Blade Vortex

Blade VortexSpell, AoE, Duration, Physical
Level: (1-20)
Cast Time: 0.50 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 6.00%
Effectiveness of Added Damage: 25%
AoE Radius: 15Requires Level 12This spell creates ethereal blades which orbit in an area around you, dealing damage every 0.6 seconds to all enemies in their radius. As more blades are added, the damage becomes greater and more frequent.Deals (3-101) to (5-151) Physical Damage
Base duration is 5 seconds
Can have up to 10 active spinning blades
10% increased Critical Strike Chance for each blade
35% increased Hit Rate for each blade
35% more Damage for each blade
+(0-4) to radiusPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket.

Acquisition
Drop level: 12Vendor Prices

Normal

1x Orb of Transmutation

Vendor Offer
1x Scroll FragmentMetadata
Item class: Skill Gem
Metadata ID: Metadata/Items/Gems/SkillGemBladeVortex

For the Vaal-themed counterpart, see Vaal Blade Vortex.

Blade Vortex (often referred to as BV) is a spell that creates an ethereal blade that spins around the caster that deals physical damage, each blade lasting for the minimum duration of 5 seconds.

Skill functions and interactions

Blade Vortex's base damage is boosted by Physical Damage, Spell Damage, Area Damage, and Damage.

Interaction w/ Blade Blast: When targeted by Blade BlastBlade BlastSpell, AoE, Physical
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (6-16) Mana
Cast Time: 0.50 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 6.00%
Effectiveness of Added Damage: 70%Requires Level 16Deals spell damage in a targeted area. Each time this spell deals damage, it will detonate any of your Lingering Blades it touches, dealing damage again in an area around them. Up to 50 Blades can be detonated this way.Deals (11-309) to (17-464) Physical Damage
Base radius is 1.4 metres

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Base radius is (0.005-0.1) metresPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket., the blades will detonate in sequence, increasing in AoE with subsequent detonations. The damage from these detonations scale solely from the Blade Blast skill.

Physical Damage: Because Blade Vortex deals physical damage, it can be boosted by supports and skills that are more commonly used to modify attacks, such as the Added Fire Damage SupportAdded Fire Damage SupportFire, Physical, Support
Icon: F
Level: (1-20)
Cost & Reservation Multiplier: 120%Requires Level 8Supports any skill that hits enemies.Supported Skills gain (25-39)% of Physical Damage as Extra Fire Damage

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Supported Skills deal (0.5-10)% increased Fire DamageThis is a Support Gem. It does not grant a bonus to your character, but to skills in sockets connected to it. Place into an item socket connected to a socket containing the Skill Gem you wish to augment. Right click to remove from a socket. gem and the aura.

Spell Damage: Despite the fact that it does physical damage, Blade Vortex is a spell and not an attack. It does not utilize weapon damage in any way. Blade Vortex is one of several skills that work in this manner. The others include , BladefallBladefallSpell, AoE, Physical, Duration
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (12-23) Mana
Cast Time: 0.70 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 6.00%
Effectiveness of Added Damage: 140%
AoE Radius: 12Requires Level 28Ethereal weapons rain from the sky, dealing damage to enemies in a sequence of volleys. Enemies can be hit multiple times where these overlap.Deals (43-595) to (65-893) Physical Damage
Base duration is 6.00 seconds
Leaves a Lingering Blade in the ground for every Volley
5 Volleys
Maximum 40 Lingering Blades can be left in the ground at a time

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
+(0.05-1) VolleysPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket., and . Its damage can be amplified by Spell Damage on items and passives from the skill tree, as well as support gems that increase spell damage.

Leech: Leech effects that apply to Spell damage and to damage types dealt by Blade Vortex (Physical by default) will work as usual. Note that leech effects which apply to attacks do not apply to Blade Vortex because it is a spell, not an attack.

Area of Effect: Increases and decreases in to Area of Effect from support gems, passives, and equipment will augment the radius in which the skill deals damage (e.g. , Concentrated Effect SupportConcentrated Effect SupportSupport, AoE
Icon: o
Level: (1-20)
Cost & Reservation Multiplier: 140%Requires Level 18Supports any skill with an area of effect, regardless of whether that skill deals damage.Supported Skills deal (25-39)% more Area Damage
Supported Skills have 30% less Area of Effect

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Supported Skills deal (0.5-10)% increased Area DamageThis is a Support Gem. It does not grant a bonus to your character, but to skills in sockets connected to it. Place into an item socket connected to a socket containing the Skill Gem you wish to augment. Right click to remove from a socket. and ).

Cast Speed: , , and Cast Speed from passives and gear will increase the rate at which blades are generated.

Duration: , , and duration-modifying passives and equipment will affect the duration of the blades (including on yourself .) It is possible to have multiple blades active at the same time, up to a maximum of 10 blades. Once the limit is reached, creating a new blade will simply remove the oldest existing active blade, similar to .

Poison: As Blade Vortex deals physical damage, it can easily scale poison damage.

Visual effect: Blade vortex's visual effect does not scale with Area of effect modifiers. Instead, to give a rough indication of radius, there are several versions of the knife effect, each rotating at a different radius. The skill will always try to have one knife using the largest-radius effect that's not larger than the actual radius of the skill, but that skill results in discrete visual changes where you need to reach a certain threshold before the next wider effect can be used. The full radius is always used mechanically.

Multiple casts: When Blade Vortex is linked to Unleash Support, the damage is defined by the initial cast and does not inherit the less damage multiplier. This behavior includes the Greater Spell Echo Support from Pledge of Hands.

Gem level progression

Level			Mana Cost	Physical Damage	Radius	Exp.	Total Exp.
1	12	33	6	3 to 5	N/A	0	0
2	15	39	6	4 to 6	N/A	15249	15249
3	19	48	7	6 to 9	N/A	41517	56766
4	23	56	8	8 to 12	N/A	81983	138749
5	27	64	9	11 to 16	N/A	147968	286717
6	31	73	9	14 to 21	N/A	250557	537274
7	35	81	10	18 to 27	N/A	405086	942360
8	38	88	11	22 to 33	N/A	447718	1390078
9	41	94	11	26 to 40	N/A	615318	2005396
10	44	100	12	32 to 48	N/A	834639	2840035
11	47	106	12	38 to 57	N/A	1570760	4410795
12	50	113	13	45 to 68	N/A	1633987	6044782
13	53	119	13	54 to 81	N/A	2151030	8195812
14	56	125	14	64 to 96	N/A	2812189	11008001
15	59	132	14	76 to 114	N/A	5099360	16107361
16	62	138	15	90 to 135	N/A	9400731	25508092
17	64	142	15	101 to 151	N/A	15273366	40781458
18	66	146	16	113 to 169	N/A	26286582	67068040
19	68	151	16	126 to 189	N/A	62890590	129958630
20	70	155	16	140 to 211	N/A	212046017	342004647
21	72	159	17	157 to 235	N/A	N/A	N/A
22	74	N/A	17	174 to 262	N/A	N/A	N/A
23	76	N/A	18	194 to 291	N/A	N/A	N/A
24	78	N/A	18	216 to 324	N/A	N/A	N/A
25	80	N/A	18	241 to 361	N/A	N/A	N/A
26	82	N/A	19	267 to 401	N/A	N/A	N/A
27	84	N/A	19	297 to 446	N/A	N/A	N/A
28	86	N/A	19	330 to 495	N/A	N/A	N/A
29	88	N/A	20	367 to 550	N/A	N/A	N/A
30	90	N/A	20	407 to 610	N/A	N/A	N/A
31	91	N/A	20	429 to 643	N/A	N/A	N/A
32	92	N/A	20	451 to 677	N/A	N/A	N/A
33	93	N/A	21	475 to 713	N/A	N/A	N/A
34	94	N/A	21	501 to 751	N/A	N/A	N/A
35	95	N/A	21	527 to 791	N/A	N/A	N/A
36	96	N/A	21	555 to 832	N/A	N/A	N/A
37	97	N/A	21	584 to 876	N/A	N/A	N/A
38	98	N/A	22	615 to 923	N/A	N/A	N/A
39	99	N/A	22	647 to 971	N/A	N/A	N/A
40	100	N/A	22	681 to 1022	N/A	N/A	N/A

Calculating DPS

Blade Vortex's in-game tooltip DPS gives the average damage of one hit from one Blade Vortex instance, multiplied by casts per second. This value is misleading primarily because Blade Vortex can hit more than once over its duration, thus not cast speed must be used, but hits per second (rounds per second, spin rate), over the duration of the stacks.

Math and tables

Base spin rate of Blade Vortex is 600 ms. Blade Vortex hit more frequently with more stacks it has. As gem says: 35% increased Hit Rate for each blade. So spin time is calculated as $\color [rgb]{0.6392156862745098,0.5529411764705883,0.42745098039215684}SpinTime={BaseSpinTime \over (1+SpinTimeReduction\times StacksCount)}$

$\color [rgb]{0.6392156862745098,0.5529411764705883,0.42745098039215684}RoundsPerSecond={1 \over SpinTime}={(1+SpinTimeReduction\times StacksCount) \over BaseSpinTime}$

Assuming spin rate increases for 35% for each stack, we have the following data:

Stacks	Hit Rate (ms)	Hits Per Second
0	600	1.667
1	444	2.250
2	353	2.833
3	293	3.417
4	250	4.000
5	218	4.583
6	194	5.167
7	174	5.750
8	158	6.333
9	145	6.917
10	133	7.500

Each stack of Blade Vortex increases hit damage with the following formula: $\color [rgb]{0.6392156862745098,0.5529411764705883,0.42745098039215684}HitDamage={BaseHitDamage\times {(1+F\times StacksCount)}}$

Where ${\textstyle \color [rgb]{0.6392156862745098,0.5529411764705883,0.42745098039215684}F}$ is per-stack damage increase factor.

Then we need just multiply hits per second with hit damage. $\color [rgb]{0.6392156862745098,0.5529411764705883,0.42745098039215684}DamagePerSecondMultiplier={HitDamage\times RoundsPerSecond}$

Assuming 35% more damage per stack, then using base hit damage as 1, we would expect the following per-hit damage increases:

Stacks	Damage Per Hit	Effective DPS Multiplier
0	1.00	1.667
1	1.35	3.04
2	1.70	4.82
3	2.05	7.00
4	2.40	9.60
5	2.75	12.60
6	3.10	16.02
7	3.45	19.84
8	3.80	24.07
9	4.15	28.70
10	4.50	33.75

Finally, to obtain sustained DPS from tooltip use the following formula: $\color [rgb]{0.6392156862745098,0.5529411764705883,0.42745098039215684}SustainedDPS={{DamagePerSecondMultipier\times TooltipDPS} \over CastsPerSecond}$

or in expanded form $\color [rgb]{0.6392156862745098,0.5529411764705883,0.42745098039215684}SustainedDPS={{{(1+{PerStackDamageIncreaseFactor\times StacksCount})\times (1+{SpinTimeReduction\times StacksCount})}\times TooltipDPS} \over ({CastsPerSecond\times BaseSpinTime})}$

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Blade Vortex.

Note that helmet enchantments are no longer obtainable since version 3.23.0 and can only be obtained in permanent leagues as already enchanted items from before this patch.

Name		Labyrinth	Stats	Spawn Weighting
Enchantment Blade Vortex Crit Multi Per Blade 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Blade Vortex has +2% to Critical Strike Multiplier for each blade	helmet 75
Enchantment Blade Vortex Crit Multi Per Blade 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Blade Vortex has +3% to Critical Strike Multiplier for each blade	helmet 75
Enchantment Blade Vortex Damage 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	25% increased Blade Vortex Spell Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Blade Vortex Damage 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	40% increased Blade Vortex Spell Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Blade Vortex Duration 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	20% increased Blade Vortex Duration	helmet 75
Enchantment Blade Vortex Duration 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	30% increased Blade Vortex Duration	helmet 75
Enchantment Blade Vortex Area Of Effect 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	16% increased Blade Vortex Area of Effect	helmet 75
Enchantment Blade Vortex Area Of Effect 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	24% increased Blade Vortex Area of Effect	helmet 75

Alternate skill effects

Blade Vortex has the following alternate skill effects:

Item	Effect(s)
Demonic Blade VortexDemonic Blade VortexSkill Gem EffectYour Blade Vortex becomes a black and red demonic vortex.	Your Blade Vortex becomes a black and red demonic vortex.

Version history

Version	Changes
3.10.0	Blades created by this skill can now be destroyed with Blade BlastBlade BlastSpell, AoE, Physical Level: (1-20) Cost: (6-16) Mana Cast Time: 0.50 sec Critical Strike Chance: 6.00% Effectiveness of Added Damage: 70%Requires Level 16Deals spell damage in a targeted area. Each time this spell deals damage, it will detonate any of your Lingering Blades it touches, dealing damage again in an area around them. Up to 50 Blades can be detonated this way.Deals (11-309) to (17-464) Physical Damage Base radius is 1.4 metres Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality: Base radius is (0.005-0.1) metresPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket..
3.6.0	Mana Cost at gem level 20 is now 16 (was 19). Now deals 3 to 5 Physical damage at gem level 1 (from 7 to 10) and 101 to 151 Physical damage at gem level 20 (from 123 to 185). Now has an added damage effectiveness of 25% (from 30%).
3.5.0	Added physics interactions.
3.3.0	Now has 35% increased hit rate for each blade (up from 10%). Now deals 35% more damage with hits and ailments for each blade (up from 30% for hits and 20% for ailments). Now has 10% increased critical strike chance for each blade. Now has a limit of 10 active spinning blades (down from 20).
3.0.0	Blade Vortex had its 'more spell damage' scaling modifier changed to 'more damage with hits for each blade', and separately 'more damage with ailments for each blade'.
2.6.0	Blade Vortex's radius has increased from 14 to 15 units. Blade Vortex gains 1 additional unit of radius every 5 levels. No longer gain increased area of effect radius. You can now only have one instance of Blade Vortex active at once.
2.5.1	Blade Vortex's "More Damage per Blade" modifier has been changed to apply only to spell damage instead of all damage types. This will remove a double-dipping effect that should not have been occurring.
2.5.0	Blade Vortex has been refactored. Instead of separate hits for each active blade, the blades now increase the frequency at which all enemies in the radius take damage, and the amount of damage they take. The skill now has a base hit frequency of 600ms and has 10% increased hit rate per active blade. Its damage has been reduced by 30% at all levels and it deals 30% more damage per active blade.
2.4.0	Blade Vortex now has a stack limit of 20 (down from 50). It now deals 63% more damage at level 20.
2.2.0	The frequency with which Blade Vortex's can repeatedly hit the same enemy has been halved, but its damage and damage effectiveness have been doubled.
2.1.1b	Extra Gore now doesn't trigger every time Blade Vortex hits. Fixed a bug where some of the visual effects on Blade Vortex weren't being updated when swapping in and out support gems which modified the area of effect. Fixed a bug where some of the effects of Blade Vortex weren't finishing their animations smoothly.
2.1.0	Added to the game.