[3.7] Cyclone CwC Blade Vortex CI Trickster

Hello and welcome to my Cyclone Cast while Channeling Blade Vortex guide. This build is heavily inspired by Mathil's Cyclone CoC Blade Vortex and I got some help while theorycrafting it by people in #build-planning channel in PoE Discord, so thanks!

So, maybe you are asking why Cyclone together with CwC instead of just self cast BV. There are few reasons for this:
1. Swift Killer - This node and Cyclone being channeling basically provides us 100% uptime for all power and frenzy charges
2. Cast while moving - We can recast BV while moving with Cyclone, what is very big, and should result in very smooth gameplay
3. Mana cost - Cyclone now costs almost nothing so we can sustain recasting BV with no issues
4. Stun and Knockback immunity - We are completely immune to Stun and Knockback while cycloning, what is great QoL (and also prevents us from dying in case our ghost shrouds run out)

And now, why BV with Cyclone CwC instead of some other skill? BV do not depends on cast speed, so CwC having fixed cast rate is irrelevant and it can sustain 10 BV stacks just by itself.

I decided to go CI with this build even though ES was slightly nerfed (it is actually very tiny nerf) because I prefer it, and it can reach really high EHP (also, Ghost Reaver with ES is basically budget Vaal Pact with no downsides).
I also decided to go with Trickster because it synergizes too good with everything this build is trying to do, e.g channeling skill, main damage dealer being physical skills, thanks to what we can fully abuse chaos conversion on Trickster.
Damage on this build is scaled by converting majority of physical damage to elemental damage and then converting that elemental damage to another type of elemental damage, and from that we get huge chaos damage bonus thanks to non-chaos as chaos conversion mechanics.

Changelog



Pro's & Con's

+ Great single target. The build can reach 5-7M DPS (10M+ possible with Disintegrator).
+ Very good clear speed, as Cyclone takes care of charging up our Blade Vortex, so we do not need to ever stop moving
+ 156% increased movement speed with flasks up (and + 126% from Shield Charge)
+ 10-11K Energy Shield (12K+ on Hardcore version)
+ 21k Evasion
+ 81% melee avoid chance, 81% projectile avoid chance, 10% spell avoid chance, 9% reduced damage taken
+ 1050 ES gained when hit (from Ghost Shrouds)
+ Fortify
+ Stun immune (because of Ghost Shrouds and Cyclone)
+ Chaos immune (because of Chaos Innoculation)
+ Freeze and Chill immune (because of Dream Fragments)
+ Knockback immune (thanks to Cyclone)
+ Enemies are chilled, frozen and shattered thanks to heavy cold damage and crits
+ No mana issues. Cyclone now costs almost no mana so we can sustain it just with mana regen (and possibly ring craft)

- Requires at least 5 links for comfortable gameplay (or Cast while Channeling staff) because our main setup eats 3 links, so we only have 3 more links remaining for damage supports (or 4 with CwC staff)
- Cannot do physical damage reflect maps
- Cannot do elemental damage reflect maps
- Starting as CI character can be sometimes rough, but after getting few ES items it feels great

Path of Building

Path of Building is tool for PoE to plan gear, skill tree and calculate effective damage. It also contains Bandits choice. You can download it here. Then simply import below Pastebin URL.

Pastebin

Navigating through PoB (important, read carefully)

There are 6 trees, for level 100, 90, 80 and 70 and 40 (Leveling). Leveling tree is around level 40-50, taking some extra nodes for better leveling what will be respecced later. There is also special 100 (Staves) tree for staves version of the build with Disintegrator for maximum damage.

There are 4 item sets:
- Default: This is regular version, using multimodded Sceptre and Light of Lunaris
- Staves: This setup is using Disintegrator staff for maximum damage output
- Starter: This setup is for leaguestart, using The Princess Sabre in weapon slot as it provides very nice damage and Zeal's Amplifier for some nice survivability and area of effect.
- Hardcore: This is another shield setup using Cerberus Limb + Aegis Aurora combo for maximum survivability and respectable damage. This setup is mostly oriented towards HC players, but works also for SC if you want to focus more on the defensive side.

There are 2 boots skill gem sets:
- Default: This setup is using Frostblink to close gaps and Shield Charge with Fortify for movement and defense
- Staves: This setup is using Frostblink to close gaps and Phase Run for movement while mapping

Pantheon

For major god Soul of Lunaris is good safety pick for mapping and some extra damage avoidance. Another great option is Soul of Solaris for extra safety on bosses.

For minor god Soul of Gruthkul is great choice for even more phys reduction (what we kind of lack in this build) and another slow.

Ascendancy

Get Swift Killer first. Then get Ghost Dance and Escape Artist for some survivability and finally get Harness the Void from Uber Lab.

Leveling and gearing



Media

Leveling Lvl 53
Delve Depth 42 Lvl 72

Slightly optimized the setup, now with 100% lightning conversion instead of having dangling 10-12% fire from phys (and removed multimod from gloves thanks to this), it's at like 11M DPS atm (with *very* optimized gear, realistic DPS is like, maybe half? on low investment).

https://pastebin.com/N6rBj9sV

And with Cyclone being the flavor of the month for 3.7, how much is crafting that staff going to cost? Or outright buying one? I'm guessing the same price as the swords Mathil crafted last league. Are there any other options to use as a weapon in place of it? At least last league there was Cospri's as a mid-tier weapon.

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WR47H wrote:

And with Cyclone being the flavor of the month for 3.7, how much is crafting that staff going to cost? Or outright buying one? I'm guessing the same price as the swords Mathil crafted last league. Are there any other options to use as a weapon in place of it? At least last league there was Cospri's as a mid-tier weapon.

Yeah I can see the staff being expensive as quite a few people would probably want to make Cyclone CwC, so buying it would not be worth over self-crafting. The best alternative is to lose link and use non-shaped staff with +1 lvl to socketed gems probably instead of CwC.

So I was messing with conversions a bit and here is phys->cold->fire version:

https://pastebin.com/mNgfa3Jh

It has like 16M DPS, but its slightly less survivable and its missing Dream Fragments.

with such crit chance i'd use hypothermia instead of elemental focus, to chill, freeze and shatter enemies + shock + ignite if using pyre

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Sonidox wrote:

with such crit chance i'd use hypothermia instead of elemental focus, to chill, freeze and shatter enemies + shock + ignite if using pyre

Yeah you are right, Hypothermia looks a lot better with Pyre. I still don't really like not running Dream Fragments on the build tho, so I will probably just stick with the lightning version (what is also a bit cheaper).

But I will update both cold and lightning version.

Updated both phys->lightning and phys->cold->fire versions:

Phys -> Lightning version
Phys -> Cold -> Fire version

they both now have more survivability, cold->fire can now destroy corpses and phys->lightning has slightly more damage.

Very interesting, what cheap unique weapon would you use to make a super cheap version ?

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thomzon wrote:

Very interesting, what cheap unique weapon would you use to make a super cheap version ?

any rare staff with spell damage should work, you just loose 1 gem link to put cwc in gems