Cyclone.... Nerfed or Buffed?

I keep seeing people complain about the cyclone nerf. Sure a dmg reduction looks like a nerf at first glance but I don't see anyone talking about the mana cost changes. With 2 elreon rings I can sustain a 5l cyclone with almost fully reserved mana. You've got a free link in your 6 link now to use something like

life on hit
Life leech
bloodlust
hypothermia
conc effect
Inc aoe

The most popular way to link cyclone was
Cyclone - melee phys - fortify - added fire - Wed - blood magic. You would then run hatred, Herald of ash and Arctic armour on mana. You can now do the same setup with a high lvl enlighten and no Bm gem or stop using AA until you have an enlighten and even then you still don't need the Bm gem. IMO cyclone got a huge buff but I'm interested in hearing some other thoughts on the matter.

The most common use case for cyclone which is minimum distance fast casting back and forth, got totally and completely trashed. 50 percent less damage is almost always going to apply in this case. GG no re.

The most common use case for cyclone which is minimum distance fast casting back and forth, got totally and completely trashed. 50 percent less damage is almost always going to apply in this case. GG no re.

Im sustain cast on crit cyclones on mana leech atm. I tested a quick physical coc on softcore with a high ohys dagger and .4% mana leech, it was sustaining without any physical damage boosting gems in the links. Its very likely when ascendancy lands Im going to try to move my cyclones in standard over to mana leech with a lvl3 enlighten. Im probably going to need to find 5 nodes, a mana leech node, 2 points on mana flows and possibly 2 on another mana passive if needed to push enough free mana out of the gap lvl3 enlighten gives grace + hatred, I wouldnt be using el rings.

What Im going to put in the other link i dunno. Wed and Conc are the only damage dealers that come to mind and are worth it, and I dont want conc, more likely to use inc aoe than conc tbh. The disfavour build can use bloodlust. Part of me wants to use blind but I can never get around the idea of blind as a link tbh, even tho its op as fk.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

Part of me wants to use blind but I can never get around the idea of blind as a link tbh, even tho its op as fk.

Blind is really under rated, as someone who prefers acro/evasion for melee I really like the idea of blind becoming more prevalent but at the moment I can't justify putting it in my links either.

The reduced aoe is pretty noticeable on 1h weapons but with 2h it's hardly noticeable at all. I like that it forces people to play better as in you can't just click halfway across the screen and let cyclone do its thing. You have to be careful to keep your cursor next to your character while cycloning or else you won't have as much control.

Mr. I always play cyclone every league /deathclaw

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they already "nerf" low-attack speed shorthopping Cyclone some time ago by massively buffing the hits a longer-duration Cyclone does? I seem to recall low-APS shorthopping was the best way to use Cyclone for exactly one patch, then they quietly changed the mechanics so that even a moderate attack speed is much better off moving medium distances than relying on that first hit from the start of the skill.

If your attack speed is trash then sure this is a major nerf, but for everyone else Cyclone is still by and far the best melee skill available by a wide margin (excluding reave because that's not really melee by the time you factor Vaal Reave into the mix).

"

I_NO wrote:

Mr. I always play cyclone every league /deathclaw

Hey I played a summoner that one time :p

"

gilrad wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they already "nerf" low-attack speed shorthopping Cyclone some time ago by massively buffing the hits a longer-duration Cyclone does? I seem to recall low-APS shorthopping was the best way to use Cyclone for exactly one patch, then they quietly changed the mechanics so that even a moderate attack speed is much better off moving medium distances than relying on that first hit from the start of the skill.

ya they pretty much killed it, I cant get any more damage out of cyclone by short spamming and mass clicking than i can by just performing a single click run now. I dont like any of this tbh, I liked cyclone when you could do that and it cost an ungoldly amount of mana that basically forbid the small mana pool leeching that fuels everything else. It forced blood magic gem which lost u damage, and then that often forced a life on hit, which lost you damage, and you really needed to go mental on the regen etc because you could drop 3k life purely on cyclone cost in a matter of seconds getting that damage back through short spam.

Now its just like heres a cheap free skill, mana leech it, theres no knack to playing this thing, theres no tactic, no method to it you can learn and get better at, just press the button and mana leech it in your sleep now zzzzzzz... rip something that was more interesting and knowledge based than what we have now.

But, so be it, if thats what they want for the skill Im not going to lose much sleep over it. I will however probably be switching to mana leech, getting even more damage than I had before, and in that sense I cant understand why theyve nerfed this skill about 5 times to the point now where its probably stronger than its been before? lol? That worth tho.







regarding blind, I just love it. Way too annoying to keep up at all the time, but for melee going in against the occasional hard target using blade vortex + blind is savage, it just procs blind like nothing else. Charge up like 4 or 5 before running into a boss and its almost instant blind on contact. Im doing a coc cyclone vortex + bladefall lolbuild on talisman right now. I only have 3 power charges so Im just using a crit strikes gem in the actual links and then I have a manual cast vortex + inc aoe + pcoc + blind that I can click a few times now and then, like an enduring cry for power charges in a way, or mass spam just before a boss. For blinding and getting charges its pretty serious, every second or so it will proc another blind and charge. Without the duration nodes that I have on this build though it would probably be too clunky for a regular play style of keeping up charges with the vortex as your only way of getting them on a build that relied on charges always up. It does however provide them against bosses, which the assassins mark method can often fail to do. Cwdt could be a thing for non evasion builds who get hit a lot for small amounts, just a lvl1 setup.