[1.1.0] Facebreaker Cyclone in Endgame

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Redzor wrote:

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Intrilo wrote:

Im currently level 75, but i can only keep 3 auras up at the same time Hatred,Determination and Purity and i got haste and grace just lying in the sockets not being used, I don't got max leveled reduced mana gems tho but does it really matter that much? (the gems are lvl 17,18) i have taken the passive skills that reduces the mana etc.. so what am i missing?

hatred takes 19% of mana and purity and determination takes 27% so thats 73% of the mana taken and haste takes 27% of the mana aswell and grace 126 mana, so will it increase during i lvl up or what?
anyone care to explain or help me? >_> !?!

I think you need two 5% reduced mana reserved passives and level 19-20 reduced mana gems (gem quality doesn't matter).

Alright thanks for the answer, i've got the two 5% reduced mana passives so i guess it's the reduced mana gems i need to up 2lvls, I hope it will work!

Cheers for so long!

Very nice thread for cyclone users Myrthr

I wanted to ask u something

Can you make a bit detailed explanation of using Life on Hit or Life Leech?
Consider both gems 20/20 in your calculations/theorycrafting.

Personaly i use Blood rage and i am very sceptical of which gem to use, LoH or LLeech.
I tend to believe that LoH is better than LLeech for one reason only: It gives the life instantly.

Anyway i would like your expert opinion on this if you are so kind to give it.

Thanks mate!

[Back after 3 months of not playing. Thoughts about Patch 1.0.2]

Well, the good news is the character is still viable, albeit slightly nerfed due to the heavy dependency on auras previously.

After some tweaking, my stats from Patch 0.11.2 compared to 1.0.2:

Life: (before) 3.4k / (after) 3.7k .......... Yay!
DPS: (before) 15.3k cyclone tooltip / (after) 14.5k .......... Slightly lower, but meh

Armor: (before) 27.8k / (after) 22.7k .......... Not happy
Resists: (before) 79/79/79 / (after) 77/77/77 .......... Not happy

Movespeed: 5% less, but I got new boots to make up the difference so no change.

Everything else stayed relatively the same. In general the biggest adjustment was the inability to stack five auras like before. Malachai's Simula has lost its purpose to exist, and I actually have to choose which aura I want now. I don't want to give up Hatred because I get a lot of dps from it, so I can only run one of Determination or Grace. That hurt my armor rating a LOT (if I use both my armor goes well above 30k) and I had to compensate slightly for that in my new skill tree choices.

Purity got nerfed!? What? And I thought elemental damage was OP before because it was next to impossible to defend against without using flasks or specialized shields in some situations. I suppose the new Purity of xxx gems help out a bit, but I only have one socket allocated to that aura and I don't want to change color every time. White sockets please. And GGG are you trolling me with that high INT requirement on Purity of Lightning?? How the heck am I supposed to get that with a melee character.

There were positives as well. The HP increase was very welcome, and the new Cast When Damage Taken (CwDT) support gem is *awesome*. CwDT-EnduringCry gave me something I always wanted - a simple way of acquiring and keeping endurance charges up.

This goes a long way towards my solution to Abyssus. I have more than sufficient armor/charges to handle soldier-class mobs, and can go into perma-Immortal Call mode when I come up against boss-class hard hitters. CwDT has solved my endurance charge maintenance issues completely. All I have to do now is get a few more buff duration passives to boost my Immortal call above 10s.

I was quite disappointed to find that GGG nerfed Facebreakers. (I am not sure about the reasons, but I suspect it's because BoR made builds too easy?) I do hope they reconsider, but at the moment people using new Facebreakers can probably expect dps to be about 25% less than what we were enjoying before. Which still isn't bad to be honest, but you have to wonder why the hate?

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@neloAngelo LifeLeech hands down wins. I had a post on this issue before but it's lost in one of the pages. The short answer is because Facebreaker cyclone damage is high-per-hit/low-attack-speed type dps, so LifeLeech is more effective for us. We just don't attack fast enough to take advantage of LoH. Our high per-hit damage also means that in reflect situations, you get a high amount of damage returned per hit which LoH won't be able to handle.

Lots of small hits ==> can consider LoH (typically weapon types)

Less hits but hit harder every time ==> use LifeLeech only (Facebreaker types)

I should also add that Q20 Life Leech is absolutely necessary. Reasons are stated on Page 1. Trying doing that if you are having problems with sustaining leech.

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Myrthr wrote:

@neloAngelo LifeLeech hands down wins. I had a post on this issue before but it's lost in one of the pages. The short answer is because Facebreaker cyclone damage is high-per-hit/low-attack-speed type dps, so LifeLeech is more effective for us. We just don't attack fast enough to take advantage of LoH. Our high per-hit damage also means that in reflect situations, you get a high amount of damage returned per hit which LoH won't be able to handle.

Lots of small hits ==> can consider LoH (typically weapon types)

Less hits but hit harder every time ==> use LifeLeech only (Facebreaker types)

I should also add that Q20 Life Leech is absolutely necessary. Reasons are stated on Page 1. Trying doing that if you are having problems with sustaining leech.

I have a serious problem and i need your opinion.

I use another kind of build approach, and i use BoR atm.
I want to save currency to buy a 6L carcass jack but then i will have a problem.
You see my build is around life and extra immortal call time, which renders me immune to physical dmg in any map, got 7 endurance charges => 19sec of immortal call, so i dont really need any block or armor as i have immortal call up in whole duration of the map.
I dont even have IR.

Thing is that if i go 6L CJ + Abyssus, i will still ahve no problems in whole map BUT in maps where the boss(physical dmg) is in a different room (like the book boss) i m afraid i can be 1-shot before i manage to pull off 2-3 charges and activate immortal call.
FYI my life will be 5k with abyssus+carcass and my armor will be around 5-6k.

I m really happy the way my build works right now, i got 5,4k life / 1,5k armor / 2,5k evasion / infinite immortal call / and 23k cyclone dps with my auras.
the only reason i want to go for abyssus+carcass is because i will have +10k dps and extra radius.

Whats your opinion based on the aboce facts?

(Please keep in mind that i cant do your build because i need 30 regrets and apart from that i need a super shield like yours which i cannot be arsed to pay another 5-10ex for one.)

Thanks for your reply.

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nel0angel0 wrote:

You see my build is around life and extra immortal call time, ... so i dont really need any block or armor as i have immortal call up in whole duration of the map.

... in maps where the boss(physical dmg) is in a different room (like the book boss) i m afraid i can be 1-shot before i manage to pull off 2-3 charges and activate immortal call.

To be honest I can't think of anything either, besides hiding/kiting and gathering charges one at a time to build up your immortal call.

Unless you want to go Vaal Pact and try to outleech him. But that is kinda extreme.

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I was so impressed with your immortal call duration that I modified my build to increase mine. Popped in an Enhance gem, quality'ed up the gems, took the 45% increased buff duration cluster near Resolute, bit the bullet and bought Oak's bandit reward... and *boom* 9s ==> 16s immortal call.

Still not as good as yours, but good enough.

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Myrthr wrote:

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I was so impressed with your immortal call duration that I modified my build to increase mine. Popped in an Enhance gem, quality'ed up the gems, took the 45% increased buff duration cluster near Resolute, bit the bullet and bought Oak's bandit reward... and *boom* 9s ==> 16s immortal call.

Still not as good as yours, but good enough.

I am very glad i could be of some help to you in any matter mate :D


With 1.0.6 GGG buffed the base duration of several skills, including immortal call.
Now with one charge i get 3-4 seconds of immortal call, caping at total of 21sec with 7 charges!

I can face tank ANY physical boss, just laughing at it.

Also i am min-maxing with auras now, hatred is always on and then i got space for 2x 40% auras which i use purity of elements + vitality (400hp/sec with vitality, 500 with charges up) or in maps with hard spell bosses i just replace vitality with purity of fire/lighting, then along with Shaffells shield i get 85% max res in the respective element + 30% spell block.

My dps is at 48k now with 3 frenzy charges up, which is melting all map bosses (solo).

I havent even taken IR passive as its useless for my build, i never get hit by physical dmg.


Thats my 2 cents.

Hi Myrthr,

thank you for this insightful guide!
Being a relatively new player, I wanted to start my first melee char (after a sort-of-failed fireball witch and a very successful Elemental Aura Scion).
Just love the idea of cyclone-ing around the map wreaking havoc lol, nevermind the issues with desync. I did find a pair of facebreakers too, sadly the new ones aren't quite as good. But they will do for a start I guess - also have a 5l evasion chest left over from my Scion so I should be good to go :)

What I ask is this:

Could you maybe give me some pointers as to where I should go first in the passive skill tree?
I don't need a full levelling guide, just some rough idea.

Thanks!

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therealjcool wrote:

Could you maybe give me some pointers as to where I should go first in the passive skill tree?

You will not be using Cyclone during the early stages, so equip Infernal Blow-Melee Splash if you want (or use your preferred levelling setup). The good news is all your damage will basically come from equipment, so you can take any passives you want.

There is no set path, but usually people hit the Marauder area first for HP and Resolute Technique and head up towards the Templar area for auras later. If you need more HP, take HP passives on the way. Otherwise just work on the main branch reaching those areas. Iron Reflexes and Shield Block can come last since you usually don't have enough evasion early on and HP is more important.

Plot out your tree ahead. For instance, you can take the lower path like I did, or take the middle path to hit the circle of life (depending on your final tree). The key is to keep the path lean (don't take any branch-off nodes or unnecessary nodes) and try to reach major areas on the skill tree asap.

Rest is up to you. That's part of the beauty of fb builds ==> nearly everyone has a slightly different tree, and it still works because fb is not really that passive-dependent.

Work on your gems in off-slots when you level. You will find damage and resource consumption to be major problems when you transition to cyclone. Luckily you have a 5L, so hopefully your gems will be ready when you are.

Thanks for the info!
Am now level 42, at 44 I can equip my 5L :) Sadly it's a pure EV but I managed to roll it RRGGB with just 13 chroms, so it'll stay that way (I will just use faster attacks instead of melee phys dmg).

I tried Cyclone at lvl24 and quickly noticed that it doesnt work yet :D On mana, a single spin fully depleted me. On life, 2-3 killed me :D
However, I found a way to start using cyclone at about lvl 31 using the gem you don't like (multistrike) :D
Maybe good info for other new players starting a build like this:
Due to Multistrike's nature, you whirl 3 times as long for the cost of a single cyclone usage, meaning your Blood Magic Cyclone will be sustainable much much earlier. I only had 1k hp and could still whirl through any mob without killing myself, heh. Gem setup Cyclone - Blood Magic - Life Leech - Multistrike.

You are right though with the "auto targeting" of multistrike, it is a bit annoying. So I will not be using it later on, once my HP/regen is high enough to sustain the "real" cyclone :)

For now, I am also still using dual wield because that seems to give better dps for some reason? Hoping that will change along the way. The weapons are Mightflay's which are pretty OP for low level, so maybe that's the reason.

As for passives, yeah I learned the hard way that you should travel the distances on lower levels, so as to get the more rewarding points later on, when it takes ages to level up. Had to start walking the way to my final nodes at lv80 with my Scion - boy, that sucked hard.

Gear is still mostly crap, but I snatched a cheap Abyssus yesterday and failed to 4L it with my remaining 15 fusings :O Shit happens. I am probably going for bringer of Rain in the long run though, as I don't see myself being able to afford a 5L or 6L Carcass Jack in the near future. And once DOmination ends, I can get a Bringer of Rain from a friend in normal :)

Again, thanks for the fun build!

Just wanted to give you an update :)
Am now level 74, 11500 tooltip DPS which feels plenty to me. Fun and easy to play, I can do 70+ maps easy (if I ever find any, that is).

4k life, 12k armor buffed, resists are capped with PoE aura (well except cold). Am preparing for the transition to a Carcass Jack, unfortunately RRRGB's are hard to find.

Or would you rather go with a Bringer than a 5L Carcass? I like high life builds (this will have 5k+ in the end) so I'm not sure if I can get by without the HP boost the carcass will provide.

My current gear:


Any suggestions welcome as well :)

Edit: Am hunting for a quality cyclone gem right now, as the reduced AoE from concentrated effect really annoys me. One more reason to go Carcass Jack, too...