[3.19] Ultimate Cyclone Slayer Build Guide (PoE Lake of Kalandra) (2024)

Introduction

Cyclone is a perennial powerhouse that immediately asserted itself as one of the staple skills in the melee metascape on its inception. Slayer has received a few redesigned after a re balance, and is now one of the perfect pairings for crit-based melee builds. Despite a few tweaks in recent patches Cyclone remains — not only viable — one of the most potent melee end-game builds available. While Melee in General still needs some love we can still say that Cyclone is a fun skill to League start and take into end game!

Build Assessment

Pros

+ Absurd damage potential — can basically scale indefinitely with enough currency

+ Excellent clear speed — one of the S-Tier melee builds

+ Solid all-round defenses — excellent Level 100 candidate

+ Crit-based build with incredible scaling (~96% Crit Chance in top-end gear)

+ All map mods are possible (except no regeneration), immune to reflect

+ Strongest way to play Cyclone in the end-game

Cons

– Not a good Cyclone build for beginners — knowledge of how to upgrade a character and quickly generate currency is very helpful

– Expensive to achieve top-end gear, depending on the popularity and availability of items

– Cyclone can be a polarizing skill — careful movement is necessary for dangerous enemies

Path of Building

Make sure you are using the Path of Building Community Fork to include Impale DPS in the calculations.

You can find the Ultimate Cyclone Slayer’s Path of Building information here

We use the Path of Building Community Fork for all of our builds, which is highly recommended. If you are encountering errors importing the build, please ensure you are .

Playstyle and Build Mechanics

Cyclone is a very simple and straightforward skill. Now a channeled ability, your character spins around and attacks extremely quickly — technically it is considered a movement skill, although it slows your character. By stacking a lot of damage, Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier, Attack Speed, Impale, and Movement Speed, our Cyclone Slayer glides effortlessly through maps while shredding packs and bosses alike.

This is an exclusively Physical damage build, which makes it relatively easy to itemize for early on. As you start to become more ambitious with armour acquisitions, gear can become a little more difficult and/or expensive to obtain — after all, crit items are highly sought after for many builds. Fortunately, many of the items can be crafted yourself, and for only a few Exalted Orbs you outfit yourself with extremely strong items.

Simply enter a map, Flame Dash into a pack, and Cyclone through it to blow it to pieces.

Passive Skill Tree

Here is a quick link to the PoB: https://pobb.in/1yd9q3bGWnEB

For more details on the Passive Tree, skill acquisition order, and more, be sure to check out the Passive Skill Tree page for in-depth information.

Passive Skill Tree

Gems

We go over all of the gem links this build uses in the end-game on our Gem Link page.

Gem Links

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheon

Our Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheon Powers

Gear Summary / TL;DR

These items strike a balance between power and cost-effectiveness. If you want to explore more options for Gear (both budget and high-end), Flasks, or get more information on alternatives and specialty items, please ensure you read the Gear, Jewels, and Flasks section in its entirety.

Some example gear used by our character:

Item Slot	Item Name
Head	Rare Helmet Evasion/Armour Base
Amulet	Rare Amulet ( Turquoise Amulet is ideal)
Chest	Rare chest piece with high life, maximum life , Spell Suppresion ( can be bench crafted) and + base crit chance for attacks
Gloves	Rare Spiked Gloves or Evasion/Armour, here we can get a lot of value from a rare, especially with the free intimidate from Eldritch Influence. In that case the implicit from Spiked Gloves doesn’t matter
Boots	Rare Boots Evasion/Armour- We want Brittle here from Searing Exarch’s Eldritch influence, the Eater Of Worlds is your choice / whatever you can get
Belt	Ryslatha's Coil
Rings	Rare Rings
Weapon	Rare Judgement Staff

For much more detailed information on the best gear, jewels, and flasks to use, be sure to examine our detailed Gear Breakdown page.

Gear, Jewels, and Flasks Breakdown

Leveling

As a reminder, we have several guides to help you level up a character.

• Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
• Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
• Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.

Pick up Splitting Steel as soon as possible, we can basically use it all the way to the endgame.

1. Splitting Steel
2. Onslaught Support – can be switched out for Impale Support if you feel you need an extra bit of damage, this will most likely be the case around your first rodeo with Kitava.
3. Vicious Projectiles Support
4. Maim Support

Beyond this, you can further get damage with Maim Support Impale Support . This will all depend on how many links you have available.

Just use what you can get until the gems become available — Maim Support and Ruthless Support are available very early, along with Onslaught Support. Added Fire Damage Support is an option early on, too but it purely depends on how many links you have available at which point.

Blood and Sand is available right at Level 4, and should be picked up immediately. Acquire Herald of Ash and Herald of Purity in Act II to help you level up. You can get Pride in Act III after doing Lost in Love and drop Herald of Purity.

Cyclone can honestly be used as soon as you can sustain it (e.g. using a ring such as Thief's Torment, but we recommend waiting until the latter part of the leveling process, or even after finishing Kitava. If you are league starting, you will probably want to do a little mapping before making the full switch, as Cyclone is a relatively weak skill until it gets a bit of scaling behind it.

FAQ

Which Anointments are Best for my Amulet?

As with all anointment advice, you can make a variety of different choices depending on how you want to tailor your build. Consider these recommendations:

• Charisma — Is needed to fit in all of our Aura’s in the high budget endgame version
• Vitality Void — Expensive, but a great option for increasing leech to the maximum. Recommended if you forget to keep Blood Rage active on bosses sometimes.
• Discipline and Training — Big boost to survivability and maximum life.

I’m Having Mana Issues

Make sure you have the crafted affix -# to Total Mana Cost of Skills on both your rings. If you do not have those affixes, you will need to disable one of your auras and acquire % of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Mana on one of your gear pieces (recommended: Gloves).

Check out the rest of the guide for any additional information:

Passive Skill Tree and Gem Links

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheon Power

Gear , Jewels, and Flasks Breakdown