[3.7] Cyclone CwC Blade Vortex CI Trickster



Hello and welcome to my Cyclone Cast while Channeling Blade Vortex guide. This build is heavily inspired by Mathil's Cyclone CoC Blade Vortex and I got some help while theorycrafting it by people in #build-planning channel in PoE Discord, so thanks!

So, maybe you are asking why Cyclone together with CwC instead of just self cast BV. There are few reasons for this:
1. Swift Killer - This node and Cyclone being channeling basically provides us 100% uptime for all power and frenzy charges
2. Cast while moving - We can recast BV while moving with Cyclone, what is very big, and should result in very smooth gameplay
3. Mana cost - Cyclone now costs almost nothing so we can sustain recasting BV with no issues
4. Stun and Knockback immunity - We are completely immune to Stun and Knockback while cycloning, what is great QoL (and also prevents us from dying in case our ghost shrouds run out)

And now, why BV with Cyclone CwC instead of some other skill? BV do not depends on cast speed, so CwC having fixed cast rate is irrelevant and it can sustain 10 BV stacks just by itself.

I decided to go CI with this build even though ES was slightly nerfed (it is actually very tiny nerf) because I prefer it, and it can reach really high EHP (also, Ghost Reaver with ES is basically budget Vaal Pact with no downsides).
I also decided to go with Trickster because it synergizes too good with everything this build is trying to do, e.g channeling skill, main damage dealer being physical skills, thanks to what we can fully abuse chaos conversion on Trickster.
Damage on this build is scaled by converting majority of physical damage to elemental damage and then converting that elemental damage to another type of elemental damage, and from that we get huge chaos damage bonus thanks to non-chaos as chaos conversion mechanics.

Changelog

Spoiler

16th Jun 2019
- Fixed cold damage mod on Sceptre

14th Jun 2019
- Added section about Cold to Fire gem to leveling

13th Jun 2019
- Removed some unnecessary qualities and levels from some gems

12th Jun 2019
- Added some uniques to leveling and gearing section

10th Jun 2019
- Switched main focus of the build to Shield + Sceptre
- Moved Staves setup to alternative setup and changed main staff to Disintegrator
- Updated all trees to switch from Staff nodes to Shield nodes
- Added alternative Staves tree (what is basically the original tree)
- Added Trigger Socketed Skill craft to main weapon for trigerring Purifying Flame with Combustion and Culling
- Added Spells have +1.5% critical strike chance mod to body to showcase what to ultimately aim for
- Added low level Delve video
- Changed banne image to triple spin!

9th Jun 2019
- Added chaos conversion sceptre + chaos conversion shield setup
- Moved Arcane Surge to movement setup and Culling to Purifying Flame setup
- Replaced Flame Dash with Frostblink

8th Jun 2019
- Added preview GIF at the top of the guide
- Improved gearing section (added section about Hrimsorrow gloves)
- Changed Cyclone level to level 20

7th Jun 2019
- Rewrote the theorycraft guide to actual guide
- Added leveling tree


Pro's & Con's

+ Great single target. The build can reach 5-7M DPS (10M+ possible with Disintegrator).
+ Very good clear speed, as Cyclone takes care of charging up our Blade Vortex, so we do not need to ever stop moving
+ 156% increased movement speed with flasks up (and + 126% from Shield Charge)
+ 10-11K Energy Shield (12K+ on Hardcore version)
+ 21k Evasion
+ 81% melee avoid chance, 81% projectile avoid chance, 10% spell avoid chance, 9% reduced damage taken
+ 1050 ES gained when hit (from Ghost Shrouds)
+ Fortify
+ Stun immune (because of Ghost Shrouds and Cyclone)
+ Chaos immune (because of Chaos Innoculation)
+ Freeze and Chill immune (because of Dream Fragments)
+ Knockback immune (thanks to Cyclone)
+ Enemies are chilled, frozen and shattered thanks to heavy cold damage and crits
+ No mana issues. Cyclone now costs almost no mana so we can sustain it just with mana regen (and possibly ring craft)

- Requires at least 5 links for comfortable gameplay (or Cast while Channeling staff) because our main setup eats 3 links, so we only have 3 more links remaining for damage supports (or 4 with CwC staff)
- Cannot do physical damage reflect maps
- Cannot do elemental damage reflect maps
- Starting as CI character can be sometimes rough, but after getting few ES items it feels great

Path of Building

Path of Building is tool for PoE to plan gear, skill tree and calculate effective damage. It also contains Bandits choice. You can download it here. Then simply import below Pastebin URL.

Pastebin

Navigating through PoB (important, read carefully)

There are 6 trees, for level 100, 90, 80 and 70 and 40 (Leveling). Leveling tree is around level 40-50, taking some extra nodes for better leveling what will be respecced later. There is also special 100 (Staves) tree for staves version of the build with Disintegrator for maximum damage.

There are 4 item sets:
- Default: This is regular version, using multimodded Sceptre and Light of Lunaris
- Staves: This setup is using Disintegrator staff for maximum damage output
- Starter: This setup is for leaguestart, using The Princess Sabre in weapon slot as it provides very nice damage and Zeal's Amplifier for some nice survivability and area of effect.
- Hardcore: This is another shield setup using Cerberus Limb + Aegis Aurora combo for maximum survivability and respectable damage. This setup is mostly oriented towards HC players, but works also for SC if you want to focus more on the defensive side.

There are 2 boots skill gem sets:
- Default: This setup is using Frostblink to close gaps and Shield Charge with Fortify for movement and defense
- Staves: This setup is using Frostblink to close gaps and Phase Run for movement while mapping

Pantheon

For major god Soul of Lunaris is good safety pick for mapping and some extra damage avoidance. Another great option is Soul of Solaris for extra safety on bosses.

For minor god Soul of Gruthkul is great choice for even more phys reduction (what we kind of lack in this build) and another slow.

Ascendancy

Get Swift Killer first. Then get Ghost Dance and Escape Artist for some survivability and finally get Harness the Void from Uber Lab.

Leveling and gearing

Spoiler

- At level 1 grab Freezing Pulse + Onslaught.
- At level 4 grab Frost Bomb Arcane Surge and Frostblink. Link surge with Frostblink.
- At level 8 grab Added Lightning Damage and Added Cold Damage supports and socket them into Freezing Pulse setup.
- At level 12 replace Freezing Pulse with Blade Vortex.
- At level 16 start using Herald of Ash, Herald of Thunder and Herald of ice. If you can, link Onslaught and Innervate with Herald of Ice or Thunder.

Do not migrate to Cast while Channeling setup before at least getting 4 link, but 5 link will be ideal. Socket rest of auras and gems as soon as they will become available (or based on your preference). Use double Herald instead of Herald of Ash and Hatred before getting all reduced mana reservation from tree that the final build is using.

Another important thig is, do NOT use Cold to Fire without getting enough chaos and elemental conversion (that is chaos conversion weapon, Harness the Void ascendancy, cold conversion gloves, chaos conversion amulet, Hatred, Herald of Ash). It will be weaker link than Controlled Destruction before that.

Some useful uniques for this build:



Rippling Thoughts is awesome as early to mid game weapon, it provides us basically level 20 Arcane Surge, helps with clear (thanks to Storm Cascade, what can actually one shot packs), provides very decent damage bonus, and also we can socket Combustion and Curse on Hit + Assasin's Mark into it and Storm Cascade will automatically apply everything each Shield Charge you do, saving us the need for Assasin's Mark ring early and also for manually casting Purifying Flame for Combustion.



Restless Ward is awesome very cheap unique that provides a lot of defense (basically equal to mid to high rolled Carnal Armour rare). If you are feeling like you are on low ES and you are on budget, consider this.



This shield is GREAT. It requires only level 28, it is relatively cheap (around 10-15C atm) and the damage bonus from it is really huge. It is also in end-game shield version of this build, because the damage is too good. I am mentioning it here because, if you can, get it very early.



Media

Leveling Lvl 53
Delve Depth 42 Lvl 72
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Last edited by thedeathbeam on Jun 26, 2019, 5:16:06 PM
Last bumped on Jul 25, 2019, 11:40:56 AM
Slightly optimized the setup, now with 100% lightning conversion instead of having dangling 10-12% fire from phys (and removed multimod from gloves thanks to this), it's at like 11M DPS atm (with *very* optimized gear, realistic DPS is like, maybe half? on low investment).

https://pastebin.com/N6rBj9sV

My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Last edited by thedeathbeam on May 26, 2019, 6:41:31 PM
And with Cyclone being the flavor of the month for 3.7, how much is crafting that staff going to cost? Or outright buying one? I'm guessing the same price as the swords Mathil crafted last league. Are there any other options to use as a weapon in place of it? At least last league there was Cospri's as a mid-tier weapon.
"
WR47H wrote:
And with Cyclone being the flavor of the month for 3.7, how much is crafting that staff going to cost? Or outright buying one? I'm guessing the same price as the swords Mathil crafted last league. Are there any other options to use as a weapon in place of it? At least last league there was Cospri's as a mid-tier weapon.


Yeah I can see the staff being expensive as quite a few people would probably want to make Cyclone CwC, so buying it would not be worth over self-crafting. The best alternative is to lose link and use non-shaped staff with +1 lvl to socketed gems probably instead of CwC.
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Last edited by thedeathbeam on May 27, 2019, 2:08:18 AM
So I was messing with conversions a bit and here is phys->cold->fire version:

https://pastebin.com/mNgfa3Jh

It has like 16M DPS, but its slightly less survivable and its missing Dream Fragments.
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
with such crit chance i'd use hypothermia instead of elemental focus, to chill, freeze and shatter enemies + shock + ignite if using pyre
Last edited by Sonidox on May 27, 2019, 7:28:35 AM
"
Sonidox wrote:
with such crit chance i'd use hypothermia instead of elemental focus, to chill, freeze and shatter enemies + shock + ignite if using pyre


Yeah you are right, Hypothermia looks a lot better with Pyre. I still don't really like not running Dream Fragments on the build tho, so I will probably just stick with the lightning version (what is also a bit cheaper).

But I will update both cold and lightning version.
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Last edited by thedeathbeam on May 27, 2019, 7:49:48 AM
Updated both phys->lightning and phys->cold->fire versions:

Phys -> Lightning version
Phys -> Cold -> Fire version

they both now have more survivability, cold->fire can now destroy corpses and phys->lightning has slightly more damage.
My builds:
https://pobb.in/u/thedeathbeam
My site:
https://mapsofexile.com/
Very interesting, what cheap unique weapon would you use to make a super cheap version ?
"
thomzon wrote:
Very interesting, what cheap unique weapon would you use to make a super cheap version ?


any rare staff with spell damage should work, you just loose 1 gem link to put cwc in gems

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