[2.5][SC] Uul-Netol's Embrace Cyclone of Blood

Why?

I'll tell you why. Because I can. And because I haven't seen another build centered around Uul-Netol's Embrace. I'll tell you. This axe is unbelievably good and highly underrated. Allow me to explain a bit about how this build works.



Explanation

Ah you are still reading. Good for you.

This build centers around the bleed mechanic. Not to deal massive amounts of DoT damage, but simply because it not only improves our damage against targets that are bleeding, but allows us to unleash a bone nova of mass destruction. We take the Gladiator ascendancy because it improves our damage against bleeding targets (obviously bleed chance doesnt help this axe but it does kind of help during leveling). Unfortunately, most of the rest of the Gladiator ascendancy goes to waste because we dont need block.

We use Blasphemy linked to Vulnerability to not only cause enemies hit by our axe to bleed, but also because it increases physical and bleed damage. Every little bit helps. The trick here though is to NOT CAUSE TOO MUCH DAMAGE. What do I mean? We dont want to 1-shot anything. We want a fast time-to-kill certainly, but we want it to take 2 hits not one. Why? Because the axe doesnt release a bone nova if you kill an enemy that's not bleeding because it's dead. So 2 hits. Not 1. That is also why i havent taken a lot of damage nodes in the passive tree, as you will see, and instead focus on life, arm/eva, and leech.

To wrap all of this together, your cyclone should work a bit like this:
1. Press selected cyclone button to start spinning.
2. Spin through several mobs, hitting them at least twice.
3. Watch as they explode (thanks to ascendancy!) for 10% of their hp and release a bone nova.
3a. If you are running Herald of Ash (I am) then you will also proc (most of the time) the overkill ignite AoE effect. Awesome. It's almost like we are running Cast on Melee Kill. But we aren't.

GEAR!

The absolute greatest part of the build is it's versatility gear-wise. You can run an arm base or an arm/eva base or run arm/eva and pick up Iron Reflexes if you choose (will be much easier after 2.6 when they link the Spirit Void/Vitality Void circle to the bottom of the tree)

DISCLAIMER:Because I am an odd and off-meta person, I am choosing to try out the unique belt Perseverance. Hence, I am running Arm/Eva base. Here's how I'm rolling:

Body Armor: Lightning Coil (currently 5l cuz I missed most of the league thanks to internet difficulties and I am poor. Still do tons of damage)

Lightning Coil provides decent arm/eva stats, hp, and a nice heap of NEGATIVE lightning resistance. In return, we get an effective 22.5% physical damage mitigation due to 30% of physical damage taken being converted to to Lightning damage, which is reduced by 75% (ideally).

Helmet: Devoto's Devotion

Awesome Helmet. Relatively Cheap (at the timing of this post). We get Attack Speed! Dexterity! Chaos Resistance! 20% Move Speed! and Mercury Footprints! all for the measly price of only 10% of our physical damage. Well. I say 10% but it's really not. I dont want to do the math on this. However it is 10% reduced instead of 10% less so it counters a tad bit of damage on our tree.

Gloves: RARES WITH LIFE AND RESISTS (Try and get high Lightning resistance on everything you can)

Boots: RARES WITH LIFE, RESISTS, MOVEMENT SPEED (again lightning resist)

Off Hand: If you have an off hand available, you are using the wrong axe.

Accessories: Really again with the rares with resists and life. Weapon elemental damage cant hurt. Most important part here is you will probably need to take some intelligence on your accessories to make up for lack of in tree. Im currently running Carnage Heart and Le Heup of All which are pretty much good for lots of ALL ATTRIBUTES and some reduced life (ouch but it's ok) and ALL RESISTANCE and flat increased damage and some really nice physical life leech.

Belt: CURRENTLY running a rare with Life, Tri Res, and Phys Damage. AKA CLOTH BELT WEEBS. Planning to switch to Perseverance when I hit 78. Gives armor, evasion, damage based on armor/evasion (hence the reason I'm running hybrid) and onslaught while you have fortify (WHAAAAAAAAT FREE ATTACK AND MOVESPEED WHILE WE CYCLONE!?)

Ok so like I said before, if you dont want to run Perseverance, you can use whatever armor you like. My original plan was to run Bringer of Rain (seems like it would be good....might still try for a bit. But i like my minotaur armor mtx) or you could run a Devoto's with Kaom's Heart. I dont advise this though. See Below.

My Gear:



LINK TIME (AKA What you've all been waiting for you greedy bastards)

Body Armor:
4L: Cyclone-Melee Physical Damage-Fortify-Blood Magic
5L: Faster Attacks/Added Fire Damage
6L: Something that would help damage here. Like Weapon Elemental Damage. Or the other of the 5L gems. Or life leech if you want more.

Helmet:
4L: Typical CWDT setup. Cast When Damage Taken-Immortal Call-Molten Shell-Flame Golem

Gloves:
4L: Blasphemy-Vulnerability-Leap Slam-Herald of Ash
Edit: during the original making of this guide, I was using Leap Slam. However, with the unique belt, I no longer feel that leap slam is necessary. So I changed it out for Enlighten. Not that we really need that either due to cyclone being blood magic.

Boots:
4L: Ancestral Warchief-Added Fire Damage-Melee Physical Damage-Bloodlust (SO MUCH DAMAGE THANKS TO OUR BLEED! THATS A MORE MODIFIER BITCHES!)

Axe:
Here is why i don't advise Kaom's. The axe casts bone nova. WHICH CAN BE SUPPORTED BY GEMS IN THE AXE. Hypothetically you can run your cyclone in your axe however you lose a lot of effective damage. My bone nova currently 1-shots most trash mobs in up to tier 10 maps (highest I've run so far. However I'm trash and get shit on by bosses. Might be better when i have more HP). The other thing to note here is that the sockets DO NOT HAVE TO BE LINKED to support the Bone Nova (see Whispering Ice builds for similar ideals)

6S: Physical Projectile Damage-Added Fire Damage-Greater Multiple Projectiles-Iron Grip-Slower Projectiles/Pierce-Point Blank/Pierce

Bandits
Norm-Oak
Cruel-Oak
Merci-Kill All

Passive Tree
Current Character lv is 79. This is the tree:
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAQCAAHnBLMFLQthDkMTTBQgFE0V7BfhGJEaPhpVG_oc5yPTJd8m-DGeNZI26DrhPAU8LT0AQzFGaUd-TP9N404qTjJQR1ivXz9hIWRSZU1nm2jyah5qO2zYbydvO3KpdO12rHgNeu982YGbggeDX4TZhO-HaorwjM-QbJpqns2iAKQZplenMKknqW6plK2Nrj6uUK9stfK2LLkdvJ-9Nr54vqfAGsBmxPbGrsqQzV_PftIh2L3ZfNrB5FHpRuoY7w7vfPAf8i_yQfJF9kj3Mvjr_Ev-Cv6P

I feel that the tree is very optimal for this particular build. Again i would like to reiterate that we dont want too much damage. We dont want to 1-shot anything. However, I am sure a tad bit more damage would help later tier maps. My plans for the future of this character and future endeavors are aimed at survivability though. I will probably take a bit more health and leech.

Thanks for joining me on this super exciting journey coated in BLOODY FOUNTAINS OF DOOM AND DESTRUCTION OF YOUR ENEMIES! If you have any questions, I will try my best to provide answers. Any suggestions will be met with apprehensive appreciation.

I plan on using this build in the upcoming Fall of Oriath expansion. I do, however, expect it to be extremely difficult and costly to obtain this axe in Fall of Oriath with the changes to bleed, poison, etc. They will become incredibly strong i believe and this axe will be a really good option for builds in the future. I will also be tweaking the build in the future once i get to test out the new support gems and after they release new uniques. There will probably be at least a few geared at bleed based builds. On that note, it is likely I will also be trying this as a Scion in Fall.

I love this axe as well!! I decided to just get the bleed proc with bone explosions and not focus on bleed as much so I've been playing as a slayer and loving it. Heres a link to my characters https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Krogardious/characters An_Edge_Lord. Ive been testing out full evasion build with a 5L Queen of the Forest, but im pretty sure I need a lot more life nodes to do this comfortably. Also, ive put poison into my 5L with cyclone just to help my single target damage on bosses, and have a fairly good success.

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I love this axe as well!! I decided to just get the bleed proc with bone explosions and not focus on bleed as much so I've been playing as a slayer and loving it. Heres a link to my characters https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Krogardious/characters An_Edge_Lord. Ive been testing out full evasion build with a 5L Queen of the Forest, but im pretty sure I need a lot more life nodes to do this comfortably. Also, ive put poison into my 5L with cyclone just to help my single target damage on bosses, and have a fairly good success.

Im pumped that someone else sees how good this axe really is. I can only imagine its ungodly power once Fall of Oriath releases. No longer with Atziri's stand at the pinnacle of axes.