Description

Unarmed cyclone duelist - Facebreaker gloves are required!

Suggested Leagues: Default, Anarchy, Onslaught

Passive Skills

Each link will open in a new tab in your browser.

• 30 Points
• 50 Points
• 61 Points (respec)
• 100 Points

Gems

Infernal Blow

Infernal Blow
Melee Physical Damage
Mana Leech
Added Fire Damage

Cyclone (Blood Magic is optional)

Cyclone
Increased Area of Effect
Melee Physical Damage
Life Leech
Blood Magic

Curse

Warlords Mark

Auras

Grace
Blood Magic
Reduced Mana

More Auras

Hatred
Determination
Reduced Mana
Reave

Flasks

Flask Set 1

Diamond Flask
Topaz Flask
Amethyst Flask
Amethyst Flask
Amethyst Flask

Bandits

Help Oak in Normal Difficulty - Rewards +40 to Maximum Life
Help Oak in Cruel Difficulty - Rewards +12% to Physical Damage
Kill all the bandits in Merciless Difficulty - Rewards 1 Passive Skill Point

Gear

Facebreaker gloves are required, of course.

Try to get physical damage increases on your gear (1-4 increased physical damage, etc) as this will be amplified by your facebreaker. 1-4 physical damage on a perfect-rolled facebreaker will turn in to 10-40 damage.

For a facebreaker build, the perfect piece of rare gear will offer you bonus physical damage, health and boosts to all resists.

In your first weapon slot, find a Heavy Quiver with phys damage boosts and optionally life/resistances. (Broadstroke will work here early on)

In your second weapon slot, find a shield that provides life and all resists, and swap to this when you are facing a hard-hitting enemy such as Brutus.

As for flasks, the most important one to get is a Granite Flask with the suffix "Iron Skin".
While most characters will go for the Surgeon's prefix, you cannot deal critical strikes. So try to roll Extra Charges or Increased Charge Recovery. This will allow you to face tank most bosses up to Merciless, and make Physical Reflect much less of a nuisance past that point.

Guide

This build was created by EndOfEnds from the official Path of Exile forums.

----------------------------



What is this guide about?
This guide utilizes the unique Facebreaker gloves to fight your enemies with your bare hands. The abilities you were able to use while unarmed used to be severely limited to only single-target skills. However, with the release of Cyclone, unarmed builds now have an ability solely for AoE purposes.

There are two builds in this guide. Both builds share the same 62 starting points, and then branch off.

One is designed for Hardcore - it is called the Hardcore Tank Build. It is designed for Hardcore because it requires less nodes to invest in the build mechanics, and can focus more on getting more health and armour. Unlike the Default build, it does not invest in Increased Area of Effect passives, and instead uses those points to go for iron reflexes and extra health nodes. While you can use the other build, it is recommended to use this one if you are going to create your character in the hardcore league.

The other build is designed for default (but can by all means be used in hardcore if you like). It uses the Increased Area of Effect support gem and all possible Area radius nodes in the passive tree to turn Cyclone in to the biggest AoE it can possibly reach. By the end of this build, you should be able to Cyclone around and hit far more enemies than you would have originally. Having quality Increased Area of Effect and quality Cyclone helps a lot in this build, as they both add AoE per quality %.

Pros of this build
- You're hitting enemies with your fists. MAN MODE!
- You look like a baws while fighting, check out the Cyclone videos.
- You deal insane amounts of damage from level 16, just from gear, and can focus on survivability.
- Great in solo play, as you will be one hitting just about everything in the game.
- A fun build for PvP, watch your opponent cry as you one-shot-punch them in the face.
- Has little problems against reflect, as Cyclone deals bursts of small damage and your armour is effective at repelling it.
- Counters some of the most annoying enemies - Necromancers (You explode corpses with IB) and Rhoas (Cannot be stunned while in Cyclone)

Cons of this build
- Requires a lot of uniques to work successfully.
- You're a melee, so you will have to get close to the enemies.
- Not so good in group play, as you will no longer be one-shotting things.
- End game becomes very gear dependant, as you need to roll high life on all pieces of gear.
- Very vulnerable to Lightning Thorns in Battlefront. Be very careful there.

Cyclone Mechanics
- Your movement speed will affect how quickly you move while using Cyclone. You will travel to your destination faster, but hit enemies less, with higher movement speed. Lower movement speed also means you will be spending mana less, as you will not have to cast it as often.

- Cyclone spins at your attack speed, and attacks twice per spin. Increasing attack speed will increase the speed of your spins.

- With a Damage Effectiveness of only 40%, gems such as Life Gain on Hit will not be very useful with Cyclone. It attacks twice at a Damage Effectiveness of 40%, effectively dealing 80% attack damage per spin to enemies that are hit.

- The range of Cyclone is dependant on weapon range. It can be increased by both the Master of the Arena node (+2 weapon range) and Increased Area of Effect support gems/passives.

- Only abilities that remove movement speed can stop you while you Cyclone (Bear Trap, Freeze, etc), not even yourself. You are unable to move, and enemies are unable to stun you.

- Cyclone, like almost all weapon skills, alternates weapons when dual wielding. So each weapon will hit once per spin.

Comments