Still not completely sure, Cyclone questions.

Hello all, I'm here to ask for the assistance of the greatest community in all of gaming :).


I recently watched a video about Cyclone and heard about it being pretty good lately. It's a skill I haven't used yet as a main feature so I decided to give it a shot. I'm at level 87 and to my pleasant surprise I've really enjoyed it. So far, other then REALLY STUPID decisions and lag, I've found it pretty easy to play. The issue's I've run into have been pretty specific and I'm trying to understand how to fix them.

Gear:


Tree:



First thing, damage. I find myself clearing the map pretty fast until I get to the boss. Once there, the fight can take up to two minutes to drop (rare map's with 4+ mod's, blue map's are still pretty cake). I know that 3.0.0 release really boosted boss HP pool's and DPS value's in the million (PathofBuilder calculation's) are the norm for T15-T17 map's and I cannot for the life of me figure out how that's possible. My current build profile list damage of 1/10th of that at 171,825.9 (unless I'm using it wrong). I'm worried that once I get to the point of trying Shaper and Uber Atziri (I have recently seen my first regular Atziri kill solo so YAY!!!) I'll find myself having spent all this time and currency on a character that could never fight these bosses.

Second, death. While I tend to not have issue's with death it still happen's. I understand a one-shot (hate the mechanic of it, feel's lack luster and cheap but that's a different topic) so I'm ignoring those. The issue is I trend towards a "can not leech fast enough" to get me back to comfortable. Either using Blood Rage (I know about the degen) or not, there are time's where the damage is just just too much for my leech to handle. I have searched online and the answer always come's back to leech rate but I'm not finding "leech rate" on the tree. There's node's that say "10% increased Life Leech per second" but I'm not sure if this is the same thing. I have tried to spec into these node's but it's really "tricky" to replicate where I have issues and the points are generally used in damage area's of the tree. As for other defenses, I'm capped on resist's but I'm lacking ANY meaningful Evasion and my Armour is just really, really... yea. Should I be picking Armour passive node's at all?

Third, general. These are thing's that are just feeling off and some suggestion's would really be appreciated.

- As you can see in my helm, I'm using a rather odd assortment of gem's. The truth is, I have 1-2 extra socket's and no earthly clue on what to put in them. Vengeance and Empower are just filling in and I feel that I am missing out on things. I do have a few pair's of corrupted Kaom's Root's but the loss of 4 socket's is a bit (bunch) not good so I'm just wondering what else I could do.

- Flame Golem, Ancestral Protector, and Vaal Cyclone. I'm using Vaal Cyclone in an odd way to farm Breach's so despite it's poor reputation, it has it's very lucrative uses. As for the other two, I tend to ensure they are out for the boss fight. The problem is, they DIE, and I feel I spend more time trying to resummon them then fighting. This may be an issue with play style and I should just ignore them when they drop but that lead's into the first issue listed, damage and DPS loss. Am I supposed to be supporting these gem's with... support's or just resummoning them every 6 second's ? If I am ignoring them, where the hell do i get the 1M DPS I keep hearing about?

Thank's in advance for all the assistance. GL HF and happy mapping all :).

Please make your characters in your profile public so I can import it to Path of Building. Makes it easier to help out I feel.

A couple of things I can see after just taking a quick look. (Can look deeper into it when I am at home in 10 hours ;))

* You are missing Axe Nodes on the tree. You wanna go towards Cleaving.
* This goes hand in hand with the tree not being optimal. There is a couple of routes you are going where there would be a quicker way, saving you some points. For example, you can go from the Strength node next to RT up to Expertise instead of the way you are going now. Saves you 1pt. Maybe take a look at my Slayer for how I did it. Might give you some ideas.
* Please go 6 link on the Cyclone. It's your main damage source and you have a 6 link chest. Make use of that. Will increase your damage by quite a bit! I like using Vaal Cyclone for Beachhead, but only in rotation groups. Otherwise it just doesnt do enough imo. You can always switch gems around if you are doing beaches I suppose, but for everything else, go 6link on cyclone.
* Leech... I dont yet fully understand it either tbh lol. But between Ascendancy, hematophagy and Carnage Heart you should be fine. On the Hematophagy wheel, dont go down the left way but rather the right way. That should increase your max life leech/second if I am not mistaken. More life also equals more leech, from what I understand.
* At a certain tier you cannot simply facetank and outleech anymore. You have to stay agile and avoid certain attacks. That's just how the game works and it is not bad design, especially when talking about oneshots. I cant think of many oneshots that are simply unfair. You can avoid them. Sometimes you get clusterfked by a tough harbinger spawn, but even that is avoidable.
* Which bosses take you that long?
* DPS numbers... fk them. Seriously. I have no idea what people are talking about sometimes. I see people talking about 200k tooltip dps. I suppose I could reach that maybe if I had the perfect character. But PoB shows me Shaper DPS of 200k or 250 or something if I remember correctly. And I managed to get him down after the third try ever (and it didnt even feel very slow). Wasnt super clean, but whatever.
* Golem recast: Yeah, it's annoying. I usually forgot about it so at some point I went Lvl20 Cast on damage taken with Golem. Works fine enough.

* Now this is more on a personal note: I used to run Nghamahus cyclone (or however tf you spell that) and was quite successfull with it. At some point I felt like going physical instead. So i changed to a phys only build. It just did not feel quite as good as the version I was running before. Played some other characters, but didnt really feel it since Nghamahus was so successful. Decided to give Slayer another spin but changed one thing up: I got rid of Brutality. There is just so much stuff you are not able to use anymore if you run it. Auras, Flasks... So instead I started using a version that uses Hatred, Herald of Ash, Atziris Promise and at some point when I could afford it Sin's Rebirth (might work for phys too, not sure right now). I feel it does wonders for your damage. Id only go full phys if I were using Starforge. But that is obv a matter of taste and we have enough phys cyclones that can handle everything.

Awesome catch on the pathing, I completely missed that.

I get the idea of a 6L for my weapon but the practicality of it is not good. The cost of an existing 6L is well outside my range and the act of linking has been a sore spot for a few year's. I'm working on saving up the fusing orbs but that will take time.

As for the chest, I have considered putting the base Cyclone in there but when I did the DPS numbers dropped significantly. I assume it has something to do with the modifier on the Axe itself.

Switching from a pure physical build to an elemental build isn't that much of a bonus. I am leveling a few elemental gems (added fire and wed) in my secondary weapon for high level phys reflect maps. At no point does the damage output come close to matching my current physical setup. Even taking into account the benefits gained from Atziri's Promise, it's more useful to simply run a leech granite flask in place of the Promise.

Face tanking isn't the issue. I understand I'm not going to be able to take a Vaal Overseer smash no matter what happen's. My issue is I Cyclone through a pack on a level 15 map and get two shot in such a short amount of time that a flask use would never have prevented it. If this was a situation where the chance of success was never about 50/50 then I can chose to chalk it up to RNG but it's not that. If unlucky critical strikes or accurate mob's are going to be a constant source of problems then I need to find a counter that fit's into the build. If that doesn't exist then I need to find another build.

You are right. I forgot about the bonus from Disfavor. I never tried if 5L + bonus is better than 6 link. Kinda surprised by it, but if you say you are doing better that way, then by all means, stick with it. :)
I srsly need to 6-link this stupid thing.

I wasnt talking about converting phys damage to elemental damage but simply using Auras like Hatred and Heralds. It's not just Promise, but also Taste of Hate which is more effective that way. But yea, as i said initially... that was just a personal note and not exactly a suggestion.

About the two-shot issue: Whats your hp like?
I dont really die anymore to those situations except for sometimes to tough Harbinger spawns or when I am too lazy to be careful when those stupid "spikes on death" porcupine thingys are present.
I kind of like Lion's Roar in these situations where Im charging right through a massive amount of enemies. It seems like it decreases their damage output massively. Yes, it can be annoying when they dont die immediately and get pushed away, but usually it's not much of an issue. This is what usually keeps me alive against tough Harbinger spawns and cleans Beachhead boss room without death without much issues.
I suppose high life pool is your best bet here. Im at 7k+ and sometimes life goes low. I suppose a decent hp buffer is just necessary if you cyclone.

6L'ed the Axe and now I'm above 100K tooltip so happy day's on some of the T10-T15 bosses. Still have some issues with death but I think there's something to learning the bosses mechanic's. I recently filled a white variant of the Hydra boss so I'm happier now. TY again for the pathing advice.