This Cyclone Slayer was made in standard with GG gear at endgame, but you can definitely do league-based/cheaper iterations and still achieve great damage. People have been playing this build for a long time for a reason!

 

Quick Jump

Skill Tree

Ascendancy: Endless Hunger -> Brutal Fervour -> Headsman -> Bane of Legends

Pantheon

Major: Soul of Arakaali. This is a nice defensive pantheon for us. There are all sorts of DoT's in this game that will boost our leech after we stop taking the DoT damage. Since we have Fortify and other HIT damage mitigation, it's nice to have a bit of DoT mitigation also.

Minor: Soul of Yugul is great for maps and even shaper/elder. Who wants to be chilled/frozen? I know I don't!

Bandit: Kill All

Passive Tree & PoB


 

Path of Building Link

  • Level 100 PoB Fortify Axe, 10.7M Shaper Dmg: https://pastebin.com/JeiK3a8R
  • Level 100 PoB Disfavour Axe, 5.69M Shaper Dmg: https://pastebin.com/30VrxdT1
  • Level 100 PoB Starforge Sword, 5.54M Shaper Dmg + 283 Life: https://pastebin.com/j9H5xTbG

 

 

Gems Setup

6L Mapping

Cyclone | Fortify | Melee Phys | Infused Channeling | Brutality | Pulverize

6L Single Target

If you have a white socket in your weapon, swap Pulverize for Impale

If you do not have a white socket in your weapon, swap Pulverize for Dmg on Full Life.

6L Fortify Weapon

If you are lucky enough to have Fortify built into your weapon, replace Fortify with DMG on Full Life

Boots

Enlighten | Pride | Flesh and Stone | Maim Support

Flesh and Stone blood stance maim's nearby enemies. Maim support provides us increased maim effect which is DEFINITELY worth it (600k+ shaper dmg at endgame)

Gloves

Leap Slam | Endurance Charge On Melee Stun | Faster Attacks | Blood Rage

For shaper, you could replace ECoMS with vuln and manually cast 21/20 vuln for ~7% More dmg if you wish.

Helmet

Ancestral Warchief | Impale Support | Blood and Sand | Dread OR War Banner

AW Totem boosting our damage and helping our Impale stacks. Blood and Sand blood stance providing more dmg. Dread OR War Banner boosting our damage as well. Here is how the Banners stack up and what you should pick, depending on your playstyle:

IMO it seems Dread banner is the best one to use while mapping if you choose to never really place it. However, War Banner is still best for single target at endgame because of the adrenaline you gain for 2.5~ sec upon placing it. After making the adjustments to the PoB in it's current state with the aforementioned values we've discussed, it seems the best PURE DAMAGE results are as follows:

  • #War Banner planted (78% More modifier/impale) with Adrenaline it's 10.7m.
  • #Dread Banner (110% More modifier/impale) it's 9.75m with or without the banner planted.
  • #War banner planted, no adrenaline is 9.31m.
  • #War Banner not planted is 8.98m.

So it's pretty clear, if you don't plan on setting a banner at all - choose Dread Banner. If you plan on setting the banner and taking advantage of 2.5sec of adrenaline at boss encounters, pick war banner. Again, these are just for damage values - defensive values use your own judgement if you want to take advantage of defensive banner traits.

 

Budget Version

Weapon

Kitava's Feast is also a great option before you get a disfavour, but suffers single target damage due to the built in melee splash. Great for mapping though.

Helmet

Devoto's Devotion are already pretty cheap, but you can use a rare helmet to fill in any stat/life/res gaps you might have while leveling. I highly recommend Devoto's for endgame. Blood Rage Attack Speed is best enchantment, but Cyclone IAS/damage, Vuln curse effect, or enfeeble curse effect are also really good.

Body Armour

An unlinked belly of the beast is fine, but if you can't afford that any good chest with high life roll can get you by

Glove

Any dual res/life glove is great. You can craft 12ias or another res to fill it in for you until you can get your insanity gloves. Insanity gloves are a MUST for endgame though since they help immensely with clear speed and dodging things like shaper's slam. Vuln-on-hit gloves are a great for leveling or before you can maintain running blasphemy. You can also use vuln-on-hit gloves and use cwdt-immortal call-increased duration. Haemophilia it's also a good option but I prefer insanity greatly.

Boots

Any good move speed dual res/life boots is good. Base doesn't really matter. Two-Toned are BiS for us since there's not really a good enchant that would be active at all times for us. For mapping, this enchant is fine, for bosses the freeze/shock/ignite one is pretty good as well.

Belt

Belt of the deceiver is another great cheap option

Amulet

If a cheaper/regular/corrupted Daresso's is out of your price range, then just get a solid amulet that helps fill in the gaps, but also has flat phys and life on it. Carnage heart also really good.

Ring

Any rings that have flat phys/life/strength/leech/stat you might need are great until you get your steel rings

 

Gear Setup

Move the mouse on the bold poe equipment to see more information

Weapon

Morbid Hunger Vaal Axe, Atziri's Disfavour, Starforge

For pure DAMAGE, a rare elder axe with built in fortify is the best choice. It's effectively a 1,174+ pdps weapon with +2 range. Second, would be a Disfavour or a Starforge. I'm an axe man myself, so I will always be biased and pick a disfavour. However, a high-damage Starforge is also a really good option. 100 flat life, and historically cheaper than disfavour - this weapon is preferred by many to Disfavour. You take your pick! Trees for both are linked in this thread. Unfortunately, +2 range suffix bench craft is legacy and only available in standard. 

Helmet

Devoto's Devotion is just a great all around helm. Giving us a healthy amount of move and attack speed, it makes Cyclone so smooth. It also gives us the Dex we need for items/gems.

Body Armour

Kaom's Heart with 2 nice double corrupts is my go-to. +1% Max Res is my fav, followed by 50% reduced dmg from crits. Legacy Kaom's is obviously the best for pure life pool for 2H RT builds, but is extremely costly now. Non-Leg is great and definitely a great league choice. Fire dmg roll doesn't matter.

Gloves

Brood Palm Slink Gloves,  Tombfist + Grim Butcher Murderous Eye Jewel, Onslaught Clutches Spiked Gloves

Insanity gloves with Res/Int/High life is what we want. We put our leap slam in our gloves in order to achieve the fastest 2H Leap Slam in the entire game. If you do not leap slam a lot or prefer offensive measures, a +2 range spiked glove is also a great choice. +2 range gives almost the same AoE benefit as the pulverize support gem! Haemophilia and Tombfist are also good options (especially with vuln/enfeeble-on-hit). However, gloves are a great spot to get +1/+2 range and help us fill out our resistances, intelligence, or any other stat we might need. An abyss jewel placed in tombfist with the blind mod is really nice as well. Great against bosses like Minotaur etc...

Boots

Blight Goad Two-Toned Boots, Bramble Stride Two-Toned Boots, Damnation Pace Two-Toned Boots

Boots with Life, Move, and tri-res or dual+chaos-res/int are BiS for this build. You want to be overcapped on your resistances to compensate for elemental weakness and even Elemental Equilibrium if possible. If you choose to go with an enchant, use the shock/freeze/ignite if you haven't crit recently or the Increased attack speed, however enchants don't matter too much for us in the end.

Belt

The Retch, Stygian Vise + Murderous Eye Jewel, Rustic Sash

The Retch + Slayer is OP. We never stop leeching, so we never stop dealing damage. Retch damage is considered "Reflected Damage" so our brutality gem does not effect it. Considering we get flask effect duration as well, life, some phys dmg, and even a bit of move speed - this belt is great for us. We even gain a healthy amount of damage, functionality, and smoothness from this belt. If you prefer a Rare belt instead to be more tanky, I recommend a belt like my Glyph Snare Rustic Sash, Loath Tether Stygian Vise. Belt of the deceiver is another good budget option. Darkness Enthroned Stygian Vise with 2 abyss jewels to fill in your flat phys/res/life is also a good option and has no level requirement.

Ring

Dire Turn Steel Ring, Miracle Band Steel Ring

Steel Rings with life, flat phys, int, resistances, attack speed, or melee damage is what you want. We have to get Int from somewhere, and getting 100+int on 2 rings is the best place for this. -8 Mana cost to skills bench craft prefix is BiS for us making Cyclone cost ZERO mana. Can just spam it infinitely. If you area using a Fortify Axe, then a -9 Mana cost ring will Bring Cyclone down to 1!

Amulet

Daresso's Salute has always been the best Amulet for Cyclone. +2 range on one item is insane! There are only so many ways to scale weapon range. With GGG nerfing increased AoE in this game, Melee Weapon range is by far the best way to scale our Cyclone's Area. +1 curse is great if you use curse on hit gloves, however I prefer +1% Max Res to add a nice bit more tankiness. A corrupt Attack speed one is good as well. Carnage heart or a rare with life/phys/stats we need are good choices as well especially while leveling, however I prefer daresso.