[Budget]Flame Totem, High Damage for Two Week Event

Hello, I have not played this build yet, right now it's just a plan for the upcoming two week event, but I felt 99% confident it will work; will update this thread as the build comes along.

This is a non-crit build as the focus is cheap, high damage, and survival.


Geofri's Crest is the only unique you will need, even this is optional.
I choose this item because it's easily overlooked as +1 gems and quad resistance, but pairing this with Illuminated Devotion from the Hierophant sub class gives you a easy 4L item with +1 gems and 20% elemental penetration.

Flame Totem - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destruction - Fire Penetration
These are your links, as we don't care about igniting enemies Elemental Focus is perfect for boosting our damage output. With a level 18 Fire Penetration you penetrate 60% fire resistance(5% from tree, 20% from Illuminated Devotion) without the use of Flammability.

Where do we get cast speed?
Scepters/Wands and Jewels will be where we get our cast speed, there's about 30% cast speed on the tree, so with decent weapons and jewels one could reach 70% fairly easily.

Aura's:
As nice as running Anger sounds, I decided to go with a defensive aura set up and choose to use:
Clarity, Arctic Armour, and Enfeeble(Blasphemy).

Yes, we are using mana, it's the cheaper option. I didn't pick up Dexterity on the tree, it's easy enough to get Dexterity on gear for Arctic Armour.


Skill Tree:
185% Life, 330% combined damage, +3 Jewel Sockets. (Option for an extra Endurance Charge.)


Other Thoughts:
When leveling, once you complete Breaking Some Eggs, you can buy Flame Totem from Nessa; I suggest buying a few of these, when your gems start hitting level 20 it's nice to have a few extra to try for level 21. (I like having 6 extras, leveling them up in weapon swap.)

"How can I get more damage out of the build?" Elemental Overload is another 40% more multiplier that can be activated in multiple ways; CWDT, GMP, IceSpear is the laziest way to do it. Well worth abandoning 30-40% increased damage for.

If your willing to run the Labyrinth multiple times, "1 additional Flame Totem Projectile" is an helmet enchantment you should strive for.


For now there's not much more to be said about the build, if you think there's something I missed or overlooked let me know. Cheers!

Will post things that don't directly stand with the build here, like other totem builds that caught my interest.

Shockwave Totem:
Changed a few thing about the tree above, dropped elemental damage and aimed for spell crit and AoE.
The subclass remains the same as the build remains budget and will used a different unique.

Empires Grasp, rather than knocking enemies back you force them to be drawn toward the totem. ShockwaveT, CritChance, FasterCasting, CritDmg. As it's still using Illuminated Devotion, Shockwave Totem will gain 20% AoE; so with knock back gem from gloves, it's like a mini 6L, just 5th and 6th link are nerfed.

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Flame Totem:
Blood Magic(no auras) and using several exalts worth of gear and gems. Not a Budget build, but great for late game if you have the currency.
[2.2] SWEETAPPLEPIE's QUAD FLAME TOTEM BM HIEROPHANT (T15 MAPS ALL MODS / ATZIRI)

I'm giving this build a try on the Garena 150 iir/iiq event, so far so good, but still early stages as I am only lvl 14. Thanks for the build!

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horizon21 wrote:

I'm giving this build a try on the Garena 150 iir/iiq event, so far so good, but still early stages as I am only lvl 14. Thanks for the build!

Your Welcome, and that sounds like a fun event; "May the exalts rain upon you!" hehe.

There is some math in this thread: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1608683/page/1
Taking both Ancestral Bond AND Ritual of Awakening seems to be a bad idea. You could either selfcast some spells without Ancestral bond or have a few less totems without Ritual of Awekening (assuming the math is correct).

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DerpaChief wrote:

There is some math in this thread: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1608683/page/1
Taking both Ancestral Bond AND Ritual of Awakening seems to be a bad idea. You could either selfcast some spells without Ancestral bond or have a few less totems without Ritual of Awekening (assuming the math is correct).

Hmm, thanks. I was aware the down sides, but after reading that post, seems to be little reason to take Ritual of Awakening, having more than two totems is a fun idea, but not worth killing my clear speed for.

Only way I see it being a Viable option(for this build) is if your interested in dropping Ancestral Bond and using those points to get Elemental Equilibrium, and self cast casting Ice Nova + IncAoE to initiate it. (More of a late game thing anyways, planned to take Ritual of Awaking last if I did take it.)