Cyclone + Blade Vortex ('The Twin Buzzsaws') Theory Troubles

Hey Duelist community!

I'm playing with (on average) 2 other friends and we're going through our levelling and I'm hitting a snag in my build that has me feeling like I'm slightly underperforming that I'm looking to resolve without totally changing the builds identity.

Base theme was simple: 2H Cyclone+Blade Vortex=Buzzsaw within Buzzsaw. Go Slayer, get lots of life leech for that slayer life leech stuff, be really durable through vampirism. (I realized, slightly too late that all the nodes in the duelist world specify physical attacks, and Blade Vortex being a spell wouldn't benefit but at this point I'm just trying to make it work.)

Sub theme realized that Impale is nice, and while Blade Vortex can't inflict impale, it can help proc existing impales.

Got both Stances going, was using perforate up until I got Cyclone, and was going to multistrike Bladestorm to quick set up that as additional buzzsaws for the BladeVortex Cyclone.

Problem: Not even into Act 4 and I'm already at a point of taking damage faster than I heal it, and don't feel like I'm doing enough damage.

Doesn't help that I'm wearing a Tabula still... but getting Armour with the GBG slots the Cyclone Blade Vortex needs would be a nightmare, and an evasion chest wouldn't exactly help my Life Leech sustain me cause damage that gets through is still going to chunk too fast. (I'm not quite getting one shot yet, but I'm feeling that upwards trend and its making me nervous.

Now I want to grab fortify to try and help correct this.

Champion has Fortify and Impale perks, and a banner perk to help with my Impale Banner and be a team player. (Purity Templar and Necro-witch are the team mates.) So now I'm considering going Champion instead.

I can't tell if I'm at a point where I've got my hand in too many cookie jars, or if my set up is just going to feel weird at this point until it can round out a few more nodes.

I made a trip out to the 2h impale nodes past Blood Magic in front of Marauders start and realized that's probably a bit of a waste, especially since I'm hurting for Dex to level up all the green gems, but not seeing anything in nearby Dex land that'd really help besides maybe the evasion to Armour keystone?

So all in all its a mess and I don't know the best place to start to clean it up. Lord help that all the guides/builds assume you just know how to level and not give, great ideas on what do with it. x.x Help.

I've checked your duelist, your skill tree is a total mess, you're wasting just as many points as possible, too many early nodes with no real interest, too many mana nodes (grab yourself an Enduring mana flask like hallowed or Sacred and get rid of these useless nodes). It can be allright to path through "Destroyer" node, but all of the points you did waste in the first duelist wheel, get rid of them, the red ones become quickly useless, attack and life can be ok depending of the build.

For dexterity, grab a Jade amulet for +30 dext implicit, or a Citrine for 24/24 int/dext. Craft one small suffix on gear if necessary, you should be quickly fine. Rest of craft should be life or resists (all of elemental above 50% at the great minimum, 75% will quickly become mandatory, Chaos resistance is getting mandatory too these days when mapping).

Use essences and crafted bonuses to gear your duelist, or grab a decent rare on the ground and add what you need, do not destroy currencies trying to "roll" affixes, it's not worth it during acts.

Versatile stance is ultra situationnal too for example of dangerous nodes, you shouldn't risk yourself in that type of wheel without a good idea of why you're doing so.

Overall, i understand the "twin buzzsaw" thing, but i guess you now feel it's just a meme build and it's not going to work at all. Cyclone is one of the best melee skills, BV one of the best spell skills, pick one, ofc you're probably gonna go for Cyclone as a duelist. I also believe you really should follow a guide at the moment, this would help you to perform without having to learn everythign about the game from 0 and alone, it's extremely difficult to do so, and not rewarding at the end of the day. :(

Good luck, there might be people with much more knowledge than me able to help you more, maybe one will answer.

I appreciate the response but it also falls victim to many similar problems as everything else when it comes to trying to find help or resources in this game of assuming everyone is on the same page for every term Or even most terms.

IE: You say 'first duelist wheel' and I have no idea what you mean. Are you talking about one of the general 'rings' that makes up the entire passive tree? Or one of the smaller set of circles towards the start that, duelist kinda has 3 ven diagramming on each other?

I was doing some rejiggering today to get things back in order with some of the story respec points I had and I don't know when the site updates that, so things may line up differently now.

The Dex tip is super helpful for ways to get that corrected and I've been keeping an eye out. I think I know what you mean about 'crafted suffix' stuff at least. Bench in the hideout? I hadn't really looked at it since mentors were a thing (and I'm sad they're not anymore cause they had good personality.)

I don't see what's so situational/dangerous of Versatile stance, considering the two stance gems look extremely potent and your going to have them on all the time, adding something to it only made sense.

I knew double buzzsaw was going to be a meme, but I didn't think it would fall -this far- apart -this- early. You say follow a guide but none of the guides actually tell you anything about this stage of the game, the all just kinda assume you can hit level... 70ish? without really stating anything besides a loose. 'Focus these, if you have xyz unique its nice.' I'm not a total scrub when it comes to this game but there doesn't seem to be any tools or resources to transition from 'Weee spinning through story!' to 'oh god now I'm dead. :('

So yeh, there's where I'm at so far. I did go ahead and grab slayer and get the life leech overleeching so I have a ready to recharge reserve when I do get a knock, and grab some of the fort stuff which seems to be helping while I get my resistances back in order, as well as putting away the Tabula Rasa.

Yep, the bench will help you a lot. Basically, you want while leveling to find for example your missing stats points (dext on Jade amulet) with implicits (the first mod separated from other ones on objects).

So, you know you'll be missing dexterity at some point ? => Jade amulet, complete the affixes on it with health points or resists you will craft using the bench in your hide out.

Missing resists ? Grab rings with resists as implicits (two-stone rings for example, but there are other ones), complete it with hp or more resists with the bench.

Now, one basic thing is a rare object can only have 6 affixes : 3 prefixes and three suffixes max (there are a few exceptions but they come at very late game), so if your Jade amulet lacks health points but allready has three prefixes, you will not be able to craft HP prefix on it, even if it doesn't have 6 affixes.

You have to balance things, of course you can craft your own gear with orbs and aim for the things you need yourself, but as i said, do not waste currencies in leveling, except for adding a few crafted affixes with the bench.

Also, "nodes or wheels", yes, they're the "rings" in your skill tree. The closer to your starting, the less interesting they are. There are exceptions of course, bu you do not want to stay and invest too many points in the starter ones as you did at the beginning, grab a bit of life, damage and maybe a bit of comfort (mana or stats for example), but that's it, time to move on and aim for the farther ones.

ABout guides, there are some of them really well done, the thing is, if you really want to improve your knowledge and understand with more details the consequences of your choices and how to improve it, you'll have to download Path Of Building community Fork at some point.

BigDucks on YT make comprehensive beginner's guide with a lot of details and how to spec and gear during leveling, you can find him or a lot of other people on YT, it's juste one quick example. Here we have seeveral well done guides, Arc for the most known of them.

Good luck ! ;)