Just wrapped up an intense week of gaming on my Spirit Walker, made it to level 97, farmed my own Mageblood and did all content in the game.

Never played twisters before but this time around decided to give it a try to see how it performs compared to the usual stuff I play (bows, Lspear, etc).

The reason I find it extremely satisfying is that we are able to use the combo playstyle from level 2 and onwards, and every single level, every item allows us to tweak our actual build instead of having to play with something else and swap later.

At this point I can do 3h 40m speedrun (any %), but even for me it is jarring on league starts or alt characters to have to play without my main skill for hours before I can transition to my actual build.

Some skills simply unlock too late in the campaign (comet, ice shot, tornado, etc etc) and for many people who are slower in the game this takes a significant time to get to. I believe this is one of the biggest contributing factors to the negative sentiment towards leveling at league start. People will naturally get better at the game and will be able to complete the campaign quicker every new league, but the floor of some gem level requirements has to come down, and hopefully the viable skills to use will also be expanded upon given each gem level having a very limited number of skills.

Twisters to me is a pinnacle example of the mechanical combo based playstyle that I think GGG wants to promote. You start out with a 6 button combo (parry, fangs,whirl3x,twister) which transforms into (barrage,iceTipped,whirl3x,twister) in the mid game and down to 3 skills in the end game when you get strong enough. I do hope this will not get nerfed to the ground come next league but other skills get brought up to the mechanics and damage level of this combo playstyle.

Just wanted to share some of my thoughts after having played this league a LOT this week. It has been incredibly fun and rewarding (apart from the wrist pain in the first few days).

Lawschoolishell

33 | 7 hours ago

I agree with the concept. I’m playing a plants Druid this league and it’s so nice to have your main skills in act 1

demiskeleton

1 | 8 minutes ago

I saw ranger also has two plant skills but is the only way to make plants overgrown the druid thunderstorm skill?

tazdraperm

23 | 7 hours ago

Part of why it feels so good is that it’s very strong. Decent damage and clear.

Playing this game without strong build feels really really bad (both in the campaign and the endgame).

Early-Journalist-14

8 | 2 hours ago

Playing this game without strong build feels really really bad (both in the campaign and the endgame).

you got that right for sure.

made worse by the fact that you’re basically incapable of building defense to match what the game throws at you until well into maps. It’s kill or be killed the whole campaign and most of early mapping.

if your build lacks damage, you suffer.

-Dargs

16 | 7 hours ago

I thought it felt good because it wasn’t weak as fuck compared to like 99% of all other skills. Being able to play it though the campaign is definitely a bonus too.

Biflosaurus

7 | 7 hours ago

It actually matters to be able to play your skill early.

Having to play something else that you might not like for many levels is very annoying.

Witch-Alice | Commissioned 177013 coins to commemorate Cadiro

1 | 32 minutes ago

Yup, the fastest way to make me go find another build guide is to tell me to level with an entirely different build.

__sputnik__

-2 | 7 hours ago

Why not play something else that you like until then?

starks_are_coming

10 | 7 hours ago

Because the thing that you like might not be available from level 1?

__sputnik__

-13 | 7 hours ago

Do you only like the one thing you are going to play this league? Person above says twister is great so they can play that until they unlock Calamity or whatever else high level skill

egudu

5 | 4 hours ago

until they unlock Calamity or whatever else high level skill

Now please give two logically good reasons on why those ‘high level skill’ have to be unlocked later in the first place instead of being there on lvl1.

__sputnik__

-3 | 4 hours ago

Character/fantasy progression
Continuing tradition from poe1

egudu

3 | 3 hours ago

logically good reasons

2 is not one that derives from a logic standpoint - “we have always done bullshit” is not a valid reason to do it.

1 is also not valid since there is no progression - why is a oil grenade in this fantasy world much harder to create than an explosive grenade? Why is a flame wall so much ‘easier’ to cast than an ice wall since it’s available since a low level? Cannot be ice, since an ice nova seems to be as easy as a flame wall. There is no good reason for that, hence this argument also falls flat.

Biflosaurus

2 | 4 hours ago

I’m fine with having to play something else for a moment.

The issue is that some options are straight up awfull.

I took war as an exemple your choices are :

Rolling slam does very good damage and since the buff is cool to play

Earthquake. It’s god awfull early on with the delay before doing any sort of damage.

Boneshatter. Cannot be a main skill since it need the target to be primed for stun and can often only be used once for bossing.

I do”t remember the second row of skill you get after that, I just know you have access to Shockwave totem ad that’ s it’s not great either early since the totems dies super fast.

So that leaves you with just auto attacking bone shatter or rolling slam until the end of act 1.

I wouldn’t mind playing something else until I get the skill I want to play. But it makes the progression feels bad since every skill you unlock require some very specific setup (boneshatter) or are just awfull early on (earthquake)

There’s a reason every single war leveling is playing shield wall and it’s that the rest of the options are just bad.

__sputnik__

2 | 3 hours ago

Yeah if you don’t like all early skills in your starting weapon class then the only answer is play different weapon and it sucks for people who like certain class fantasy. Buff maces

Biflosaurus

1 | 3 hours ago

Some options are also considerably weaker than other

In war it’d very telling that your best single target is your auto attack, and that for almost all of act 1.

Biflosaurus

2 | 7 hours ago

What if there isn’t?

The warrior skills early on are all pretty terrible for instance.

Hiskaya1

11 | 7 hours ago

Totally agree. Additionally, I think skills could have ranks too, similar to support gems. Then, everything could be available from level 1 but in a very limited manner. Increasing the skills rank (Twister I -> Twister II) could improve its base stats, add new interactions, etc. allowing you to play your build (any build) right from the beginning without losing the sense of progression.

Disastrous_Ball_336

1 | 7 hours ago

i thought threshold jewels in poe1 were an elegant solution to this, but they removed those a few years ago and just buffed the base skills

AnxiousPlatypus0

1 | 7 hours ago

The problem with threshold jewels is that skills that had them pretty much always wanted them equipped. That means that for the skill to be on par with other skills, it took up 1-2 jewel sockets that other builds can use for power.

If they buffed the skills and kept threshold jewels, then the skills would end up being stronger than other skills when the jewels are equipped, meaning they would just be stronger than other builds (at least at low investment).

They could have made threshold jewels for every skill in the game as another option.

Hiskaya1

1 | 7 hours ago

How did they work? I’ve never played poe1.

Disastrous_Ball_336

3 | 6 hours ago

early act 4 you get a choice of unique jewel corresponding to the skills you got at the start of act 1, and if there are enough of specific attributes in radius of the jewel the skill gets a bonus effect (like spark firing extra projectiles and in a circle).

so you get weaker skills at start incentivizing trying out new skills as you unlock them, but get to make the starting skills stronger half way through campaign to keep them viable.

they didn’t keep up with power creep though, and would definitely not work in 2 where jewels are much stronger.

Diem480

5 | 7 hours ago

The fact you can do twisters with literally any class is what’s crazy. I’ve done it with warrior without an issue for campaign and it’s become my way to go through the campaign. It may not be the fastest or strongest, but its the most comfortable and reliable.

acederp

4 | 7 hours ago

As someone who level with magma orb and sunder 30 times in poe1 I don’t see the big deal from being able to play your skills early. If anything it feels kinda bad to get nothing new from the start of the game.

MyriadSloths

3 | 6 hours ago

In poe1 i think u unlock all skills at like level 28? Some support gems are slightly higher. But at the very latest i think all active skills can be used at 28. Im not really sure why they increased this to level 52. When they were asked about this in the qna they basically said “i dont know, we just kinda did it” but I’d love to see them bring it down or state an actual design rationale for it

SigmaGriller

1 | 23 minutes ago

Pretty sure the poe1 gem level requirements is tied to how dogshot they would be at a lower level with lower stats. Cyclone sure does feel bad if you take it asap

egudu

3 | 4 hours ago

Some skills simply unlock too late in the campaign

*(nearly) all.

I never get this stupid idea to level-gate skills. “Hello new player - you want to play X? Now first use this ‘leveling build’ for the first 10 hours, then you can unlock X and never use the thing you used the 10 hours until then again”.

Total bs. Just make every gem available at the first town instead of forcing players to play them same handful of skills for 10-30 levels.

Negative_Set_4365

2 | 5 hours ago

When I bind Whirling Slash to my left mouse button and use it for movement, my character keeps moving toward enemies. Is there any way to stop that?”

xworfx

2 | 3 hours ago

Go to your skills and click the little arrow on the right and there’s an “attack without moving” button

SigmaGriller

1 | 22 minutes ago

It was bugged tho.

butv

1 | 7 hours ago

i kinda wish i practiced twister instead of trying multiple league starters

swapped from plants at lvl 90 and it feels so damn good

typoscript

1 | 7 hours ago

Speaking of which

I feel like the ice tipped mix in is so good and very needed for other classes

Squybee

1 | 7 hours ago

Tried it in act 1, kept dying to random white mobs while trying to stack 3 whirlwinds. It did no damages to bosses either since they just fly everywhere BUT at the boss. Ended up playing LS Amazone, now everything feels miserable besides map clear. Help.

Mondanivalo

1 | 7 hours ago

Yeah twisters does require some getting used to! Especially the movement of whirling slashes. Did you try it on WASD or Mouse movement? WASD is superior imo

Squybee

1 | 7 hours ago

On WASD. Why are people playing the other ascendency for twisters instead of Amazone like in 0.3, what am I missing?

ELDIABLIU

1 | 6 hours ago

Like OP mentioned twisters can carry you from act 1 til endgame. It requires some setup but once you’re used to it it’s a breeze. You’re not missing anything, it’s just that the set-up of skills can be used on anyone as long as you’re comfortable with it.

It’s easier on the Dex side of the tree because of projectile nodes, but plenty of people have made it work with decent gear and gameplay that you can stick to til you’re ready to pivot to your actual build.

Tuxhorn

1 | 5 minutes ago

Amazon is a shitty ascendency for twister. Spiritualist is very much built around twister with the synergy.

Krogholm2

1 | 5 hours ago

I could not get wasd Tornado to work for me so I went mouse this time around and was fine.

JohnDuttton

1 | 6 hours ago

Once you get to act 2 it unleashes and it wrecked from there keep fighting the good fight and watch guythatdies and snoobae

AnxiousPlatypus0

1 | 7 hours ago

I’m trying to decide between twister and monkey for my second build. Do you think twister would be stronger?

But I definitely agree with you. My campaign experience was iffy because I couldn’t use the skill interaction I wanted to use until my 2nd ascendancy at the minimum (ended up only using it in maps because I waited for my 3rd ascendancy). It was a monk combo build that swaps between weapon sets. I also couldn’t use the main skill I wanted until Act 3 so Act 1 and 2 felt even worse.

Krogholm2

2 | 5 hours ago

I swapped from tornados to monkey in act 3 and never looked back. So nice vekbg able to focus on mechanics instead of playing piano.

stylepointseso

2 | 4 hours ago

if you have unlimited money twister is better.

If you have any sort of a budget, monkey is much cheaper to get to endgame.

Start as twister either way and decide later. I was playing a hybrid until well into maps. Spear + sceptre and the “changes to companion damage count for you” node do a lot of lifting.

Mondanivalo

1 | 5 hours ago

Twister is faster and stronger than the companion build, but requires more key presses and interaction. The two builds are pretty much on both ends of the spectrum, but both are strong in their own nature. Monkey is a cakewalk from act 3 but its boring in my opinion.

Kinzie-505

1 | an hour ago

i started as Monkey. When i eventually got an Extra Crits monkey it was a joke how damn strong he was lol. The longest parts of the Arbiter of Divinity fight was the phase transition. That being said with some currency i swapped back to Twister because i *LOVE* Ritual this go around and i figured the small areas for twister would be hilarious, and it is. As some others have mentioned though Monkey will do it all for you without too much investment whereas twister can scale extremely high in damage and investment. Protip (imo) if you go monkey, dont sleep on the new Sceptre that grants Azmerian Wolf that thing slaps.

Tuxhorn

1 | 13 minutes ago

Both are incredibly strong with zero budget. Twister is better at mapping with zero budget, but will suck at bossing with low budget. Monkey will smack bosses comfortably with low budget, and will have decent clear speed, but slower than twister.

High budget? Twister is far beyond monkey in pretty much all situations.

Forget about doing mechanics with twister though. Either you nuke bosses so fast they don’t matter, or the entire arena is covered in twisters so you have no idea what’s going on anyway.

SherbertNaive4783

1 | 7 hours ago

For me it’s perfect as you press 5 buttons then clear 2 screens, loved the skill

ItsAJackal21

1 | 6 hours ago

So I’m such a noob I don’t fully understand the play style. I just looked up this build and was going to give it a try.

https://maxroll.gg/poe2/build-guides/spirit-walker-twisters

It’s talking about using multiple weapon sets. Does that mean you cast whirling slash on weapon set 1 then have to switch to weapon set 2 immediately before you do anything else?

Congratumasons

4 | 6 hours ago

In the skill gem menu, if you click the arrow next to DPS, on the bottom right you can check/uncheck which weapon set uses that skill and it will switch automatically

_Dorothy_Mantooth_

2 | 6 hours ago

You can set which weapon set a skill uses from the skill gem menu, so it will swap to that set automatically when used. You don’t have to manually swap sets.

ItsAJackal21

2 | 6 hours ago

What? Seriously? So if I have two different skills on my hot bar assigned to different weapons, if I click one it will apply the stats from one weapon and then click on the second skill it will apply the stats from the second weapon?

Mondanivalo

2 | 5 hours ago

YUP! (so you can split the tree points up to 25 normally for tree 1 and tree 2 between the two sets)

DaelusDX

2 | 3 hours ago

I’m struggling with the weapon set swap thing on the passive skill tree. Since I’m using my points already what’s the point of splitting it up? I did ice shot dead eye build from Max roll but on mobalytic it ask for splitting the passive points between weapons set while locking weapo set on character sheet i.e. same weapon for set 1 and 2.

Linosaurus

1 | an hour ago

Instead of 24 points for damage on both sets, you have 24 points for damage on set 1, AND 24 points for something else on set 2.

ProctoBlast

1 | 5 hours ago

Ppl talk about many buttons being a negative aspect of this build , but for me it’s the complete visual garbage screen becomes after taming. It still ends up working as you can stand behind the wall and populate screen full with twisters without risking dying from anything you cant see .

allbusiness512

1 | 4 hours ago

There’s a reason why grenades is popular even if it sucks ass to play early where you have to kite mobs into the grenade

Damien23123

1 | 3 hours ago

This sounds fun but Plant Lich is still treating me very well

amkronos

1 | 3 hours ago

Started the league this week and went with this build. Didn’t take me long to hit level 70 and early mapping with it. Once you get used to playing piano with it it’s cake. Adding in the bear from ascendency is huge for boss fights too it holds agro while I spin off doom tornadoes safely in a corner.

angikatlo

0 | 7 hours ago

Hello. I’ll be hijacking this post, but how does one level with twister up until first ascendancy?

Mondanivalo

5 | 7 hours ago

Hey!

In act 1 this is your combo:

Parry, fangs of frost to consume parry and create shilled ground
then whirling slash 3 times and twister once!

In act 2 and onwards, you equip Ice tipped arrows and barrage, and with your first Tier 2 support gem you get Frost Nexus and place it into Twister.

Then you combo becomes: ice Tipped arrows to buff Twisters, whirl 3 times then twister. The ice tipped infused twisters now will freeze enemies and create chilled ground. Rinse and repeat and throw in some barrage too if needed for repeats.

__sputnik__

1 | 7 hours ago

Do you do this (the parry one) every white pack? Only rares? Bosses? If not on whites, what skill is used to kill them?

gruntl11

2 | 7 hours ago

If you make sure to update your weapon, white packs die just fine to Whirl/Twister. I only used the parry combo for bosses and some rares. Edit: once you have icetip/frost nexus and barrage you no longer have to use it at all. So it’s basically only for act 1.

Mondanivalo

1 | 7 hours ago

Only for rares and bosses. Sometimes for large packs i do parry and fangs and it blows them up by itself. Its pretty fun actually

MTosti92

1 | 7 hours ago

Take a look at any number of the guys on YouTube right now and you’ll find the answer

The reason twister feels soo good to play is that it has the ability to progress from level 1 to endgame very smoothly.