[2.0]WIP Non crit Shock Nova Dual Totem - MF capable - Amazingly low tooltip dps !
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Hi ! This is the first build I post here, I hope someone will enjoy it or give me advices to make it better :)
I had the idea of shock nova totems a few days ago and I decided to give it a go as a way to pass the time till the end of warbands (where I currently play this build). Now I'm level 83 and after trying this build in maps up to lvl76, I think I'll definitely keep playing it ! === Disclamer === This is not intended as a super fast clear speed, map destroyer ultra tanky build. I just wanted to try shock nova and I think the clear speed and survivability are fine (maybe they could even get better with your help !). If you want some ass kicking, boss roasting totem builds, I think incinerate or flame totems are best.
General ideas
Why shock nova ? I just like the sound and visual of this skill :) If you don't know what the hell shock nova is, read this Why non crit ? I wanted a build that is relatively gear independent and not too expensive. Also, almost all of my previous characters were crit based, so I wanted to try something different. Why dual totems ? - Shock nova has a wide aoe, so it benefits a lot from multiple overlaps, which is impossible without the totems. - Getting the most out of shock nova requires good positionning (to hit monsters with both parts of the spell), totems make the positionning easier. - A major downside of shock nova is that you have to be very close to the monsters to use it compared to projectile spells. So you need good defences, which is tricky (but not impossible) to get as a caster. Totems let you stand back safely while monsters are getting zapped. Why witch ? This build can be played as a witch or a templar with no noticeable differences. It's up to your personal preference to either play a goth girl or an old man with no pants.
Gear and links
- Offensive considerations: Shock nova has a ridiculous damage effectiveness of 50%, which means that flat damage will not be very efficient. Gem level (as with every spell) and multipliers (increased, more and resistance penetration) are IMO the best ways to get the most out of shock nova. Cast speed is still important, but in a spell totem setup I can't use spell echo and I get a nasty 30% less cast speed. With that in mind, there is no use trying to stack huge amounts of % increased cast speed, just some of it will do. - Defensive considerations: As a totem caster, my main defensive mechanism is not being targeted by monsters too often. In 2.0, monsters seem to target the totems and player more evenly, but having a golem helps a lot. Other than that, I just stack life and try to be as mobile as possible. Having some chaos res is also a big plus, as it makes the kiting easier when surrounded by degen clouds. I don't use any sort of damage mitigation, although having a somewhat decent armour rating and using a granite of iron skin could be possible (I haven't tried this yet). However, this would require good armor gear (can be quite an investment) and some tweaking of the tree at the cost of some dps or life (could be easy if you have godly jewels). Arctic armour is out of the question as I try to move and kite as much as possible, and lightning coil would be a good choice, but it doesn't really fit my idea of a cheap build in this league (I'll definitely try it in standard though !). MoM is also out of the question as I have virtually no mana regen and a very small mana pool with a very mana hungry skill to cast. So far, I only really feel the pain on the hardest map bosses I encounter, which is fine for me.
Gem setup
- Main skill (5L): Shock Nova - Spell Totem - Empower - Faster Casting - Lighning Penetration I haven't tried it in a 6L yet, but I think an increased aoe / conc effect swap could be great, or even minion and totem ele resist for some map mods. Quality is good to have on spell totem and lightning pen, but not a must have, and it is really good on faster casting. I wouldn't bother getting quality on shock nova itself. If you can't get a lvl3 empower, using iron will and getting good strength on gear will work too. - Movement skill: Lighning warp - less duration - faster casting Some might prefer flame dash, I stick to the lighning theme ! Quality is highly recommended on all these gems, so flame dash might actually be better on a low budget. It is also worth noting that if you go full MF, you'll have a very low movement speed, in which case it can be good to have both LW for moving across the map, and flame dash to evade in combat. - Aura: Wrath This is used to mitigate the less damage from spell totem. I don't use any other aura as this build is really hard on mana, so I need as much of it unreserved as possible. - Curses: Conductivity - increased aoe - faster casting - enfeeble / temp chain I manually cast one curse. 99% of the time it is conductivity, as the damage boost is really good, but on some tought enemies, a defensive curse is more than welcome. You'll see that I get some aoe from the tree, so with the inc aoe gem, one cast curses most of the screen. - Golem: flame golem - minion life - minion and totem elemental resistances I want my golem to be as tanky as possible, so it can actually aggro some monsters while I cast my totems. A chaos golem would be tankier, but I like the dps from the flame golem. Flame golems do not have melee attacks, so fortify is not useable. Quality on the support gems is very good to have, just wait till they are lvl20 and use the recipe. - Vaal skill: Vaal lighning trap - increased duration - GMP - Faster projectiles For when I need that extra dps boost ! The aoe clear speed of the totems is really good, but I am lacking in the single target department, mostly because I cannot shock bosses and tough rares, so vaal lightning trap fills in this gap. Only increased duration needs leveling.
The Gear
- Weapon: I use this at the moment: It is dirt cheap, and it has everything I want for shock nova totems (gem level, increased damage, and this sweet resistance penetration). With this staff, the lighning pen gem, and the tree, I penetrate 62% of monsters lighning resistance. I don't know the actual monster resistances values, but when I compare my ultra low tooltip dps to my decent clear speed, I think most enemies have negative resistances by default with my setup. With conductivity, non lightning resistant monsters just melt instantly, and I can really feel the dps boost of the curse on lightning resistant enemies. Maybe a +3 lightning staff or dual wielding wands with good spell damage and cast speed would be better, but so far I haven't felt the need to try anything else then Agnerod East. Of all the three Agnerod staves, I think this one is the best for this build. Getting more shock chance is nice, but if I can't apply the shocks (for lack of shock duration) it is useless, so Agnerod North is not a good choice IMO. Agnerod South could be useful for lighning damage maps or some bosses, or if you use LC. I think using a shield would cost too much dps for the stats it gives. - Chest: I currently use a belly of the beast that I dropped earlier, the life boost is really appreciated, and the flask life rate helps a lot. This chest is what makes me stay alive in 74+ maps, but on lower areas the chest slot choice is entirely up to you. For farming dried lake or low level maps, Greed's embrace could be the best choice. Another unique chest that comes to mind is Carcass Jack for a good clear speed boost. And, as I said before, LC is always an option ! All these unique chests are unfortunately quite expensive, but rare ones with 100-ish life and good tri res are really affordable and not incredibly worse than a belly I think. Having lots of res on your chest will also make the rest of your gearing a lot easier. - The rest: Whatever you want to get those resists capped and have a decent amount of life ! Some spell damage on the amulet is good, as well as some cast speed on the jewelry in general, but those are not mandatory. You might also need to get some dexterity if you want to use Belly, LC, Carcass Jack or cast temp chains. I personally try to get at least 0% chaos res, this can make a big difference (and you can try the jungle valley boss !). With this freedom of gear choice, it is possible to go full MF. At the moment, I only have some IIR on gear, but I'll try to improve that in the future. The more MF you put on, the less you will be able to run higher level maps with difficult mods, so it's up to you really ! - Flasks: Nothing extraordinary here, two life flasks, one anti bleed, the other anti freeze, if possible one seething divine. I use one quicksilver of warding, but you could have this mod on a life flask and use the bleed or freeze on the quicksilver. Finally, this build requires a mana pot. My mana regen is inexistant, and each totem costs 100 mana ! I use a sanctified mana flask because if I need to recast my totems or a curse several times in a row, the flask effect will still be on (14 seconds is longer than it seems), and I won't need to use more flasks charges. I have found that Ample is better than Perpetual for the mana flask, as it gives you five to six uses, which is more than enough, and you should be killing enough monsters with each cast of the totems to refill anyway. The suffix is entirely up to you. The last flask slot is up to you, a resistance flask, a second quicksilver or an Atziri's promise are always good choices. I think Divination Distillate is the best choice if you already have some MF, as you'll always have the full 5 seconds duration to kill stuff if you use it at the right moment (just after casting the totems, when your mana is close to 0). If I have already used my sanctified mana flask and I see a rare / exile / boss / warbands close to dying, I just spam my curse and pop the divination distillate, this way my mana stays low and I get the MF boost anyway. This method locks you in place though, so don't be too greedy or you might die :)
My current gear for mapping
My current gear for farming Voll
I have very low or negative resits with this, but there is no serious elemental monsters in dried lake. In any other zone that would be suicide :) This gear gives me 39 IIQ / 264 IIR (53 IIQ / 307 IIR with flask up), on the lower end of the average for MF characters. The quicksilver of adrenaline couters greed's embrace movement speed penalty. I also swap faster casting for IIR, I still kill Voll in about 30 seconds in average.
Skill Tree and Bandits
I use four jewels, three rares mostly for dps, but if you can get some life and/or totem life or ele res, go for it ! I also use Spire of stone. Without it, my totems would be useless against some heavy hitting monsters (with spire of stone, my totems still die to those monsters, but at least they do some damage first) If you need extra dexterity (and you can't get it on gear), you can take the +30 dex node in the templar area and change the path in the celestial punishment/judgement triangle to use only one 6% node instead of the two 12% lightning nodes. For bandits I choose Oak then skill point and skill point again. Alira in cruel could be a valid choice though.
Projected tree for level 92:
https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMA37CCEI-mRKtVriycdhEQWOTsMjQfAgQHVcaD2zpYrJgRD92M2V_gEo0Zfq_v6zsNTLNSU5eVl_Q9X3yDES3R_V5dp5RFRzLR6-6iAASzwGbwH-FzmjuCmzwF73yf39Wm7TzsODrYkFUnLxo4WfP60maecg_jahZvNukkqsMTWOVaK6Py1XXMt3GFsULauUbXC2GvbGjyxq7E9v5UDc0rUBzOr6eDzDwtg1_-Crc-2L2mVzrh8kX-jzWSTeOPGhzcU1JFnZrgZlSFe4xGK7YQzPiTwFQI9G0ZakO86m87wBp4DbXy More life, mana and another jewel for more deeps / life
Stats
Offence
The anti tooltip warrior :) 
Defence
Gameplay
I currently have just enough mana to cast my two totems and one curse, so when I engage a pack, it is always the same routine: cast totems > cast curse > drink mana flask. When I had less mana and I could just cast the totems and no curse without waiting, I did: cast one totem > drink mana flask > cast other totem > cast curse. With this method I never seem to get any sort of mana problem. I usually start moving towards the next pack as soon as I cast my curse, as white packs just disappear, and most blue packs die quickly enough. If the area is full of leapers / chargers / flicker, I just move in front of my totems to lure them in the aoe, it's great fun to watch en entire pack of goatmen die on arrival :) Now, if I want to cast my totems in the middle of a pack, I try to space my totems a bit, so more enemies are hit by both components of the novas (150% of base damage) over a larger area. If I want to get the monsters to move towards my totems, I cast them close to each other, so the monsters get hit by 2x 150% of the base damage as they move into the aoe. Against bosses or resilient rares, I cast my totems as I would in the middle of a pack, so ideally the boss will focus on the totem the closest to it (and only get hit by 100% of its damage), while the other totem hits it with 150%. If the boss aggro the golem, then I recast my totems so they both get maximum damage against it and hope the AI will not pick a new target too soon ... So far, my arch nemesis are bosses with movement skills (dark forest / gorge for exemple), they tend to target me too often and are hard to kite, and they move out of the totems aoe all the time. Other bosses are as hard or easy as you would expect them to be. Finally, this build is intended for solo play. I don't think you could have enough dps to make any difference in a group (maybe in a two people party). However, even if you don't kill stuff in a six man party, you still shock all white mobs and most blue, so that can be useful. And of course, if you have enough MF, you can swap any gem in your main setup with culling strike and make everyone happy !
Map mods
Apart from the usual temp chain / chilled ground, only a few map mods are to be avoided with this build. The worst would be no regen, as you could get in a situation where you run out of flask charges. This should never happen with a good mana pot management, but as you have no other way to sustain, I would avoid this mod if possible. Slower mana regen is not an issue. Blood magic is a dps tax as you can't run wrath, but it is doable as I regenerate about 100 life per second (the cost of one totem), I'd just bring a third life pot (seething if possible) instead of the mana pot. This mod also makes it wery hard to use divination distillate if you have it. (I haven't run a blood magic map yet, so this is pure theory) Elemental reflect is doable on lower level maps, where your totems can wipe packs in one or two casts of shock nova. In big packs, your totems will one or two shot themselves all the time, so if the monsters are still alive after this, you'll need to cast your totems again, this can be very annoying, dangerous, and you can run out of mana flask charges. Double beyond is not advisable as my totems have rather low elemental resists, and most beyond bosses have heavy elemental damage. If you have enough totem resists on your jewels, why not. Single beyond is good fun as alway :) Be extra careful on "chaining" maps, especially if there are other dps mods ! Chaining basically negates my main defensive mechanism (hiding behind my totems). This mod is doable depending on the level of the map and the other mods (and in a way, the monster types in the map). Curse immunity lowers your clear speed, especially against rares and bosses, but nothing too terrible.
Leveling
This build focuses on lightning damage and totem nodes in the tree, so I used an arc + flame totem combo to level. The usual twink gear will make your leveling a breeze: Goldrim, wanderlust, lifespring, with a special mention for reverberation rod with arc, a must ! If you can't get these weapons, a pair of +1 wands or scepters will do fine (one fire, one lighning). These can easily be acquired through the vendor recipe. Elreon jewelry is also good to have, otherwise you can start practising the mana pots usage. I also used herald of thunder for leveling, as it benfits both arc and flame totem, and gives you enough mana to handle without elreon jewelry. While leveling, you should allocate your skill points to generic elemental damage / spell damage and life nodes first, keep the scion life wheel, the heart of thunder cluster and the totem nodes for later. I would spec into the aoe nodes and ancestral bond last (first ancestral bond, then the aoe nodes), when you have a decent level on your shock nova setup gems and wrath. The jewel nodes (except the one on the path to the scion life wheel) should be taken after all this, as they are nice to have, but not necessary to get yourself started. The arc + flame totem setup with a reverberation rod is already enough to farm the dried lake at a decent pace (nothing extravagant, but acceptable) to get your gems to lvl18 and buy some gear. The empower lvl3 is the most expensive bit in this build, but the good thing is that as long as you don't have it, you don't really need a 5L (although it is always nice to have one), so you don't have to spend much currency to get going. If anyone is interested, I can try to upload a couple videos later. Thanks for reading ! Last edited by voiture on Sep 17, 2015, 2:25:32 PM
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Hey, i'm going to try this build in hardcore, i will tell you my opinion when i reach a decent lvl ;), the build sounds interesting, i never thought of a shokwave totem build :D
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I modified the skill tree slightly, because your defence stats seems a litle bit low ;), it's only theory crafted (i am not a fan of jewels so i didn't pick those notes) i will see how it will end up,
https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgUATwRDyJrPcU1DY2jy8B-iAMBmBLNFR-vuMtFTUkWdmuDR_V5dp5R8gyycES12ERBYMjTk7B8CBAc6WFXGg9usmN2M2V_gEo0Zfq8RD0yzPV9SU5eV4XPvfDwFgpvtIOw4sUJxhXIPlG9mVIV7RtfauWaeo_JaK8MTWOXGrgthr2wY1wxfU6VqAZe0ValyqcT2_gq3PoPMPC01kti9_o_yRfnoQYfjahZv-tL-VA3NK1Aczq-nkFUnLzrY7w5QR-RRZ5uuPhQgXz8pLny4Gj7Mt9V1-JOMRiu2EMw= see ya Last edited by Konichigo on Nov 14, 2015, 6:33:54 AM
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