Path of Exile

Cyclone is weird. I wanted to make a new char based on it but I don't like it. I didn't expect D3 WW cause I knew that was unlikely to happen, so really I expected something close to D2 WW. The issue is unlike D2 WW, the aoe is smaller and/or the min distance is bigger in PoE, so you basically cannot chain whirlwind a mob and hit it non stop. You can't triangle it either. It just moves too far, so you spend 25-40% of your time out of range of your intended target spinning in the wind for nothing. You can slow your movement speed like Kripp was trying to do(he had -14% speed) but all that does is once you're out of range of the mob you still move slow as shit and take forever to finish your current spin, and you can't use your spin to move to the next mobs, so it's not really that great either unless you can 100% kill mobs during the first spin.

Damage wise, it's alright. The tooltip DPS is as usual bugged and basically display half the DPS cause it only account for a single hit or something when it should count 2. Even at 2 however the damage isn't exceptional. The only interesting point is the fact you attack twice as fast as your attack speed, which is interesting for procs mostly since everything else is also cut by half in efficiency so that part doesn't matter. Procs are mostly blind, can't use kb as it'll fuck your damage big time, chance to flee the same. Other procs are chance on hit to cause status ailments. I think this is the big thing and the only point where it might be interesting. While 35% efficiency is very low, because it's an attack and with the proper gear, auras and passives, you should be able to proc shocks even on non crits. That's ebcause unlike spells, you can get a very large amount of lightning dmg on items(wake of destruction boots, rings/gloves with 50ish lightning dmg, weapon with 70ish dmg), wrath aura possibly with inner force and then add weapon elemental damage+catalyse to buff that shit up big time. Also Added Lightning for the quality bonus. Once you reach the correct amount to shock, Cyclone will tear mobs apart due to the retarded attack speed(and the fact you're stacking attack speed too). Then add Prolif to it and everything is shocked and dies instantly. Can do a crit variant with dagger build and shadow 30% lightning dmg but I don't know if it's viable hp wise would need to check it out. Can also add tempest shield+added lightning+prolif and rely on a high block shield and possibly on block talents.

The biggest issue is you can do more or less that same shit with Cleave, and Cleave is better if you use dual wield, by like a very large margin. It has large aoe(granted it's only in front but the base is larger so aoe passives are also larger), it does a fuckton more damage, it doesn't move you around. You could if you wanted use a prolif/lightning based ele cleave just the same too, and while cleave attacks quite a lot slower even with DW, it also hits that much harder so you don't have to go too high on lightning dmg to actually proc shocks(both hands benefit each from your lightning dmg, then all that damage is added in one single hit so cleave will often hit as hard as a spell with the proper elemental buffs and conc effect). If you could dagger cleave or claw cleave I think no one would bother using this. For other weapon types I don't think you should bother cycloning instead of cleaving, not with the current values.

Finally as physical, it seems to be absolutely awful and I don't really see a point of going phys with it. It does get 4% phys per point but that's like a lot of other melee skills, and besides stacking life leech there isn't much of a point and I don't quite see why you'd be doing that over killing stuff faster. I guess maybe in a super high health high lifeleech high liferegen build with good chaos resist so you can run blood rage. You'd be tankier than an ele cyclone, but you'd kill a lot slower most likely especially since armor on mobs would reduce more dmg on cyclone than other attacks(2small hits vs 1big hits is always worth in physical).

Jewelry is always going to show much lower req level on it because of the mechanics of ilvl and req level. On any given item, you have 2 things checked to determine required level. First is the base item, basically what the white version has for req. For weapons and armor there's better and better versions, but for iron rings the base version is always 1. Second is the level requirement for the highest mod you rolled, mods being capped by the ilvl of the item. However and that's the important part, it's only 80% of that level req. Meaning if the mod you rolled requires ilvl 50 on the item, it won't make it req lvl 50 if you roll it, it'll make it req lvl 40 only. As such it's rare to have a ring anywhere near your actual lvl req unless you roll higher ilvl rings.

Also the higher the ilvl, the more potential shitty rolls you can get and as such those won't increase the lvl req much. For example if you roll 48health, which is still pretty decent, the req would only be lvl 20.(24*.8 and it rounds up apparently). On a lvl 44 ring, you can roll 7 different health mods so rolling a high one isn't necessarily that easy, when you even roll the right prefix.

It's very much like the lottery, your chances of getting a good ring are low. You can craft a ring bit by bit but it's very expensive. You take a high ilvl ring, scour it so it's white if it wasn't, transmute it then alt+augment until you find 2 good mods(generally that'd be health for prefix and resist or attack speed for suffix), then regal that which is 3 alchs basically and hope you roll a good 3rd stat. From there if it's really good you can exalt, or you can sell it for a profit, and if it sucks you start it again with a scouring.

I've made quite a lot of rings and amulets and while I've gotten lucky a couple of times, most of the crap I made went into the chaos recipe(prenerf) and now I'd just vendor it for alts. It's not really profitable, but it's not so bad either, I got a few ok rolled neck I sold for a few GCPs each so it covered most of what I invested over time. However at times I rolled 12-15alchs on lvl 60 rings and amulets I found in felshrine, and got a grand total of jackshit out of it.

You might be better off buying stuff from other players directly, the cost is high in general but there's no luck involved.

As for quality yes quality on caster weapons is useless.

Really the only thing to make a successful HC char is to build with a lot of health. You should have 200%health by 70(so 87-90points or so), in my opinion. You can do with less but that's just gonna be riskier, and that's even more of an issue on a first char without a bunch of health gear lying around and stuff. That severely limits you offensive options and such, so getting a good weapon or quality spells or whatever is important, and so is carefully selecting only the strongest passives for dmg purposes.

Other than that though, there isn't really any trick like grinding a ton. I mean you grind but that's just the way to level in this game I feel, rush to ledge, run it a few times until you have enough levels to keep going, rush western forest, grind until enough levels, rush docks, grind until enough levels, rinse repeat. I generally do Ledge till 9 and don't bother grinding it in cruel or merc, western forest to 22 in normal, 44-46 in cruel and I don't do western in merc(too dangerous if you desync), docks to 32 in norm, 52 in cruel, until whatever you want in merc but at least 70+. And in merc mostly my goal is rushing to Felshrine, avoid side quests areas especially flicker pirates and skeleton rhoas, and grind Felshrine till 64-68 depending on the build to get a good amount of hp to progress, kill vaal and grind sarn/docks until maps.

But in none of these I grind until I overlevel a lot, I usually stop when I'm the same level as these zones, sometimes I go a couple levels higher depending on the build and what you get next and how you feel about your gear and stuff, but other than in merc felshrine I don't overgrind areas. Merc Vaal is scary though so I always spend more time at that point building up and making sure I have as much hp as I can before I go there. Also Felshrine drop maps at a semi decent rate so it's a decent place to grind at, even though sarn is probably better but vaal can and will kill your char if you're not careful while there's really nothing dangerous on the way to felshrine.