Cyclone build - Duelist vs Marauder?

Anyone have experience with both Duelist and Marauder using mainly cyclone/vaal cyclone? This is actually my first melee character, I was wondering what the main differences are, assuming both classes use similar gears, and which one is the preferred class to go?

its not really a question with as straight an answer as you may think. It depends on how you want to build it, and even then I couldnt say a duelist is better if you want X and a marauder better if you want Y.

I have 2 cyclone characters, one is a ranger, one is a marauder. Both builds could be made as a marauder or a ranger, the ranger version gets slightly more % evasion and 8% attack speed, the marauder version gets slightly more % armour and 16% physical damage in both cases. One build is 2H axe, one is 1H sword with shield, both builds go right to the start of marauder and ranger and there are 2 passive points differently allocated if you were to swap between ranger and marauder on either setup.

They both go past the duelist start but stop 5 points away from his actual first nodes, so while the builds could basically be made as a duelist, it would be less efficient by a small handful of passives being slightly weaker than others youd be forced to drop to get his start.

With the 2.0 tree both builds will come within 2 points of the duelist, so basically youd have this choice


ranger = 18% evasion + 8% attack speed

marauder = 16% armour + 16% physical damage

duelist = 26% physical damage


that would be the difference in the builds starting as any of the 3 main melee classes, not much in it, down to slight preference. But maybe you dont want to build cyclone like that, maybe you want to bridge from duelist to marauder to templar and do that sort of thing, if you get the marauder start, might well be best starting marauder. Maybe you want to go from duelist to templar through the scion life wheel and not actually go all the way into marauder, maybe you dont want to go to the duelist...

I think the answer is make your tree, plan out your build. Look at your totals, life, damage, defenses, play with building it another way, look at your totals, whats the better path? When you decide how you want your tree to be, where you want to go, it should become obvious what is the best class to pick. I try and picture my tree without a start, if I was to just start somewhere with a node I absolutely wanted and branched out from that point only taking the most efficient nodes for my build in the most efficient fashion what would it look like? Whos start would I be left closest to? Atm with non crit melee I almost always end up wanting to take the life + armour nodes in the marauder stopping just short of that very first start node, and i take the life + evasion at the ranger start in the same manner. So for me Im always left with a situation where I could be ranger or marauder and the difference is that first node before the life + defense nodes and then the option of 16% phys or 8% attack speed which is the first node of their other starting lane which I wont have access to if I dont start at that class.

If you think about your build in this manner, youll see which class you need to spend the least points to get from their start to the nodes you really want and what you get for those "wasted" points, that will tell you which is the best class for you.

Once you have an idea of your final tree, you might also consider which class gives you best leveling experience. Which class has the best first 60-80 skillpoints? This is especially relevant with mana hungry cyclone, which you can usually start using on lvl 50 or so.