Vortex Gaming

· The 'Class Lock' series involves playing through all base classes and selecting builds suited for each.
· We unlock the next class after solo play, sharing the build's strengths and weaknesses to decide on a recommendation.
· This video covers the Hunter class and its Amazon Ascendancy, along with the popular 'Whirlwind Blade' and 'Tornado' build, which is gaining traction with the new 'Spirit Walker' Ascendancy.

· The core of the build lies in the synergy between the 'Whirlwind Blade' and 'Tornado' skills.
· Whirlwind Blade maintains attacks up to 3 stages, and the number of stages determines the additional damage and projectile count for Tornado.
· Whirlwind Blade absorbs enemy elemental ground effects (fire, cold, shock), with cold effects specifically granting 50% increased cold damage and shattering enemies.
· Frenzy charges are acquired through the 'Ballista' and 'Ice Shot' skills, which are effective for both AoE and single-target encounters.

· This build boasts exceptional area-of-effect clear speed and provides a satisfying shattering sound effect for enemies.
· With a large number of projectiles, you can hit enemies off-screen, and more Frenzy charges mean more projectiles filling the screen.
· 'Ice Shot' enhances the next few attacks, and on hit, it creates ice shards that explode after a short delay. This significantly boosts single-target damage and AoE clear.
· Thanks to the 'Ballista' and 'Ice Shot' combination, single-target damage is also excellent, and Tornado can hit the same target multiple times every 0.6 seconds.
· In boss fights, projectiles can bounce off walls to hit the same target multiple times, causing bosses to disappear in an instant.
· With good gear, 'Whirlwind Blade' can be cast very quickly, and the skill's jump distance increases with attack speed rather than movement speed.
· The 'Speed Walker' Ascendancy provides additional projectiles and high projectile speed, creating excellent synergy with this build (6 additional projectiles, 200% increased projectile speed).
· Combined with the 'Haste' support gem, you gain a 200% inherent damage increase, which, considering the additional projectiles, results in tremendous damage potential.

· Tornadoes can sometimes fly in the wrong direction or get stuck on terrain, failing to hit monsters.
· While single-target damage is good, damage becomes inconsistent if projectiles don't bounce off walls at the correct angle or if the boss arena is too large for projectiles to return, introducing an RNG element.
· This build has very low survivability. Evasion is low, and finding good energy shield-based armor is difficult, making high evasion alone insufficient for survival (30% evasion).
· During the campaign, survivability relies heavily on life and resistances, and the build is vulnerable to stuns.
· The screen can become visually cluttered with Tornadoes, especially when cold effects and ice shards trigger simultaneously, making it hard to assess the situation and leading to deaths from not seeing ground effects.
· The leveling phase in Act 1 is very difficult. Using a spear build might be better initially, though even the spear build feels somewhat weak in the current 0.2 version.

· Despite numerous drawbacks, the build's satisfaction level is high enough to compensate for them.
· It offers a satisfying gameplay experience, especially through cold effects and Frenzy charge generation.
· With the next patch, particularly with the 'Speed Walker' Ascendancy, it's a strong recommendation for a league starter.
· We tested with the Hunter class and Amazon Ascendancy; for the next patch, we'll consider the 'Speed Walker' Ascendancy.
· Currently, it's a satisfying build, and we hope it doesn't get nerfed in the patch.

· We hope this video was helpful. In the next 'Class Lock' series episode, we'll cover the 'Monk' class.
· If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.