Blade Blast Bladefall Poison Assassin Build Guide (PoE Lake of Kalandra 3.19)

Out Of Date

March 5th, 2023, 15:06

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INTRODUCTION

Due to the latest balancing changes, we do not recommend playing this build anymore, as it does not meet the high standards we apply to our guides in terms of fun and performance. We are leaving it up as a reference and it might be revived in a later patch.

Being one of the most prominent choices for both SSF, hardcore as well as trade leagues this build brings very enjoyable clear speed as well as efficient bossing to the table. The generic play-style of the build consists of casting Bladefall and connect that cast with a cast of Blade Blast which will detonate the blades lingering from the Bladefall causing massive explosions and poisoning the enemies. This allows you to reach full stacks for your Plague Bearer ability which allows you to literally run through enemies till it depletes.

Since this is a very niche play-style I would strongly recommend watching the video linked below to see if it’s something you’d find enjoyable to play.

Below you can see the build in action from my YouTube Guide. Do note that the video might be outdated in terms of information, and you should always look at this guide to make sure you have the updated version.

BUILD OVERVIEW

In this section I will outline the pros, cons, & the general play-style. This will allow you to determine if the build is for you or not!

PROS

+ Speedy Gonzales – The build offers a very effective clear speed where you mostly run through packs of enemies thanks to Plague Bearer.

+ League Starter – The build truly doesn’t require any specific Unique items to function well in the end-game, so it works very well as a league starter build.

+ Bosser – Thanks to being mainly focused on Poison damage, which can stack infinitely, it does very well versus single target boss fights.

+ Unique Play Style – For the best efficiency you are forced to have lingering blades on the ground for the Blade Blast to perform the best. This requires you to cast Bladefall to create such lingering blades, which are then exploded/consumed by the Blade Blast which creates your damage output. This is a similar play-style to the ED/Contagion with a very different visual look & feeling to it.

CONS

– Unique Play Style – Due to the nature of this build’s play-style, it is a build that not everyone will find enjoyable (I strongly recommend watching the gameplay video before starting this build)

– Dodge-Based – The defensive aspect of the build is heavily focused on dodge & evasion, which can make the build feel somewhat squishy, however it works very well in Hardcore despite this. So it comes down to actual player skills in the end.

PLAYSTYLE

For bosses, this build is very straight forward: you cast Bladefall and connect that with Blade Blast to generate a ton of explosions & poisons on the boss. Depending on your character’s gear/budget, you might have to cast this a few times before the boss dies.

When it comes to clearing maps it’s a bit more advanced:

You start a map of with killing 1-3 packs using the above-mentioned method. This will bring your Plague Bearer stacks to a maximum.
Once this happens, you are supposed to enable Plague Bearer and literally be able to run through enemies and they will die from the Poison damage provided by the Plague.
Once it has depleted, you’ll have to kill the next 1-3 packs with BF/BB and proceed to use the Plague again. Rinse, repeat, profit.

DAMAGE SCALING AND DEFENSIVE LAYERS

The build focuses entirely on the damage over-time provided by the poison applications you put on enemies, making it very straightforward in terms of scaling the level of your gems as well as damage over time modifiers. Any sort of Physical & Chaos damage that you can bring to the table is always effective for this build.

Defensively the build will land around 5000 Life with 100% chance for spell suppression which is a new mechanic as of 3.16 which allows us to stack a % chance to only take 50% of the damage from a spell, this build will have 100% chance of that. To mitigate the incoming damage from attacks we are heavily scaling our Evasion rating to evade enemy attacks. The build is by far not a super beefy tank, it’s a speed clearing build that handles higher red tier maps with ease with these layers of defence.

PoB. PASSIVE SKILL TREE, AND GEM LINKS

The PoB community fork created by Localidentity is the only version being kept up to date, so make sure you have the correct version: PoB Community Fork.

Here is the Blade Blast Bladefall Poison Assassin PoB:.

You can find more information about the passive skill tree, as well as the build’s gem links on our dedicated page.

PoB, Passive Skill Tree, and Gem Link Page

GEARING

A lot of the end-game gear can easily be crafted, to learn how to craft as well as learn how to craft specific items check out my crafting guides here.

You can read more details about our gearing recommendations on the dedicated page, but for now you can see a summarized version below.

Gear Page

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Life then res/attributes as needed (For high budget you can get a Hunter influenced modifier “-9% to nearby enemy chaos resistances”)	Rare
Amulet	Ashes of the Stars	Unique
Chest	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Gloves	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Boots	Atziri's Step	Unique
Belt	The Torrent's Reclamation (Rare with life if Torrent’s is too expensive)	Unique/Rare
Rings	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Weapons	2x Cold Iron Point	Unique

ASCENDANCY, BANDIT & PANTHEON RECOMMENDATIONS

You can read about the recommended Ascendancy, Bandit choice, and Pantheon Power recommendations for this build on our dedicated page.

Ascendancy, Bandit & Pantheon Power Page

LEVELING

Blade Blast works best when you have lots of lingering blades being spawned by Bladefall, due to this we would prefer to wait with enabling this when leveling until we can use Unleash Support linked to Bladefall. This means we’ll be looking to level with other abilities up to level 38.

BEFORE YOU ENABLE BLADE BLAST

The best way to start of leveling would be to equip yourself with a bow and use Caustic Arrow linked with Pierce Support ( You can get the Pierce support gem by creating a level 1 Ranger and dump the gem in the the stash after Hillock is dead).

Once you reach level 12 you are able to purchase Toxic Rain which will be the new leveling ability that we’ll be using to level 38, however, instead of shooting this we will be making it in to a mine ability with the following links:

The Aura decision comes in Act 2, which is when we enable Summon Skitterbots as well as Herald of Agony for optimal damage output.

For more general leveling advice, we recommend the following guides.

Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.

QUESTIONS?

To guarantee that my guides are tools you can utilize to enhance your experience in Path of Exile, all you need to do is post your question in the comments and I will personally attend to them as soon as possible.

FINAL NOTES

As much as I love making build guides, it is very crucial in a game like Path of Exile that you play the game the way you enjoy playing it. With that said, if you’ve made any tweaks to the build compared to what I’m showing in this guide I would love if you’d posted it in the comments! It’s an effective way to show other approaches and it helps me grow as a build guide creator!

I hope you found the build guide useful and I wish you all many Exalted Orb drops!