Cyclone

The easiest way to fix cyclone would be make a threshold jewel that makes cyclone a channel skill. This meaning that it will follow your cursor and not go to whichever point you clicked at. And when you let go of it, it stops. Cyclone feels really clunky, and it's sad cuz it's my favorite skill. Make a threshold jewel making it a channel skill, however the downside could be "cannot be supported by cast when channeling" and like some 5% area damage or something! Cyclone fixed! :D

alright, so i've been playing PoE for about 3 weeks now and im currently climbing my map tier completion playing a physical bleed cyclone build and here are my thoughts:

the BIG problem of current cyclone:
its actually not the fact that you cant stop it, but the fact that it feels extremely limiting the less movement speed you have.
with 100%+ movement speed, cyclone actually feels pretty good (almost like D3 whirlwind) and the higher your movement speed gets, the better it feels

suggestions: (either should suffice, but multiple would be superb)
1) remove the movement malus
2) make it a channeled spell (no interaction with cast while channeling)
3) keep current cast but let us interrupt the animation at any point with other skills (like leap)

the one thing i REALLY hope to see is the removal of the movement malus ... like in diablo 3, whirlwind fits the "fast and wild" playstyle and should not be restricting movement speed.

You can actualy stop cyclone by pushing "Attack in place" button.

Level 94, chieftain Ngamahus Cyclone

Using: Flammability, HoA, Vaal Haste
Notable uniques/gear: Ngamahu's flame, Impresence, Tombfists, Deaths oath, Devoto's devotion
Notable Flasks - experimenter's quicksilver flask of adrenaline (28% increased movespeed, 35% increased duration) Atziri's Promise, The Wise Oak

Revisiting this for the 32nd time, hopefully this gets some attention
Complaint: Vaal Cyclone is a suicide button, Cyclone is unjustifiably clunky.

Vaal cyclone complaint:
Using vaal cyclone in an overwhelming number of scenarios is equivalent to pressing a suicide button. Imagine using vaal cyclone on any of these bosses: any of the guardians, Shaper, Elder (non portal phase), uber elder, uber atziri, Brine King. From my experience with the ability, this leads to you taking unnecessary damage and ultimately dying to things that are supposed to be dodged.

Okay, just to prove a point we'll pretend that vaal cyclone shouldn't be used for bossing and is rather a good clear option. Picture a cells or torture chamber map. In what spot will vaal cycloning clear better than regular cyclone? The answer is nearly nowhere, and this is because mobs do not slide past obstacles such as walls, rocks, or trees, but they get stuck if the very edge of their "hitbox" clips onto it.

Okay, but not every map is cells or torture chamber right? Right, however even a single rock can block 1/4th of a mob from getting through, and if these mobs are ranged that could spell disaster for you.




Suggested steps for improvement
1. Allow mobs to "slide" past obstacles when under the effects of vaal cyclone
2. Either allow the person to move around during vaal cyclone or give them some form of defense while completely stationary
2. OR Allow the player to stop vaal cycloning through inputting movement commands


Cyclone complaint:
Cyclone is an extremely clunky skill whose drawbacks are not justified by its strengths. The damage is alright and can aoe down mobs fairly well, this is okay. However, cyclone's real weaknesses begin to show in boss fights. Inability to move freely and the -30% movement speed debuff make it EXTREMELY hard to dodge precisely timed abilities. One click too far away from your character and it feels like you're playing with 200-300 ping. However, clicking close to you queues multiple casts of cyclone very quickly, and the monstrous mana cost makes this very hard to sustain. Even with mana leech, my character will stop after every cast for a brief moment to regen mana. This is a big dps loss.

This problem is compounded by the fact that the AoE on cyclone isn't actually that big, so you need to come well within the boss or strong rare mob's "kill zone" to damage them. One boss i've had particular trouble with is the omnitect. As soon as that thing casts any abilities (death aura, lightning walls, flamethrower) a cyclone user NEEDS to portal out or dodge everything, otherwise they will die without enough regen to outsustain the omnitect's damage, which is quite considerable on a t16 temple. This is because there's no room for dodging lightning walls or flamethrowers when you're getting locked into a particular direction with -30% movement speed WHILE being directly on top of the omnitect. There's just no room for outplaying or dodging when the instant a lightning wall comes out it hits you.
TL;DR, cyclone is bad for bossing.

Okay great, so cyclone maybe is just a clear ability and nothing more then? perhaps a blend between the two?
This may be the case as cyclone excels at neither (gets beat out by other ranged/melee skills in AoE and single target)

However, why then impose a -30% movement speed reduction debuff on the ability? Did you need to make a clunky skill even clunkier?

My point with cyclone is that it's a hybrid type of ability that can almost never be used effectively for bossing. You REALLY need to know what you're doing to boss with it. That leaves it as an alright-ish clear ability, if we look at what it can realistically be used for (no 100+ ex investment)

Suggested steps for improvement
1. MAKE CYCLONE A CHANNELED ABILITY - allow the player to freely move, none of this lock your direction bs
2. Create a way to either remove the -30% movement speed reduction or lessen it.
>>>> Example: Starting a cyclone (not changing directions) confers a 30% movement speed reduction that decays over 3 seconds
3. Possibly remove stun immunity IF you feel making cyclone more functional to be "too strong"
4. REDUCE CYCLONE MANA COST - it is actually absurdly high considering how often you need to cast it to damage bosses

Don’t need gear deatail to see that cyclone is pretty underwhelming for 2h RT or all skills for that matter damge Just isn’t there for bosses

Time to remove the first hit damage nerf and up the damage for single target.

Maybe some jewels for cyclone will help single target seem a fair trade sacrificing life jewels

I use cyclone as a trigger skill. It has reasonable attack speed and as for a trigger skill, with 5 non-dps focused support gems, manageable mana cost.

The movement lock while cycloning forces you have to control your mouse better. The better you get the movement lock becomes less of an obstacle and you can react faster.

As main damage source you can scale cyclone in two ways. (with my understanding about the gem) Damage type you choose and attack speed. But all cyclone builds have another common part, movement speed. It is understandable because of the movement lock and its minimum distance not because of its movement speed penalty. Moving faster reduces the locked time and requires lesser control. This is where mana cost becomes a problem while controlling cyclone is not. Instead of attack speed, like all the other attack skills, cyclones mana usage depends on its movement speed.

If cyclone could be used at its attack rate, with tuned mana cost according to current value, mana would be spend at the rate of attack speed. E.g. n aps cyclone with m mana cost per use, spends m times n mana per second. This way mana usage can be adjustable via aps whitout crippling the movement more.

From trigger skill point of view, this change would open up much more triggering choices.

"

Sethanor wrote:

suggestions: (either should suffice, but multiple would be superb)
1) remove the movement malus

You do know, that fast movement speed is aktual bad for Cyclone? :)

If you go fast, you hit a mob maybe 2 times from entering to leaving your AoE radius.

If you go slow, you can hit the same mob 20 times which result in a MUCH faster kill speed.

So for mapping with lots of 1-hit low health trash mobs, you want to go fast. Against Boss encounter you want to go slow :).

Not sure if anyone else has brought this up, I'm currently playing Ngamahu's Flame cycloner in Betrayal and found that the movement speed scaling is fairly bad for lower movement speeds. At 30% movement speed you actually cyclone at -9% movement speed. At 50% movement speed you cyclone at 5%. At 112% you cyclone at 48%. And at 132% you cyclone at 62% movement speed.

I was wondering if the way that cyclone scales with move-speed will ever be changed. Considering how much investment into movement speed you need to go as fast as someone who has 30% boots, a white quicksilver and onslaught.

"

Kanit wrote:

Not sure if anyone else has brought this up, I'm currently playing Ngamahu's Flame cycloner in Betrayal and found that the movement speed scaling is fairly bad for lower movement speeds. At 30% movement speed you actually cyclone at -9% movement speed. At 50% movement speed you cyclone at 5%. At 112% you cyclone at 48%. And at 132% you cyclone at 62% movement speed.

I was wondering if the way that cyclone scales with move-speed will ever be changed. Considering how much investment into movement speed you need to go as fast as someone who has 30% boots, a white quicksilver and onslaught.

You mean with 130% -> cyclones at 91%, 150% -> cyclones at 105%, 212% -> cyclones at 162%.

Anyways I would be all for movement speed increase on cyclone and I agree that it can feel bad if you make mistakes with slower movespeeds and I think that cyclone is much funner when you move stupid fast regardless of dmg,

but consider every other non-instant skill that isnt vaal eq or aberrath or some cool specific build, you move at 0% while using a skill,
"how much investment into movement speed you need to go as fast as someone who has 30% boots" is quite literally negative investment, while you are both attacking attacking.

I think channeled cyclone is a terrible idea since forever, I even played the whirlwind + sprint tornado barbarian in early diablo III days when it was a super popular spec and I think the POE/D2 whirlwind is much more interesting and fun. I like the way it is now and it promotes choice and character design.

and especially so specially now that cyclone radius is better than it was before for most purposes (i used to play facebreaker cyclone, with no +base radius on gem) the slower speed is definitely more manageable)

Actually, the problem with your math is that the you have to add 100% movement speed as that is the base character movespeed to calculations. Which mean that if you have 112% movespeed on character sheet you need to add 100% to it before multiplying by 0.7. This is what results in 112% movement speed cycloning at 48%. You can test this ingame to confirm.