way to level up with Blade Vortex Blade Vortex. If you are looking for the most optimal way to level a character to maps, we refer you to the following guides.

In order to level this build as a Blade Vortex Blade Vortex build you need to make your way to level 12 to be able to use the gem.

Getting to Brutus & Merveil

For starters, you want to make a Witch. You need the Witch to obtain a few gems, stash them and then go on to level your Shadow as this class would otherwise not receive said gems.

You will want to start out by buying an extra wand from the vendor. On top of that, pick up a Freezing Pulse Freezing Pulse as a quest reward. After you’ve ran the Mud Flats, you’ll proceed to kill Hailrake in the Tidal Island with Freezing Pulse. This might be a tad slow.

From there on out, you’ll be able to pick up your first Quicksilver Flask Quicksilver Flask from your quest rewards. You’ll need to also purchase a Holy Flame Totem Holy Flame Totem. From Tarkleigh, you’ll be getting a Flame Wall Flame Wall and a Frostblink Frostblink.
This leads to your rotation being a Flame Wall Flame Wall into a Holy Flame Totem Holy Flame Totem making sure the Flame Wall Flame Wall is between the Holy Flame Totem Holy Flame Totem & the Monsters you want to kill. As a surplus, in case monsters don’t die, use Freezing Pulse Freezing Pulse.

Tip: You can optionally buy and link a Summon Phantasm Support Summon Phantasm Support to your Holy Flame Totem Holy Flame Totem.
Tip: Make sure to keep picking up Wands from the ground as certain types of wands offer Flat Damage to Spells by themselves. Upgrading those to higher values is of huge importance to your damage while leveling.
Tip: check Tarkleigh for boots with Movement speed

Stash all gems, flasks and wands. Proceed to log out and make your Shadow. You can then use those gems to get going.

When you reach Lower Prison, use the waypoint to talk to Nessa in town. Add the Added Lightning Damage Support Added Lightning Damage Support to either your Freezing Pulse Freezing Pulse or Holy Flame Totem Holy Flame Totem

Upgrades to make in Act 2

If you’re sticking with the optimal way of leveling, make sure to pick up a Herald of Thunder Herald of Thunder and a Summon Skitterbots Summon Skitterbots in act 2. You get the first gem from killing Fidelitas, after which you can buy the second one from Yeena.

Time to Poison (Level 31 – Post Normal Lab)

Disclaimer: Leveling a Poison character is not necessarily the best. However, because most people enjoy leveling through the campaign with the archetype they’ve wanted to play, here’s houw you do it:

When you finally made your way to Normal Lab and have finished you will need to pick up Noxious Strike. Combining this with Herald, the allocated nodes on the tree & Chance to Poison support, you should be capping your poison chance.
Make sure to swap out your Heralds to Herald of Purity Herald of Purity and Herald of Agony Herald of Agony now.

  1. Blade Vortex Blade Vortex
  2. Chance to Poison Support Chance to Poison Support
  3. Void Manipulation Support Void Manipulation Support
  4. Unleash Support Unleash Support (add this as soon as you hit level 38 and obtain the gem)
  5. Unbound Ailments Support Unbound Ailments Support
  1. Plague Bearer Plague Bearer
  2. Withering Step Withering Step

Changelog

  • updated mod on Devouring diadem in the PoB

  • Updated for 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors

  • Updated for 3.19 Lake of Kalandra

  • Updated for Scourge 3.16.

  • Updated for Ritual 3.13 and reworded Passive Skill Tree section.

  • Build added.

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