Blade Vortex

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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.

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 support gem and the Hatred 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 three skills that work in this manner, the other two being 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. , and Carcass JackCarcass Jack
Varnished CoatEvasion: (851-1085)
Energy Shield: (173-222)
Movement Speed: -3%Requires Level 62, 96 Dex, 96 Int(120-150)% increased Evasion and Energy Shield
+(50-70) to maximum Life
+(9-12)% to all Elemental Resistances
(40-50)% increased Area of Effect
(40-50)% increased Area Damage
Extra gore"...The discomfort shown by the others is amusing, but none
can deny that my work has made quite the splash..."
- Maligaro's Journal).

Cast Speed: Faster Casting SupportFaster Casting SupportSupport, Spell
Icon: f
Level: (1-20)
Cost & Reservation Multiplier: 110%Requires Level 18Supports non-instant spell skills.Supported Skills have (20-39)% increased Cast Speed

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Supported Skills have (0.5-10)% increased Cast SpeedThis 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., Spell Echo SupportSpell Echo SupportSpell, Support
Icon: k
Level: (1-20)
Cost & Reservation Multiplier: 150%Requires Level 38Supports spell skills, making them repeat when cast. Cannot support Vaal skills, totem skills, channelling skills, triggered skills, instant skills, blink skills, or skills with a reservation.Supported Skills deal 10% less Damage
Supported Skills Repeat an additional time
Supported Skills have (40-54)% more Cast Speed

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Supported Skills deal (0.5-10)% increased Spell 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 from passives and gear will increase the rate at which blades are generated.

Duration: Increased Duration SupportIncreased Duration SupportSupport, Duration
Icon: D
Level: (1-20)
Cost & Reservation Multiplier: 130%Requires Level 31Supports any skill with a duration.Supported Skills have (45-64)% increased Skill Effect Duration

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Supported Skills have (0.5-10)% increased Skill Effect DurationThis 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., Less Duration SupportLess Duration SupportSupport, Duration
Icon: d
Level: (1-20)
Cost & Reservation Multiplier: 130%Requires Level 31Supports any skill that has a duration.Supported Skills deal (10-19)% more Damage
Supported Skills have (40-49)% less Skill Effect Duration

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Supported Skills have (0.5-10)% less Skill Effect DurationThis 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 duration-modifying passives and equipment will affect the duration of the blades. It is possible to have multiple blades active at the same time, up to a maximum of 20 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.

Gem level progression

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

[Spin time] = [Base spin time] / ( 1 + [Spin time reduction] * [Stacks count] )

[Rounds per second] = 1 / [Spin time]
⇒ [Rounds per second] = ( 1 + [Spin time reduction] * [Stacks count] ) / [Base spin time]

Assuming spin rate increases for 10% for each stack, we have the following data:

Stacks	Spin time, ms	Rounds per second
0	600	1.667
1	545	1.833
2	500	2.000
3	462	2.167
4	429	2.333
5	400	2.500
6	375	2.667
7	353	2.833
8	333	3.000
9	316	3.167
10	300	3.333
11	286	3.500
12	273	3.667
13	261	3.833
14	250	4.000
15	240	4.167
16	231	4.333
17	222	4.500
18	214	4.667
19	207	4.833
20	200	5.000

Each stack of Blade Vortex increases hit damage with the following formula:

[Hit damage] = [Base hit damage] * ( 1 + [Per-stack damage increase factor] * [Stacks count] )

Then we need just multiply hits per second with hit damage.

[Damage per second multiplier] = [Hit damage] * [Rounds per second]

Assuming 30% damage increase per stack, then using base hit damage as 1, we would expect the following per-hit damage increases:

Stacks	Damage per hit	Damage per second multiplier
0	1.0	1.667
1	1.3	2.383
2	1.6	3.200
3	1.9	4.117
4	2.2	5.133
5	2.5	6.250
6	2.8	7.467
7	3.1	8.783
8	3.4	10.200
9	3.7	11.717
10	4.0	13.333
11	4.3	15.050
12	4.6	16.867
13	4.9	18.783
14	5.2	20.800
15	5.5	22.917
16	5.8	25.133
17	6.1	27.450
18	6.4	29.867
19	6.7	32.383
20	7.0	35.000

Finally, to obtain sustained DPS from tooltip use the following formula:

[Sustained DPS] = [Damage per second multiplier] * [Tooltip DPS] / [casts per second]

or in expanded form

[Sustained DPS] = ( 1 + [Per-stack damage increase factor] * [Stacks count] ) * ( 1 + [Spin time reduction] * [Stacks count] ) * [Tooltip DPS] / ( [casts per second] * [Base spin time] )

Alternate skill effects

Name	Cost	Description
Demonic Blade VortexDemonic Blade VortexSkill Gem EffectYour Blade Vortex becomes a black and red demonic vortex.	90	Replaces the standard effect on a skill gem with a black and red demonic vortex. Preview

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

Version history

Version	Changes
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.