Help: Chaos/Poison Cyclone Scion theory

Hi,

I'm new to build-making, got the idea that I wanted to twist Cyclone into a tool, mostly because I thought it could be cool. I wanted to stack poison and phys->chaos so cyclone would become mostly chaos damage, coupled with maybe cast-on-crit or other similar triggered abilities.

https://pastebin.com/cw0YDUAj

This is what I've got so far, but I feel like 250K dps and sub-5k life isn't really that great, and I was wondering if there's something I've missed?

Any help / constructive criticism is greatly appreciated :D

I've been thinking about a similar build (melee poison pathfinder) the last few days, but I'm also new at build creation and am still figuring out scaling so not sure how much I can help.

A couple tidbits I've picked up mostly from reading other's builds.

-you can fossil craft a claw that has modifier "60% chance for poisons with this weapon to deal 100% more damage" which you might want to use

-you might want to think about more physical related supports for your main skill. esp impale, rage (which you can use for berserk), melee damage support (which gives 49% MORE damage with poison from the supported skill)

-innsbury edge is cool (I leveled with it <3) but it might not be the best end game choice. see above for the claw, also you can get high pdps swords with poison related affixes and physical damage as extra chaos (whereas innsbury the physical damage is converted to chaos)

-wither totems! wither totems everywhere! okay probably not everywhere cause they die kinda quick but wither=spell totem support=faster casting provides a huge theoretical dps increase

-in POB it says your chance to poison is 60%, which seems a little bit low. maybe find room in your mana set up for herald of agony? also there are some poison nodes just out of reach between ranger and duelist. additionally switching to claws could help with this- i think there are some claw poison nodes even closer and you could always get a wasp's nest unique claw

-your increase life from the tree seems a little low, I was aiming for about 180% based on Engineering Eternity's guide on build making

-read other people's builds! quick trick I've learned: if you can get POB for people's builds go into the calc section and look at what they are scaling off of (though I don't think impale shows up correctly right now)

-have you thought about pathfinder? ;) mostly saying that tongue in cheek, but really am wondering if scion serves you best here rather then trickster, pathfinder, or champion

Good luck, and I'd love to see what you come up with if you keep working on it!

I posted this build both here and on Reddit, and got similar responses which was awesome :D The one on reddit modified it a bit and ended up getting my dps to about 700K without wither stacks, 1.1M with wither. Switching to claws (Wasp Nest) really helped consolidate the nodes.

The reason I picked Scion is actually because of the ability to spread across the tree fairly efficiently, and take some really solid ascendancy passives (and that sweet life brick). It's super annoying though, that PoB doesn't support impale, nor does impale seem to affect in-game dps calculations. Because moving one scion ascendancy from Champion to Berserker buffed me from 700K base dmg to 850K, and to 1.4M with wither stacks, and a whopping 18 aps! However, Champion has innate 20% chance to impale, and does a bunch of extra damage to mobs within melee range, such as maiming, taunting and intimidating. But I have no idea if Champion is stronger then, because it appears PoB can't include any of those aspects.

You mention melee phys, it has been added to cyclone and gained a huge benefit :D

My chance to poison is now 80%, with HoA, still not 100%, but with the attack rate, I think I'm okay. I'm struggling to reach 100% accuracy though, but that's a gearing question.

https://pastebin.com/tbFuh9D4

Here's the updated pastebin if you're interested.

I'm now trying to work out how to level this character, seeing as chaos damage is very hard to find in low level, viper strike seemingly the only solid ability for a while, even after level 28 because base cyclone doesn't do any chaos dmg. Might work with poison support though. Further, Scion has to wait a while before she can reach any poison / chaos nodes.

Also thanks for responding :D

*surreptitiously nabs PoB link from your reddit post* (thanks isjustwrong!)

If you want to try and figure out how impale effects dps you can make a workaround- usually a custom flask though I've seen people use custom item modifiers I think.

If you look at one of the PoB links for Uly's blade storm berserker then you can see an example.

PoB https://pastebin.com/ZiSKH3G8
Guide it comes from https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2513974

As far as leveling, I leveled my first draft Pathfinder who had a similar setup with Lacerate. Of course that requires swords. If you get HoA and a 4 link with good physical melee/ailment connections asap then I think you should be okay. Maybe look at Reave too as an option for leveling?

Overall I think the build looks solid! I would be playing it if cyclone didn't make me feel a bit sick ;)

I started levelling and decided to just use Smite until I can gather the gems needed for the cyclone setup (and reach level 28). I've got a tabula as well as some other leveling uniques so it's really not bad, Smite is a fun ability in its own right.

I was considering picking Slayer as the ascendancy as well, and forgo the 4 points needed to reach Shadow tree and then have both Zerk for Blitz charges and Slayer for life leech + culling + no phys reflect.

No phys reflect + chaos and poison = complete reflect immunity, yet still tons of damage that cannot be blocked :D