



Welcome to my 3.5 Blade Vortex Assassin build guide - the MeatBlender! This is a build that is capable of doing all game content, including Uber Elder. I also have made a series of videos as a companion to this build guide. If you end up rolling this build, leave a comment (and link your gear here, we would love to see it!).



Build Highlights

- 2 million+ DPS

- #1(ish) DPS BV build currently in Betrayal for one-hander + shield according to

- 8K+ effective life pool (with MoM)

- Can clear all game content, including Uber Elder, Uber Atziri, and Hall of Grandmasters

- Generates all charges (including Spirit Charges!)

- Extremely effective at all budget levels

- Level 100 skill tree available

- Mostly reflect-immune and capable of doing almost all map mods

- Able to delve to level 750+ (with large investment)

- Fast and fun, with few downsides

- Sawblade MTX + Extra gore from Carcass Jack = Become a MeatBlender!!!



Videos

All these videos were done at a much lower DPS than I currently have, so with reasonably cheap gear:

- Uber Elder Kill

- Shaper Kill (Deathless)

- T16 8-Mod Double Reflect Phoenix Guardian

- Video Build Guide coming soon(tm)!



Skill Tree and Path of Building

Spoiler Skill Tree



PoE Character Profile



Path of Building



- Bandit choice is Kill for two passives skill points.

- Major pantheon is Soul of the Brine King, which helps in both Delve and against Uber Elder.

- Minor pantheon is Soul of Abberath because MoM builds don't like ground effects.

- Bandit choice is Kill for two passives skill points.- Major pantheon is Soul of the Brine King, which helps in both Delve and against Uber Elder.- Minor pantheon is Soul of Abberath because MoM builds don't like ground effects.



Gear

Spoiler



Weapon



A shaped dagger or sceptre is best, but any good spellcaster weapon is fine. Void Battery is very popular with Blade Vortex as well, though I have no experience with it. I paid 4ex for this dagger, which is about the cost of crafting materials - these weapons are incredibly cheap and effective.





Shield



Get a spellcaster shield with lots of life. You may dual-wield with this build, but you cannot get life on a weapon, so expect to be a bit squishier. This shield cost 1ex.





Armour



I am using a 6L Carcass Jack with my build, but this build is also very viable with Inpulsa's Broken Heart. Carcass Jack got a substantial buff in 3.5, and Inpulsa's was nerfed slightly (and made much rarer), so a Carcass Jack is a wonderful choice for BV.



For advanced DPS purposes, you can take advantage of the corruptions '+1 gems', '+2 AoE gems', and '+2 duration gems' - each additional gem level equals about 8% increased damage. A 6L Carcass Jack costs 3ex, and a well-corrupted one is about 10-15ex.





Rings



Since we are a MoM build, reserving mana is a poor choice. By using Essence Worm, we are able to run Hatred with no mana reservation. Your other ring should be a rare ring that provides life, resistances, and damage as allowed. Getting a well-rolled ring with 'Curse enemies with level XX Warlord's Mark on hit' would be excellent, though it's hard to find good rings with that particular affix. You are going to need several STR rolls on gear to make this build work, so try to get some on your rare ring.



Amulet



High life and damage, and additional AoE are great. With the availability of amazing talismans this league, gearing the ammy slot has never been so much fun. If you cover your other requirements on gear, you can use Bisco's Collar as an item swap while mapping.



Helmet



Lightpoacher is where you want to be, with two Abyssal sockets. Lightpoacher is MUCH stronger than the relatively weak Starjonka's Head, and with two abyssal jewels, we can get as much life with Lightpoacher. The Spirit Burst skill scales in the same manner as Blade Vortex, so it becomes a great source of additional damage.



Helmet enchant should be Blade Votex duration if possible, but any Blade Vortex enchant is fine. This helmet cost 2.5ex with the enchant relatively early in the league.



Gloves



Rare gloves with life, resists, and anything extra you can manage. There are a lot of synergistic mods available in the glove slot. Command of the Pit is a great alternative if you can afford it - gearing will be a LOT harder if you go this route.



Boots



Rare with life, 30% movement speed, and resistances. These boots cost 2ex (and I exalted the lightning res roll after purchase), though you can get mostly comparable boots for far less.



Belt



Get a Stygian with life and resistances. The better your belt is, the easier it will be to gear other slots. Headhunter is a viable option - it is very much a boon in delve, especially in Abyssal cities where there is a high density of rare mobs and a ton of loot.



Flasks



2 life, adrenaline, diamond, and Taste of Hate. You can also run Atziri's Promise (cheaper) or Dying Sun (mostly gimmicky, as our AoE is fine). No significant costs here.



Jewels



This build utilizes up to 10 jewels (12 if you are using Command of the Pit gloves). Since we get a Spirit Charge with every abyssal jewel, we want as many of our jewels to be Abyssal as is possible.

Put your Intuitive Leap jewel in the socket between Shadow and Witch so we can pick up the Overcharged node. A Watcher's Eye with Hatred mods is a good choice once you have the rest of your upgrades (though it is very costly). On other jewels, prioritize life, crit multi, spell damage, elemental damage, cast speed, crit chance, and 'X% chance to gain phasing on kill' - being able to move through enemies is a major benefit as a Blade Vortex build. Each jewel will cost 20c to 2ex, depending on relative strength.

In most slots, I am giving several recommendations - this is all gear I've used with this build, and should give you an idea of some decent upgrade paths towards stronger gearing.A shaped dagger or sceptre is best, but any good spellcaster weapon is fine. Void Battery is very popular with Blade Vortex as well, though I have no experience with it. I paid 4ex for this dagger, which is about the cost of crafting materials - these weapons are incredibly cheap and effective.Get a spellcaster shield with lots of life. You may dual-wield with this build, but you cannot get life on a weapon, so expect to be a bit squishier. This shield cost 1ex.I am using a 6L Carcass Jack with my build, but this build is also very viable with Inpulsa's Broken Heart. Carcass Jack got a substantial buff in 3.5, and Inpulsa's was nerfed slightly (and made much rarer), so a Carcass Jack is a wonderful choice for BV.For advanced DPS purposes, you can take advantage of the corruptions '+1 gems', '+2 AoE gems', and '+2 duration gems' - each additional gem level equals about 8% increased damage. A 6L Carcass Jack costs 3ex, and a well-corrupted one is about 10-15ex.Since we are a MoM build, reserving mana is a poor choice. By using Essence Worm, we are able to run Hatred with no mana reservation. Your other ring should be a rare ring that provides life, resistances, and damage as allowed. Getting a well-rolled ring with 'Curse enemies with level XX Warlord's Mark on hit' would be excellent, though it's hard to find good rings with that particular affix. You are going to need several STR rolls on gear to make this build work, so try to get some on your rare ring.High life and damage, and additional AoE are great. With the availability of amazing talismans this league, gearing the ammy slot has never been so much fun. If you cover your other requirements on gear, you can use Bisco's Collar as an item swap while mapping.Lightpoacher is where you want to be, with two Abyssal sockets. Lightpoacher is MUCH stronger than the relatively weak Starjonka's Head, and with two abyssal jewels, we can get as much life with Lightpoacher. The Spirit Burst skill scales in the same manner as Blade Vortex, so it becomes a great source of additional damage.Helmet enchant should be Blade Votex duration if possible, but any Blade Vortex enchant is fine. This helmet cost 2.5ex with the enchant relatively early in the league.Rare gloves with life, resists, and anything extra you can manage. There are a lot of synergistic mods available in the glove slot. Command of the Pit is a great alternative if you can afford it - gearing will be a LOT harder if you go this route.Rare with life, 30% movement speed, and resistances. These boots cost 2ex (and I exalted the lightning res roll after purchase), though you can get mostly comparable boots for far less.Get a Stygian with life and resistances. The better your belt is, the easier it will be to gear other slots. Headhunter is a viable option - it is very much a boon in delve, especially in Abyssal cities where there is a high density of rare mobs and a ton of loot.2 life, adrenaline, diamond, and Taste of Hate. You can also run Atziri's Promise (cheaper) or Dying Sun (mostly gimmicky, as our AoE is fine). No significant costs here.This build utilizes up to 10 jewels (12 if you are using Command of the Pit gloves). Since we get a Spirit Charge with every abyssal jewel, we want as many of our jewels to be Abyssal as is possible.Put your Intuitive Leap jewel in the socket between Shadow and Witch so we can pick up the Overcharged node. A Watcher's Eye with Hatred mods is a good choice once you have the rest of your upgrades (though it is very costly). On other jewels, prioritize life, crit multi, spell damage, elemental damage, cast speed, crit chance, and 'X% chance to gain phasing on kill' - being able to move through enemies is a major benefit as a Blade Vortex build. Each jewel will cost 20c to 2ex, depending on relative strength.



Gem Links

Spoiler Blade Vortex

Mapping Setup:





Maximum Damage:





Vaal Blade Vortex is a huge single-target DPS increase - effectively doubling your damage for a short time - it's better to have a level 20 Vaal Blade Vortex instead of a level 21 regular Blade Vortex, should you have to choose.



Spirit Burst (via LightPoacher)





The support gems need to be in your Lightpoacher helmet to support the Spirit Burst skill.



Movement Skill - Whirling Blades





CWDT #1 - Curse





CWDT #2 - Utility





Golem & Totem





Damage Aura





Hatred is socketed in our Essence Worm.

Mapping Setup:Maximum Damage:Vaal Blade Vortex is a huge single-target DPS increase - effectively doubling your damage for a short time - it's better to have a level 20 Vaal Blade Vortex instead of a level 21 regular Blade Vortex, should you have to choose.The support gems need to be in your Lightpoacher helmet to support the Spirit Burst skill.Hatred is socketed in our Essence Worm.



Build Costs and Thoughts

Blade Vortex is a skill that is extremely effective at all gear levels - it's one of the naturally strongest skills in the game, and it scales very well into endgame content. On a per-chaos basis, you will get more DPS out of Blade Vortex than almost any other skill. I've kind of taken this build to ridiculous extremes with about 150ex of gear, which is utterly unnecessary for everything in the game except deep delving. You can get most of my power for 5-10 exalts, and kill Uber Elder with under 20ex of investment. Prioritize a 6L Carcass Jack, 20/20 Vaal Blade Vortex, and a multimodded weapon.



The vast majority of high-level Blade Vortex builds in 3.5 are Witch Elementalists, which is a fine choice but far from the only viable way to play Blade Vortex. Should you choose to play this version of Blade Vortex, you should expect to be able to tackle all game content at the appropriate gearing levels.



I pushed this build to level 100 using Pure Breachstone rotations - this is as close to a complete character as I have ever made, with all skill points in use. If you have the opportunity to do so, I would highly suggest attempting to level to 100 in Betrayal league - it will likely not be this easy to get a level 100 character in future leagues for quite some time. This build is a great choice for Breachstone rotations - it never died once in a Pure Breachstone rotation during my push to 100.



My current delve depth is 750+. It's pretty dangerous to delve beyond 400 with this build - only well-rounded builds with few flaws will be able to manage such depths. I don't always feel safe in delves 500+, but progress can be made. The difficulty of 500+ depth has led me to make several costly and otherwise unnecessary upgrades to both my offensive and defensive capabilities (Watcher's Eye, Intuitive Leap with Corrupting Blood modifier, etc).



About Me



Hi, I'm GodOfRabbits - I make Path of Exile builds and youtube content. This is my sixth build guide - here are my others:



3.3 Self-cast Arc Inquisitor

3.2 Ethereal Knives Trickster

3.1 Ngamahu Cyclone Slayer

3.0 Explosive Arrow Slayer

2.5 LowLife Ignite Flameblast Trickster



If you enjoy my content, please consider subscribing to Welcome to my 3.5 Blade Vortex Assassin build guide - the MeatBlender! This is a build that is capable of doing all game content, including Uber Elder. I also have made a series of videos as a companion to this build guide. If you end up rolling this build, leave a comment (and link your gear here, we would love to see it!).- 2 million+ DPS- #1(ish) DPS BV build currently in Betrayal for one-hander + shield according to poe.ninja - 8K+ effective life pool (with MoM)- Can clear all game content, including Uber Elder, Uber Atziri, and Hall of Grandmasters- Generates all charges (including Spirit Charges!)- Extremely effective at all budget levels- Level 100 skill tree available- Mostly reflect-immune and capable of doing almost all map mods- Able to delve to level 750+ (with large investment)- Fast and fun, with few downsides- Sawblade MTX + Extra gore from Carcass Jack = Become a MeatBlender!!!All these videos were done at a much lower DPS than I currently have, so with reasonably cheap gear:- Video Build Guide coming soon(tm)!Blade Vortex is a skill that is extremely effective at all gear levels - it's one of the naturally strongest skills in the game, and it scales very well into endgame content. On a per-chaos basis, you will get more DPS out of Blade Vortex than almost any other skill. I've kind of taken this build to ridiculous extremes with about 150ex of gear, which is utterly unnecessary for everything in the game except deep delving. You can get most of my power for 5-10 exalts, and kill Uber Elder with under 20ex of investment. Prioritize a 6L Carcass Jack, 20/20 Vaal Blade Vortex, and a multimodded weapon.The vast majority of high-level Blade Vortex builds in 3.5 are Witch Elementalists, which is a fine choice but far from the only viable way to play Blade Vortex. Should you choose to play this version of Blade Vortex, you should expect to be able to tackle all game content at the appropriate gearing levels.I pushed this build to level 100 using Pure Breachstone rotations - this is as close to a complete character as I have ever made, with all skill points in use. If you have the opportunity to do so, I would highly suggest attempting to level to 100 in Betrayal league - it will likely not be this easy to get a level 100 character in future leagues for quite some time. This build is a great choice for Breachstone rotations - it never died once in a Pure Breachstone rotation during my push to 100.My current delve depth is 750+. It's pretty dangerous to delve beyond 400 with this build - only well-rounded builds with few flaws will be able to manage such depths. I don't always feel safe in delves 500+, but progress can be made. The difficulty of 500+ depth has led me to make several costly and otherwise unnecessary upgrades to both my offensive and defensive capabilities (Watcher's Eye, Intuitive Leap with Corrupting Blood modifier, etc).Hi, I'm GodOfRabbits - I make Path of Exile builds and youtube content. This is my sixth build guide - here are my others:If you enjoy my content, please consider subscribing to my youtube channel for the latest updates! Thanks everyone :) Last edited by GodofRabbits on Feb 12, 2019, 3:20:30 AM Last bumped on Apr 20, 2019, 12:52:51 AM