[2.0] The Bulldozer - Man Mode. No Death/Portal Malachai Vid up

Update to 1.1.0 please!

thank you Moeses for the intel

btw im also waiting for an update of this build, cuz my cyclone facebreaker went down from 4k like to 2.6k life after 1.1 and that said still sustaining previous 15k dmg i had. they sure f* up maras tree but now i guess is more axe friendly.

Updated for 1.1.0 sorry for the delay. All values are almost identical. Gained a bit of armor and intel, lost a bit of health and damage... Haven't optimized the tree yet, might fiddle with it more later. Crit variant 'may' be in the works, we'll see.

"

Sphen wrote:

I have spent all morning looking for builds to try on the new Invasion league, Cyclone style. This one just made me close all the tabs of other candidates.


I do have a question if you don't mind: Were I to try this with Scion for a bit of a flavor change (female face-smashing is still badass), would the differences be too much in your opinion? I know you say it is possible, but could you perhaps elaborate? If it's a bit of a hassle I'll just stick to Marauder.

Sorry for the delay in response for this, I'm sure your question is either answered or worked around at this point, but since the change to health nodes I wouldn't quite stick to my original information about it being just as good from scion. The problem being the inferior Health and Damage nodes. If you were to just start the melee path from scion and then move into the tree as is in the current build you would come to similar results, but you will suffer a bit of health and damage loss, nothing too astronomical though.

I'll have a new video on this soon regarding a drastic change to the build. No it doesn't actually alter any passives, but the change is meant to show that this build does NOT require soul taker or even a massive dps weapon nor a 6-link. I have explained that this is possible in the post itself but haven't shown proof yet.

I'll do a video of a map or two using a 5L and sub-par 200 something dps Axe utilizing blood magic to show that this build does not require a lot of expensive pieces. All the while, this build is still using abyssus, making it the most expensive piece of the build at about 4-6 ex. A lot of people would consider abyssus a negative due to the increased damage taken, so that should show that you can for sure switch to a cheaper helm with life on it for more effectiveness defensively with some dps loss.

I had my doubts about this build in the past, but as I try more and more different and unique builds... I find myself constantly coming back to this one, because it's the only one that works for me.

In addition, I'll be adding a video showing that this build 'can' be used for just cyclone or flicker, but that it doesn't have to be.

I've been leveling a marauder to use this build. Seems insanely fun. Can't afford a Soul Taker so looking forward to that update.

awesome build balanced between dps and survivability. man modeee

Just a quick update, I got lazy and distracted by other games. What I can say is a detailed run down of the things I did however.

I threw off soultaker and switched to a ~230 dps axe. I switched out my 'okay' 6-link for an okay 5-link with crappier stats, but not too bad, probably worth maybe 1 ex.

The original Gem combo was GGRRRB with Cyclone, Faster Attacks, Melee Phys, Added Fire, Conc Effect and either Elemental Weapon Damage or Life Leech

With the change in gear, my new gem set-up was GGRRR, with Cyclone, Faster Attacks, Melee Phys, Blood Magic, Life Leech or Added Fire.

The reason I say Life Leech or Added Fire is based on the rest of your personal regen and chaos resistance. I personally used added fire so I didn't lose TOO much damage and kept up life leech from Blood Rage.

Overall, this was a damage loss(obviously) but STILL managed to keep roughly 10k cyclone, down from 30k. Keep in mind of course I was also using a sub-par weapon, roughly 100 dps less than my soultaker. The changes in gems cut out a very large damage portion from cyclone with conc effect, but also increased the radius, which is a bit of balance since the larger radius allows for more enemies hit/higher life gain from leech.

At this point, my gear was all just meh rares, no more than maybe 1ex in value each, with the exception of Lionseye, Safell's and Abyssus, but I think those are relatively cheap... When you consider the cost of some other builds. And to be honest, I tried to take off Abyssus, the problem was my dex was too low without the +23 all attributes to use level 20 hatred/haste...


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The other important update I had mentioned regarding different skill gems is a bit less important, since it's kind of obvious. I tested Lightning Strike, Infernal blow, double strike, viper strike, dual strike, as well as a few others. The two that stand out in the list are Lightning Strike and Double strike.

With Lightning Strike, you suddenly become an unlimited mana ranged attacker. You don't have to go into melee since you can just sit back smashing things with the projectiles, but they're not going to be super-amazing since you have no real lightning damage. At range I would say the DPS is roughly the same performance as a bow user with about 4k dps, with heavy melee hits. I used the gem combo Lightning Strike, Melee Phys, Multistrike, Faster Attacks, Culling Strike, Added Chaos. I didn't want to re-roll the colors in my chest, if I had different colors I would have used LS, Melee Phys, Multi, Faster, Added Fire, Weapon Ele.

Double strike was better for colors but not quite the best. With the gem combo set up as Double Strike, Melee phys, Melee splash, Multistrike, faster attacks, added chaos, I was steamrolling mobs pretty quickly. I think I had roughly 37k dps with melee splash, and just over 50k dps when I switched it out for added fire. Which was better than my current cyclone at 30k(but not as much utility, imo.)

If you're using my build, try different gems, you might be surprised what you find out. Keep in mind there's nothing in my build specifically built around Cyclone other than the blue slot in my chest piece. Literally ANY melee gem dependant on physical damage that can use an axe will work. I've also had people who took my build and swapped the 1-handed aspects into 2-handed and tweaked it into a godly 2h build.

Updated tree for 1.2.0

I have.. a really noob question I'm hoping you could clarify.. what do you mean by shield swapping for flicker strike? I don't really understand how that works like why you have 2 different sets of gems for flicker? I know i'm not making much sense but I was just wondering how you do it and if there's something I'm missing