I really liked the original Vortex of Souls but was always somewhat puzzled by its implementation.
The pierce effect on it shines when coupled with secondary effects with AE components like Primal Strike, Fire Strike, or Amarasta’s Blade Burst, but none of those effects synergize with the inherent aether damage of the weapon.
The Mythical Version puzzled me more. With skill bonuses to Arcanist and Necromancer as well as all the aether damage support in those two classes, this seems tailor made for a Spellbinder gunner… but the Arcanist has no weapon skills and the Necromancer’s WPS lack the AE secondary effects needed to leverage the weapon.
But that’s fine. I like puzzles. And I found an imperfect solution. The old version of the Seal of the Void. The old 3 second cooldown skill being fire/chaos component was not ideal but the 300% weapon damage could leverage both the inherent aether damage on the weapon and the flat spellbinder damage well and the explosion was the needed secondary ae effect needed to leverage the vortex’s piercing property. Especially since it was on command so you could fire it into packs of enemies when it mattered.
But the new Seal of the Void as a WPS is not on command, the 130% wps damage doesn’t leverage the vortex or the spellbinder flat damage well at all. The solution is now inconsistent and a bit lackluster.
I am sure the new Seal of the Void will be wonderful when I roll up a Dagallon set Purifier, but my Vortex of Souls Spellbinder is SOL since that was the only game in town. No other relic or component fits the bill.
So would it be possible to get something to fill that void? A new seal perhaps? Maybe even a change to a relic. When I was originally trying to solve the Vortex of Souls puzzle, I was very dismayed to see that the Necromancer relic Uroboruuk’s Reaping had a seemingly arbitrary melee weapon requirement to it so I couldn’t use it while waiting for the old Seal of the Void to cooldown. Lifting this requirement and adding the “When used with a ranged weapon, the projectile will explode upon contact.” effect from Seal of the Void would be a godsend.
In the past, builds using it in under these circumstances have used conversion to turn that attack’s damage over to Aether (such as Fire Strike using Fire/Chaos converted to Aether) or stuck with things as they are and used the attacks for their effects or the way they work (such as Primal Strike effecting multiple enemies with each pierce) - this isn’t half bad either as Vortex of Souls is a pure damage weapon, it pairs with % weapon damage nicely.
Granted, things aren’t perfect but they still work.
The Mythical Version puzzled me more. With skill bonuses to Arcanist and Necromancer as well as all the aether damage support in those two classes, this seems tailor made for a Spellbinder gunner… but the Arcanist has no weapon skills and the Necromancer’s WPS lack the AE secondary effects needed to leverage the weapon.
Edit: Besides the build I posted above, just because the weapon supports +2 to Necromancer/Arcanist does not mean you are required to play a Spellbinder to make use of those bonuses, any Necromancer/x or Arcanist/x is still getting decent use out if it. Experiment with other combinations - Aether Cadence Death Knight, Aether Fire Strike Sorcerer and so on, I’m playing an Aether Apostate currently and hope to use it in my final build
There are other solutions. The Vortex doesn’t need to be used on a Spellbinder. The Vortex can be used as a stat stick. You can use other piercing guns. As I said, it is a puzzle to be figured out.
The point is that I figured out a solution to Spellbinder Gunner. It wasn’t a game breaking build or I would have sold it hard on the builds page. But the Seal of the Void change killed that solution, whether intentionally or not.
Hoping that it was unintentional, I’m also hoping that pointing it out gets a squeaky wheel grease fix somewhere down the road. If it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world. But my predilections would run towards dumping the Vortex entirely and doing something else with my spellbinder.
Make a Savagery or Primal Strike Aether Druid/Ritualist with Iskandra set and Conduit of Wild Whispers that converts Primal or Savagery damage to Aether and stack a metric ton of flat aether damage from Reckless Power/Fabric of Reality. Max attack speed. Utilize RR from Judicator’s seals + Arcane Mine + Seal of Corruption. Should be interesting.
