[3.7] 2H Cyclone Slayer - Crit, Pure Phys - All Content
 3.8 Nerf Summary
Spoiler
AoE
"-Pulverize now grants 34% increased AoE (instead of more) => My AoE radius went from 46 to 30 Damage -Overwhelm nerfed to 7.5% crit chance (-3.3%) -Transcendent Flesh no longer useable with Utmost Might (-10%, assuming you replace the jewel for a rare) -Cyclone added damage reduced from '56 to 85' to '28 to 42' (-9%) -Bane of Legends attack/movement speed reduced from 20 to 10 (-3.4%) -Pulverize damage increased from 45% to 59% (+10%) => Damage went down by 16% Mana "Although there are ways around it, this will likely mean that an aura has to be dropped since the cyclone mana cost is no longer 0. If I were to remove F&S, this would result in 21% less damage. Introduction Hi everybody, it's the guy who killed Uber Elder on an Attack Helicopter build. I've been getting some questions about my Cyclone character recently so I'm making a guide on it. The build can be separated in 3 stages depending on your progress. I'm mostly using Axes as example weapons, but the guide holds true for Swords aswell (An Exquisite Blade would be the best high budget DPS weapon in fact). The only difference is the passive tree.
Pros/Cons
Pros:
Cons:
Path of Building - Quick Overviews
Stage 1
https://pastebin.com/UdNEY5PU Stage 2 https://pastebin.com/KbYhY1VA Stage 3 - Character Imports Axes (13.06.2019): https://pastebin.com/pQzwiM1r Swords, better gear (18.06.2019): https://pastebin.com/X1tRx5dR All DPS numbers are against Shaper with on-kill effects. For 'pure' single target, disable Charges, Onslaught and 'killed recently'. Keep in mind that PoB is pretty wonky at calculating the DPS currently (Pride, Impale, Parts of Slayer Ascendancy, ... all not working correctly).
Stage 1 - Leveling & Early Maps
This stage is purposely kept minimalist to make gearing simpler. This early, gear upgrades are more valuable than an optimized build.
Crit scaling isn't worth getting until you have Overwhelm, so we're focusing on raw damage and Impale for now. If you're done with any particular part of this stage (i.e. skill tree), you can already start transitioning into stage 2.
Passives/Ascendancy
Gems
Cleave (level 1) -> Sweep (level 12) -> Cyclone (level 28)
Cyclone - Brutality - Melee Physical Damage - Pulverize - Impale - Maim (in order of priority) A 5-link is completely sufficient up to Uber Lab, but you can get a Tabula Rasa or cheap 6L rare for extra damage. Leap Slam Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Fortify Buffs (Vaal) Molten Shell - Blood Rage - Increased Duration Auras Blood and Sand War Banner (at level 4) -> Dread Banner (at level 24) Precision Pride (once you have a -mana cost ring)
Gear
Weapon
2H Axe with as much physical DPS as possible for your level. If you lack damage, get a new weapon or increase your Cyclone links. Other Gear Life and enough resistances to reach your cap. Movement Speed on Boots. A ring with -# to total mana cost of skills. If you get enough (at most 7), your cyclone will have 0 cost, which means you don't need mana leech and can reserve almost all of your mana. Flasks Use a Granite Flask if you can't afford Lion's Roar.
Stage 2 - After Uber Lab
After obtaining Overwhelm, you can focus on scaling your critical strikes and work towards endgame gear.
Passives/Ascendancy
Level 92 Skill Tree (Axes)
Level 92 Skill Tree (Swords) Ascendancy 1. Impact 2. Headsman 3. Bane of Legends 4. Overwhelm
Gems
6 Link
Cyclone - Brutality - Melee Physical Damage - Pulverize - Impale - Maim (in order of priority) 4 Sockets Vaal Molten Shell - Increased Duration - Blood Rage Blood and Sand 4 Sockets Leap Slam - Faster Attacks Precision (lvl 20/21) Dread Banner 4 Sockets Pride Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1) - Storm Brand (lvl 1) - Blind
Gear
Weapon
You can begin with crafting yourself a weapon. If you don't know how, check the crafting guide at the bottom. It should end up looking like this:  Rings Again, you'll need a ring to reduce your mana cost. Since Cyclone is now also supported by fortify, you need at least -9 to total mana cost of skills to achieve 0 cost. This can be either done with a 1ex Betrayal craft, multiple rings or with a hybrid Incursion/Betrayal ring like I'm using. You'll also want one ring with Assassin's Mark on hit. This can be either Mark of Submission or a Shaper Ring. The other stats should be life, resistances and if feasible added physical damage to attacks If you can get BOTH of Assassin's Mark and -mana cost on a ring, then Mark of the Elder is a good option. Amulet Life, crit multiplier, resists, crafted melee range and if feasible added physical damage to attacks.  Body Armour Kaom's Heart. We need life. (cheap replacements are Belly of the Beast or a rare chest with life) Helmet Choose one: -Devoto's Devotion -a rare helmet with life, resistances and crafted melee range. And if you can, the Delve fossil mod nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage. Boots/Belt Life and resistances on both. The belt should be a Stygian Vise. The boots should have movement speed. Gloves Life, attack speed, resistances and crafted melee range. Flasks Jewels You can use rare jewels or Warlord's Reach as a cheap alternative for everything. -Tempered Flesh also works instead of Transcendent Flesh. -The Watcher's Eye Pride mod is about 20% more damage. It's currently very expensive (was 5ex when I got it). You can get cheaper alternatives with this link. -For Lethal Pride you'll want to have at least 4 good stats on major nodes (intimidate, life, damage, crit chance/multiplier or fortify effect).
Placement
 
PROGRESSION CHECKLIST
This list is ordered to give you the best bang for your buck. You don't have to follow it step for step, e.g. you could get Devoto's earlier.
1) Passive Notables: Disemboweling, Dismembering. Very good DPS nodes. 2) High level Precision. 3) Vaal Molten Shell 4) Almost 100% mana reservation. Otherwise you're missing an aura. 5) Capped resistances, 76% cold/lightning, 77% fire. 6) 0-1 Mana Cost Cyclone. (Ring) 7) Tempered Flesh. 8) Diamond Flask and Lion's Roar. 9) Assassin's Mark Ring. 10) crafted Weapon, no "Hits can't be evaded", at least 5-linked. 11) Kaom's Heart. 12) Devoto's Devotion. 13) Leveled and Qualitied Gems. 14) Budget Watcher's Eye, Lethal Pride 15) 6-Link on Weapon 16) "Hits can't be evaded"-craft
Stage 3 - Hits can't be evaded Weapon
This is basically the same as Stage 2, but you should make some minor adjustments once your weapon has "hits can't be evaded":
Reduce the level of your Precision aura to 1 (it still grants some crit chance). this means you should have about 25-30% unreserved mana, enough to fit in another aura. Option A
Gems
6 Link
Cyclone - Brutality - Melee Physical Damage - Pulverize - Impale - Maim (in order of priority) 4 Sockets Vaal Molten Shell - Increased Duration - Blood Rage Blood and Sand 4 Sockets Leap Slam - Faster Attacks Precision (lvl 1) Dread Banner 4 Sockets Pride Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1) - Storm Brand (lvl 1) - Blind Crafted on Gear Aspect of the Spider Not only does it grant damage and stacks with the slow from Maim, it's also very easy to add without needing to change gear. Be sure to craft it on jewelry. If you put it on gear with gems, they might support the Aspect skill, thus increasing the mana reservation. Option B
Gems
6 Link
Cyclone - Brutality - Melee Physical Damage - Pulverize - Impale - Maim (in order of priority) 4 Sockets Vaal Molten Shell - Increased Duration - Blood Rage Blood and Sand 4 Sockets Leap Slam - Faster Attacks Precision (lvl 1) Dread Banner 4 Sockets Pride - Enlighten (lvl 2+) - Flesh and Stone - Maim The Maim in your Cyclone should then be replaced by either Rage or Infused Channeling (if you have enough Intelligence). This will give you around 15% more DPS than Aspect of the Spider while in Blood Stance (~13% less than Spider in Sand), but also raise your mana cost to 11/12 respectively, which means you need another -total mana ring.
Finished Example Gear with Aspect of the Spider
Further Upgraded Example Gear with Flesh and Stone
Note: I am not using Aspect of the Spider.
Build Alternatives
Soul Tether + Glorious Vanity
For a more tanky version, you can try out this:
Soul Tether By using this belt, you get the same 'Overleech' effect as with Brutal Fervour, which means your leech always lasts 5 seconds - and it doesn't get removed when you're at full life. The belt also makes you able to leech energy shield. Vaal Pact Since you now have a very consistent source of leech, it's a good idea to implement Vaal Pact to double the this rate. This can be done either on the skill tree for 4 points, or by using Atziri's Acuity. Glorious Vanity Leeching Energy Shield means you can use it to increase your effective life pool. For this purpose, Glorious Vanity with Doryani provides the Corrupted Soul keystone, which grants extra energy shield based on your life. There are 3 spots where you can efficiently place this jewel in the skill tree, and all of them require you to give up points elsewhere. 1) Resolute Technique 2) Iron Grip 3) Point Blank (requires an alternative tree, but is the least affected by Glorous Vanity's random mods) Pros and Cons +Higher effective life pool +Higher, more reliable life recovery +You get overleech without losing Overwhelm/Impact -Requires 1-2 uniques in your gear slots -Less damage -Can't use Lethal Pride PoB Example Comparison Both using real character imports from me. Numbers can be slightly modified with different skill trees. Regular Build -2.023.631 DPS -7179 life -1822 life recovery per second Soul Tether -1.688.305 DPS -6035 life + 1684 energy shield = 7719 effective life -2444 leech per second
Swords - Brutal Restraint + hits can't be evaded
The sword tree has easy access to a synergy with the Brutal Restraint jewel with Nasima at the Iron Grip keystone.
 Note that having a "hits can't be evaded" weapon means that being blinded has no downside. A problem with this is that isn't actually as good as it sounds. 25% more crit chance is about 11.4% more DPS on my character, but it also takes 4 skill points to use it, which means the average DPS gain is 3.8% per skill point - barely better than the worst passives we use. This means in order for this to be good you'll also need good stats on the three notables Dismembering, Swift Skewering and Blade of Cunning. The problem is Maraketh jewels don't have many useful stats for this build and you also lose to opportunity of using Lethal Pride.
Pantheon/Bandits
Bandits
Help Alira. Pantheon Major God: Brine King Minor God: Gruthkul or Ryslatha
Weapon Crafting Guide
Apparently many people don't know this, but you can craft an axe that is better than Disfavour for about 3 ex + ~1000 alt (rough estimate). If you add another 3ex for hits can't be evaded, it's even better.
If you try to buy a weapon like this it tends to be either bad or overpriced (sometimes there are good bargains), but the process of making one yourself isn't actually too difficult.  The first thing you'll want to do is get an Item Base. This should be an item Level 80+ Elder Weapon. The best axe base is a Vaal Axe, which is a bit costly. Alternatively, many other Two Handed Axes are not that much worse. My Ezomyte, for example, cost me 10 chaos and is only 1% less DPS than a Vaal Axe, but also has 8% higher attack speed. The best sword (and general) base is an Exquisite Blade (expensive), followed by a Lion Sword (cheap). Crafting Process 1. Start with a magic weapon and spam Alteration Orbs until you get Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Fortify. The mod is rare so this can take hundreds of Alteration Orbs, but they aren't that expensive to buy. Level 18 and 16 Fortify mods are more common, but they are both a total damage downgrade of ~4% and ~8% respectively. If you get another mod on top of Fortify, you have to hit two Annulment Orbs in step 3.  2. Regal it to turn it into a rare. This will usually add a bad mod.  3. Use an Orb of Annulment and hope to remove the bad mod. If you get unlucky and lose fortify, you have to restart from 1.  5. Use the Crafting Bench and add the following mods: -Can have multiple crafted modifiers (2 exalted) -(8-10)% chance to deal double damage (1 divine) -Adds (18-24) to (36-42) Physical Damage (4 chaos) -(13-16%) increased attack speed, (13-18%) to quality (1 exalted)  6. For another 3ex, you can add hits can't be evaded. If you don't have this mod you can consider a crafting service in the Community Forum.  Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use Axes or Swords?
Unless you have an Exquisite Blade, the damage between them will only vary by a tiny amount (less than 3%).
Swords have: -higher attack speed -very good accuracy -5% movement speed and 4% reduced damage taken from Rampart Axes have: -Onslaught on kill (can also be obtained as Abyss Jewel or Boots craft) -An extra major node for the jewel "Lethal Pride" -Slightly better AoE (2 radius on my character)
Should I get an Exquisite Blade right away?
Exquisites used to be 5ex and Alteration Orbs 1/12c at the start of the league. With the current price I would say yes, get one.
It's the best base you can get (because of the 60% crit multi implicit), but also no more than 10% better than a Vaal Axe or Lion Sword.
Are Starforge or Atziri's Disfavour worth it?
When I made the guide, the answer was a clear no because they were too expensive. Now that the prices have gone down a bit (Disfavour 4ex, Starforge 8ex), I think they are a reasonable option.
The guide still made with rares and a hits can't be evaded weapon in mind, so you can't progress your character past stage 2 if you decide to use them with this build. When it comes to endgame potential, I'll still claim that simple multimod rares are a better option: You can import them into my PoB links, give them perfect rolls along with 'hits can't be evaded' and they're still worse than my own weapons. You can make a case for Starforge because it has Shock and Life, but I still wouldn't use it over an Exquisite because of that.  
What about Infused Channeling?
It's a better support gem than Maim, but there are two problems with it that keep me from putting it in the guide:
1) higher mana multiplier (goes from 9 to 12 with a 6L fortify weapon) 2) high intelligence (=gear) requirement If you can deal with these problems reasonably well, use it. I am using it myself in the swords PoB.
How can I get Endurance Charges?
This build does not use them by default. But if you want to, here are 3 easy ways to generate them:
1) Link your Leap Slam to Endurance Charge on Melee Stun (It always stuns enemies on full life). 2) Use Enduring Cry. 3) Get "Inexorable" in the passive tree for 3 points.
How do you reserve your mana?
The optimal reservation depends on where you're at with your character, and whether you want to use Aspect of the Spider or Flesh and Stone. When in doubt, you can just check the PoB links:
How do I deal with Porcupines?
They deal physical damage, so a Granits Flask + (Vaal) Molten Shell mitigates that reasonly well with the large chunk of armour. A Basalt (instead of the Stibnite) helps too if you want to insist on one.
Endurance charges help, too. (check the question above) This will not make you immune (especially if there's an elemental mod on the map), my best advice is to be careful when they are around and use the large AoE of cyclone to keep distance. You can keep them from exploding with a Kitava's Feast axe, but that's just a temporary solution. Builds and Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2198879 Last edited by SHEPUUURD on Sep 4, 2019, 6:54:06 AM Last bumped on Dec 27, 2019, 11:15:44 AM
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hey!, thanks for the guide, im currently lvling a slayer bcz i found some kickass axe,
had to annul it and gladly i took suffix off, what do i do next? prefix cant be changed->quality+atk spd craft and double dmg?, is the axe good enough for late game? thanks in advance!, edit: oh and i almost forgot what i wanted to ask, 1.how is the build against legion?, do you get one shot from the cloud or actually able to clear few rares and farm it well? 2.you said that u can do no leech no regen phys reflect map, how? wouldnt you get one shot once u dmg a pack? 3.does the build generate endurance charges? if so - how?, i reviewed the whole skill tree and items, couldnt figure.. i think theres a combo with leap slam if the build doesnt generate, maybe it can help? thanks, Last edited by erani on Jun 13, 2019, 12:44:35 PM
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"Nice axe! That's a tough one. Since you can't get hit's can't be evaded anymore, I'll use my crafting method with +2 to support gems instead to keep the comparison fair. If you go with a blank axe and use the crafting from the guide with level 20 fortify, you'll end up with this for 6 exalted:
Spoiler
 If you craft 'Prefixes cannot be changed', Scour and multimod attack speed and double damage, you'll get this for 5 exalted, which is also a bit better:
Spoiler
 So yeah, you can definitely use it for endgame. 1) The clouds one shot everything but Juggernauts lol. They're getting nerfed soon though. On red maps, the rares are really tanky, but you can more or less instagib them if your gear is good enough. My monolith clear is limited by movement and not damage atm. 2) Slayer is immune to physical damage reflection and you can always use Cyclone because it has a 0 mana cost. If you really happen to roll no regen/leech at once, you'll have to rely on life flasks though. 3) Nope! I know you can get charges with Endurance Charge on Stun (or Inexorable), but I value the other gems more personally. An unset ring would work but it's an opportunity cost aswell. Builds and Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2198879 Last edited by SHEPUUURD on Jun 13, 2019, 1:21:07 PM
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thank you!,
i understand ur answers, i think that when i reach map ill have better understanding of the build, as for the axe, isnt there a quality+attack speed craft? wouldnt it be better? how significant would the lack of "hits cant be evaded" be?, i guess ill sit around 85-90% accuracy, which is like 10% less dmg overall.. i felt like the axe was real good but now i doubt it, i will still use it for sure but i just realized its not as great as i thought itd be. | |
"You're right, it's a bit better than pure attack speed. (Updated the guide) I did some testing with your axe on my character in PoB. If you use your weapon without hits can't be evaded, drop the Aspect of the Spider and get a level 21 Precision, you deal about 1.5% more damage against non-evasive mobs (at 98% accuracy), but lose the Spider Webs. PoB is currently not completely accurate with increased damage taken on enemies due to pride, but it's pretty obvious that it's not a significant difference. Builds and Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2198879 Last edited by SHEPUUURD on Jun 13, 2019, 3:14:54 PM
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" ill play around these things once i hit 80-85, 40 for now and lvling! | |
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free bump :_)
ИХИХИХИХИХИХИХИХИХИХИ Last edited by Agroxp on Jun 13, 2019, 11:46:16 PM
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got to level 84, build feels good,
i still lack kaoms, lions roar, 6L on my wep, what i plan to do is to first is get lions roar, belly(cheap atm), 6L, and then kaoms body, sounds ok?, or should i do kaoms before 6L?, | |
"I think that's a good approach. Kaom's is ~400 fusings and like 1k life over a Belly. A 6L is about 50% more damage. If you can, try to get weapon quality from the Syndicate to have better odds at linking. Builds and Guides: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2198879 Last edited by SHEPUUURD on Jun 15, 2019, 4:21:15 AM
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" i havent got into numbers yet(mostly because im still farming and lvling), but 6L will result in 50% more damage? thats insane, its usually a 20-25% boost in dmg, if its 50%~ thats sick. i will look for the quality upgrade, thanks for the tip!(havent played in previous leagues, so that actually really helped me <3 ). edit: when buying it(because im totaly unaware of this whole investigation thing lmao), can i enter map and do it by myself, or i must hand my weapon to the 'seller'?. Last edited by erani on Jun 15, 2019, 7:36:23 AM
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