[3.16 UPDATED] - Bergerbrush's Impale Cyclone Champion - League Starter & Beginner Friendly!

What can I expect from this Build?

First I want to clarify that this build is very easy to make and a good build to start with if you are new to the game, making a new character or its league start. But that does not mean you will completely destroy endgame bosses within a few days of playing. It will require some investments to easily kill most Endgame bosses. And the title says Facetank but that does not mean you can AFK-RIGHT CLICK every boss in the game. 20% of the game still requires any build in the game to move around/dodge and interact with mechanics.

This build heavily relies on the Instant Leech from the Bloodseeker Hellion's Paw that we use in our Offhand. The Bloodseeker has the "Life Leech from Hits with this Weapon is instant" Which means that the 2.8% Life Leech is instantly regained on our character as HP. But what does this mean? It means that for us to be leeching so much HP we MUST BE ATTACKING SOMETHING. If we are not attacking something we are not leeching. So if you are far away from mobs, or they are dashing around the room and doing ranged damage. You can still die!

Some mechanics from certain bosses makes it so that we can not just straight up AFK-Facetank them. BUT most bosses in the game we actually can.

I am very new to the game. Can I easily follow this Guide?

I will do my best to make the New Player Guide as comprehensible as possible. I will go into detail about Leveling, Leveling Skill Trees, Leveling Gem Setup, Ascendancies and Building the character for Endgame. I will try my best to provide videos regarding certain things throughout this Guide as well.

Below you will find 4 Sections with explanations regarding what Leveling Items are useful for leveling, what Gems/Skills are good for leveling, Skill Trees to follow during your leveling stages and what Ascendancy Skill Points we take.

Leveling Gear Act 1-10



Skills for Leveling Act 1-10



Skill Tree's for Act 1-10



Ascendancy Choices

Congratulations you made it past Act 10 Kitava! The first thing we need to do is to start working on upgrading our gear to balance our Resists, Life and Damage! It is extremely important that you get enough Resists to be Resist Capped! (75% Cold, Lightning and Fire Resists)

Here is a Video explaining Resistances and How to Prepare for Maps!

And Here is a Quick Video regarding the new Atlas Skill Tree's

Gear



Gem Links



Handling Cyclone Mana Cost



Cluster Jewels



Pantheon



Path of Building

So what Bosses can't we facetank?

Bosses such as Sirus, Al-Hezmin, Uber Elder, a bit of Shaper and some instances of the Guardians we actually have to interact with Mechanics. Depending on how defensively you have built your character and how much HP you have. You can still get one shot.

And bosses like Sirus moves around a lot and drops degen on the ground which kind of counter our Character. That is where we try to push as much damage as possible to more easily Phase these bosses and be rid of the encounter faster.

Al-Hezmin if you can't insta kill him will also have an annoying phase where he jumps around the room and shoots ranged abilities at you.

The main problem I had with Uber Elder last league was actaully that I phased them so quick with the high dps and I was not prepared for it. When Shaper/Elder PHASE they become immune to damage. And then we can't leech from them and thats when we die if we try to facetank mechanics/incoming damage.

Abyssus is making me die alot, can I change helmet?

Yes absolutely, I state 3 other great helmets for use in this guide if you wanna play more defensively at the expense of dps.

The Map Clear Speed is pretty slow, can it get better?

Yes, if you want to you can add Melee Strike Range crafts on your gear, Area of Effect on Cluster Jewels, Movement Speed on Cluster Jewels. And a really good trick is to trying to have a way to gain Onslaught. I currently have a Abyssal Jewel with Onslaught on kill and it is great for map clearing!

Remember that usually we sacrifice DPS for AoE though. As you do very much if you play the Slayer version of this build.

Skill Tree for Level 95

Most Skill points will go into the Cluster Jewel, and we will use a Thread of Hope Jewel later to get "Swift Skewering" and "Panopticon"

Skill Tree ~ Level 95

Cheap/Starter Version



Expensive Version

IMPORTANT This Build struggle to get enough Intelligence. If you can you should try to pair any Rare items here with Intelligence. I myself usually try to squeeze in some Intelligence on my belt or boots perhaps. If you have a hard time finding Intelligence on gear then skill +30 Intelligence nodes in your skill tree in the meanwhile.

- Main Hand Weapon -


CHEAP~EXPENSIVE PRICE

CHEAP - The Wasp Nest is actually really good for DPS and extremely cheap. If you want to try out this build or wanna use it as a league starter then the Wasp Nest is still very viable. I payed 3 exalts for my Rare Claw and only gained from 4.5m DPS to 5m DPS. Which isn't that much for such an expensive weapon.

EXPENSIVE - If you wanna push it though, a high pDPS Rare Claw is what you are looking for as your main weapon. High pDPS means physical damage per second... AKA a weapon that deals high amounts of damage. Mine has 410pDPS 6% Critical Strike Chance and 1.82 Attacks Per Second. Try to get something similar or even better if you can.

- Offhand Weapon -


CHEAP - Bloodseeker Hellion's Paw is what gives us our instant life leech and provides a decent amount of damage as well with a very cheap item. This makes it great as a league starting item and even end game.

- Body Armour -


MEDIUM~EXPENSIVE Price - This Rare armour is a bit overkill as it has extremely high Life and Resists. But yeah you get the point.

Use Either a 6-Linked Rare Armour with Life & Resists as a cheaper option.

A medium prized option is a Belly of the Beast, it gives a good amount of HP to increase our health pool which is always good and it helps balance resists decently.

IMPORTANT If you have more money to spend then Socketed Attacks have -15 Total Mana Cost modifier is a nice Quality of Life. It isn't 100% needed to play this Build. Mana Leech/-3 Channeling Cost on Jewellery works fine! The -15 Armour allows for more smooth gameplay, higher DPS because we can craft better things on Jewellery and allows for the Pride Gem setup!

- Helmet -


MEDIUM Price - We have 3 different options for helmets this League.

Starkonja's is CHEAP and pretty good because it gives us Dexterity to help with our Stat Requirements. It also provides a nice damage boost and is pretty damn good defensively as it adds a good amount of evasion and Life.

Devoto's Devotion is a tad more expensive but is very good overall. It also gives Dexterity to help with our Stat Requirements, a decent amount of damage with the High Attack Speed. Both Armour and Evasion and the 2 best things...Chaos Resistance and MOVEMENT SPEED! This is a very good Helmet for overall Map Clearing as the Movement Speed makes us go much faster with Cyclone.

Abyssus is the top tier helmet for overall damage on almost any Physical Build. The high Flat Physical Damage it adds along with the Critical Strike Multiplier is insane. The Abyssus can literally give a MILLION DPS itself endgame when we have overall good gear to scale this with. It also gives All Stats to help us with Stat Requirements and also a decent amount of Armour. But it also has its obvious flaws with the %Increased Physical Damage Taken mod. So therefor you want a low %Increased Phys Dmg Taken as possible, preferably 40%.

- Amulet -


MEDIUM Price - Life & Resists amulet mainly and if you can, physical damage to attacks or critical strike multiplier will add lots of damage to this build.

ANNOINT Annointing "Claws of the Hawk" (Violet, Black, Opalscent) is pretty cheap and gives a LARGE damage increase and gives a chance to Blind Enemies on Critical Strikes to give us another defensive layer.

Clip of me Explaining how to Annoint your Amulet

- Rings -


MEDIUM~EXPENSIVE Price - Here you can see two different Steel Rings that each of them has an extra damage mod, resists and life! These aren't too expensive but still really great!

Steel Ring's is a great Base Ring for this Build. It adds so much Physical Damage to Attacks and if you can have any other damage on your rings then thats great too! For example, More Physical Damage to Attacks, Attack Speed, Global Critical Strike Multiplier. Also if you need get some Resists and get LIFE!

- Gloves -


MEDIUM Price - Mainly what you are looking for are Spiked Gloves with Life, Resists and either some flat physical damage to attacks or Attack speed. I have both because I managed to find a good pair that had an open prexif to craft on.

- Belt -


MEDIUM Price - I use the belt slot to increase my Intelligence as much as possible. I spam used Spite Essences til I had a good enough belt that I can use. Life, Resists and that high Intelligence is what you want.

- Boots -


MEDIUM Price - Life, Resists and Movement Speed boots is fine.

- Flasks -


A FLASK WITH CRITICAL STRIKE CHANCE DURING FLASK EFFECT IS EXTREMELY GOOD FOR DPS! It actually increased my DPS by 400k! If you want this Craft get a Prefix only on the Flask and ask me on Stream for the craft. I have a free Crafting Service with almost every Craft in the game.

Other than that I suggest Anti Bleed, Anti Freeze and perhaps Anti Burn/Anti Shock. It's important to have 1 Diamond Flask and I would strongly suggest a Basalt Flask as well for more defenses. Also the Lion's Roar gives an annoying Knockback but it is EXTREMELY good for DPS as well!

- Jewels -


Anything with %Life, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Multiplier and Attack Speed will be your best friend in jewels.

- Thread of Hope -


Thread of Hope is a Unique Jewel dropped by the endgame boss Sirus. We are specifically looking for one that has as low -%elemental resists as possible while also being "Only Affects Passives in LARGE RING"

We want to slot it in this Specific Jewel Slot and then get the Passive Skill Tree points "Panopticon" and "Swift Skewering"

Video explaining how Cluster Jewels work & How to use them!

What Cluster Jewel Nodes do I want?

One of the best catalysts we can use for our build is definitely "Abrasive Catalysts" on our Steel Rings. This increases the overall Physical Damage to Attack modifiers on the Implicit but will also increase any Attack Speed or extra Physical Damage to Attacks that you may have on your Jewellery as well.

I suggest using "Abrasive Catalysts" on your Rings and MAYBE on your Amulet if you have a high rolled Physical Damage to Attacks.

Other than that you wanna use

"Fertile Catalyst" for increased Life if you have a good Life roll on your Belt/Ring/Amulet.

"Intrinsic Catalyst" for increased Attributes if you are lacking Dex/Int and an item has high rolled Dex/Int.

"Prismatic Catalyst" for increased Elemental Resistances if you are lacking resistances and an item has high rolled Resists. This is specially good for our Belts because we mostly use our Belts to gain high amounts of resistances.

Crafting -15 Total Mana Cost Armour



Handling Cyclone Mana Cost

Video of Labyrinth & Trials Explanation

1st / Normal Labyrinth: Master of Metal
2nd / Cruel Labyrinth: Conqueror
3rd / Merciless Labyrinth: Worthy Foe
4th / Eternal Labyrinth: Unstoppable Hero



IMPORTANT

Try not to use the Abyssus helmet when you do Labyrinth Trials or Labyrinth overall. The traps will do insane damage to you. The build has enough damage to handle Uber Lab without it.

Your 2 options in the "Deal with the Bandits" quest in Act 2.

Either KILL ALL Bandits and recieve 2 Skill Points from Eramir

This is good because we can utalize 2 More Skill Points in our Skill Tree for more damage or life, or other good Skill Nodes.

And your second choice is..

SAVE ALLIRA Saving Alira and Killing the other 2 Bandits will give us a hidden buff from Alira that gives 5 Mana Regenerated per second & +20% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier & +15% to all Elemental Resistances

This is also good because for League Starts it can be really good to get some extra Resistances as it is usually very tough to balance your resists after killing Act 10 Kitava.

Major

Soul of Solaris - for single target/bossing. %Physical Damage Reduction helps to balance out the Abyssus.

Soul of Lunaris - for mapping. Extra clear speed and defenses with %Physical Damage reduction and %Movement Speed.

Minor

Soul of Gruthkul mainly for the %Physical Damage Reduction. Otherwise Soul of Shakari for defenses against Chaos Damage and Poison. Very useful for Al-Hezmin maps/bossfight.

https://pastebin.com/95N71HxE - 6.6m DPS

Steel Rings with Assassin's Mark Curse on Hit is HUGE! & Either drop Wind-Up for a better DPS node on Cluster Jewels or SAVE IT to generate Power Charges for BOSSES which is also pretty huge.

Assassin's Mark according to my PoB right now is better than Vulnerability. But I don't know how much better either of them scale depending on how maxed out gear we have.

So Assassin's Mark > Vulnerability (Curse on Ring or Corrupted Gloves)

BUT STILL! Vulnerability is still really good if you get such a corrupt/ring!

Tailwind Boots gives an incredible DPS increase and of course Map Clear Speed because of its Action Speed increase.

Elusive is nice for the extra dodge and Movement Speed but doesn't really do anything for our DPS.

Also a really incredible thing if you wanna really min max is boots with perhaps Multimodding and adding Movement Speed% + Cannot be Chilled & Cannot be Frozen. That is a huge QoL as we never have to worry about freeze and our Flask Charges regarding Freeze on flasks.

Obviously the main thing we are looking for is a "Socketed Attacks have -15 Total Mana cost". But there are other things that we can focus on if we are min-maxing our character in certain ways.

Item Level 85 WARLORD Influence

This is the minimum requirements to acquire the "Socketed Attacks have -15 Total Mana Cost" Body Armour.

I also suggest if you want to really Min-Max that you do this on a Astral Plate for the increased %All Elemental Resistances.

Item Level 85 WARLORD & Hunter Influence

Once again we can acquire "Socketed Attacks have -15 Total Mana cost" from the WARLORD Influence but we can also acquire "Attacks have +(1.1–1.5)% to Critical Strike Chance" from Hunter. This modifier is incredibly good for our DPS as it gives us a nice Critical Strike Chance increase.

If you wanna go above and beyond as well or are incredibly lucky, you can also acquire extremely good mods such as "You can apply an additional Curse" and "(9–12)% increased maximum Life" from the Hunter Influence.

Item Level 85 WARLORD & Crusader Influence

Once again we can acquire "Socketed Attacks have -15 Total Mana cost" from the WARLORD Influence but we can also acquire "Enemies you Kill Explode, dealing 3% of their Life as Physical Damage" from Crusader which is incredibly satisfying while Map Clearing. This will make packs of mobs explode and will make map clearing feel much better. But it does not do anything for our overall single target DPS.

Another great thing that we can acquire from the Crusader Modifier is 15% chance to gain a Power Charge on Critical Strike. This makes it so we don't need to play Wind-Up anymore in our Cluster Jewels as we can still easily generate Power Charges for Bosses.

Item Level 85 Hunter & Crusader Influence

This is a special one as we completely neglect the "Socketed Attacks have -15 Total Mana cost" this time. And instead we focus on the "Enemies you Kill Explode, dealing 3% of their Life as Physical Damage" and "Attacks have +(1.1–1.5)% to Critical Strike Chance".

This makes it so you can push your Single Target DPS and your Map Clearing potential. BUT I would not suggest this unless you feel comfortable playing with Mana Leech or you have -3 Cost of Channeling Skills crafted on your Jewellery.

So far Path of Building has been confusing and frustrating for me as I am no GOD in PoB/PoE and am still learning and doing my best.

I keep checking 350-400pDPS Claws and comparing them in PoB but most of the time it doesn't register as an Actual DPS increase. Now I think the reason for that is because of the Critical Strike Chance of the Wasp Nest.

So I therefor suggest 400pDPS or higher Rare Claw with a high %Critical Strike Chance and APS for it to be an actual upgrade. I would still check in PoB though before you attempt crafting a Claw or buying one.

Awakened Gems

This is pretty simple for us, we wanna use Awakened Melee Physical Support instead of Physical Support because it adds more damage and gives Intimidate which is a HUGE DPS increase. We also wanna use Awakened Brutality instead of Brutality.

Jewels

A lot of people are asking about Watchers Eye Jewels. Obviously the great ones are Pride ones such as Attack Damage, Double Damage and 2x More Impale Stacks.

Here is a quick order of some generally nice Watcher Eye Jewels and how good they are for this Build from best to worst.

PoB tells me 2x Impale Hits is still best but I don't know if we can go above 9 Impale Hits if we already have Double Deep Cuts so I'm leaving that out for now.

Best Pride WE: Double Damage/Attack Physical Damage - Intimidate(not worth it if you have Awakened Physical Support)

Flask

Can't really think of anything else except Bottled Faith which is just insane for DPS for this character.

Video explaining how Cluster Jewels work & How to use them!

What Cluster Jewel Nodes do I want?

Ryslatha's Coil is a great upgrade and pickup if you can manage your resists and stats somehow. I get asked this very frequently and yes its a great upgrade but we lose a Equipment Slot for Stats/Resists and also lose a potential Onslaught Jewel.

Other crazy min-max items can be Warlord Influenced Spiked Gloves with Extra Melee Damage along with your flat physical and attack speed.

Also you can have Hunter Influenced Belt (Hunter Stygian Vise is great) with Enemies have -Total Physical Damage Reduction against your Hits and other things such as life and resists obviously. Then maybe even having an open Prefix to craft Damage is always nice.

This is basicly a BIS Geared Version made in PoB. It's nothing OUT OF THIS WORLD but its generally VERY VERY GOOD GEAR.

https://pastebin.com/X2xybTaH - 18.4m DPS - 90% Phys Reduction, 60% Evade, 70k Life Leech.

The Slayer Version is basicly just the same setup, ALMOST the same skill tree, same gems and everything. But we just play Slayer for bigger AoE, ability to run Reflect Maps and overleech at this point. We lose a bit of damage and survivability compared to the Champion Version but we gain a better mapping ability.

IMPORTANT Remember to drop any TAUNT Cluster Jewels and replace with something else in case you are playing Slayer as we don't taunt anymore.

Ascendancy Choices for Slayer: Impact->Brutal Fervour->Endless Hunger->Headsman

Full Slayer Skill Tree

3.14 Ultimatum League PoB for the Slayer Version

https://pastebin.com/8uMDW0HU