Dean's Cyclone Slayer

Hey guys my name is Dean and I would like to share my Duelist build with you all.

It's a pure physical 2H cyclone slayer suitable for newer players who want to learn the game's simpler mechanics.


A bit of background on myself first. I'm a fairly casual player, I first started playing when piety was the final boss. The first league I played was breach. So some of my gear might seem odd because it has a legacy roll. I created the idea for the build and first tested it during one of those two week events after the Harbinger League. I typically only get close to completing the atlas during a league. I think on average I do about 300 maps a league.


Cons
Not the tankest
Not the best DPS
Not the fastest
Probably cant do hardcore
Can't do Hall of the grandmasters unique map

Pros
Very simple mechanically (not too many buttons)
Very cheap, but with the ability to invest to get stronger (can do most shit on a 5L)
Very versatile, can tackle most content


I say most content because I have never attempted uber elder. Whilst its not the tankest build with the best clear and highest dps. It does do decently in these feilds. So being brutally honest if your looking for some kind of 10k hp tank, 1 million dps or 600ms queen of the forest build, this is not for you.

My achievements with the build are completing the guardians/Shaper, uber lab solo, atziri, the bestiary bosses, breach bosses, abyss bosses. I killed normal Red elder.


OK so now the build in full detail (there's a long story short at the bottom)


How it plays

Use blood rage-> Leap -> cyclone-> repeat
tough guy? blood rage-> totem-> leap -> spin to win
really tough? use vaal lightning trap also. Now that the vaal skills are inbuilt you can also use vaal haste and cyclone. Just be careful with cyclone because your locked in place.

Once you get good shit, its bloodrage->totem->leap->spin to win, maybe with vaal haste on.




Gems and Item slots


Main attack in weapon 1

Cyclone-> Melee Physical -> Damage on full life-> Brutality-> faster attacks-> Bloodlust

The gem order here is not super important, just chrome your weapon until you get suitable colours.
One key thing here is the 6th link bloodlust, this gem will stop your cyclone from causing bleed on the enemy but makes you do more damage to a bleeding enemy. This will be more important later when you can afford a 6L and other better equipment.

The best option for price is .

This weapon will take you to the guardians. Although it will start to struggle. If you want more damage I would suggest looking out for better physical dps swords as you play. That being said coming across a rare one with more dps is unlikely. In early league its worth like 10c after a while its worth like 4 alts.

Eventually you want to get a

This weapon is going to be near impossible to replace with a rare, without spending a crazy amount. So I'd suggest saving up for it slowly slowly or if your lucky and can beat shaper with a kondos and get it to drop. Beating shaper with kondos will be mega hard though. Starforge is an expensive weapon, I have bought one for less than 200c in the past later on in the league.


I'd recommend putting your fusings into a kondos untill a 5L then saving all your fusings to use either on a good chest, better sword or starforge.




Body Armour

The ideal piece is Kaom's Heart

This gives heaps of life and is the final chest piece we're looking for. It's usually between 150-300c.

A cheaper alternative is a Belly of the Beast, that can be like around 50c though. The other options are collecting full sets of the divination cards: these can be cheap early on, so if your fast and can get a some chaos recipes done you can get an easy 6L. Once you get one of the chests you can then alt regal craft until you get something decent then mastercraft a 2nd/3rd resistance. Alternatively you can buy a normal high ilvl(minimum 73, 86 is best) astral plate and craft and try 5L it yourself.

If you get a 5-6L chest then you can save your fusing and just use cyclone in the body armour. Given the choice between saving up for kaoms or starforge i'd suggest getting the kaom's first. Ive tried both ways, having the kaoms allows your character to get to the stronger content, just takes longer to dps it down, where as having the starforge will not prevent you getting 1 shot from certain things.


The 3 remaining 4 Links

Leap Slam-> Fortify-> Endurance Charge on Melee Stun-> Faster Attacks.



Cast When Damage Taken(cwdt)->Immortal Call-> Haste-> Increased Duration.

If you cannot get a pair of corrupted curse on hit vulnerability gloves, in stead use blasphemy vulnerability of the immortal call, cwdt and increased duration. In early maps that setup isnt as good i dont think.



Ancestral Warchief->Maim->Blind(if not using kondos Pride)-Chance to bleed(if using starforge)
Vaal Lightning trap(if not using starforge).

The idea is the trap shocks bosses, we get free shock from starforge, so the gem is not useful for us. We get free blind from kondos so the blind gem is not useful for us.

Blood Rage is a crazy good buff skill that should be used, if you don't care for the endurance charges slot it there or slot it with the totem in stead of blind/maim/chancetobleed.


Gloves

Haemophilia are going to be the best unless you have a 6L and are using Bloodlust. The pops this gives you help you clear and the rest of the affixes are great. Once you start using bloodlust, trash doesn't really bleed and then doesnt pop, so they become not so useful.

Maligaros Virtuosity are a great replacement.

If possible get a Curse on Hit corrupted pair of either of these with vulnerability. A decent pair or rare gloves work also, look for life, resistance, attack speed, and physical damage to attack affixes. The key thing is the corruption saves mana reservation, which can be tight at times and gives cwdt setup. The corruption used to be expensive, but now everyone vaals shit so they are everywhere.



Boots
Rares with life, resistance and movespeed. Just get whats cheapest that can help you cap resistance. Once you can afford kaom's heart, the affixes will need to be higher to compensate the loss of resistance from the chest piece.

Helm
Similar deal, Life Resistance.

There are unique options, they just make the other slots more expensive because uniques tend to either lack resistance or life.


Jewelry

Belt of the Deceiver is cheapest and best value for money. Otherwise life and resistance, maybe some flask duration/effectiveness mods are good too.

The best would be a high ilvl stygian vise with life/resist and a good murderous eye jewel. The jewel is very rare since a lot of the mods are useless for us, look for life, physical damage, critical chance or multiplier, resistance if your missing any.

Amulet
Carnage Heart

Best value again, gives you everything you need. Around 10c. Getting a bonus curse corruption or frenzy charge are great but rare and expensive. If you get a 2nd curse use assassins mark on a ring or blasphemy.
If you can handle the resists/stats loss this
is a great option. Otherwise a rare with life,physical damage,resistance,crit multi/chance, attackspeed is good. The build is intelligence starved so leveling certain gems might hurt, just keep an eye out as you level your gems.


Rings

Rares again, the cheaper option being coral or prismatic and the expensive option being steel. Prioritize life/resistances, you'll die if not on max res. Then get physical damage and attack speed.

Jewels

A four property murderous eye jewel is going to be just slightly worse than a normal crimson jewel.
Normal crimson ones have a lot more useful rolls and are therefore more common and cheaper. Look for Life/Damage/Crit multi/attackspeed. Try to make sure at least 1 jewel has attack speed. Some damage properties give like 14% while others give 12%, it matters a little, but depends on your budget and their availability. I'd also suggest skilling the jewel slots as you get jewels to socket. When it comes down to it the order that you skill passives does matter slightly, but you'll level from 70-80 quite fast so it shouldn't really matter.


Flasks



ok, now these are the best imo. Long story short, the three in the middle make you tank. The end one is for zoom zoom and the first one is for healing. Basically make sure you can take freeze and curses off. The writhing jar can be replaced with an instant health pot. The jar is very good for lab tho coz it gives you mobs to hit and kill.





I'll link my current gear here:


There's still room for improvement as well, each piece is self crafted. The gloves are aides to craft because you need an essences of insanity, which cost like 70c each. Im not too keen on vaaling these gloves for the curse on hit yet.

Other past gear as examples






Tree
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAQBAAHnBS0GIAaiDHANjQ3NDjwQ8BRNFHEV7BfcGJEaVRuqHM4j0yP2JP0nnyo4K1AuUzB8MZ41kjboN9Q6UjrhO7Y8LT0-Ps9DMUd-Sn1M_02STeNOKlFHWhpbr2EhYxdlTWhlbydxsHKpdKB07XaseHp674E6ggeDX4PMhNmE74WnhrSHaod2jX2SfZhvmSuaaqOKpTWmV6knqZStja-nsoC3PrkdvJ-9Nr2Bvea-p8EHwzPE9sauyPDKkM9-02_UUtd-2L3ZfNrB3CPlz-dU6hjtP-4O8kHyRfJa8931Yfcy-Ov5Y_xL_MX-Cv5U_o__3g==?accountName=brother_lantern&characterName=sccga

One other note is mana sustain. How? get the affix on gloves/ring/amulet or for 1 skillpoint near vitality void life leech. 0.3% is enough i think, 0.2% is sort of pushing it.

Real men take Oaks side, pray to; Arakaali, gruthkul or shakari. Make sure to use divine vessels to upgrade the powers.




Leveling
Sorry i'm terrible, I just use sunder till about the part where u fight maligaro in his sanctum. I swap to cyclone with a terminus est or other sword if i find one. Dont waste too many fusings trying to 5L it. Also try and level up the gems in your second weapon slot while sundering about. From memory when you collect sunder from that kind lady you can also pick up brutality and the like. I tend to take added fire as a quest reward and run herald of ash and blood rage in act 2. I might use ancestral protector if I have the gem slots while leveling. But swap to warchief as soon as possible. If that gem is low level the totem will die easily, which means more buttons. I aint got time fo dat. everything else I kind of just yolo.

Mapping
Going into maps look out for monster life, phys dmg reductions, no leech and less recovery of life/mana. They make running that map miserable. The leech/recovery rolls I think only appear on red maps, but its a brick so it can screw ya when you vaal a map trying to get completion.

Uber Lab/Ascendancy.
I'd say take headsman->bane->endless hunger->brutal fervour. It just means you have to run a bleed remove flask while leveling. If you value the flask mod more than cull or onslaught do what you want. For enchantments on helm, the cyclone damage is best damage, getting haste/grace mana reservation is good to have later coz it means you can run both auras which is massive. For gloves we want the corruption so it wont matter. Boots, I'd say check yourself and see which one you like the most. Ideally later you can vaal boots n get a frenzy or something else better than an enchant.

Long story short
level up, pick up gems as they become available(either as a lucky drop or quest reward or purchase after completing a quest). Pick up currency. Alts chroms jewelers and fusings are important. if u come across chaos/vaal/regrets/divines/exalts use these to purchase stronger gear to clear more content. Level up gems while u level. I normally go for a terminus est, belt of the deceiver, carnage heart, haemophilia asap with my 1st bits of currency. Then save up for whatever I want. ie kaoms/starforge/expensive jewels.

As an example in Bestiary league I got super fkn lucky and handed in a void card and got that apocalypse pelt as a 6L and self crafted it(spam alts till life+resist then regal, if the regal is good mod it).This meant I just saved for a starforge, I didn't bother using too many fusings on my kondos then got super fkn lucky and 6L the starforge before getting a 5L. The main idea is mix n match based off what you get. So If you get some god tier two stone ring, doesn't mean you drop it just because its a two stone. At the end of the day getting really good steel rings and such takes time and currency and for a player like myself I don't care to invest that much time into a league. So I save my gear from past league cherry picking the best items and trying to sell the old items to push the character in standard. It was a slow process, I bought a few bases to craft on in bestiary, got a kaoms in harbi, saved all my exalts, spam bought insanity essences in incursion. My advice if you wanna take the build further is plan ahead and watch for when the needed items are cheapest.





pm me in game.(not day one of new league) for questions. Advice will be taken into consideration. If the crafting aspects need to be explained better for newer players i'll rewrite it with more detail.

League update for Delve

Gear



I have beaten red elder and all guardians. I'm at monster level 86 depths in delve i think.

I played something else during betrayal. Nothing super impactful for the build added. The extra quality on weapons and some of the new crafts can be useful.

I didn't play during the synthesis league. I'm probably gonna try the flashback event coz i'm hyped for the Legion league. The build should only get better and have more options with Legion.