[2.0] The Arctic Shatter Nova Templar: Tri-Totem Sire of Shards Arctic Breath

Welcome Wraeclast Wanderers, it's r4wb1rd again...






Prefix

You want a build that is both safe and fast in maps? You want to have heaps of fun and lots of laughs? You love the sound of shattering frozen enemies? You have an equivalent of an exalt lying around (yes this build is sadly a non-budget build)? Then continue reading...




Build Synergies

"Clever use of game mechanics"

In PoE more often then not power comes by combining things that seem weak on it's own. Bear with me:

The unique Serpentine Staff Sire of Shards gives you increased projectile damage, 4 additional projectiles without GMPs "less damage" penalty but it fires projectiles socketed in this weapon in a nova.

The unique chest piece Soul Mantle gives you increased Spell Damage, Totem Life and allows you to summon one additional totem, at the cost of getting tri-cursed if your totems die or expire.

The unique jewel Rain of Splinters adds two additional projectiles to each totem, but reduces the totem damage by 30-50% (depending on the roll).

If you place three totems with Sire of Shards you have 15 projectiles. Rain of Splinters makes this 21. This is 40% more projectiles for ~40% reduced totem damage.

The Support Gem Hypothermia has 10% chance to freeze chilled enemies and supported skills deal up to 39% more damage to chilled enemies.

The active skill Arctic Breath is a projectile Spell that creates chilled ground and explodes in an Area of Effect whenever it hits something. The explosion is Area Damage and overlapping explosions can shotgun (hit the same enemy multiple times. Usually one enemy can never be hit more than once by projectiles emitted from the same cast).

Now imagine a group of mobs in a room or enclosed by Frost Walls, cursed by Frostbite where you put three Arctic Breath Spell Totems in the center, supported by Faster Casting, Cold Penetration and Hypothermia, which fire 21 deadly skulls of frozen mayham in all directions, creating overlap explosions, shredding the entire room to pieces in a fraction of a second while you move on to put three new totems in the next room or the next pack ... then you realize the power of this awesome combination of uniques!

This build has a tooltip of just 4k with 0q level 19 gems. Lets say a mob can get hit by 5 explosions we have 20k damage before any un-tooltipped modifiers: 74% cold penetration from the Curse, the Support Gem and passive tree, 25% increased damage when the enemy is frozen thanks to the notable Celestial Punishment, 39% more damage from Hypothermia and finally every 5th projectile will crit because we have 20% crit chance without investment ... then ... well ... I'm too dumb to do the math but let's assume the real DPS is somewhat between 50 and 100k :D




Passives

This is a standard totem spec, we try to get moderate life, lots of jewel slots for totem/projectile/cold damage and all the totem nodes in the area. An alternative to the tree below would be to go down to Blood Magic, getting the last totem cluster and forgoing some of the notables in the Witch area but I didn't have the chance (or better: Regrets) to test this out yet.

Leveling Process

35 Points (Normal) - We leave the Templar start via Elemental Damage and Spell Damage, get Discipline and Training for early life, continue through Amplify, Elementalist and the first Jewel socket to Ancestral Bond. At this point leveling with dual Flame Totems becomes an absolute joke. Then we head down through Sanctity to get some early Dex and Unrelenting.

52 Points (Cruel) - Travel right to get the next jewel socket and Shaper for mana and life regen, then travel towards the Witch area, taking Quick Recovery for more mana and life regen and Elemental Dominion for ramping up our damage.

68 Points (Merciless) - We get Purity of Flesh and Devotion for more life, then travel through the Witch crit nodes to reach Blast Radius


Late Game

78 Points - We start to pick up damage notables: Shamanistic Fury, Totemic Mastery and more life with Cruel Preperation

91 Points - Constitution in the Scion Life wheel gives us the final HP boost before getting more damage via Totemic Zeal. Shaman's Dominion ramps up our crit chance and damage, too.

101 Points - Frost Walker and the Spell Damage nodes in the Witch as well as Celestial Punishment are giving us even more damage.

113 Points (Level 90) - Celestial Judgement for penetration, Light of Divinity for more Cast Speed and Spell Damage, more crit and 2 more jewel sockets will allow this character to run high level map content with ease.




Here's a graphical representation of how the leveling process looks like:








Bandit Choices

Normal: Help Oak for the HP
Cruel: Kill all for +1 passive skill point
Merc: Kill all for +1 passive skill point

Gems

Sire of Shards as 6S/5L, main links are:

Arctic Breath + Spell Totem + Faster Casting + Cold Penetration + Hypothermia

All supports increase damage multiplicatively. If you happen to have a 6L Sire, added damage like Added Lightning or Added Chaos would make an excellent 6th link. Arctic Breath has 100% damage effectiveness, so added damage from all sources help a great deal.

AOE Main skill progression setup


Preferred link colors: BBRGG + B

Start off with Flame Totem, you can use it until you have a 5L, before that I wouldn't recommend to switch to Arctic Breath. Flame totem will always outdamage Arctic Breath unless you have all 5 links together, even if you use Sire. If you really can't wait to use Arctic Breath, Faster Casting is the one gem you can get rid off.

The last socket in my Sire I'm using for my curse.



Single Target setup


Preferred link colors: BBBG + R

I'm using Ball Lightning + Faster Casting + Added Lightning + Slower Projectiles together with the Elemental Weakness curse whenever my Arctic Breath totems can't kill a boss quick enough. It rarely happens and my chest piece links are mostly unused. I'm using the 5th socket in my chest for Enduring Cry (since it can't be supported by Spell Totem).



Auras and Buffs


I'm using Arctic Armour to have some mitigation but also to create more chilled ground to boost Arctic Breath damage through Hypothermia. When enemies hit me they also get chilled, regardless of their position.

On top of that I'm using a high level Clarity to counter the extreme obscene cost of three 5L Spell Totems.

Vaal Grace gives another source of mitigation, while Enduring Cry prepares my level 12 Cast when Damage Taken linked to Immortal Call, providing 2,5s physical immunity.

Fire Golem doens't really fit into the aesthetics of the build but the damage bonus is worth it.



Curse setup


Elemental Weakness for parties (and the Ball Lightning Totems), otherwise Frostbite, because it offers more Cold Penetration and addional chance to freeze.



Missing Links (additional gems)


For mobility I'm using Leap Slam with Faster Attacks and Fortify. It's not the best mobility skill but it provides another layer of defense which keeps me alive in maps.

For single target I'm using a Frost Wall linked to Increased Duration. I try to enclose the boss or pin him to the wall and then cast my totems next to them. The AoE overlapping will deal absurd amounts of damage. Not to mention that you are safely standing on the outside...






Quality Gems

Ordered by level of importance. I'm not at a point where I can use quality gems myself (haven't leveled mine to 20), so feel free to critique:

Very usefull

Faster Casting - 10% increased Cast Speed at 20q - huge DPS boost! This is the equivalent of three cast speed skill points. Probably the most important quality gem to have.

Arctic Breath - 10% increased Area of Effect at 20q - better for both group clearing and single target since it makes explosion overlapping easier

Increased Duration - 10% increased Duration at 20q - helps heaps with Frost Wall and Vaal Grace uptime, very good survivability and DPS boost

Enduring Cry - 60% increased Area of Effect radius at 20q - helps us to get max charges easier

Faster Attacks - 10% increased Attack Speed at 20q - since we have 0 attack speed from the tree this makes our mobility skill and Fortify trigger faster, which is good.

Fortify - 10% increased Fortify Duration at 20q - excellent survivability boost

Frostbite - 20% increased Freeze Duration at 20q - good survivability boost

Frost Wall - 20% increased Duration - good to corner in bosses and pump out the real deeps


Usefull but not mindblowing

Cold Penetration - 10% increased Cold Damage at 20q - the equivalent of one passive skill point. Since we already have ~400% increased damage this will hardly be noticable.

Spell Totem - 20% increased totem placement speed at 20q - a quality of life thing. The placement speed is so fast already that it won't matter too much. Nice in temp chains maps maybe...

Flame Golem - 20% increased Golem life and damage at 20q - what helps him staying alive longer is good.


Not usefull at all

Leap Slam - 10% chance to knock enemies back at 20q - nice survivability gimmick

Hypothermia - 30% increased Chill Duration at 20q - since we're pumping out heads all the time we won't notice this qol thing at all...

Arctic Armour - 20% incresed Skill Effect Duration at 20q - same deal - the duration of the trail of ground ice we leave behind is pretty much irrelevant

Clarity - 20% increased Area of Effect at 20q - maybe nice in party play but imo not worth the GCP

Vaal Grace - see Clarity

Cast When Damage Taken - 10% increased Damage at 20q - we're not dealing damage with Immortal Call, so ...

Immortal Call - 40% increased Cast Speed at 20q - since the gem is on a trigger, Cast Speed is irrelevant, it will always trigger instantly







Gear

The following section is about general gearing advices.

Main hand


Sire of Shards. Costs one exalt currently. I wish it would be more accessible and more players could play around with this awesome staff - it changes the way you play and plan drastically and is just heaps of fun to build around. Plus the 2D and 3D art is super sweet!



Chestpiece


Soul Mantle. Costs a Chaos to pick up and the sockets are totally irrelevant. As soon as you equip this, make sure to have at least 2, better 3 warding flasks to remove curses whenever you lose/recast a totem.



Jewels


Rain of Splinters. Well rolled this reduces your totem damage by only 30% but you put out 40% more projectiles which means 40% more explosions. The other jewels should have:

  • Life
  • Totem Damage
  • Projectile Damage
  • Spell Damage
  • Elemental Damage
  • Cold Damage


There's plenty good mods so it shouldn't be hard to get some jewels that feature a combination of them.




Other Gear


Since you have only 2 unique items equipped you can focus on life, resist, chaos resist and Dexterity. Dex is fairly important for a lot of gems, do not underestimate it.







Flasks

This is a separate section from gear since flasks are incredibly important and need to have their own spot in this guide. Without the correct flasks this build is only half as good.

The flasks I'm using for leveling (meaning until I can equip Divine and Eternal flasks) are:

a) any Life Flask of Heat: to dispell freeze
b) any Life Flask of Staunching: to remove bleed
c) any Quicksilver of Warding: to dispell and be immune to curses
d) any Mana flask of Warding: to have the occasional curse removal when the Quicksilver is empty
e) any Bubbling Life Flask of Grounding: as instant heal and to dispell shocks

In the endgame setup I try to have 20% quality of the following:

a) Saturated Divine Life Flask of Staunching: high, short duration heal, dispells bleeding
b) 2x Ample Quicksilver Flasks of Warding: permanent mobility, permanent curse immunity
c) Saturated Divine Mana Flask of Warding: 6 long duration curse immunity uses
d) Bubbling/Seething Divine Life Flask of Heat: as instant heal and to dispell freezes




Reflect

This is a totem spec. You don't care about reflect. Reflect maps are a bit slower to run because your totems will kill themselves a couple of times but other than that you don't care.




Archenemies

Everything that flickers is deadly! Anything else is a joke. Watch out for Evangelist spells though.




Map Mods to watch out

I must say I only played into the 76 map pool until now (the char is level 85) so I haven't had the most brutal mods yet. The nasty ones I have encountered are listed below:

Blood magic

You can't use Arctic Armour so the clear will be slower but not impossible. Swap you Mana flask with a Medium Life Flask of Warding and go.

Ele Reflect

Your totems die more often. Your mana flask of warding is your friend.

Half regen

Not really a problem due to your flasks.

Fracture, Beyond

This is dangerous!!! But only because you will laugh your ass off because of the huge fun you'll be having and because your PC might explode and your frame rate might drop into the negatives ...

Temporal Chains

Annoying but thanks to the 2 Quicksilvers not too bad.

Vulnerability, Elemental Weakness, Multiproj and chain

This is always dangerous. Slow down and use your Frost Walls.

Enfeeble, Monster Life, Monster Resists, Elemental Equilibrium, Curse Immunity

You don't notice it. The damage is so high you don't care. Only gets annoying three or more of the mods align in the same map.

Ground effects

Chilled Ground and Shocked Ground are annoying, the other two are only becasue they gimp the fps :)




Map Bosses

Don't have too much detail on that because I haven't had them all. I did all of the bosses until 73, some 74s, 75s and the 76s' Gorge Boss. Nothing killed me so far, not even double boss Jungle Valley or double boss Terrace.

I did skip the Desert boss though, every time ... I hate this guy ...




Video URLs






The End?

If you read this far: congratulations! This was a lot of ground to cover. It was certainly as fun to put this guide together as it was playing it. I will continue to work on this guide whenever new patches hit that will affect the build in any way.

If you want to see similar budget builds and PoE content, please check out my youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/r4wb1rdGaming/videos

If you want to see me playing live, head over to http://www.twitch.tv/r4wb1rd and hit the follow button to get notify when I'm going live. I'm a casual player, so don't expect me playing 8h a day, although I wish to do so ;)

Stay safe, exiles!
r4wb1rd




Frequently Asked Questions

Is this build HC viable?

I don't know. I play Softcore because I can't handle deaths well. I play my characters as if they were HC characters though. I died 3 times during leveling to stupid mistakes and I died 5 additional times in maps, mostly agains sub phys/crit flicker mobs.

For HC I would recommend to use Temporal Chains and Abyssal Cry to slow down mobs even more and to use Grace over Clarity.


Why not Assassin's Mark?

The extra crit would help but I can't gain charges. Totems don't give you charges if they make the kill.


Why no Heralds? Why no auto-curse with Herald of Ice

While Totems benefit from the added damage a Herald provides they do not trigger the secondary effect. Ergo there won't be any Herald of Ice explosion and I can't use Curse on Hit with it. Curse on Hit by the way does not work with Totems anyway.


Why not Incinerate?

Becaue I love Arctic Breath.


Why not Blood Magic?

The extra life would be insane but I'd loose Arcic Armour and a lot of damage from the Witch tree section because I need to travel down there.


Why not dual curse?

You barely have time to put down a single curse. Most mobs are dead before you can cast a curse. No need for a second one. And to have dual curse for bosses alone would be a bit too much of an investment.


Why no more unique jewels?

Becaue I haven't explored all options. If you have ideas, please post them here.


Can you show your gear?

Sure, it's nothing special, some might even say "No t1 rolls, vendor trash". The rolls on the Sire and the Rain of Splinters are actually pretty terrible but even this "trash" gear carried me all the way:

### r4wb1rd ###
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/r4wb1rd
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/r4wb1rdGaming/
Babel PoE: https://github.com/rowolff/babel-poe/releases
Last edited by r4wb1rd on Sep 17, 2015, 2:55:55 AM
Last bumped on Jun 2, 2016, 2:14:28 PM
updated:

  • Quality Gem section
  • Added another video in the Video section

### r4wb1rd ###
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/r4wb1rd
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/r4wb1rdGaming/
Babel PoE: https://github.com/rowolff/babel-poe/releases
Thanks....can't wait to try it out :)
Hi, seems like a very nice build will certainly try it out.

If you forgo the witch starting nodes and take all the cold damage in the top of the witch area, wouldn't that be better cold damage wise.

He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.
Last edited by HipTree on Sep 22, 2015, 8:54:35 AM
@HipTree, interesting idea. I guess this would work.

It's basically trading 15% incresed damage and 3% penetration (which is huge) for a loss of 6% max life and 24% crit multi.
### r4wb1rd ###
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/r4wb1rd
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/r4wb1rdGaming/
Babel PoE: https://github.com/rowolff/babel-poe/releases
Trying for 1 month SC, thanks for the interesting and fun build

Love how you graphically drew on mspaint the leveling tree, that shit is next level.
Last edited by Nyxy on Oct 1, 2015, 8:55:17 AM
Just wanted to let you know, I have followed your guide and advice with this build in the 1 month flashback league and it is just superb. I have had a lot of fun with this build so far and your guide is very well thought out, easy to follow and detailed. Thanks for taking the time and sharing this amazing build. =D
Hey,
Very insteresting build !
I'm lvling up a templar follwing your step, very cool!

- I had one question : It's seems that you need the staff absolutely. So do you have any tips/the best way for "farming/dropped" this staff? (with the orb of chance on a white item staff?) or it's random ?

(I'm sorry if my question is a little bit dumb but I'm new at this game :3)


Thanks,
Nox.

Last edited by fusionxo19 on Oct 13, 2015, 5:16:15 PM
"
fusionxo19 wrote:
Hey,
Very insteresting build !
I'm lvling up a templar follwing your step, very cool!

- I had one question : It's seems that you need the staff absolutely. So do you have any tips/the best way for "farming/dropped" this staff? (with the orb of chance on a white item staff?) or it's random ?

(I'm sorry if my question is a little bit dumb but I'm new at this game :3)


There is no other way then just pray to RNG God ;)

I bought this staff yesterday on 1 month league. Couple of days of farming, selling and I've got 50 chaoses what was enough to buy it.
May God have mercy upon my enemies; they will need it.
"
"
fusionxo19 wrote:
Hey,
Very insteresting build !
I'm lvling up a templar follwing your step, very cool!

- I had one question : It's seems that you need the staff absolutely. So do you have any tips/the best way for "farming/dropped" this staff? (with the orb of chance on a white item staff?) or it's random ?

(I'm sorry if my question is a little bit dumb but I'm new at this game :3)


There is no other way then just pray to RNG God ;)

I bought this staff yesterday on 1 month league. Couple of days of farming, selling and I've got 50 chaoses what was enough to buy it.


Same here. Was using flame totem to about 68 when I finally bought the staff. Currently using AB, Hypothermia, Spell Totem, and Faster casting in a 4l. Completely wrecking low level maps right now. I've gotten used to using a pot every time I cast my totems due to the Chest downside. Still loving it though. Totems currently shooting 21 projectiles in all directions. It's pretty ridiculous.

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