(3.2) [Lighty] 2H RT Cyclone: Dope for Beast League & Lab™

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Gorwarth wrote:

Great guide,

I am currently messing around on 3.0, what are your thoughts on going full physical with a debuff totem?

cyc-brut-bloodlust-meleephys-fortity-conc and using warchief totem to bleed/maim.

Its definitely looking viable at this point, and has natural synergies with starforge. Stacking shock chance instead of elemental damage. You can run gruthkul's pelt or kaoms heart and go blood magic as well. The downside is that with brutality you will lose a lot of value out of flasks because good ones like taste of hate and sins rebirth scale non-physical, and Lions Roar is annoying to use with cyclone. And you lose Herald of Ash whch is a tremendous clear speed boost.

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Gorwarth wrote:

Great guide,

I am currently messing around on 3.0, what are your thoughts on going full physical with a debuff totem?

cyc-brut-bloodlust-meleephys-fortity-conc and using warchief totem to bleed/maim.

Unless I am mistaken (highly likely) HOA still works with Brutality since its not linked to the skill gem?

Ditto hatred.

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Gorwarth wrote:

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Gorwarth wrote:

Great guide,

I am currently messing around on 3.0, what are your thoughts on going full physical with a debuff totem?

cyc-brut-bloodlust-meleephys-fortity-conc and using warchief totem to bleed/maim.

Unless I am mistaken (highly likely) HOA still works with Brutality since its not linked to the skill gem?

Ditto hatred.

Pretty sure to do the damage you will need to hit with the skill and thus hatred even if unlinked will do 0 elemental damage with cyclone if cyclone is supported by brutality.

HoA will probably lose its X% fire damage boost on the skill...I'll hop on the beta and test it out this week and report back if the overkill part still works though.

Edit: HoA overkill works but loses its %physical as fire. Hatred does nothing with brutality. So brutality cyclone commits you to 100% phys.

If you're running Brutality, you'll most likely want to use Blasphemy-Vulnerability and Haste (or possibly a defensive aura), which will allow you to run Cyclone off the 15% remaining unreserved mana.

I've been playing with this setup on builder and in the beta, and it's fairly competitive in terms of damage, but suffers a few flaws.
Note: All of this is assuming you're not using Starforge. Obviously with Starforge, Brutality is the clear winner.

1. Cursing Vulnerability means no Warlord's Mark, so you'll need to get Endurance Charges elsewhere. Easiest way to do this is using the Juggernaut Ascendancy, which lacks in damage without really good gear investment. Alternately, there's Warcry, which is just plain annoying to use, or double curse, which is a pain to fit into the build.

2. Full phys makes resistant mobs a chore, and reflect extremely deadly. Even with Slayer's 50% less phys reflect, it's pretty rough when you're not spreading your damage out among multiple sources.

3. The build is fairly competitive DPS wise with the typical HoA/Hatred... but only just. It really doesn't bring any inherent advantage to the table, and comes with its own host of challenges to deal with. That said;

3a. I have noticed a slight bump in single target damage, which I attribute to Maim (via Totem) granting a higher damage increase to full phys than converted damage, but it hasn't felt large enough to make a notable difference.

3b. To really boost kill speed, you can run Bloodlust with Chance to Bleed Warchief. Unfortunately this means you either need to drop your totem for every pack, or suffer significantly reduced damage without it, but it does make for pretty good boss damage.

3c. Ruthless is actually really strong, due to Cyclone's high attack speed, but whatever the planned changes to make it more "predictable" are could very well change that.

3d. All of that aside, the inability to use Atziri's Promise/Taste of Hate really cripples any DPS advantage the build might have.



If you do want to run full Phys, the prime build will probably be:
Cyclone-Brutality-MeleePhys-*FasterAttacks-Ruthless/Bloodlust/Fortify-Conc/IncAoE
Warchief-*Maim-CtBleed(Bloodlust)
Blasphemy-Vuln Haste
*Note: Maim's innate bonus is actually stronger than Faster Attacks, so that's an option, though many players prefer higher attack speeds with Cyclone, and it's still weaker than Ruthless/Bloodlust/Conc.

Ascendancy will probably be Juggernaut, without another reliable/noninvasive way of generating Endurance Charges (Slayer/Berserker/Champion + Warcry).

TLDR:
Without Starforge, the Brutality build is competitive in terms of damage, but offers no tangible advantage over the traditional Elemental (HoA/Hatred) build to make up for the greater number of issues.

With Starforge, the build Brutality build is a monster, albeit fairly exclusive in terms of build choices.

There is also the possibility of using The Red Dream or The Red Nightmare to make endurance charges near Barbarism, Cloth and Chain, or Sentinel even, it should keep you near max at all times while mapping, and enduring cry only to keep the stack fresh on bosses. A jewel slot on a non crit build isnt such a big deal to sacrifice for this type of quality of life imho, and this lets you go with any ascendancy you want.

Also, one has to decide the method of stacking bleed chance.

Right now it looks like 3 options:

1. Gem

2. Gear (voidheart, disfavour)

3. Tree (Bloodletting, Razor's Edge, Dirty Tech).

I'll wait for the new iterations of the gems in Beta 3.0 because I think RN the clear winner on any high attack speed setup is chance to bleed given its massive flat phys and I think it will be nerfed. Along with potential changes to Ruthless...

Its interesting to note that with 7-8 strong supports potentially, Champion seems like it could return to the mix because fortify itself is such a weak damage boost. With just a carcass jack and a starforge, and Amplify, you can drop Inc Aoe, doubly so if Slayer.

Its become quite a flexible skill now in how you can build it.

Cyclone pure-phys

A-Team
- Melee Phys Damage
- Chance to Bleed
- Brutality

B-Team (pick 2)
- Melee Damage on Full Life
- Ruthless
- Fortify
- Faster Attacks
- Innervate
- Blood Magic (to free up mana for Vuln, which can be added to the build with a level 4 enlighten or templar mana res cluster)
- Inc AOE + Conc Effect swapped in

Potential, but if you're using Starforge, you'll probably end up wanting to use Jewels building around Shock instead (especially for a Juggernaut). If you're not using Starforge's shock, there's very little reason to use the Brutality build in the first place.

The problem with all of those bleed options is that Bleed is an incredibly minor damage boost for Cyclone, unless you're using Bloodlust. If you are using Bloodlust, then pretty much need the Totem to cause the bleed (alternately, you could do something like passive bleed from Cyclone + Bloodlust on the Totem for more situational ST), otherwise it's really just not worth going out of the way to build for it imo; also keep in mind boss resistance/immunity to bleed.

There are a lot of good gems, though they're not all as competitive as they may seem.

Chance to Bleed gem really isn't that strong in Cyclone, even with its flat phys gain, it's rather weak.
Fortify is almost unnecessary if you're going Juggernautwhich is why I left it as an optional on the main setup.
Melee Damage on Full Life is a really strong choice now, but I honestly hate using it, especially when pushing higher difficulty.
Ruthless is extremely strong right now, but undoubtedly being changed.
Vulnerability is already in the build, unless you're talking about running it with HoA which really isn't worth it for the Brutality build.
Blood Magic is good for the lazy or overgeared, or for a multi-aura setup, but the build should run better off 15% unreserved mana, and that's a lot of damage to give up.

In terms of raw damage:
Brutality > Conc > Melee Phys > Ruthless > Maim (not including debuff) > Faster Attacks > Chance to Bleed > Fortify

Yeah, I think we'll have to see how it shakes out post balance.

C2B is not so great for high flat phys (Starforge) but good for low flat phys (terminus), while cyclone's more attack speed multiplier makes ruthless too consistent, would not be surprised if both get nerfed.

BTW:

Rory mentioned on reddit that Cyclone is getting +3 weapon range at level 18 and +4 weapon range at 21, in addition to the base +2 for all characters. The gem at level 21 can be thought of as +6 now if no changes before live (which is the new range for unarmed I guess).


https://puu.sh/wIU0M/a294803c6f.png

Possible weapon range scalars now:
- Razor's Edge +1
- Warlord's Reach +1
- Daresso's Salute +2
- Master of the Arena +1
- Vagan +1/+2 / Disfavour +2
- Vaal Implicit +1/+2

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Archimtiros wrote:

Potential, but if you're using Starforge, you'll probably end up wanting to use Jewels building around Shock instead (especially for a Juggernaut). If you're not using Starforge's shock, there's very little reason to use the Brutality build in the first place.

Jewels yes, but the main thing to get for RT builds is 10% chance to freeze, shock and ignite if you haven't crit recently on boots from Uber Lab, its always up. I did this and then got 8% (3+3+2) on 3 jewels when I used Starforge in breach for Lacerate.

Here's my favorite jewel from that build, kept it for memories:

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Samir316 wrote:

Jewels yes, but the main thing to get for RT builds is 10% chance to freeze, shock and ignite if you haven't crit recently on boots from Uber Lab, its always up. I did this and then got 8% (3+3+2) on 3 jewels when I used Starforge in breach for Lacerate.

Here's my favorite jewel from that build, kept it for memories:

Good point with the boot enchant, I didn't think of it.

Unfortunate that Shock is based on damage dealt per hit though, makes it very difficult to apply to later bosses with Cyclone's low base damage.

I'm using your Marauder berserker leveling trees on the beta and so far this is the easiest cyclone build I've played to level with. I hope you continue to update these builds!

Hey Lighty Saw your tentacle mace video... looks to be absolutely awesome (and what I want to run in 3.0 live). Something that can facetank without too much drama.

I don't have the currency to play around with it on 3.0, but to maintain endurance charges\mana would you run Blas-warlords and enduring cry for bosses? moving to red dream when currency allows... or can you maintain solely on the juggernaut unrelenting\unflinching and tidebreaker weapon?