[3.8] LiftingNerdBro's Uber Lab Warchief Totem Champion - Great League Starter!

I dont think the first hit will be as hard to hit as you seem to make it sound. We'll have two totems hitting away and at that speed, it shouldn't take more than a second to get the hit even if the first ones miss. Secondly, since I don't have any plans on changing weapons from Kondo's pride till I can afford starforge, 30% chance to blind on crit excites me as well.

I'm planning to start with this build and go farm lab as fast as possible. It seems like dropping RT is the way to go since even with just the basic build PoB shows you having 83% hit rate and with 2 totems hitting 3 times a second getting the first hit shouldn't take over a fraction of a second. But the real question is how to go about building around the ability to crit, are we supposed to:

A) Just ignore it and take the 2.5% damage increase and the blind that comes with Kondo's

B) Take what's easy, basically meaning just the Disemboweling cluster opposite RT since there is no other crit nodes near our planned path and getting some minor crit stats on items

C) Go all out on crit and change the build drastically (I have no idea how to but it seems like a possibility)

I feel like option B would be the strongest, at least as a league starter since it relies less on the items you get and by importing the build on PoB and just dropping RT and taking Disemboweling increases your damage whopping 10.7%.

Dropping the sword nodes (Blade Master and Razor's Edge), as well as the fortify nodes (Rampart), Switching to Hegemony's Era as someone else suggested and taking Smashing Strikes, Counterweight and Disemboweling with zero crit anywhere else gets you to 26%ish crit and 225% multi. Good for 101463.7 avg dmg in PoB. I didn't change anything else.

With the budget version having vengeance + knockback, and a lion's roar, that's also going to net you power charges. 4 power charges nets you another 10k avg dmg in PoB, so that's 113113.7 (354k total dps). Power charges get you to 38.5% crit.

Seems like Hegemony's Era would be a workable way to get some crit in there. All those numbers are with zero crit stats on gear. Doesn't seem like a bad baseline if you happen to find some crit stats on gear or jewels.

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nakieon wrote:

I do not think getting crit or dropping RT on this build is a good idea. Our gearing is "difficult" enough as it is with getting phys dmg, ias, etc that building crit would just end up giving us less defense while not giving us much offense, as you need to invest quite a bit into crit to make it worthwhile.

As for dropping RT, consider that dropping RT and that we have basically zero accuracy rating means our hit chance is very bad. This will end up making totems miss their first, maybe second, maybe third hit until it finally lands and applies the no-evade modifier. This would decrease our clear speed as totems take more time to actually land a hit on a random group, but it would increase our bosskilling speed by.... 3%. Unallocating RT and getting a measly 5% crit gives us a 3% dps increase. I don't think that's worth making any trouble over.

As a HC player who used this build to down Shaper last league, I will not be dropping RT even for bossfights because now that Shaper, Guardians, etc are tauntable, them getting taunted as soon as possible is my absolute priority, so I want my totems to actually land their first hit every single time.

Im gonna play SC coz i have little time to play this league, but i want to point out this.

Conqueror node, if used correctly, makes our totem hit 100% even at first strike. Why?
You simply go until you find monsters. Then use a warcry: this makes taunt enemy and reach istantly 100% chance to hit, aggro is on the character (this also enables 6% damage reduction, and 2% life regen for 4 seconds).
Then you place totems agains monsters: the totems attack and so take the aggro. After 3-4 seconds, use again EC to get again the 6% damage reduction and 2% life regen (also this helps keep up endurance charges): this action will make you have aggro on the character, but just for an istant because there are already totems to attack and so they will istantly take back aggro (100% chance to hit and 100% chance to taunt on hit, this can't fail).
This makes you have 20% less damage taken. For bosses, and generic map clear, you move using a movement skill with fortify, to get another 20% less hit damage.
This not counting also the endurance charges.


With those bonus and charges we already reach 42% physical damage reduction: 10+10% from taunt, 6% from Conqueror, 4*4 EC= 16%, not counting the Adrenaline buff (which i dont count coz you can't have 100% uptime especially against the strongest boss, unless you have already crazy dps to kill them in 20-30secs), basalt flask and armour/evasion rating from gear/granite flask.
And im still not counting the 20% damage reduction from hits, thanks to fortify.
That's also 26% reduced elemental damage taken, which is the highest type of damage that the game offer (i don't know if other ascendancy will reach these numbers) in endgame maps, still not counting fortify and flasks.
The only lack of defence comes from dot damage: the strongest bosses have dot mechanics, that i think can't be tanked with Champion, even with that 40% reduced ele damage taken and some life regen. But they can be played around, if moving correctly.

So, the 100% chance to hit, if using the skill in the right order, is applied even at the first hit.
That's why i wont use RT. I think i will try going for some crit unarmed facebreaker or hegemony (both choices should be economic in the first week of the league, need to check which is better). Probably in the end, for the strongest bosses, the Starforge will still be the BiS option.

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Reed2017 wrote:

1. the totems arent very tanky, but in most scenarios it wont matter.
i didnt try anything else than lab, so i cant tell you how shaper/guardians are
but as for lab: you might re-summon totems for argus or izaro once or twice.
but when you re-summon, the other totem keeps taunt. so it's safe and doesnt matter.
when you get geared, you wont even need to re-summon.

2. dont know, but i'd suggest taking fortify. the 23% damage reduction from fortify is multiplicative. remember that armour phys damage reduction is not as effective versus high hitting damage (like izaro).
and triggering fortify with leap slam in middle of izaro phase can be very risky.
your 90% phys reduction equals around 45% vs izaro slam

My true objective is trying to take this build to take down red Elder and Shaper, not only uberlab, if i have enough time to farm. Though, im gonna start with farming uberlab.

The order of actions are the ones i mention above. That's why i think it isn't needed permafortify since i will have it up 99% of time while mapping and doing lab (i'm playing SC, if i die because i get hit in the moment i dont have fortify up, im gonna regret it but... oh well, shit happens; if i played HC i would have taken it).
Probably im gonna take the permafortify while leveling in low-mid maps, and then respec it to get First Strike, Last to Fall once completed uberlab (which i think i wont complete in the first time in the first week of the league).
Though, of course, i wont use that node if the intimidation can't be triggered by totem hit; Adrenaline buff is a nice add to that notable, but you can't have it up every time its needed and so it doesn't justify the 2 points alone... that way, permafortify is way better. I will see if other people will test it and say if it works or not.
If it doesnt work with totem hit, then i should hit the first time the boss (i dont consider the trash, which don't need to be intimidated), and that could be really problematic coz you have to do Enduring Cry, then leap slam, then place totem... too many action before start doing damage, and also you have all the aggro on you.

Thanks for clearing my mind about tankiness of totems. So you say that when you are properly gear, you won't need to resummon them: i suppose that it's just because of the huge dps you get, and not because there are gear pieces that boost survivability of totems.

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Mellymel9 wrote:

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TheAnderson wrote:

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Lhain wrote:

will this be updated for 3.2?

Here is almost nothing to update. But for my opinion on skill tree we can:
- Not take Resolute Technique;
- Not take Rampart branch, better to get 2 additional gems on tree with 6 skill points.

Ascendancies the same as before.

As I see we have no changes in Gems and Gear. And for now we have no info about new Uniques.

Hmm isn't it 5 points though to spec out of rampart branch and RT? I see the one gem slot at the bottom left not sure where the other is

Yes 5, but for sure you can get 1 more by level or removing something else. One is on a bottom other is on a left top. 2 jewels will give you up to 14% hp and a lot of DMG. Even 1 jewel gives much more dps that that 4 passives.

Hi there!
Thanks for the build, is there any chance youll update the guide before the new league starts?

I'm starting with this build this league, fairly new to PoE and wanted a build that seemed very straightforward and easy to get into!

Looking forward to this league!

i tried staff crit with hegemonys staff and kaoms armour in pob.

while getting 6k life i was able to get 79% crit chance and 300% crit multi with all staff crit nodes and the marauder crit wheel + 1 diamond flask.

i got 750k dps per totem with hegemonys in pob.

the big problem is the survivability of the totems.

i think im gonna play chieftain over champion coz the champions totems cant leech and arent as tanky as chieftains totems. u would have to precast the champions totems permanently and lose the RT after every precast especially against big dmg bosses.

even if u take the all the totem res and totem % life nodes on the tree (3-4 points) the totems of the champion would die rather fast vs bosses and u would have to cast new ones.

but i think u will only notice the difference against red map bosses with strong mods or guardians/shaper. ulab and yellow maps shouldnt be a problem.

well maybe im wrong and champion really works better over chieftain with 100% taunt over 20% taunt, but i still think chieftain works better.

The guide has been updated!

What's new in 3.2?

The changes that matter for us are:

+ 100% Chance for our totems to taunt (up from 25%) = More reliable and safe now.
+ "Enemies Taunted by you cannot Evade Attacks" --> 100% chance to hit against taunted enemies. This
means we no longer need Resolute Technique and can thus save that point for more life or damage.
This also works for totems.
+ 1000 to armour and evasion while we have Fortify.
+ Inspirational's movement speed buff is now 12% (up from 8%)
+ Cannot be stunned while you have fortify.
+ A few buffs to "damage with ailments from attacks, while using a melee weapon"
- We lose 30% increased melee damage while having fortify.

Without Resolute Technique, the build can now crit, but only at a 5% chance. This doesn't mean much in terms of damage, but it does provide a small indirect buff via Kondo's Pride that has 30% chance to blind on crit. It won't be useful for regular monsters, but it might provide an extra edge against bosses who will get hit by our totems multiple times.

The leveling priority of Ascendancy points has changed to Conqueror --> Worthy Foe --> Unstoppable Hero --> Fortitude.

TL:DR: Overall a solid buff for this build in 3.2. No major changes are required.


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I might do some experimenting with crit and Hegemony's Era later in the league. If I do I will post my results here. For now this is completely viable for any content in the game. You will however need a Starforge for shaper and uber elder.

Have a great start to your league guys!

If you have questions or need help with PoE visit the #poe-help section on my Discord.gg/lifting

Lift.

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Freya98 wrote:

i tried staff crit with hegemonys staff and kaoms armour in pob.

while getting 6k life i was able to get 79% crit chance and 300% crit multi with all staff crit nodes and the marauder crit wheel + 1 diamond flask.

i got 750k dps per totem with hegemonys in pob.

the big problem is the survivability of the totems.

i think im gonna play chieftain over champion coz the champions totems cant leech and arent as tanky as chieftains totems. u would have to precast the champions totems permanently and lose the RT after every precast especially against big dmg bosses.

even if u take the all the totem res and totem % life nodes on the tree (3-4 points) the totems of the champion would die rather fast vs bosses and u would have to cast new ones.

but i think u will only notice the difference against red map bosses with strong mods or guardians/shaper. ulab and yellow maps shouldnt be a problem.

well maybe im wrong and champion really works better over chieftain with 100% taunt over 20% taunt, but i still think chieftain works better.

Does the 20% Taunt really work for Warchief Totems? Since they aren't really casting skills, just hitting stuff.