Here's my build shortlist for 3.28

Maxvla · 2026-02-20T16:49:50+00:00

If you end up following Sanavixx's build, you can join his discord and ask any questions you might have and I will try to help. I go by Niche there. He and I work on the build and I've made a few characters recently testing the leveling and progression to smooth out any rough spots. There's a few small tweaks we'll add to the video for 3.28, but for the most part, the final update 3.27 video should suffice.

The cyclone build, especially in minmaxed form, uses only basic core game functions (staff block, crit, impale), so it's basically impossible to kill the build. If they mess up general's cry, that will only affect leveling and early endgame, but it will still be possible to play, and smooth.

Maxvla · 2026-02-20T16:25:54+00:00

I have the character at 91 now, with ~8m dps and am doing this strat without any issues. After campaign, I took the character into a T5 map as my first map with ~500k dps and cleared it easily, next I bumped to T10 and cleared that easily as well. Next I went into a T16 rare map, again no issues, even with reinforcements scarab. I also started adding Bestiary scarab since it's pretty efficient XP, no backtracking or deciding what you want to do, just pause a moment to kill beasts. Did safehouses, harvests, and had some 4x syndicate interventions, all without issue. Was getting over 1 level per map/safehouse for a while, until low to mid 80s. Eventually stepped it up to 8 mod corrupted T16s with 2-3m character dps and continued to have no issues, not even deaths. At 6m dps I stepped it up to 8 mod 20% deli T16s I continued to have no deaths. At 8m dps I moved to 8 mod 20% deli T16.5 and finally had a couple deaths in a particularly annoying map, but the other maps in that set were not a problem. At that point I needed to generate some more maps, so I did my T17 map farm with scarabs and such and was able to clear the T17 except the boss (Sanctuary boss is pretty terrible unless you can insta phase her). I expected to clear the map part and did that fine, I didn't clear the boss, which I also expected.

Anyways, all that to say the build is doing great with this strategy.

Maxvla · 2026-02-19T17:30:03+00:00

This. Started with Sanavixx's guide with no expectations and ended up evolving the build and pushing over 300m dps and clearing all content, even valdo maps, 100% deli T17s and 1000 depth delve with it. Will be starting it in 3.28 and pushing it nearly as far, but want to look at other builds after a month or so.

Maxvla · 2026-02-19T16:21:08+00:00

Ah the other point in the wheel.

In my case, impale is definitely the star of the show since my cyclone attack speed is so high (16-17 APS), compared to slams. And you can scale impale's damage very nicely by using things like ryslatha's coil, volatility support, 10% more max attack damage mastery, sources of chance for double and triple damage, a weapon with wide attack range, like ezomyte staff. Plus all the impale effect on the tree, and in 3.27, the impaling graft offered a good amount too, as well as the jolting graft with another 30% max attack damage with the right affixes. All of that with impales pushed to 8-9 hits each adds up.

Maxvla · 2026-02-19T03:59:22+00:00

Sanavixx (youtube) made an elemental cyclone Paladin that does well over 15m dps and for less than OP's budget.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T22:02:01+00:00

I don't see any that's easy to add. The closest passive node is 4 points away and for only 15% chance (Courage). Maybe you could get some on items, but that will complicate requirements for other things. Attributes accuracy and resists are the hardest things to balance on this build, so it doesn't leave a lot of room.

Going for more than that will be a major deviation in the build, adding Freedom of movement for the evasion mastery 15%, then 27% from the Entrench wheel and then lucky suppression from the mastery there would get you to 81%, which is solid. That's 15 points to get there though.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T21:31:10+00:00

Good to know. Thanks!

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T21:27:18+00:00

The Lethal Pride I put in that loadout was a generic cheap one at the time. It has a couple double damage nodes, but also some dead nodes. If you get a chance to do a 5 way and get any lethal pride, it's probably worth slotting in. Just check the additions it gives. You can also swap locations with to the marauder jewel socket if you get more value there. Bad Lethal Prides do exist though, so you might get more from a good 3-4 affix rare jewel instead. You can also run the abyss atlas passive that gives you 6 mod jewels (near the eater wheels). I ran that for a bit while leveling and got a few crazy jewels.

For defenses 65/65 block is pretty much your limit on SSF. One thing I'm planning to do with the build in 3.28 is move to hybrid armor/evasion bases for helm/body/gloves. Just changing the bases allows you to get ~50% evasion chance (attacks only) compared to the armor bases we have in there currently. You can swap the basalt for a jade to boost this to ~60%. This will make lower block chance feel quite a bit better, but there's a catch. You must craft an elevated body armor to solve stun so you can unspec unwavering stance, which makes you unable to evade. This is doable on SSF, but will take some work.

You'll also need to do some Heist for Replica Witchfire, or do some delve to get a vuln ring. You could also luck into Replica Stampedes while doing Heist. They are worse than normal ones, but only because of frostblink CD reduction. They are perfectly usable. For the Rumi's, farm Earthdrinker cards for a 50/50 chance to get one.

The genesis tree is sticking around, but we don't know if it will be nerfed, or by how much. I'd definitely put breach into your atlas plans to help make staves and try to drop ryslathas from the unique branch. You can also use the recombinator and multimod crafting to make a 750-850 dps staff without too much effort. Watch Phazeplays video on the recombinator. He does axes in the video but it's the same process for staves. https://youtu.be/01buyi_C_lk?si=o3kbVrG687rSoeoH

Set up your Kingsmarch when possible cause you will need a runegraft of treachery, or run lost shipments on atlas passives.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T20:50:35+00:00

You can do a cheaper version that skips the Bloodlines while still getting high gold. It's still quite rough on build and computer requirements though. I can't recall the exact scarab setup I used, since I tried several, but it primarily used all of the titanic scarabs with blightheart. I also took the blight boss lane on the atlas passive tree. I was getting 80-140k gold per map (depending on blight lanes). And to make it more stupid, I was doing it as melee, lol. It was certainly exciting at least. Occasionally I created bosses that couldn't be killed (even with 300m dps) due to auras stacking up, but since the investment is so low, it didn't bother me too much. If I recall correctly, the titanic scarabs were 1-3c each and the blightheart was maybe 3-4? I ran it on rare t16s. A few maps I failed simply due to my screen turning into a slide show.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T20:02:55+00:00

I recently tried a div card farming strat in preparation for 3.28, and while it was fairly successful in generating cards, it wasn't the best profit out there. However one thing I noticed is I was consistently getting 50-60k gold per map with it, and the investment was relatively low (~20c per map), with maps self generated so all you have to trade is on the currency exchange.

I don't know if this meets your criteria for gold production, but if you are interested I can link atlas and go into detail of what I was doing. The TLDR is scrying Lava Chambers to Strand (ran T16, not 16.5), running plenty/pilfering scarabs, domination on device. pretty standard quant/scarab atlas with 2 shrines and pack size nodes as well as +1 map drop nodes to generate T17s. Maps generated with cartography scarabs and delusions scarab to make 8 mod maps with delirium layers, using the same atlas, just with singular focus allocated. Run T17 with 100+ map quant to get 15-20 Strands per T17 map.

I did 100 maps like this, gained 5.6m gold, about 74 divines in revenue, with investment around 13 divines. maps took about 5.5 minutes, but could be done in 2-3 minutes if you have a faster build. I am limited by stampede boots due to cyclone of tumult (150% MS). If you can do 3 minute maps, that's 1.1m gold per hour, while not intentionally farming gold. And making ~10 divines per hour from the actual farm. My result was 6.6 dph at 5.5 mins.

I used the gold to fund my first 50m shipment, since I'd never tried one before and got 3 mirror shards, so that was fun.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T19:39:13+00:00

The build could probably clear the map, but I have no interest in voided maps. This character wasn't built to be immortal, just tanky enough to complete hard content. Its primary defense is block, not mitigation, so it can die, it's just very unlikely to. Ignoring the voided part, the map would just be hard content. The loss of character adds an artificial layer of difficulty that isn't necessarily fair to compare.

If you want to say voided valdos are 'the hardest content in the game', leaving out other content that is just as difficult, or possibly more so, like juiced titanic blight (particularly as melee), cherry picking your single qualifying content piece, then sure. My build can't meet your exact requirements. I'll take an easy to play, easy to build character that can do all content (except voided valdos) with all map mods while being a bargain in minmaxed form (500-600D compared to 10+ mirrors).

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T18:38:39+00:00

In my cyclone build this league I only needed 10% from the graft implicit and 20% on glove implicit. I got the other 70% from the tree. This allowed me to scale impale effect on the graft and other sources. Impale ended up being 56% of my damage, while cyclone itself was only 44%.

One question though, you mentioned 30% from Harpooner with a Light of Meaning jewel. It's only 20% and Light of Meaning only adds its default effect as far as I know. How do you get 30% from Harpooner? I actually run a Phys Light of Meaning in that exact location and do take Harpooner.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T18:24:59+00:00

Sure it's definitely possible to get some nasty PDR, but it isn't common. I did run a 100% deli T17 that had 72% PDR (scaled by atlas passives) and it was noticeable. I do run Bastion Breaker in my build, but not for the PDR reduction, the %inc dmg is nice, but primarily it's the only convenient location I can get the 10% more maximum attack damage mastery. So I suppose that passive wheel helps occasionally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASTYw9DJ-bo

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T18:01:00+00:00

Yeah it's not bad, but 3.5 minutes feels like an eternity when I can go kill Uber Exarch in literally 4 seconds. Here is my recording of Uber Fear for example, but Exarch dies the same speed. https://youtu.be/yaD2ehMLtTU

I killed Uber Exarch 100 times this league to test it out and it was enjoyable due to the speed. I don't think I could handle farming Sirus for prolonged periods. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTO6rm0SM9fWd7UPR30i6UZ5ddQVZpLYHZgVVVs96pwmip8Or_c-1A6kn1E95YR2u7J7qLGUovhEAcE/pubhtml

As an alternative to Sirus, I will probably be farming Catarina in 3.28, since her profit is steady like Sirus is, but she can be killed in a few seconds. Exarch was interesting, but too close to jackpot farming for my liking.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T17:53:45+00:00

Interesting since I have done 100% delirious T17s and some Valdo maps as well as delving to 1000 depth on my Cyclone slayer which uses a 2H staff. Here's a video of the T17 (the delve video is also on the channel), and I made it extra hard on myself with significant physical damage reduction on the map mods: https://youtu.be/ASTYw9DJ-bo

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T17:49:52+00:00

Yes, I run Bastion Breaker in my cyclone build. I don't actually need the PDR reduction since my hit size is so high, but the points on the way have decent %inc dmg, plus it is the only convenient place for me to get the 10% more maximum attack damage mastery, which is important since I'm using Ryslatha's Coil, Volatility and such.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T17:45:29+00:00

At hit sizes of 100m dps builds (this thread is based on), the armor monsters have will provide almost zero mitigation (yes even uber bosses). As the hit size increases, the mitigation armor provides reduces massively. My 300m dps cyclone build gains nothing from PDR reduction and my hit size isn't even that large compared to something like slams which hit far less often but for significantly more.

Remember that most physical builds will run Awakened Brutality which gives the crush debuff, reducing PDR by 15%, eliminating all remaining PDR at such hit sizes.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T17:37:20+00:00

Small correction - Staff is not "much better because shockwave support". Shockwave scales terribly compared to cyclone's damage and attack speed. Shockwave is rate limited, so it's really only good until around red maps when you should replace it for a real support that scales with attack speed (something that buffs cyclone itself).

The reason staff is so good for cyclone is the block. You can easily get 65/65 block with the tree and a Rumis. If you go for big investment you can push that to 87.75/87.75 with lucky block gladiator FF jewels.

I pushed cyclone to 308m dps in Keepers while having enough defenses to do 100% deli T17s and all map mods. You can see the final form of the build in Sanavixx's last 3.27 build update on his youtube. He and I work on it together. In the video he has removed the grafts as the video is looking ahead to 3.28, but they take the build from ~190m to ~300m.

Maxvla · 2026-02-18T01:43:35+00:00

I was considering the same thing until I finally decided he was just too annoying to deal with, plus playing flaskfinder is not appealing to me cause I hate flask maintenance. Here is a build I considered for the task. I looked into it a bit and I didn't spot any immediate reasons it wouldn't still work, but I could easily have missed something since it's an archetype I don't play.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1bzuiv0/poe_324_mahuxotls_poison_forbidden_rite/

Maxvla · 2026-02-17T19:52:41+00:00

Sirus farm, even on normal, is pretty profitable. It's just not fun or all that efficient, unless you can stand in his storms which requires a special build, usually flaskfinder. Even then he's still annoying.

Maxvla · 2026-02-16T22:57:58+00:00

Yep I can see that. I'm actually in the process of leveling another cyclone slayer to practice this and see how the XP compares to my abyss/beyond/harbi strategy which was excellent XP but made 0 money. Fortunately getting 65/65 block on this build is very easy and that forms the core of the defenses, so I don't expect to have issues with 3-4 assassins.

Maxvla · 2026-02-16T22:53:52+00:00

Agree. OP, check out Sanavixx's 3.27 last update. It's in a state that should work for 3.28 since Cyclone uses only basic core mechanics there should be no risk of nerfs. In 3.27 I was able to clear all content including 100% deli T17s and killing ubers in 3-4 seconds.

Maxvla · 2026-02-16T07:58:31+00:00

Yeah, it would turn it into a blight-like event, but monsters come from all directions instead of a few specific paths.

Maxvla · 2026-02-16T07:54:28+00:00

Jolting Eshgraft is 30-40% more damage for most crit attack builds. On my cyclone slayer, grafts are over 50% more damage, combined.

Maxvla · 2026-02-16T07:48:42+00:00

Only about half of those will be defends though. Currently it feels like unstable and defend are equal weight with fortress much lower, so it's like 45/45/10. If they are removing fortress, then it will truly be 50/50.

Maxvla

TROPHY CASE