Re leveling:
League start: Pick up any physical skill that deals damage that you like, cleave, dual strike, I like Perforate but I don't know why I like it. Dual wield whatever you find, swords and axes are the best usually, make use of the vendor recipe: weapon+whetstone+rare rustic sash = weapon w %inc physical damage
don't use facebreaker before cyclone, there really isn't that much you can use it with. facebreaker is really cheap, unless on the day of league start which passed, so get it after you kill gravicius and equip it with cyclone, get some shield and you're good to go basically. as soon as you get Master of Metal from the lab and have Facebreaker bonus, you deal massive amounts of damage and all content is trivialised. Make sure to get rings and amulets with phys damage to attacks on them. Also make sure to get everything that gives you impale as soon as you can.
Good progression/leveling uniques in no particular order: Blackheart, Le Heup of All, Deidbell, Great Old One's Ward, Feastbind in addition to all the usual leveling uniques you should know by now: Tabula Rasa, Thief's Torment, Goldrim, Wurm's Molt, Wanderlust etc
The two rings are best in slot but you can do without them, they add a lot of damage so they are worth it, but if you can't afford then you can't afford. Get something with life, res, physical damage to attacks. I am playing a version of this, and I still don't have them. At the moment equipping one ring would increase my damage by 20%. So it is a lot. But it is not Cospri or Mjolner or Poet's Pen, you don't need them for the build to work, they are really good but you'll be able to play this.
The only unique you actually need is Facebreaker, which is really cheap always.
When it comes to Deep Cuts, a single node increases my damage by 8.5% right now according to PoB. There is a limit where adding imaple stacking does anything of course but it is an orthogonal method to scale damage so it is always good. The cluster jewels are insanely powerful if you theorycraft well. They put stuff together.
Basically the number of nodes is so small you can always find the exact jewel you need on the market. It might be super expensive but it is there. For large jewel, I think you should go with Attack nodes, the only implicit/enchant that works is "10% attack damage" unless you use the talisman in which case you can also utilize "claws deal 12% damage with attacks", slightly wider choice mostly as 2% doesn't really matter.
When choosing a jewel, make sure you know which notables are prefixes and which suffixes. Jewel socket is always a suffix. Make sure to have as few passive skills on the jewel as possible. Minimum for large is 8. If you have 3 notables and two jewel sockets, that means there are only 3 small nodes, one of which you can skip. And you should because you have better nodes at the duelist starting area.
For medium jewel, I personally advise to take the channeling one. With talisman, the best notable is Perfect Focus, but there is also Hex Breaker (which you only need 1 of) and some other defensive/hybrid options. Remember, you can get a large jewel with two sockets what means two medium and two small jewels and you can stack the same notables!
Area damage one for medium is also ok if you care about AoE.
For small, most people will tell you to go for life and I won't disagree but there is argument to be made for block or chaos res. Assuming you get life, you get up to 20% inc life for 3 passive points (https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Delirium/vyZ4OQDhE), that is absolutely insane, because that is just a standard 3 point life cluster, but you don't need to travel to it, it is right there, no pathing. There is no point to travel to scion wheel anymore in my opinion. Why? because it is too far away and you need to take useless 10 strength nodes. If you need more life after collecting everything from the duelist area get another jewel.
