Hyaon's Reave by Onin

Ever wanted to play a full elemental Reave build? Ever looked at that sexy 400 DPS sword just thinking of the possibilities? Need something to blame your deaths on? Look no further!

(Prefer a video guide? See here.)

Hyaon's Fury is a very interesting beast. With a maximum of almost 400 elemental DPS and 470 total DPS, it's statistically close to best-in-slot items. It even increases its own damage further through frenzy charges. But everyone looks at that 3% damage increase and just thinks "...but it's going to get me killed."

I didn't let that stop me. I saw a weakness that could be overcome and a strength that could be emphasized. I wondered how far this item could be taken, and I was pleasantly surprised. Does it blow standard builds out of the water? No. Is it unique but competitively powerful? Sure. Is it fun? Loads.

The Build
The Endgame
Normal: Life
Cruel: Attack Speed
Merciless: Frenzy Charge (or Skill Point)

The tree emphasizes on valuable lightning damage nodes, attack speed, shock chance, and as much life as is feasible in this area. Whether to go for 3 or 4 frenzy charges is a matter of preference; it's best for DPS, but it's 3%-6% increased damage taken.


The Outfit




Main-hand Hyaon's Fury. Off-hand Doryanni's Catalyst, for up to 100% elemental damage and 1% elemental leech. It won't be used for attacking. Lightning Coil makes lightning resistance your main form of defense, which acts doubly as your elemental reflect defense. Doryani's gives more leech, while Blood Dance gives free frenzy charge generation, as well as significant life regeneration.

For the other item slots, prioritize Life, Resistances, Attack Speed, Flat Lightning Damage, and Weapon Elemental Damage. Additional mana or ES is also useful for comfort.

If Doryanni's Catalyst is too expensive for you, a second Hyaon's can be used. This makes you more squishy, but it has comparable DPS for a much lower cost. Nothing else in this guide changes for dual-wielding Hyaon's.


The Gems
Reave - Multistrike - Faster Attacks - Weapon Elemental Damage [- Lightning Penetration - Added Lightning Damage]
Vaal Reave - Multistrike - Faster Attacks - Increased Area of Effect
Wrath - Purity of Lightning - Clarity - Reduced Mana
Herald of Thunder - Reduced Mana - Curse On Hit - Conductivity

Reave is chosen as main skill for its synergy with high attack speeds, and its high range. Reave does not work with Maces, so it will not attack with Doryanni's, but you still get attack speed benefits for dual-wielding. The high AoE gives both safety and increased clear speed. Vaal Reave is very useful for its massive range boost which emphasizes both of these.

Herald of Thunder has a near permanent uptime for this build, adding a lot of damage. It's also a zero effort method of applying Conductivity on the entire screen; an automatic -40% lightning resistance for basically everything you attack. There are some situations where this doesn't work (such as Atziri fights), but you can always switch gems around when those situations pop up.

Of course, run Cast when Damage Taken. I prefer my Enduring Cry on a level 5 CwDT, with Immortal Call on a level 18-20 CwDT; the stacked endurance charges counteract a lot of the squishiness. I also put a Cold Snap in the level 19 CwDT which benefits from Doryani's Elemental Prolif, for occasional AoE freezes!

It's important to experiment with your level of Clarity. You want to get around 40 mana per second, but you also want enough unreserved mana to get continuous attacks.

Discharge could be a method of getting rid of Frenzy Charges in a pinch, but it also removes your Endurance Charges. Sadly I don't have space for it currently.

Keep your Reave level 1. It doesn't increase your damage, and you'll save a LOT on mana.


Strengths and Weaknesses

+ Up to 40% chance to Shock with curse and Doryanni's
+ Pure Lightning damage means easy to penetrate defenses
+ High attack range for safe approaches
+ High leech, high life regen, HUGE life gain on kill
+ Cheap BIS weapons, easy to pick up

- Hard to get high life
- Reflect can hurt
- Chaos Damage is deadly
- Doesn't continue scaling with infinite currency


The Alternatives
I'd like to note that this is just the first attempt at a Hyaon's build. There are several options I have considered, but not explored.

-Blood Dance / -Doryani's | +Wake of Destruction / +Crest of Perandus
Playing Hardcore? Still want to give it a shot? Hyaon's still has respectable DPS without any frenzy charges. Replacing Blood Dance with Wake of Destruction's 1-120 Lightning damage gives a pretty decent damage boost as well as another nifty mode of defense in the Fleeing.
Alternatively, or additionally, the Doryani's could be removed and replaced with Crest of Perandus for a sizable boost in life and block chance. While capped block won't happen easily, the extra 40% is significant by itself.

-Lightning Coil | +Cloak of Defiance
Lightning Coil only applies to physical damage, while Cloak of Defiance applies to everything, which would more than counteract Hyaon's increased damage. Getting enough mana to sustain it might be more difficult, but there's plenty on the tree to invest in.

-Reave | +Cleave / +Spectral Throw
Just replacing Reave with Cleave would probably improve your DPS pretty significantly with the increased damage efficiency. It'd be more risky and may not even help clear speed that much, but I've not tried it.

Spectral Throw is another viable main skill for Hyaon's. It's even safer than Reave, and leveling the gem actually improves the lightning damage, but it won't get as much synergy from attack speed.

-Shadow | +Duelist
The Duelist area of the tree has a very tasty amount of sword critical strike nodes and a ton of attack speed. Especially for a Spectral Throw variant, going with a Duelist tree could be highly beneficial. I do feel, though, that it'd be exceptionally weak against reflect, so caution is advised.


The Videos
Only one, for now.

Ordinary Plateau map



So what's the DPS like?
The second you equip two Hyaon's at level 62: 14k+
With a full set of gear and 6L: Up to 30k.
When using Doryanni's, the tooltip for Reave lies; it thinks you're using the mace for attacks when you're not. According to my calculations, my current gear gives me 28k Lightning DPS with 4 frenzy charges.

Be honest, how often do you die?
Equally often as any other build I run. That is, whenever I take undue risks, or don't notice a strongbox has Ice Nova or Explodes.
Let me put it this way. Generally, physical damage is the most deadly. 4 frenzy charges with 2 Hyaon's is 24% increased damage taken. Abyssus is 40-50%, and people use it. And unlike Abyssus, Hyaon's damage boost can be dispelled at will.

But is it Atziri viable?
I haven't tried yet, but I don't see why not. It should have enough DPS, control, and speed to do so. Atziri being immune to Shocked is a big downside, but I don't see why it couldn't be done.
Last edited by 0nin on Dec 12, 2014, 4:57:15 AM
Nice build and writeup. Seeing this sword makes me wonder how well an elemental Cleave build would work, both here and in combination with a Dreamfeather. Obviously you'd have to take a very different path for the Dreamfeather, and I'd probably avoid Frenzy altogether in that case, but now I'm curious about dps.
Dreamfeather Elemental Cleave Ranger: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1087616
Last edited by Tempada on Oct 6, 2014, 5:12:38 PM
Videos or it didn't happen.
gameplay vid pls :O
ign: ALLRAUDER
looks rly interesting. was theorycrafting a build with them too.
But what's the advantage over Cleave?

/edit: you wrote:
"
It'd be more risky and may not even help clear speed that much, but I've not tried it.


what's the reason for beeing more risky? I can't rly find one to be honest >.<
Last edited by Ryouko on Oct 7, 2014, 2:53:44 AM
Did you even read his post?

"
Reave is chosen as main skill for its synergy with high attack speeds, and its high range. You'll do less damage than with Cleave, but you're doing it from three times the distance, which increases both safety and clear speed.
"
Xenefungus wrote:
Did you even read his post?

"
Reave is chosen as main skill for its synergy with high attack speeds, and its high range. You'll do less damage than with Cleave, but you're doing it from three times the distance, which increases both safety and clear speed.


yes i read his post. i might just overread it cause it's in the gem section and i just checked the alternatives section ;)
Reave might has more aoe but only if u have enough stacks. If u use a movementskill like whirling blades u will lose them. for me reave has no advantage then.
Can you make some videos.
ign slashzilla
"Buy when there is blood on the streets, even if the blood is your own."
Slashzilla Reave Guide- http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/514128
SALES THREAD-http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/524661
http://gyazo.com/da6159e17a1ec3710b9cb8601a145a9a
My issues with your build:

1. 22k dps with fully decked out gear is low. Example: WoE+BoR cleave, one of the best "tank" builds currently popular, gets 40-50k while being MUCH more tanky.
2. Abyssus is increased PHYSICAL DAMAGE taken, while Hyaon's is ALL DAMAGE. Abyssus can be nullified easily with a Coil, or just a long duration CwDT setup. You cannot mitigate elemental /chaos damage as easily.
3. Hyaon's is similar to Oro's (a slow ele weapon) and share similar issues: attacks scale best with physical damage and adding damage (such as auras) scales best with attack speed. (Neither of which neither of these weapons have.) Combined with the meager 5% crit chance, the options for these weapons to increase damage are VERY limited (ex. WED on gear).

Sorry to be such a downer. ._.
Looks like an interesting build.
Out of Alpha or Devoto's Devotion which one would you pick?
IGN: smexylolrus

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