[3.10] Foolproof Cyclone Slayer, 10M+ dps, Very Tanky (with new Cluster Jewels)

BACKGROUND

I am not a sophisticated player and do not know all the POE mechanics. I don’t even know how to post pictures and videos to make this guide look good. But this build works.
I am not a skilled player and my reaction speed is kinda ... hopeless. So I needed a build which was as FOOLPROOF as possible, meaning: 1 button, tanky, no panic buttons, no gem swap etc etc.
With the introduction of the new Cluster Jewels, I managed to create a build which suits my play style well. I am now posting this build to share with you my experience and welcome any comments to further improve it.
There are lots of Cyclone Slayer builds out there and I thank all those authors as they give me a very solid understanding of how Cyclone Slayer builds work.
I created this Cyclone Slayer a few weeks ago and spent a lot of time testing different items and passives. I am very happy with my current build and believe it is quite optimal.


PROs

. Excellent map clearance and single target dps - 90%+ Critical Strike Chance; easily 5M+ dps (I am sitting on around 15M dps at the moment)
. Tanky - 80% Evasion Chance as 1st layer defence, 85%+ PoB Physical Damage Reduction and 80% Maximum Elemental Resistances as 2nd layer defence; 34% Less/Reduced damage taken as 3rd layer defence; Immortal Call as 4th layer of defence; lastly, 6-7.5k health for those rare single big hits. All these defence mechanics are up pretty much 100% of the time with no surprise or panic button pressing required.
. Can do all map modes except Physical Damage reflection


CONs

. Could be expensive to min max because some of the really nice items are Legacy (my current gear cost a fair bit, but you don’t need all of them to make this build work)


CORE MECHANICS OF THIS BUILD

This build's main difference from the other Cyclone Slayer build is the extensive use of Cluster Jewels and the use of Aul's Uprising amulet (Grace version) plus a Watcher's Eye with the mode “Gain a Flask Charge when you deal a Critical Strike while affected by Precision”:

Benefits of Cluster Jewels

The following is a simple explanation as to why Cluster Jewels are good:

1. On our Passive Skill Tree, it takes on average at least 2, and more like 2.5 to 3 small passive nodes in order to get to a major passive node or a jewel socket.
2. The statistics offered by small passive nodes from a Cluster Jewel is comparable to any small passive nodes on the Tree.
3. The statistics offered by most of the major passive nodes from a Cluster Jewel is also comparable (and sometimes superior) to any major passive nodes on the Tree.
4. To create a Cluster Jewel group with 1 x 8 passives Large Cluster Jewels and 2 x 4/5 passives Medium Cluster Jewels, we need 18 Skill Points (2 x Skill Points for small passives leading to a jewel socket, 1 x Skill Point for the Jewel Socket, 7 x Skill Points to fill up all the major passive nodes and jewel sockets of the Large Cluster Jewel, 8 x Skill Points to fill up all the major passive nodes and jewel sockets of the 2 Medium Cluster Jewels).
5. With an investment of 18 Skill Points, we gained the statistics of 7 major passive nodes plus 2 x empty jewel sockets. This means more efficient pathing because we gained on average 1 major passive node or jewel socket per 2 Skill Point only.

In addition to the efficiency Cluster Jewels bring to our Skill Point investments, some of the new major nodes offered by them are really good.

In our build, we use 3 x Enduring Charge nodes which let us have FULL Endurance Charges up all the time, when in the old days, this is impossible to achieve. Also, we use 1 x Hex Breaker node and this saves us many valuable item slots (because we don't need to allow for extra elemental resistances to buffer the danger of Elemental Weakness) as well as the need to take flasks in a panicky way when we are cursed.

Aul's Uprising (Grace version) with Watcher's Eye (Crit Flask mode)

The 2 modes form the above items give us flask regain ability like a Pathfinder. In this build, our aps is about 10. With 100% hit chance and close to 100% critical strike chance, we take all 5 flasks constantly every 5-6 seconds without any problem. The flasks I picked ensure both our defence and damage capabilities fly.


PoB LINK

https://pastebin.com/YZiJr6Ky

Please note that the dps figure in PoB does not reflect:

1. Impale effects (apart from Chance to Impale%)
2. All Lethal Pride statistics
3. Damage Statistics from my Watcher's Eye jewel
4. Most importantly, the 120% Critical Strike Multiplier effect from Medium Cluster jewels


PASSIVE TREE (Level 95)

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAQBAAUtCbsOPBLhFHEYkRo4GlUnLyefLlM26DpSPC1Do0d-SdVQR1HaWfNfOWEhZU1mVGebaFhoZXIPcql07XaseHp674IHgy6DX4PMhNmE74WPhaeGYIa0h2qI7YnYivCQVZHOkn2TD5RvlSSXCJhvmy2i6qknqZSsqq2Nrj6ygLc-u-28n702vqfEgsT2xq7KkM9-02_Xlti92Xzawdwj3Izh7-RR5c_pRuoY7HHueu8O79HyQfNv8933Mvjr-hj-Cg==?accountName=Alfred2000&characterName=SirAlfredHCDa


ASCENDANCY

Endless Hunger - Bleeding and Stun Immune
Brutal Fervour - Over-leech
Overwhelm - 7.5% base Critical Strike Chance is important to boost Starforge‘s crit base
Impact – AoE for quick map clearing


MY CURRENT GEAR & GEAR RECOMMENDATION

Weapon

Starforge (nice to have Fortify corruption as a 7th Link but not necessary)



Helmet

Any rare helmet will do (Evasion based ones preferred as we want to build Evasion chance to around 50% without blind and 75% with blind). Focus on life, resistances and accuracy.



Best enchant is 15% attack speed Cyclone.
Good to have “Nearby enemies take 9% increased Physical Damage”
Good to have a free prefix slot to master craft “+1 to Level of Socketed AOE Gems” (3 of our auras can get 1 additional level with this prefix)
(Aspect of Cat of my helmet just happens to be there and is redundant.)

Body Armour

Loreweave (Nice to have corruptions like “Increased Damage”, “Maximum life”, “Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strike". Good to have Legacy 80 Maximum Resistance version.)



Otherwise, rare body armour like these:



But Loreweave is most tanky. 78/80 Maximum Resistances is no brainer for mitigating elemental damage and can do maps with “- Maximum Resistance” modes comfortably.

Belt

Stygian Vise belts with good life and resistances.



Gloves

BIS is Legacy Atziri’s Acuity, otherwise normal Atziri’s Acuity or Spiked Gloves with life and resistances (master craft "Increased Damage while Leeching" is good for rare gloves).



Boots

Rare boots with life, resistances and “Cannot Be Frozen” master craft.



Amulet



Aul’s Uprising with “Grace Reserves No Mana”, anoint it with “Fatal Blade”.
This is a core item in this build as Grace with no mana reservation gives us great Evasion chance which is the first layer of defence for this build. In addition, the “Increased Flask Charges” mode forms another backbone of this build which has been explained in an earlier section. Dexterity is good as we need that to support the high level Grace gem.

You can also use Aul's Uprising with "Pride Reserves No Mana" to achieve same mana reservation objective. But the "Pride" one is more expensive and we will lose the "Increased Flask Charges" mode which is very useful for this build.



Rings

2 x rare rings with life, resistances and accuracy.



Good to have ”Assassin’s Mark on Hit” or "Vulnerability on Hit" but not essential as we have decent critical chance and damage already.
Good to have “- Mana Costs” master crafts (can let us maximise the level of Precision). The current rings I use make my Cyclone cost zero mana.


GEM LINK

6L for Weapon (replace Pulverise with Fortify gem if your Starforge does not have Fortify corruption)



6L for Body Armour (adjust level of Precision to give you the most comfortable mana level)



4L for Helmet



4L for Gloves



4L for Boots



Since my boots has an Abyssal socket, I only have 3L. You can add Increased Duration or a low level Blood Rage or a curse as your 4th link. I prefer keeping Immortal Call at a higher level so that Endurance Charges are not consumed unnecessarily. Also, Immortal Call with a longer duration gives us time to recharge our Endurance Charge.

(Use Awakened gems if you can afford them.)


JEWELs

2 x Large Cluster Jewels

Something like these:



Pick Cluster Jewels with 8 passives and 75+ ilevel. They will each give you 3 major nodes plus 2 jewel sockets for the cost of 7 skill points. If they are too expensive, pick 9 or 10 passives ones with 75+ ilevel. They will still give you 3 major nodes plus 2 jewel sockets but for the cost of 8 skill points. DON’T settle with anything less than ilevel 75, you will lose 1 jewel socket per jewel which is not desirable in this build (we need 4 jewel sockets for our 4 x Medium Cluster Jewels).
The Large Cluster Jewels that has good nodes to work hand in hand with this build include “Increased Attack Damage” , “Physical Damage”, “Two Hand Weapon” and “Axe and Sword Attack Damage” ones. The easiest jewels to craft the 3 nodes you prefer would be “Increased Attack Damage” and “Physical Damage” as they have fewer types of prefixes.
Since we skipped the “Swift Skewering” node on tree, get 1 x Deep Cut node on your Large Cluster Jewel. That will then bring Impale Chance to 97%. 97% is more than enough for map clearing. During boss fights, the Dread Banner we placed will bring our Impale Chance to 100%.

4 x Medium Cluster Jewels (Channelling Skills ones)




They are important to this build. ilevel of this jewel does not matter. Get 4/5 passives but not 6 passives ones.
These 4 Medium Cluster Jewels should give you 4 x jewel sockets plus 8 major nodes. Of the major nodes from them, we want:

1 x Hex Breaker. This makes us immune to curse which is very useful. We will also as a result not need to overcap our resistances, since we won’t be affected by Elemental Weakness.
3 x Enduring Focus (I tried with 1 and 2 x this node but found that 3 is more comfortable for me). This will generate Endurance Charges continuously and assist in our mitigation against physical damage.
4 x Precise Focus. This node gives huge Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier.

Just chaos spam to get the desired nodes u want on the cluster jewels. Crafting the Medium Cluster Channelling Skills jewels is particularly easy. Chaos spam around 50 times on average will get the nodes you need on each jewel.

1 x Legacy Transcendent Flesh (nice to have, not essential)



It gives 4% Physical Damage Reduction and 49% Critical Strike Multiplier.

1 x Lethal Pride (nice to have, not essential)



My Lethal Pride gives me 8% life, 40% Increased Armour, 20% Increased Melee Damage and 40 Strength which is much better than a normal rare jewel.

1 x Watcher’s Eye



Get 1 or 2 Pride or Precision damage modes PLUS the “Gain a Flask Charge when you deal a Critical Strike while affected by Precision” mode. The Precision mode together with the Increased Flask Charge mode of Aul’s Uprising amulet give us nearly unlimited supply of flask charges as our Critical Strike Chance is close to, if not constantly at 100%.

Other Jewels



% Maximum Life is mandatory, after that, look for Critical Strike Multiplier, Sword Attack Speed, Two Hand Weapon Damage as priority. Otherwise Area Damage, Increased Damage and Resistances.


FLASKS



Lion’s Roar is self-explanatory.
Bottled Faith takes our Critical Strike Chance to 90%+.
Basalt, together with armour from gear, Lion’s Roar, 5 x Endurance Charges and Transcendent Flesh give us very solid mitigation against physical damage.
Stibnite Flask ensures we have 50%+ Evasion chance. The smoke from it blinds mobs and boosts our evasion chance to 75%+. (Please note that the Evasion Chance % shown in-game does not take into account Dread Banner’s Effect and therefore is lower than the actual figure. Use PoB.)
Blood of the Karui is equivalent to 20%+ Life re-generation. I constantly use it irrespective of my health level as we get flask charges all the time.
If Bottled Faith is too expensive, get a Diamond Flask or Silver Flask. For example:



THE PANTHEON

Major – Solaris
Minor – Shakari


BANDIT

Kill all.


CONCLUSION

This build has enough dps to clear all contents smoothly. More focus should be put on defence/survival. Our first layer of defense is Evasion. Our second layer of defence comes from our high Maximum Resistances (Loreweave) and effective Physical Damage mitigation (stacking Armour is not as effective for big hits). The third layer of our defence is the various damage reduction modes including Forify, Infused Channelling, Brutal Fervour and The Pantheons. All these layers of defence do not make us immune from 1 big hit, therefore, a decent life pool is what we should aim for. At Level 95, my current HP is 7.1k which is more than enough for all game content. Aim for 6k life and gradually improve it along the way.
It is not necessary to copy 100% of my build. You can make adjustments to the tree depending on your gear statistics.
You can also absorb some of my suggestions and create something that best suits your play style.
I am happy to discuss or clarify any queries you might have on why things were done in a certain way.
I welcome any comments and suggestions from experienced players on this build.

Would be nice to see your PoB, or what your DPS is currently. Currently using a slayer cyclone with 6M DPS without abyssus, but curious what cluster jewels would do.

PoB Link added to Guide.

There are many new nodes offered by Cluster Jewels, anyone has suggestions on which Cluster Jewel node I should consider to improve this build?

how much is needed to make this build work? I only got about 10 ex left. please help. the glove itself cost about 5 ex already.