[1.1.0] Facebreaker Cyclone in Endgame

[First impressions of Patch 0.11]

The patch didn't seem to have affected my build too much.

Without having adjusted anything yet:

DPS: 12.1k (before) / 12.3k (after) ......... basically no change

HP: 4.2k (before) / 3.9k (after) ......... minor drop (-7%)

Resists: 85% all (before) / 77% lightning, 81% fire and cold (after) ......... minor drop

Armor: 24.8k 60% reduction (before) / 17k 65% reduction (after) ......... 5% gain


Offense was essentially unchanged. My build did not gain anything from the purported melee improvements in this patch. Cyclone is still very sustainable on blood magic despite the reduction to HP; I can still whirl around forever without leech. I think my obsession with reducing cost paid off this patch since the lower HP didn't really affect me that much compared to other builds that relied solely on leech to sustain.

Defense is where I see the most gains being made, especially against physical damage. HP didn't drop as much as I expected; certainly nowhere near the 20% being reported by some others. My physical reduction got a nice upgrade, while resists are still acceptable. Resists seem to have been lowered a bit since my overcap buffer is almost gone and I need to find 4% lightning resist from somewhere later. I expect to be tankier than before though since mobs supposedly do less damage now.

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Took advantage of reset to make some major changes. Lowered hp a bit, gave up elemental adaptation, gave up the leech passive (I was hitting cap anyways), and most importantly hit the other area dmg node in the witch area. DPS now 13k, with way larger radius to boot. I've somehow gained even more armor in the process (???). Let's see how this goes. I'll respec more defensively if I have to (the current tree is pretty similar to my old one).

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Holy crap what have they done? Hitting a reflect pack is suicidal. DPS is NOT limited while the amount you can leech back IS.

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My bad. It seems that my woes stemmed from me respecc'ing out of the leech node. 6% is just enough. 4% was causing me to die almost immediatley.

Damn, I've been following this thread and the main thread for some time now and finally decided to start getting some gear together for the build (traded for a 999% breaker and found a P belt) but now I'm a little hesitant to go through with the rest, even though I originally planned on making him main.

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Necronsorc wrote:

Damn, I've been following this thread and the main thread for some time now and finally decided to start getting some gear together for the build (traded for a 999% breaker and found a P belt) but now I'm a little hesitant to go through with the rest, even though I originally planned on making him main.

Don't freak out. The build is still super strong, and the reflect issue introduced in this patch (not sure what they broke, but I had zero problems previously) really only applies if your dps goes near 10k or above. If you're just starting out, just bring your dps up slowly to a comfortable level (with reflect).

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My bad. The sky is not falling.

what did you take on bandits quest?

I believe reflect is only a big issue now that we have lower maximum hp, so life leech cap is drastically lower, just enough to tip us into dangerous territory combined with cyclone's insane hp cost. Even my super tanky variation of this build is struggling. May investigate Vaal Pact when I level to 86.

I have a level 86.

---Where i am/how i do it----

3.5khp, 23k armor before granite/endurance. 7 endurance charges, 81 all resist, 72 chaos resist (basicly capped).

My armor is only a 5L Cyclone-MeleePhys-Conc-AoE-Bloodmagic

I use bloodrage instead of using life leech in the link.

I curse vulnerability, i never take out enfeeble anymore.

---Hardest things about the build---
gear requriments, gloves and girdle early, abyss for end game, and +phys/life/resist/chaos res

----patch/auras---

With the newest patch I dropped inner force. Currently run determ/purity/hatred/haste

Contemplating dropping hatred/haste for gem slots or attemping to gain mana for a non blood magic cyclone. (reduced mana cost nodes could be aquired with a HIGH level)

Im playing in anarachy for now but, the newest rustic stashes compete with girdle for dps late game, freeing up other inventory slots to some degree and making gear upgrading easier. The magnate or w/e belt might also be cloer to = after abyss, or an upgrade, need to test on a very high roll.

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Gear


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Tree


Physical reflect doenst bother me that much, i need to pay attention, but if i die its trying ot facetank peity when i have -max resist and feel cocky, the cool thing about the build is your ability to crush all the map bosses your friends are terrified of. Hope this helps, feel like im doing it right.

i dont think caracass is worth it for the loss of the ability to lose chaos resist in armor, unless considering using a rustic sash instead of a girdle.

added fire, hatred, shit looks cool on your dps, but consider monster resists, and leeching only off phys from bloodrage, we need effective damage and effective leech.

with a 6L or differnt gear/somehow managing a non bloodmagic cyclone, other gems of interest would be multistrike/fasterattacks/reduced mana/lifeleech for the quality. Multistrike is especially enticing because slightly slowering your dps from phys would help mitigate phys reflect substantially.

If your in a party of 6, and theirs a phys reflect map, and phys reflect rare, and you have 50% slower regen, its not the end of the world, you can still fight, just stop holding down the cyclone button and take it slow, your allowed to slow down and not be supperman every time. 99% of the time is okay.

the problem with the newest patch isnt that it makes facebreaing harder, its that it makes other melee do more damage, alot of hardwork put into facebreaking is wasted as other phys builds close the gap/pass us with a much lower gear level

edit for extra thoughts minutes later

Multistrike doesn't work well with Facebreaker by the way. Also, noted in the other Facebreaker cyclone thread my findings about Meginord's and Rustics.
Carcass Jack is most definitely our BiS chest, there is no doubt about how important it is. It means that you don't need to use an increased AoE gem and can replace it with Faster Attacks with quality and nullifies the Concentrated Effect penalty.

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Myrthr wrote:

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Necronsorc wrote:

Damn, I've been following this thread and the main thread for some time now and finally decided to start getting some gear together for the build (traded for a 999% breaker and found a P belt) but now I'm a little hesitant to go through with the rest, even though I originally planned on making him main.

Don't freak out. The build is still super strong, and the reflect issue introduced in this patch (not sure what they broke, but I had zero problems previously) really only applies if your dps goes near 10k or above. If you're just starting out, just bring your dps up slowly to a comfortable level (with reflect).

Fairly sure something will get rebalanced eventually. It's pretty absurd right now and I doubt it was the devs' intention to break leech.

I sure hope you're right because I just bought a 3s carcass and turned it into a 6l, I think that's the point of no return lol

Turns out it was my fault for specc'ing out of the 2%leech. Got it back and now everything is fine. Reflect can still hurt (if I AoE too many at once) but it's survivable in the sense I have time to react and back off now.

What a huge difference it makes at this dps level. 2% was the difference between surviving and insta-death -_-

The new patch made leech weaker. I'm fairly sure I had more leeway before. Now fb builds have yet another requirement they have to build for (either high leech or high chaos resist to run Blood Rage). I just don't see anyone using Carnage Heart...

I think Vaal Pact builds could be viable (to ease equipment requirements) since a lot of people following the main guide take the middle route through the center in order to hit the middle cluster of 9 HP nodes. I can't do it since my variation is based on regen and I like my senseless whirling, but maybe someone else will try.

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@kazeshinii Took HP and the Phys dmg bonus for the bandits. Skill point from the last one.

@pure_jalexander Wow. that Chaos resist. good job.

I sacrificed a couple of life nodes and some evasion/armor nodes to test out the Blast Radius witch node as Myrthr did, and it seems okay, but the 7 point investment is pretty heavy for only about as much boost as Haste aura (which is only really a 2 point investment). Lost 300 hp and 3k armour which I will eventually regain as I level, but the temptation of higher dps and area radius was just too great.