[2.6 Trickster] Starforge Tri-curse cycloner

Theorycrafting

I started wondering where to use Cospri's will + Heretic veil other than a chaos degen build.
Since I wanted to use tri-curse aura I needed a close/mid range build; I discarded CI since Cospri is evasion base, so that leaved me with life or hybrid.
Looking into ascendancy I thought trickster is a nice way to do hybrid life/shield/evasion and with the no cost for movement skills I ended up picking Cyclone as skill.
Usually cyclone is buffed via elemental conversion thanks to supports and auras, but since I'll end up giving all mana to curses the best choise is using something that don't need Hatred or heralds: Starforge.

Tree (lv 91)

Bandits: life - attack speed - frenzy charge
Trickster: Walk the Aether - Shade Form - Swift Killer

Gear
Spoiler


Skills
Main attack: Cyclone - Melee Phys - Melee Phys on full life - Faster Attack - Inc AoE - Fortify
Boss support: Ancestral Warchief - Melee Phys - Melee Phys on full life - Conc Effect - Faster Attack - Culling Strike
Haretic Veil: Temp Chain - Enfeeble - Vulnerability - Enlighten
CWDT - Immortal Call - Lightning Golem - Inc Duration
Leap Slam - Faster Attack - Vaal Haste - Portal

Stats
86k Cyclone (9 frenzy, Lightning golem, Ancestral Warchief)
5.3k Life
1.1k Shield
35% evade
5% dodge
19% spell dodge

What do you think?
Last edited by 0Nemesis on Mar 3, 2017, 9:03:45 PM
Last bumped on Oct 4, 2017, 7:55:52 PM
New tree for 3 curse without +curse items (lv91) in OP.

I planned this cause I have in mind to play:
Spoiler

to get 9 frenzy charge, so with those resistences are an issue and I can't afford to play Doedre Damning ring anymore.
Last edited by 0Nemesis on Dec 7, 2016, 3:59:50 AM
Updated current gear!

EDIT 2.5:
General Balance Changes:
Increased the range of all melee weapons. This is also a significant buff to the radius of Cyclone.

YES!!!
Last edited by 0Nemesis on Dec 7, 2016, 3:59:16 AM
Ok build is starting to shine, with new weapon range of 11.
Damage is there, survivability also thanks to tri-curse, clear speed is average only but still enjoyable.

Till now only done up to T14, waiting to level up a bit more to try harder content (currently only lv86).
Last edited by 0Nemesis on Dec 5, 2016, 10:54:52 AM
Updated Gear and stat on OP.
Now with new helmet enchant and 6L.
Hi, I just found your build and wanted to comment because I'm currently aiming for this build, but on an occultist instead of a trickster. I've been playing this on-and-off since 2.3 but never got far because of work, but i like the premise of having a curse-based melee degen character.

I chose Occultist because of the inherent curse and chaos bonuses, along with explosions and easy traveling to both the shadow's chaos buffs and aura cost reduction, as well as the templar's aura node and optional AoE enhancements.

My old leveling path used dual Innsbury Edges for the chaos leech, but I feel that places the emphasis on how much chaos damage you generate too early in the leveling process.
Currently I'm leveling as a lightning cycloner, because the new Hand of Thought and Motion has great synergy with a melee witch due to the many int nodes grabbed while travelling. They eventually upgrade into some great lategame weapons for a lightning cycloner as well.
To help with bossfights I use Vaal Lightning Strike, which causes a lightning damage discharge each time the main target is hit - and with cyclone, you hit a lot.
Furthermore I put Innervate on my cyclone, to get some onslaught going most of the time. It should also work with Starforge. Unfortunately the Vaal Lightning Strike would have to be dropped, unless it can be utilized with CoH, but that's stretching it.

I also mostly use Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark + Herald of Thunder. Because as an occultist I use more curses than a trickster would, I mainly level using all three Marks for tankiness (regen) and charges in a blasphemy or a curse on hit situation. I love how flexible this setup can be outside of the main tree path.

Switching to a Starforge setup with this shouldn't be a problem, because you scale mostly with (highly modular) curses. Even CoH HoT should still work, since it still curses (the hit just does no damage - at least, I think that's how it works) and you don't get any specific weapon nodes. The Occultist scales your chaos damage anyway, as well as the damage done to cursed enemies.

Currently planned path:
Spoiler
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMBAAQHBx4I9A3RDkgPqxEvEZYWQBZvFr8XLxhqGYoajxslHRQdqiBuIvQkiyaIJpUrCi3SL282PTpYPV9CekZxSVFJsUuuTLNQMFJTVUtVhVXGVdZYB1nzXfJh4mNDZOdmnmnYakNsC2yMbRltbHC7cg94L3pwfOV88H6hf8aApIMJg9uFfY9GkQeTJ5Uul5WX9JuhnaqfPqEvpcusmLQMtUi3MLzqvorAVMHFwzrK09fP2RPZW9-K4YjjauOE6FrpAutj7BjviPDV9tr31_k3-tL7Cf5J


I'm very interested to see how your build progresses, since mine is very similar and I am wondering if the occultist is a good enough choice for scaling it with. Also there's very few unorthodox phys/chaos cycloners out there, it seems.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Last edited by fantazizer on Dec 7, 2016, 6:30:41 PM
Nice to see someone else playing melee curse.
I have just one question: since you are scaling phys and lightning damage how are you going to inflict chaos damage (that you boost with occultist)? Just with chaos explosion, poison, added chaos linked to cyclone?
Those gems are the start of it, yes. In the end I intend to do away with the lightning damage, I'm just using it right now to level quickly and get the shock multipliers before I get my grubby mitts on a Starforge.
In the tree there's several options for adding and increasing chaos damage, most notable of which is Force Shaper, which both increases physical damage and has a small conversion percentage. There's also several percentage increases for chaos damage near the Shadow part of the tree.

The biggest increase I think comes from the Occultist itself, gaining 4% of non-chaos damage as extra chaos damage per curse when you kill a cursed target (which, with 5 curses, is 20% extra damage as chaos) and the unholy might buff, conveniently provided by the new Sin's Rebirth flask. Previously you had to fiddle with suboptimal ways to gain it, like Malicious Intent.

Furthermore there's several items like Voidheart and Alberon's Warpath, which might be bad because I might want the extra curse from Windscream.
On my other characters from previous leagues I tried using Wings of Entropy and Edge of Madness, but those are fairly hard to scale.

I also think it's important to note that I link Cyclone with innervate, which increases shock chance (and grants onslaught on killing a shocked character). Since Starforge says that your physical damage can shock, it would be a bad idea to discount the multiplier received from shocking enemies.

The 6link i intend to use is Cyclone - Melee Phys - Fortify - Added Chaos - Innervate - Poison. Maybe replace Fortify with Void Manipulation, or swap in Poison for bossfights to get that degen really going.

TL;DR is stack phys, get damage additions and multipliers from Unholy Might and Shock and vulnerability and Frenzy charges, which I forgot to mention last post but in the build I put there I make an effort to get some bonus charges (that I generate using the Mark curses). And since we both travel close by, you can even get Conduit to increase your group effectivity.

P.S. can also get the new Uul-Netol's Embrace to get some extra bleeds going, and dip down to duelist - though that might be stretching it. But the bleeds would be solid, and enhanced by Vulnerability.

P.P.S. because I'm getting Starforge and hopefully a Heretic Veil as well, I might not even need to travel all the way to those mana reservation nodes to scale my damage with cheap auras. Will have to do some calculations on how good more auras like haste and grace would be as opposed to a more elegant tree build.
Poison support gem isn't needed with Cospri's Will which I think is a must have for the build (extra curse and most notably can bypass hexproof).
As Trickster I don't need any form of mana regen since cyclone (and leap slam) are free cast so Mark curses are less useful (only worth for charge gain, and also frenzy are generated by the ascendancy itself).
Innervate is a cool suggestion, but shock (at least without it) isn't consistent with Starforge since you'll only shock on crit hit (only 5% or so, remember also factoring poor accuracy); I'll give it a try anyway, onslaught is cool while cycloning (I use silver flask).
With your witch tree how are you with life and shield? Are you hybrid or full life? Because with hybrid you can get a huge MORE multiplier from melee damage on full life support.

EIDT: changed starting point on skill tree: 4% IAS is better than 10% phys and chaos.
Last edited by 0Nemesis on Dec 8, 2016, 10:11:29 AM
Right, I read past that poison modifier on the Will. Good to know.

Concerning the innervate, with the innate 15% chance to shock from the gem you don't need to crit to apply shock. Add to that the 10% shock chance boot enchant, some jewels and maybe some other sources, you can easily get 20% shock chance - with a silver flask and all those frenzy charges, you should have a ginormous amount of hits to shock with, and you only need to shock targets once every few seconds to keep it rolling. Still need a flask to get it started on bosses, I suppose.

I pondered going CI for a bit, but that feels convoluted - maybe I'll try it once I know how many resources I need for the damage multipliers, and can divert those resources to a viable CI option.
For this one I'll opt for the hybrid build, both because those nodes are easily accessible for a witch, and to have a higher effective lifepool.

Personally I don't trust ES to keep me at max health long enough to make the Full Life Damage worth it, but i can certainly give it a try once I get to a good point where I feel safe.

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