[Outdated] [3.7] 2H-Impale Cyclone Slayer

Time stamps are in each video if you want to skip ahead to the boss.
Minotaur, Hydra, Phoenix, and Chimera
Shaper
Uber Atziri

Pros:
Clears all content
Can do all map mods (no leech can be rough, but doable)
Good clear speed and AoE
High single target dps

Cons:
Gearing can be expensive in current melee/cyclone meta
Not a face tank everything build because of no slayer over leech
Encountering Porcupines may or may not result in death

This will be a short leveling guide for right now. I will update this later on with more in-depth details when I have more time.

Levels 1-28 use any melee skill you enjoy. Level 28 is when you unlock cyclone.

Level 4 get the blood and sand aura

Level 10 get leap slam and precision

Level 18 get faster attacks and link to leap slam

Level 24 get pride aura and dread banner

Level 28 get ancestral warchief or if you have the currency buy the vaal version

With update 3.7 Impale has a lot going for it now with the new Impale Support Gem and passive tree changes making impale very strong. I will do my best to try and explain how good all of this is now.

When a hit applies impale to a target, 10% of that hit's physical damage is recorded before any damage mitigation is applied. Impale deals the recorded damage to that target each time it is hit.

Impale Effect:
30% from skill tree
59% from impale support gem
19% from dread banner

This gives us a total of 108% impale effect.

Impale Hit Chance:
40% from impale support gem
40% from skill tree
20% from dread banner

This gives us a total of 100% chance to impale with every attack.

With this info 10% * (1+1.08) * 5 = 104% MORE physical damage once impale reaches its maximum stacks of 5.

Using the Watcher's Eye that gives Impales you inflict last 2 additional Hits while using Pride will get you 145.6% MORE damage.

One Final Note: This build reserves almost the entire mana pool with auras so in order to use cyclone you will need to craft the minus total mana cost of skills mod on either both of your rings or on 1 ring and your amulet.

Weapon:

A Vaal Axe with the Fortify mod will be the best weapon you can craft for this build. More info in the weapon crafting section on how to make one.

Body Armors:

There are the 3 different types of body armors that I would recommend depending on your play style. Each has their own pro/cons. I personally like using Farrul's Fur.

Helmets:

A good rare helmet with high life, resistances, and the % of phys damage taken as an element is a solid choice. Devoto's or Starkonja's are also solid options. As for the helmet enchant cyclone attack speed or blood rage attack speed are the best options.

Amulet:

For the amulet look for life, crit multi, resistances, and maybe some int if you need it for the infused channelling support which has a req of 111 int.

Rings:

For the rings you are going to look for life, resistances, int, and you will need the minus mana cost of skills to make cyclone cost 0 mana to cast since all of our mana gets reserved from auras. An assassins mark or warlords mark curse on hit ring can also be a good choice.

Belt:

A Stygian Vise is recommended since it has the abyssal jewel slot. Look for high life and resistances.

Gloves:

A pair of Spiked Gloves with life, resistances, attack speed, or flat phys is also a good choice.

Boots:

For boots look for life, resistances, and preferably 25% movement speed or higher.

The best enchants to look out for:

16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently
Regenerate 2% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit Recently
10% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently


The onslaught flask isn't needed when mapping because the node Slaughter gives a 10% chance to gain onslaught for 4 seconds on kill. This flask is used for bosses when no minions are available to gain onslaught. You can replace this flask with anything else you would like to use.

Level 100 Skill Tree https://pastebin.com/97g7B5sM
Level 95 Skill Tree https://pastebin.com/7Z1dWhhq

If you need to save some points I would remove some of the life nodes near the marauder starting area or the 3 point jewel socket near the wrecking ball node.

This will be the general "guide" for your skill tree, which might end up being a little different if you decide to use a Lethal Pride Timeless Jewel and I will explain how it's used in the jewels section of the guide.

Ascendancy Order: Overwhelm -> Headsman -> Bane of Legends -> Impact

Bandits: Kill All

Pantheon: In the end what pantheons you choose is based on your own play style.

Major: Soul of Lunaris - I personally like this one for the movement speed while mapping and avoiding projectiles that have chained is nice to have in delves.

Minor: Soul of Gruthkul or Ryslatha are both solid choices

This is your main setup with Cyclone for single target damage.

Cyclone/Brutality/Melee Phys/Infused Channelling/Impale/Conc Effect

For more AoE while mapping you can swap out Melee Phys Damage and Conc Effect with
Pulverise/Inc Aoe

Boots:

Flesh and Stone/Maim/Pride/Enlighten
The reason why we link maim with flesh and stone is because it increases the effect of the maim flesh and stone provides in blood stance.

Gloves:

Leap Slam/Faster Attacks/Endurance Charge/Blood Rage
Leap Slam now always causes damaging hits to stun enemies that are on full life. Linking this to endurance charge on melee stun gives us free endurance charges while mapping.

Helmet:

Ancestral Warchief/Dread Banner/Precision/Portal

Make sure you get the vaal version of ancestral warchief for bosses since this will give 32% more melee damage while the totem is active vs 18% more melee damage with the non vaal version.

If you can't afford an enlighten you can link precision to blood magic instead of using a portal gem to reserve life instead. Precision at level 1 only reserves about 48 life.

One Final Note: If you decide to not use a Kaom's Heart you can use the extra gem slots in Farrul's Fur/Daresso's Defiance to use a guard skill like molten shell or steelskin linked with a cast when damage taken or if you prefer you can just self-cast.

There are 3 main jewels for this build:

Transcendent Flesh provides us with a total of 70 crit multi and 4% physical damage reduction. If the upgraded version is too expensive Tempered Flesh is another great choice since you still keep all the crit multi, but you will lose the physical damage reduction. This jewel is best placed near the Juggernaut node.


Watcher's Eye with "Impales you inflict last 2 additional Hits while using Pride" is the best option out of the mods to pick from; however this means it will also be the most expensive choice. If you can't afford the +2 impale mod the next best options would be:

Crit Multi while affected by Precision
Attack speed while affected by Precision
Increased Attack Damage while affected by Precision
Chance to deal Double Damage while using Pride


The Lethal Pride Timeless Jewel is another very powerful jewel, but it can be tricky to get a useful one.

The best spot to place this jewel is near the Golem's Blood node. Lethal Pride will add 1 random mod to each Notable in range. With the skill tree I made you should have 5 notables in range that will gain a random mod.

Useful mods that you will be looking for are:

5% increased Strength
5% chance to deal Double Damage
10% increased Effect of Fortify on you
4% increased maximum Life
20% increased Melee Damage
30% increased Melee Critical Strike Chance
+15% to Melee Critical Strike Multiplier
20% increased Physical Damage
10% chance to Intimidate Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit

A full list of the mods can be looked at Here.

I would personally try to get a jewel with at least 3 of the above mods with the 10% chance to Intimidate.

As an example my jewel has: 4% max life, 4% max life, 5% inc strength, intimidate, 15 multi, and 20% inc phys damage.

You should also beware the intimidate mod is the rarest mod on the list and can be quite hard to come by so don't stress out too much if you can't get it.

I made two skills trees if you would like to compare swords vs axes.

Lvl 100 Swords https://pastebin.com/eKpR74Tu

Lvl 100 Axes https://pastebin.com/97g7B5sM

If you compare both sword and axe skill trees that I made there is on a DPS difference of 1.5% with swords and you gain 5% extra life. If you go with axes you get the Slaughter node, which gives a 10% chance to gain Onsalught on kill for 4 seconds. This would free up an extra flask slot while mapping allowing you to replace the Silver Flask which gives Onslaught.

You could replace the Silver Flask with these flasks as an example:

Final thoughts:
Both swords and axes are similar enough that I would choose based on personal preference. I went with an axe because I was farming chayula at the start of the league, which drops this div card.

For your weapon the Elder Vaal Axe is going to be the best weapon of choice and make sure it's Elder with the Item Level being 80+ or higher.

The reason why you want item level 80+ and elder is so you can get the mod "Socketed Gems Are Supported By Level 20 Fortify"

This is the most important mod you are going to be looking to get on your weapon effectively making it a 7-Link.

The Crafting Process

First Step

Perfect Fossils. Before you start doing anything these are very important to use before you start crafting your weapon because these fossils allow you to get up to 30% quality on your axe which is a nice dps boost. The higher quality also makes it easier to 6-Link and 6 socket later on.

I would personally aim for 28% quality or higher.

Second Step

After you get 28% quality or greater this is when you want to start using alterations until you roll the following mod

"Socketed Gems Are Supported By Level 16-20 Fortify"

Third Step

Use a regal and hope you get a good second mod like 27% att spd, hybrid % phys, flat phys. Don't worry if you regal a bad mod, which will most likely happen.

After you use the regal if you get a bad mod use an orb of annulment to try and isolate the fortify mod.

If you annuled the fortify mod go back and repeat step 2.

After you have successfully isolated the fortify mod you're going to want to craft the following:

Can have multiple crafted modifiers [2 Exalts]
Hits can't be evaded [3 Exalts]
(13-16)% Increased attack speed with (13-18)% quality [1 Exalt]
(8-10)% Chance to deal double damage [1 Divine]
(18-24) to (36-42) Physical damage [4 Chaos]

Please Note: If you get a hybrid % phys roll + the fortify mod you're going to want to craft the following:

Can have multiple crafted modifiers [2 Exalts]
(16-20)% Increased attack speed [1 Exalt]
(211-250) Accuracy rating with (16-18)% quality [4 Chaos]
(18-24) to (36-42) Physical damage [4 Chaos]