[3.3] League starter, pure physical Slayer Cyclone (Do Shaper with Kondo/ ISC UberElder down)

This build looks interesting and really cheap to complete in early league. Im going to try it for 3.1. Are you going to update it for 3.1?

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paullawoy wrote:

This build looks interesting and really cheap to complete in early league. Im going to try it for 3.1. Are you going to update it for 3.1?

Yes, I will add some analyze once I see the details of 3.1 patch note.

If the nerf is not too bad, I would probably start as Slayer again in 3.1 to test it in late game content and then update this guide.
But that would probably take some time, since I don't want to make conclusion about a build too early.

Nice job

Still actual after leech nerf, or we'll need use new VP ? i want to try this build at 3.1 as league starter

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Sirlorrans wrote:

Still actual after leech nerf, or we'll need use new VP ? i want to try this build at 3.1 as league starter

Still one day before the full patch note, but i will give some analysis about what we know now:

The 10% Max Leech rate from Brutal Fervor was removed, as well as nerf on the Max Leech rate from passive tree. We can now only get 29% Max Leech without VP, so I think new VP will be necessary if you want to have the same feeling to play as Slayer in 3.0.

With new VP we can have 58% Max leech rate, while in 3.1 we have 43%. So we would probably leech faster with the new VP compare to 3.0, but it take more passive points as well as sacrificing our normal life regeneration.

The lack of life regeneration would be a bit dangerous for running Lab or Trials in Maps. Writhing Jar would become very important for VP Slayers to run Lab safely (I would probably take 2 Jars for Labs). Normal mapping probably have little difference since there are mobs everywhere to allow you to refresh your leech stacks non-stop.

Also I'm a bit shocked on no nerfs of the Arakaali pantheon, since it boost 58% further to 87% Max Life leeched as regeneration. If that's still true in full patch note, this build would probably be even stronger. Although keep in mind that if you take new VP, running BloodRage would be a bit dangerous if you're not refreshing your leech stack continuously, so I would not recommend linking BR in CwDT setup anymore, you should manually cast BR depending on the situation (And use Jar wisely!).

Changes on Vulnerability is a nice QoL since we can easily run Lv20 curse aura now.

Drosophila
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation.

Wrong thread sorry...

So, according to the 3.1 patch notes, Ruthless can no longer support Cyclone. Any idea what we use as a 6L instead?

So the 3.1 full patch note just release, I would go through the ones that directly affect this build in its current form:

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Vulnerability has been split into two skill gems - Vulnerability and Despair. Vulnerability, a Strength Skill Gem, curses all targets in an area, causing them to take increased physical damage and increased physical damage over time. Attacks against cursed enemies have a chance to inflict bleeding and maim.

Nice change, we can get full benefit of Lv20 Vulnerability without investing in Intelligence. Also additional bleed chance and Maim chance is always welcome since it make our dmg even more consistent. If this chance is consistent enough, you may even consider using totem to proc bleed and link Bloodlust in Cyclone just for very hard boss encounters that would hopefully appear in 3.1 (not recommended for clearing, since you rarely drop totem to clear trash, and trash don't require maximum DPS setup to clear).

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Intimidate now causes enemies to take 10% increased Attack Damage (rather than 10% increased Damage).

A small nerf to our bleed dps, but it's very minor since our bleed probably only represent 10% of total dmg. Most of our dmg are from direct attack. This change affect casters and RF much more, since some of them also use Belt of Deceiver.

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Ruthless Support can no longer support Channelled skills.
Cyclone can no longer be supported by Ruthless Support.

I fxxcking hate this one, it's not like this would be a really severe nerf.
They want to prohibit Ruthless from Channeled skills because those skill like BF can "snap-shot" the ruthless effect on their 3rd channeling (every hits become ruthless if you don't release the BF). But why cyclone? Cylone is still not a channeled skill and GGG just create random "special rule/exception" to annoy physical cyclone users. Sorry for the vent.

Anyway, Dmg on Full Life would probably replace Ruthless for us in 3.1. The current mechanic is that if your life regen effect (include slayer leech) outweight the DOT effect on your character, Dmg on Full Life would still work.
In the best scenario (100% full life uptime), Dmg on Full Life would provide 8% more dmg compare to Ruthless, but it lose the stun-lock effect and its effect to boost bleeding stacks.
Also keep in mind that you can't probably have full life 100% of the time, especially in hard boss fight (If you can, then it's not a "hard" boss for you anyway), so on average we would still lose some DMG and consistency for hard boss encounters.
If you don't like the inconsistency of Dmg on Full Life, the next best choice is probably just Faster Attack for 2H cyclone (1H can use Chance to Bleed since the add-phys-dmg is more impactful for weapons with low base dmg but faster atk speed). You would lose about 10~15% dps than current Ruthless version if you use Faster Attack as 6L.

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Arctic Armour's chilling effect now slows enemies by 30% when you are hit (up from 10%).

A very interesting choice of aura for us if you want to do Attack heavy hard boss fight (EX: Minotaur). 30% slower on bosses is HUGE even without the physical dmg reduction during stationary.

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Lion's Roar: Now only grants knockback to melee attacks during flask effect.

No change for us. Still a good flask.

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Monster mods "Reflects Physical Damage" and "Reflects Elemental Damage" have been reworked. They now appear as Nemesis mods. Attacking a monster with Physical or Elemental Reflect now triggers a mortar spell targeted at your location. This spell has a cooldown.

Won't need Soul of Yugul anymore, replace it with other minor pantheon you like. Unless you still want to do Physical reflect map.

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The Lightning Thorns skill (used by the Blackguard Mages as well as others) no longer deals a flat amount of reflected Lightning damage to attackers. Instead, it triggers a nova of lightning projectiles with a short cooldown.

With a short cooldown, this would be much less dangerous for cycloner since we hit so frequently.

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Vaal Pact has been significantly reworked. It no longer grants instantaneous Life Leech, and instead doubles the rate of your Life Leech as well as your maximum Leech rate. It has been moved into the Duelist's area.
The passive skills behind Mind over Matter now grant 10% increased Mana (down from 12%) on the non-notables, and 30% increased Mana (down from 40%) and 40 added mana (down from 100) on the notable.
The Hematophagy notable now grants 3% of maximum Life per second to Maximum Leech Rate (down from 5%).
The Vitality Void notable now grants 3% of maximum Life per second to Maximum Leech Rate (down from 5%).
Slayer: Brutal Fervour no longer grants +10% of maximum Life per second to maximum Life Leech rate.

Overall still a buff, but require some adjustment for Lab running (see my previous comment on this one), I just don't like how basically all Slayers are forced to take new VP now.

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The map bosses you are required to defeat to upgrade your Pantheon have, for the most part, changed.

The upgrade place for Arakaali may change, but no change on its effect. I'm amazed LUL. 87% life leech regen/sec is possible for Slayer in 3.1.

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Fixed a bug where enemies hit by Sunder's linear component also unintentionally got hit by the area of effect that hit created.

RIP Sunder users. Basically it means that the current sunder dmg against single target is 40% more than it should (bugged). Which would be fixed in 3.1, result in ~30% less dmg against single target without nearby targets to proc multiple shockwaves. Trash clear will still be fine though. We probably want to switch to Cyclone sooner in 3.1 for leveling and progressing through act, should be able to do that if you take BloodMagic early on.

Edited: Some preliminary testing done by others show that the bug Sunder currently have may be a rare one, so this bug fix probably won't affect Sunder too much in 3.1. But official response from GGG is still required. For the testing thread, plz look this: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/7hxa6d/quick_sunder_testing_not_a_nerf/

Thanks for the quick analysis! I'm looking forward in running this for 3.1!

Looking forward to your 3.1 updated guide!