[3.7] The Goddess Is Freed - Oni-Goroshi - Cyclone Vaal Pact Slayer
 Welcome exiles. This is my first build guide (and if I'm honest, the first build I've theorycrafted and tested myself that actually kind of worked). I've tested this build solo self-found in the past, though in Legion league, I've been playing in softcore trade. But the build will be fairly budget, though the sword itself will take a good few hours of grinding to obtain if you don't want to buy it. 0.0 3.7 Changes I am revisiting this build for Legion league and the new melee rework. The 3.7 melee revamp has added some really nice quality of life to this build, made Cyclone feel so much smoother, and added some nice nodes to the tree. 1.0 The Overview - Are you looking for a flexible melee build? - A reason to use a sword? - A unique that you can reliably farm? (SSF) - A reason to actually ignite mobs again? - Reasonable clear speed? - Nearly screen sized area of effect? - Practically Immune from Bleed, Chill, Freeze, and Stun? (Potentially Poison as well) - Potential to clear most end-game bosses (still testing) Well, this build may be for you. Pros + Can run most map mods (though I would stay away from Reflect and no/decreased regen maps altogether) + Budget or SSF friendly (only required unique is reliably farmable) + Reasonable clear speed + Flexible + HC Viable (be careful!) + Easy to sustain life & mana + Potential to be able to farm Atziri, Elder, Shaper, Guardians (I'm not a boss killer, so I can't confirm but in theory with mid to high tier gear it should be relatively easy) + Can scale off of both Physical and Fire Damage (we choose Physical for patch 3.7) + The Goddess talks to you as you reach certain level milestones and story progression points! Cons - Lack of an off-hand does limit your options for passive tree scaling - It's a sword. No Sunder for you. - Gear progression can become very expensive - The hardest content is probably doable, but not necessarily on a budget (more testing required) - You need to resist the urge to kill "that one last mob" if you don't want to be degening constantly - Will likely be expensive in patch 3.7 due to the Cyclone changes and everyone and their mothers playing the skill. If you're interested in nothing else than the build, here's the current Path of Building link. This isn't a final build. I'm continuing to revamp this build for patch 3.7, but this is the theorycraft for now. https://pastebin.com/BTQiggC9 1.1 The Focus We are focusing our build on this sword: I've seen some commenters on Reddit as well as some streamers, saying it's only a leveling weapon, and while it is a solid leveling weapon, it scales very nicely into maps (though I've only tested up to tier 8, more testing to come as I grow my map pool). The most notable benefit of using this sword is "Her Embrace" buff for 3 seconds whenever you ignite an enemy which gives us: - Cannot Be Stunned - 123% of Sword Physical Damage Gained as Extra Fire - Unaffected by Burning Ground - Immune to Chill, Freeze, and Ignite - 20% Increased Attack, Cast, and Movement Speed As you can see, this is a buff. This sword also gives us 40% accuracy implicitly, (70-90%) Increased Critical Strike Chance, and Adds 2 to 3 Physical Damage to Attacks per Level, meaning that at level 90 it will give us 180 - 270 Physical damage too. In addition to Her Embrace, the sword can be very powerful going into the endgame. It also is a guaranteed six link when dropped so if you use a Tabula while leveling, you can get two six-links for leveling, or you can forgo the Tabula and use a more defensive chest while leveling. Up to you. I found that I didn't need the Tabula for a single target skill while leveling. Depending on the skill and setup you use to level with, one six-link is enough for clearning and bosses. So I've outlined the pros of the sword, what are the cons? There are 2 big drawbacks with this sword. The first is that it takes up both weapon slots so no Shield Charge for us. But what's more is that it doesn't count as a two-handed weapon so it doesn't scale with two-handed weapon nodes on the tree. And because we can't dual wield or use a shield with it either, we can't scale with those nodes either. So essentially we have to find damage nodes that have specifically to do with swords only, one-handed or general physical/fire/elemental nodes. Which there are plenty, The second, a maybe more unique drawback is that while Her Embrace is active, you will degen 0.5% of your total maximum life and energy shield as fire damage per second per level. So again at 90, without any mitigation, you'll be taking 45% of your total life/energy shield as damage per second. Keep in mind that this is mitigated by fire resistance so at cap fire resistance you'll be taking somewhere around 34% (if I can math right) and your regen or leech will help you heal back the rest. I found that if you use this sword from level 1, it's not very noticeable to the point where you don't want to use the sword. But as you level it up it becomes far more annoying and you'll need to do something about it rather quickly. This makes getting +% to maximum fire resistance a very nice option. We have a number of option to mitigate the debuff: - Life Leech - Life Regen - Fire Resistance mitigation - Life Flasks I have chosen to go with Life Leech, though Regen is another very viable option. Though you'd not be choosing Slayer. 1.2 The Damage This is the part you're all interested in right? How much DPS can this character do. Well it's by no means the hardest hitting or fastest character. But if that was the goal we'd all be playing something else, wouldn't we? This is currently a work in progress and I don't have accurate damage numbers as the 3.7 melee patch is still new. This section will be updated as I gear up my character. 2.0 The Build
Gem Setup
Main Skill This is a Cyclone build as the 3.7 patch made Cyclone feel so much better, as well as provided a ton of new ways to scale it and personally, I think it's the best skill for this build. However, most melee skills will be somewhat viable for this, so if you want to experiment with swapping in new skills, that is totally an option. That said, this build guide will focus on Cyclone and if you plan on playing something else, you may need to modify the skill tree out of the melee range and area of effect if it doesn't benefit your build as much as it does for Cyclone. Here is my set up: Cyclone - Rage - Pulverize - Infused Channeling - Fortify - Onslaught These are 100% not the most optimal links for the build. With all the new support for physical skills, I've been mostly experimenting with what feels the best. So far, I think Rage and Pulverize are a must. Infused Channeling is nice, but with the high intelligence requirement, it may not be optimal. Fortify is a very good 5/6th link for Cyclone, especially with taking Fortify nodes on the tree. And Onslaught is nice, but will likely need to be swapped out for something else at some point and replaced with a Silver Flask. I'd recommend experimenting with Impale, Melee Physical Damage, Elemental Damage with Attacks, Faster Attacks, and Close Combat in place of Onslaught and Infused Channeling. Secondary Skill Because you have a free six-link in your weapon, you are free to link something else if your chest (provided you don't use Kaom's Heart). For single target, I've chosen to go with Vaal Double strike in a 4 link chest for league start. Vaal Double Strike - Brutality - Melee Physical Damage - Maim The 'boys' do a lot for single target, though Cyclone can carry single target pretty well on its own, and it's easier than ever with the Cyclone changes of being able to spin in place easily and smoothly. Along with the mob damage changes of being able to dodge to the side and back, as long as you stand behind mobs, it does help avoid some damage. And you should be able to leech the rest back before you die. Movement Skill Because we have no shield, we cannot use everyone's favorite movement skill, Shield Charge. Which is unfortunate. However, you still have a choice on which skill to use; Flame Dash, Leap Slam, or Whirling Blades. As far as they are concerned, Leap Slam got some very nice quality of life improvements with instant casting, as well as some timing changes that make the skill feel so much better. Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Endurance Charge on Melee Stun If you chose to use Whirling Blades instead, swap out Leap Slam for Whirling Blades and choose a third support of your choosing as ECMS doesn't support Whirling Blades as well as Leap Slam due to the guaranteed stun when you leap on mobs with full health. Auras + Curses With the 3.7 melee rework, we have access to a lot of nice Physical auras that are nice for the build. I've taken out Assassin's Mark as I'm not building around crit anymore, just getting enough to ignite reliably. Pride Flesh and Stone - Maim Pride is a nice physical DPS boost, though Hatred and Anger are viable options for your 50% aura. Anger, however, should only be used to get flat fire damage until you get some on your gear, then it should be dropped for either Hatred or Pride. Flesh and Stone is one of the new Blood and Sand stance auras that it just too nice to not run. I'd recommend staying in Blood stance most of the time since the maim effect is a very nice DPS boost, and you should be speced into enough area of effect and defenses to not need the blind from Sand stance. That said, if you find yourself needing the blind and damage reduction from Stand stance, use it. Defenses I use the usually CWDT set up. I'm leaning away from Immortal Call, though it's still a totally viable option. Personally, I use: Cast When Damage Taken (lv 2) - Warlord's Mark (lv 6) - Molten Shell (Lv 11) Phase Run, Vortex, and Immortal Call, are all viable options, though Phase Run should only be used if you're not using Cyclone as it doesn't work very well with it. You may also want to test out some of the new defensive skills such as Steelskin, but I haven't tested it out myself yet. Golem I know there's some controversy over using Golems. And if you're playing HC, I wouldn't recommend a Golem. The marginal benefit they add isn't worth getting killed over. I don't utilize a Golem in my build, if you are insistent on using one: Pick one: Ice Golem - Inc Crit + Accuracy Fire Golem - Inc Damage Stone Golem does nothing for us as we use Vaal Pact. Lighting Golem's inc Attack and Cast Speed doesn't help us much, but if you use a different skill where attack speed is a big benefit, consider it. Chaos Golem... who uses Chaos Golem?
Passive Tree
The new 3.7 passive tree for melee has a lot of new nodes that make it difficult to know what to choose. I tried to strike a nice balance between Sword nodes, Area of Effect nodes, Leech nodes, Life nodes, along with some nice quality of life things like crit, fire damage, and Fortify effect nodes. https://pastebin.com/BTQiggC9 https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.7.0/AAAABAQBAQHnBS0FPAYgBqINjQ48ERoUTRRxFewX3BiRGO8ZtBuqG_ohYCPTI_YkLiXfJ58qOC20LlMwfDGwNZI26DfUOlJAoEMxR35IeEz_TZJOKlFHUWNR2lbJV1RYr1uvXhNhUmMXZU1noGhlapNvO3NrdKB07XTxdqx313gNeu-CB4TZhaeGYIa0h3aI7YrwjX2PYJJ9k6iVJJhvmmqcx6OKpBmlNalurY2ygLXyuR28n702vqfAGsEHxVPHGcqQy_XPftNv1FLXfti92Xzawdwj3DLcveHv45_lz-cP6Ubp2uoY7T_uDu56707yQfPd9WH3Mvjr-hj8S_zF_kU=?accountName=DawnOfTheWolf&realm=pc&characterName=LegionMeleeHype This is not a min/maxed tree, perhaps not even an optimal tree, but I've found that at lv 82, it's worked well for me and has been enjoyable. But feel free to just use this as a template and tweak it to your liking from there. __________________________________________________________________________________________ A leveling progression will come at a later date. For now, a few pointers: If you choose to level with Oni-Goroshi, rush for life leech, then damage and life nodes. Once you pick up Cyclone at 28, if you choose to level with it, pick up Area of Effect nodes. If you level with something else, whatever your spec, go for life and generic damage. If you are leveling with swords, pick up the sword nodes. If you choose to level with axes, you can pick up some axe nodes for damage and respec later. I switched to Oni-Goroshi in 3.7 around level 75, once I had enough currency to purchase one. But you can switch whenever you get one.
Ascendancy
Obviously is we're using Leech to mitigate the degen, we go with Slayer. That's a no-brainer. With the overleech and using various nodes on the tree (including Vaal Pact) to increase the speed of the leech effect, it makes life sustain so simple that you don't even notice Her Embrace's degen at all. Normal Lab - Endless Hunger Cruel Lab - Brutal Fervor Merciless Lab - Impact Uber Lab - Headsman Go for the leech nodes first. If you're using Oni-Goroshi to level, it's a must have. Even if you're not, the stun and bleed immunity while you're leeching is a nice quality of life while leveling. Then when you get Brutal Fervor, you never should notice the degen. Once you get this, you get all sorts of nice utility while leeching; attack speed, damage and damage reduction, and with the overleech, you should be leeching most of the time to get these buffs. Impact is a very... impactful node for Cyclone. The changes to the node made it a much better pick up for Cyclone than it was. The 50% area of effect ramp up is very noticeable after you pick it up. The weapon range and accuracy are also nice, but honestly, this is a no-brainier pick up for a Cyclone build. And finally Headsman. This is more a process of elimination for what you have left and while it's helpful, don't worry about doing uber lab to make your build viable. If you want to spec more heavily into a crit build, taking Overwhelm could be a good option, but I think the raw damage of Headsman is more worth it in the long run unless you invest more heavily into making this a mainly crit build.
Bandits
We help Alira. If you're using Cyclone, without some heavy investment in mana and mana leech, it can be hard to sustain mana early on so the mana regen is a nice quality of life early on. The resistances are nice, especially if you're playing self-found as good rare gear can be hard to find/craft. But as we need some crit, the +20% to crit multi is okay. It would be nicer is it was crit chance though. Oak is a potential option, though the regen is a lost stat because of Vaal Pact and 2 passive points may be better than the 2% physical damage reduction and 20% increased physical damage. Kraityn just isn't really good in my opinion. 6% attack and cast speed is only good if your chosen skill relies heavily on attack speed, and as we get ample attack speed from Onslaught and the Embrace buff, along with some nodes on the tree, I wouldn't sacrifice Alira or 2 Passives for it. The movement speed is whatever, like attack speed, we get plenty from boots, Quicksilver flask, Onslaught and Embrace. Same with Dodge chance since we're not using evasion. So either go Alira or 2 passive points. Either are good.
Pantheon
This is somewhat dependent on the map mods you're running. However, in general, you should be running: Soul of Lunaris - 1% Additional Physical Damage Reduction for each Nearby Enemy, up to 8% - 1% Movement Speed for each Nearby Enemy up to 8% Soul of Gruthkul - 1% Additional Physical Damage Reduction for each hit you've taken recently, up to 5% Because the Embrace buff makes you immune to almost everything, Brine King and Arakaali aren't as good as they are on other melee characters. You're immune to Stun, Chill and Freeze while Embrace is up, which are the biggest reasons you take Brine King. And the Damage over Time reduction from Arakaali isn't as helpful because you're immune to bleed while leeching which is almost always. And I don't think the chance to avoid lightning damage is worth it. And Solaris isn't really good while mapping because there's almost always more than one enemy around you. So by default, we go with Lunaris. Capturing Shock and Horror for Arakaali might make it more valuable, but if you haven't captured any souls, go with Lunaris. As for minor gods, Ryslatha, Shakari and Gruthkul are the only reasonable ones for us, Though I run Gruthkul most of the time because it's the best for non-niche situations. Garukhan is okay, but 5% to evade attacks if you've taken a savage hit isn't that good in my opinion. Yugul isn't as useful anymore because of the reflect changes. Though if you want to run reflect maps, with Headsman and Yugul, running reflect maps might be fairly easy. Abberath is okay since you're always moving with Cyclone, though with Her Embrace you're immune to Burning Ground anyway. The only reason I'd run it is after capturing Mephod and the increased movement speed on Burning Ground, but that's so niche that I wouldn't run it for day to day things. Tukohama is useless because we're always moving if you're using Cyclone. If you're using a channeled skill like Blade Flurry, it might be alright. Ryslatha is okay, the life flask recharge is nice, but I just don't run it over Gruthkul. Ralakesh is aimed at bleed which you're immune to. Shakari may be worth running over Gruthkul, especially if you have no chaos resistance, and capturing Terror would probably make it worth running over Gruthkul because you get to add immunity to poison to all the over things you're immune to.
Gear
Weapon
Obviously, we run This is the weapon that the build is based on. You can buy one or farm one yourself, though unless you don't have the currency or are playing SSF, I would just buy it. It took me a good 3 hours to farm myself. And that was before they nerfed the drop rate. In order to get it to drop you have to kill an "uber" version of Hillock. I'm still sketchy on the details of exactly when he can spawn, but it accepted that the chance increases a lot at level 7, though I've heard that you can encounter him earlier, though it's very rare. If you wish to farm this weapon, create a new character (I recommend Scion for Onslaught gem and movement speed on the passive tree) and run Twilight Strand until you get the Hillock. Kill him but do not enter Lioneye's Watch. You won't be able to encounter Hillock again if you do. Instead, log out, wait for ~1 minute and then log in again and it will reset Twilight Strand. Keep farming this zone until you encounter Uber Hillock which will be harder to kill than normal Hillock and is identifiable from the glowing green sword he has instead his normal one that he pulls out of his chest. If you go with buying one, I got one on day 3 of Legion softcore for about 1 ex. This price will obviously fluctuate as the league goes on, but I'd imagine it'll remain around 1-2 ex, since it takes a bit of effort to acquire. It can be pricey, but it makes for a fun build. This sword is a guaranteed six-link, so all you have to do it recolor it for your chosen skill gems. It is also usable from level 1, so you can use it right away, which I recommended in the past, but it's becoming more viable to level as melee this patch. If you choose to level with this weapon, the degen from Her Embrace is almost always sustainable if you rush for life leech on the tree. You will only need to use life flasks to sustain in between packs and before the 3 seconds is over. And once you get Endless Hunger, you won't need the life flasks much if at all.
Body
Currently, I'm running a Bronn's Lithe. It's a good damage option if you can cap your resistances on the rest of your gear. If you can get a six link Bronn's (which is currently running about 5 ex on day 4 of Legion), it would be good to put your Cyclone setup in it. If not, the six link Oni-Goroshi is more damage ultimately than a five link Bronn's. A rare body armor is also a good choice if you can't get a hold of a decent Bronn's. Focus on: - Life - Resistances - #% Additional Physical Damage Reduction (QoL) Shaper/Elder Mods - +# Level of Socketed Active Gems (QoL) (Shaper) - +# Level of Socketed Support Gems (QoL) (Elder) - #% Increased Maximum Life (Elder) - #% of Physical Damage taken as Fire Damage (Elder) - Recover #% of Maximum Life on Kill (QoL) Elder - Attacks have +#% to Critical Strike Chance (Elder)
Unique Options
 Belly of the Beast the budget option. Kaom's Heart is probably the end game, best in slot, item and not necessary at all. A rare body armor will be fine. Even just a Belly will be. Carcass Jack might be an okay option as well.
Helmet
Currently, I'm running a rare helmet Focus on: - Life - Resistances Shaper/Elder Mods - Attacks have +#% to Critical Strike Chance (Elder) - +# Level to socketed support gems (Elder) - #% Physical Damage Taken as Fire
Unique Options
  Abyssus is SC only. It's possible to run in HC, but I wouldn't advise it. Devoto's is for Cyclone specifically, but can be run on other skills. This is currently very expensive in Legion due to the popularity of Cyclone and not necessary to have a good build. Best in slot for uniques is probably Rat's Nest. It gives us Attack Speed, Crit Chance and Movement Speed. All very important things in our build.
Boots
While Kaom's Roots were a really popular pair of boots at the time I developed this build, they're not as good for us. We lose sockets and while that's not a huge problem, it does limit you in ways that I don't think is worth it. Plus Unwavering Stance isn't as good because we're immune to Stun most of the time anyway and Cyclone with no boot movement speed is... not fun in my opinion. Cannot be moved below base move speed is good for chill and freeze... which we're immune to 90% of the time anyway. So instead I'm going with a rare pair of boots as well. Focus on: - Movement Speed - Life - Resistances Shaped/Elder Mods - Unaffected by Chilled Ground (QoL) (Shaper) - Socked Gems are Supported by Level # Fortify (Put movement skill here) (Elder) - Unaffected by Shocked Ground (Elder) - Unaffected by Desecrated Ground (Elder) - #% Chance to Dodge Spell Damage (QoL) (Elder)
Unique Options
 I don't think any of these really outperform a good pair of rare boots, but Gang's Momentum is a really interesting choice to go for. They give you decent movement speed, plus a (10-15)% chance to ignite which helps our uptime on Embrace buff, as well as increased damage against ignited enemies.
Gloves
For this again, a rare pair of gloves will probably be the best. There aren't a ton of unique options for this slot. And Gloves are a good place to cap your resistances, as well as get flat damage and leech if you need it. Focus on: - Life - Resistances - Adds # to # of Physical Damage to Attacks - Adds # to # of Fire Damage to Attacks - Adds # to # Cold Damage to Attacks (QoL) - #% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Life (QoL) - #% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Mana (QoL) Shaper/Elder Mods - Socked Gems are Supported by Level # Faster Attacks/#% Increased Attack Speed (Elder) - #% Increased Attack and Cast Speed - +# to Melee Weapon and Unarmed Range
Unique Options
  None of these outperform a good rare pair of gloves, however both Maligaro's Virtuosity and Hrimburns are reasonable choices. Maligaro's gives us Attack Speed and Global Crit Chance. Hrimburns are a more interesting choice as it adds flat cold damage, cold resistance, converts 50% of your damage to cold and maybe most importantly your cold damage can ignite. These are probably a more hipster choice, but has potential. Keep in mind these are Hrimburns, not Hrimsorrow, as Hrimsorrows doesn't let your cold damage ignite, which I think is the most interesting part of the gloves.
Jewelry
Rare rings and amulet are going to be your best bet. This is where you'll fill out most of your resistances. Getting yourself some Steel Rings and crafting Life and Resistances will be best. If you can get from flat Physical or Fire damage that will also be ideal. This is also a good place to get attributes such as Intelligence if you need it. Rings Focus on: - Life - Resistances - Adds # to # of Physical Damage to Attacks - Adds # to # of Fire Damage to Attacks - #% of Physical Damage leeched as Life (QoL) - #% of Physical Damage leeched as Mana (QoL) - #% Increased Attack Speed - #% Increased Fire Damage Shaper/Elder Mods - Adds # to # Fire Damage to Spells and Attacks (Elder) - Adds # to # Fire Damage against Ignited Enemies (QoL) (Elder) - #% Chance to Ignite (Elder) - +# Life Gained for each Enemry hit bt your Attacks (QoL) Elder) - #% Increased Global Critical Strike Chance (Shaper) - Curse Enemies with Level # Assassin's Mark (Shaper) - Grants Level # Herald of Ice Skill (QoL) (Shaper) - #% Increased Melee Damage (Elder) - Grants levels # Herald of Ash Skill (QoL) (Elder) Amulet Focus on: - Life - Resistances - Adds # to # Physical Damage to Attacks - Adds # to # Fire Damage to Attacks - #% Increased Elemental Damage with Attacks - #% of Physical Damage leeched as Life (QoL) - #% of Physical Damage leeched as Mana (QoL) - #% Increased Critical Strike Chance - #% Increased Fire Damage Shaper/Elder Mods - Gain #% of Physical Damage as Extra Cold Damage (QoL) (Shaper) - #% of Fire Damage Leeched as Life (Elder) - #% of Physical Damage Leeched ass Life (Elder) - Gain #% of Physical Damage as Extra Fire (Elder) - +% of Maximum Life per Second to Maximum Life Leech Rate (QoL) (Elder) - #% Increased Movement Speed (QoL) (Shaper) - #% Chance to Gain a Power, Frenzy or Endurance Charge on Kill (QoL) (Shaper) - Damage Penetrated #% Elemental Resistances (Shaper) - Grants # Hatred Skill (Elder) - #% Increased Attack Speed
Unique Options
There really isn't much that will be better than a well rolled rare ring/amulet. Carnage Heart and Le Heup of All aren't necessarily better, just different. Pyre, Bloodboil, The Ignomon, Darasso's Salute, Ungil's Harmony, and Bisco's Collar are also possibilities. Though again, not any better than a good rare.
Belt
Obviously, Headhunter is the chase unique. But the goal is to create a budget-friendly build. My fourth day belt is basically just helping me fill out my resistances. However, a well rolled Stygian Vice with a nice Abyssal Jewel will likely be best in slot. Focus on: - Life - Resistances - #% increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills Shaper/Elder Mods - #% Increased Maximum Life (Elder) - #% chance for your Flasks to not consume charges (QoL) (Elder) - Remove Shock when you use a Flask (QoL) (Shaper) - +#% to all Elemental Resistances (Elder) - #% Increased Attack Speed during any Flask Effect (Elder) - #% Increased Melee Damage during any Flask Effect (Elder)
Unique Options
  The Darkness Enthroned belt is really good if you have some good Abyss Jewels to put in it. It's probably best in slot if you have good Jewels. The fire version of Doryani's Invitation is reasonable. Belt of the Deceiver is also a reasonable choice.
Flasks
As far as flasks are concerned, just life and utility flasks. I started out running 2 life flasks, a diamond, quicksilver, and basalt flask The Diamond flask helps to up your crit chance. Quicksilver for obvious reasons. Basalt for the physical reduction. I'd look for freeze immunity, curse immunity, and shock immunity as suffixes. You may want to run Adrenaline on your quicksilver and Iron Skin on your basalt. Your diamond and life suffixes are up to you. I'd get an instant recovery prefix on your life flask. Unique flasks, the usual suspects like Taste of Hate and Atziri's Promise are probably good, though not necessary. Wise Oak will probably be one of the best Unique flasks you can have. If you use this, make sure you either balance all resists or if you can't do that, have fire be the highest and lowest isn't too important.
Jewels
Abyss League made jewels kind of stupidly good. (Not that they weren't before, but oh boy, they're even better now). The amount of good mods you can get on them is insane. As far as jewel mods go, look for murderous eye jewels with: - Life/Resist if you need it (if not, don't bother with it, the damage mods are better in my opinion) - Flat Fire - Flat Physical - Physical/Fire Damage added to Sword Attacks - Inc. Attack Speed - Inc. Crit Chance There aren't really unique jewels that you need. Maybe Wildfire if you plan on using Molten Strike as your main skill. Other than that, spending some currency on some good 3-stat jewels would be the best option.
My Gear
Change Log
- Swapped Diamond Flask for Sin's Rebrith - Started using Gang's momentum. (Good rare boots are probably better, but these are nice on a budget) - Optimized flask suffixes - Gear shown for Legion league, patch 3.7. Will be improved in the future. 3.0 Miscellanous
Lab Enchantments
Helmet This enchants largely depends on the main skill you're using. Cyclone, for example, doesn't have amazing enchants. They're decent but nothing like Arc or Barrage where the enchantment exponentially increases the damage. So if your skill has a very good enchantment get it. If not... Well.. Basically, if you don't have a GG! main skill enchantment, get whatever you want. Boots The % Life Leech boots are probably the best you can get. Added fire when you've killed recently, or increased crit chance if you haven't crit recently are also good. Leech is still king though. Gloves Basically, anything you think will be helpful. Glove enchants are more quality of life rather than anything outstandingly good. And if you are using gloves with implicits, like spiked gloves, it's not worth rolling a glove enchanment over that.
How It Works
Now that we've gone over the essentials of getting the build started. Here's how it works. Your Embrace buff activates for 3 seconds when you ignite an enemy. Because we're spec into a bit of crit, you'll ignite an enemy every time you crit if you're doing any sort of flat fire damage. Because Oni-Goroshi only does Physical Damage and then modifies it by giving you extra damage as fire, that won't proc your ignite. Therefore you need to get some flat fire on your gear. It's easy to come by. A lot of Abyss Jewels have it, rings have it, amulets can roll it, etc. Just get some on a piece of gear. Alternatively, you can run Herald of Ash or Anger to gain some fire damage and the ability to ignite. I wouldn't recommend this past the point where you can get flat fire on gear. It's not worth the reservation. A change from previous iterations of this build is that I don't spec nearly as heavily into crit chance. There is enough in the build to ignite consistantly enough that you should have 100% up-time on Her Embrace while killing mobs quickly. Or killing bosses as long as you are igniting them. With all the physical damage and area of effect that was added to the tree, I decided to drop the crit in favor of that for Cyclone. You may get more raw damage from specing into crit, rather than area, but it's fun to have nearly screen sized area on Cyclone. Why do we care so much about the Embrace buff? Well like I said it's a huge damage increase. The following images are outdated damage numbers. They're much higher now that I've gotten a few more passivevs and upgraded my gear. However, the percent differences are still relevent. This is my unbuffed damage  This is my un-Embrace-buffed damage in my hideout with my Warchief totem and Ice Golem active  This is my damage with 3 power charges, Embrace and no Onslaught  That's nearly a 50k tooltip increase. And that doesn't factor in everything. Onslaught wasn't active when I took that screenshot. Keep in mind that tooltip isn't always the most accurate thing either. It doesn't factor in penetration well, And its reflection of Maim (or Impale if you choose to use that) isn't the best either. But I get it. Tooltip DPS is everything!!! All jokes aside, the Embrace buff is huge. And it's noticeable when you're clearing. So you want as much uptime as possible. Add in all the effects you're immune to; Stun, Ignite, Chill, & Freeze, and it makes it a really smooth map clearing character.
Leveling Tips
- As you have basically a free six-link from level 1 (like Tabula, but this thing actually has stats), you can use whatever your preferred leveling skill is. With the 3.7 melee rework, most melee skills are viable for leveling, and are pretty enjoyable. I personally used Perforation, but anything is good in this patch. - Do Normal Lab as early as possible. I've said it before, but Endless Hunger does a lot of work for sustaining your Embrace buff. It's a night and day difference. - Invest in Mana leech. If you're using Cyclone like me, you'll quickly find out that without it at level 28, it's almost impossible to sustain. Later you'll get enough to where you can spec out and only need the 0.4% mana leech node to sustain. You can also craft - mana cost on a ring to make Cyclone basically free if you have a -6 mana cost, but that takes up a crafting slot on your ring that you might need for resistances. Use it if you can, but don't uncap your resistances for it. - Don't be afraid to pick up attribute notables if you need them. You can spec out later. - Utilize Abyss Jewels. They're OP. - You will notice the Embrace degen early. I won't lie to you about that. Use life flasks to heal through the degen and like I said, get Endless Hunger quickly. - Use Leveling Uniques where possible: Tabula isn't strictly necessary because of Oni-Goroshi, but can be nice if you want to use an Ancestral Protector/Warchief to buff your attack speed/damage.
Hardcore Viability
I'm not a hardcore player by any means. I've never really found it fun. That being said, this build is potentially hardcore viable though you'll need to run much better life gear and don't yolo/facetank as much as I do to make that work. Playing hardcore, it'll be even more important to get Endless Hunger early. I found that I didn't die once until I got to Innocence and that's just because I'm not super familiar with the mechanics and since I play SC, I don't really care that much about dying. Long story short, I yolo too much to be any good at hardcore. If you're an experienced HC player, I think this build is easily viable. You'll just need to resist the urge to kill "that one mob" when there are no others around because if you ignite the mob and don't have any leech stacked up, you're going to be declining a lot and quickly. Abysses at higher levels can be a bit scary as well, though that said, I've never died to one unless I was yoloing. Which you shouldn't do in hardcore if you want to survive. tl;dr: It's hardcore viable if you're experienced. If you're not, I wouldn't.
What Still Needs Work
My build isn't perfect by any means. Far from. This is my first build that I've made and not copied from someone on the forums or a streamer. I'm still new at this despite my 1500+ hours in Path of Exile. - Gear. It's still early in the league, so my gear is far from optimized. Getting a Devoto's Devotion would be a nice damage increase, but it relateively expensive and will likely remain so through most of the league if people continue investing in Cyclone. I still need half decent jewels. Etc. Etc. - Passive tree. I wasn't super confident about the passive tree before, and I'm even less so now. The tree I have is not the best tree, but I've found it pretty fun and satisfying to play. The area does a lot of work for Cyclone. -Crit. I changed the orignial build so this one is less speced into crit damage. There's enough to ignite reliably, but I've forgone crit for area, physical damage and fortify effect. Was the the right choice from a damage perspective? Perhaps not. But it's certainly been fun. - Impale. We're still getting more data about how worth Impale is for non-Champion builds, as well as how heavily you need to invest to make it worth getting, espeically on the passive tree. - Path of Building. This is not a completed PoB and will undergo changes as I test in-game. But for those of you who want it, to play with it or use it as a guide, here's the build. https://pastebin.com/BTQiggC9 - Videos/Pictures. These will be added as I get further into maps. Perhaps I'll record my next Atziri kill. I don't plan on trying Shaper, but if you are someone who does and uses my build, I'd gladly feature a Shaper video on the guide if you can manage to kill him with this build. Outro I hope you all enjoy the build. I know I have.If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please comment. I'll try to answer best I can. I'm not a master character theorycrafter or anything, but it is my build after all. Also, I tried to proofread as good as I can, but inevitabely there probably will be some mistakes. Please let me know so I can get them fixed. - Filthy Casual w/ a habit of SSF Last edited by DawnOfTheWolf on Jun 10, 2019, 6:01:58 PM Last bumped on Feb 2, 2018, 9:10:03 AM
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* Reserved for Future *
- Filthy Casual w/ a habit of SSF
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I am currently doing this build with a few variations, and OMG is it EPIC!! A way to solve the Mana problem for me was to take Spirit Void, it practically makes u not need any Mana potion since you leech it all from mobs. The clear speed is okay but for the earlier levels using Rotgut makes it way better. For leveling, I took Ungil's Harmony instead of Carnage Heart to not sacrifice on health and just picked up an intelligence attribute along the way. Thank you for the build <3
P.S. IT's an FPS killer :3 Last edited by formotherrussia on Dec 30, 2017, 2:47:19 PM
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Path of building link?
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Have you ever considered a Bronns lithe uniques chest would beef your dps up but may lower armor for evasion
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