[2022] Does action speed affect the hit rate of Bladestorm / Rage Vortex?

Originally posted by Seiyashi

The classical way in which it works is that if the gem uses your attack speed to calculate its own damage stats, then modifiers to your action speed do not affect your attack speed itself and hence do not affect that gem's damage. A spell version can be seen with Storm Brand - modifiers to cast speed affect Storm Brand's activation time, but if you modify action speed, that will not speed up Storm Brand's activation time as it's not an increase to cast speed.

So, according to the difference you spotted, Rage Vortex will not be affected. However, since Bladestorm uses attack time, which should be understood as net of action speed, it should be affected by action speed. This is assuming that the two gem descriptions were deliberately written - if they're simply not consistent in description but implemented similarly under the hood, then this is where pretty much only u/Mark_GGG or someone else similarly sited can help us.

The safest way to test this is to use a really slow weapon, have access to 100% poison and an action speed buff, equip the Golden Rule, find a controlled area with only one enemy, then attack and see how fast you get poisoned. If there is a noticeable difference in poison rate, then you have your answer, but you'd have to be damned precise. Unfortunately I don't have an easy way to meet all these requirements offhand so I can't help here.