Templar and Scion build help

At first I want to say hi. This is my first post on this forums :)
I'm playing PoE from a few days (last time I tried I played to 10lvl, so it doesn't count). I looked around the forum for some builds, but I decided I will try to make my own. I only saw the basics on how to think when you are building something.

I will try to go with Dual Flame Totem Crit for my Templar. I looked at how to being building it and I focused on that, expanding tree with my own ideas. I'm not really sure how much it looks like one of those builds posted here, but I don't wanna see (because I want to build it alone).

Here is the link for how I'm planning to build passive tree.
Spoiler
https://www.poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgUA-d2LjMCaCarZ_MBmogAEs_AfaPLhc5o71abtPIKb7DgnL5BVGjjAGrFC8xFxhUbXVynauWaehX0WQFjlwxNaK6Py42oWb_rSp5S4kzLRRUdeXdH9LJwRLXyDzfrQ9UGWBUKus18q6-QEB0yzdFWD21XGOlgPxKKjwfOVIC0fO3y4yuv1j_rsGMHFf8byHWSdwwm5k4w2UEItRxzc8GtzsxXnJpVh4lVLFr8fQQMepLHljl3ynWNwUonTcNU=


Any comments or tips how it will work? I want to get ancestral bond as soon as I will put my hands on flame totem.


And another questions about Scion this time. I'm planning to make one as soon as I will unlock her. I would like to do something with a spectral throw, but I don't really understand how to start. I have to mix it with elemental damage to work? Should I focus on Attack passives (like Physical Damage, 2H Sword Damage) or something else for it to be effective enough to play maps and another parts of endgame?
I don't really see any major problems besides a slight lack of life. Keep in mind flame totem has a low base crit chance so it will take quite a bit of crit chance and multiplier to get good returns. If you stick with crit also grab arcane potency in top left corner and two more power charges. You will also need to generate charges yourself because totems can't, you can just use Frenzy+PCoC with your wand while totems are blasting away.

Spectral throw has a significant damage penalty so it's recommended to build it either with strong 2H physical weapons or stacking elemental and using a fast 1H one. It's recommended to use 2H axes or 1H rapiers, they have the longest range so they create the widest projectile. If you go crit, daggers are recommended.
Physical build is best scaled with projectile nodes, style specific nodes (2H, 1H, DW, S&B) or weapon-specific nodes. Elemental build is usually scaled via attack speed, elemental damage, weapon elemental damage (you can get a lot of this on gear like belts or rings) and also projectile damage. Crit is also an option for both variants, if you decide on it.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.

◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]►
◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]►
Last edited by raics on Apr 26, 2015, 1:26:52 PM
"
raics wrote:
I don't really see any major problems besides a slight lack of life. Keep in mind flame totem has a low base crit chance so it will take quite a bit of crit chance and multiplier to get good returns. If you stick with crit also grab arcane potency in top left corner and two more power charges. You will also need to generate charges yourself because totems can't, you can just use Frenzy+PCoC with your wand while totems are blasting away.

Spectral throw has a significant damage penalty so it's recommended to build it either with strong 2H physical weapons or stacking elemental and using a fast 1H one. It's recommended to use 2H axes or 1H rapiers, they have the longest range so they create the widest projectile. If you go crit, daggers are recommended.
Physical build is best scaled with projectile nodes, style specific nodes (2H, 1H, DW, S&B) or weapon-specific nodes. Elemental build is usually scaled via attack speed, elemental damage, weapon elemental damage (you can get a lot of this on gear like belts or rings) and also projectile damage. Crit is also an option for both variants, if you decide on it.


Thank you for your answer, that's really helpfull. If I won't go with crit, could I do Flame Totems based on increased Fire damage or other stuff?

Well, maybe I will post questions separately:

1) Burning damage is a damage when targed is being ignited, that's right? Is it worth taking?
2) Spell crit change increase flame totem crit chance?
3) Does spell damage increase damage that totem does?
4) Which way will require less uniqe gear - totem with maximized base damage or crit totems? I would add even more Elemental Damage + Fire Damage + Spell Damage instead of crit. Would it work good?
5) Ancestral Bond is blocking damage dealing spells from being used. What about summoning spells or some utility if they exist?

Thank you very much :)
Last edited by dan14nr on Apr 26, 2015, 1:53:32 PM
Yeah, separate questions are better.

1. Ignite is good for skills that do big hits, like Fire trap, Fireball or Flameblast. Flame totem does a lot of small ones so ignite will do minimal damage, you can read more about ignite status on wiki.

2. Yes, Flame totem casts a spell which also does 'spell' damage, so it is affected by spell crit bonuses.

3. See 2.

4. It's not really a question of how many, it's the question of how much they cost. You can't really plan on dropping any unique you require, no matter how common it is. If you play self-found you will first need to assemble all pieces before playing the build. It's fine playing Flame Totem only on rare items if you want, it doesn't have any build enablers unless you plan on going low life.

5. You just cant deal damage by yourself, your totems, traps, mines or minions can do damage just fine. Keep in mind you can still hit and even crit enemies, you just deal no damage to them, you can use that to replenish life using Life on Hit support or you can generate charges, like I already mentioned.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.

◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]►
◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]►
Last edited by raics on Apr 26, 2015, 2:04:43 PM
"
raics wrote:
Yeah, separate questions are better.

1. Ignite is good for skills that do big hits, like Fire trap, Fireball or Flameblast. Flame totem does a lot of small ones so ignite will do minimal damage, you can read more about ignite status on wiki.

2. Yes, Flame totem casts a spell which also does 'spell' damage, so it is affected by spell crit bonuses.

3. See 2.

4. It's not really a question of how many, it's the question of how much they cost. You can't really plan on dropping any unique you require, no matter how common it is. If you play self-found you will first need to assemble all pieces before playing the build. It's fine playing Flame Totem only on rare items if you want, it doesn't have any build enablers unless you plan on going low life.

5. You just cant deal damage by yourself, your totems, traps, mines or minions can do damage just fine. Keep in mind you can still hit and even crit enemies, you just deal no damage to them, you can use that to replenish life using Life on Hit support or you can generate charges, like I already mentioned.


Thanks again. I don't know how, but more answers=more questions in my mind. What I forgot to ask:

1) What power charges are? Maybe I know, but don't realize.
2) Will "clear" damage build be as good as crit totem build? I mean that I would choose spell/ele dmg instead of crit chance for my totems.

Anyway, the only questions remained are those. I will give totem build a try, and perhaps look on Spectral Throw Scion my own way. Still, making this build seems more complicated than totemic for me :D Propably because of position that Scion takes in passive tree.
Last edited by dan14nr on Apr 26, 2015, 3:04:25 PM
1. Charges are just tokens which trigger certain bonuses your char natively has. Every power charge you stack gives you 50% increased crit chance, every frenzy charge gives you 5% attack and cast speed and every endurance charge gives you 4% physical mitigation and resist all.

2. For spells with 4% crit chance your dps will be fairly close to a crit build for the most part, with crit edging out as both builds get close to their complete state. The biggest advantage of crit builds is they can trigger elemental statuses automatically and with massive crit multi those statuses will be decently strong even with skills like flame totem which do lowish damage per hit (except ignite, that one will suck with FT whatever you do). So, to make things perfectly clear, crit build will end up stronger even with a low base spell and shock status (with added lightning gem and herald of thunder) will make it even stronger, but it will need better gear to get there, and better = more expensive to buy or craft.

About that Spectral Throw Scion...
Spoiler
For the barebones 2H physical variant you exit to the bottom through projectile nodes and head for Duelist and Mara areas. For elemental build you want to span the tree to pick all major aura nodes, usually by exiting through attack speed to the right to visit ranger and shadow areas and also through projectile damage to the bottom and then going to the templar area through life wheel.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.

◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]►
◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]►
Last edited by raics on Apr 26, 2015, 3:58:52 PM
"
raics wrote:
1. Charges are just tokens which trigger certain bonuses your char natively has. Every power charge you stack gives you 50% increased crit chance, every frenzy charge gives you 5% attack and cast speed and every endurance charge gives you 4% physical mitigation and resist all.

2. For spells with 4% crit chance your dps will be fairly close to a crit build for the most part, with crit edging out as both builds get close to their complete state. The biggest advantage of crit builds is they can trigger elemental statuses automatically and with massive crit multi those statuses will be decently strong even with skills like flame totem which do lowish damage per hit (except ignite, that one will suck with FT whatever you do). So, to make things perfectly clear, crit build will end up stronger even with a low base spell and shock status (with added lightning gem and herald of thunder) will make it even stronger, but it will need better gear to get there, and better = more expensive to buy or craft.


Thank you again. I was thinking a lot and I wonder if I'm thinking right about building my own passive skill tree. I tried to make something like Elemental Weapon Templar build (based on some fire physical gem) and I ended up with this:

Spoiler
https://www.poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgUAi4z53UqYzGaUXMBmogAEs_AfaPLhc-0gV-J35TKJgpvsOJBVJy8aOMAacYVXKUbX2rmxQvMRmjvVpu085CJp_vH-YGXsy7iTMtFFRyj66-7aOoGvsQW40BBYLJwRLXyDzfqHZa-3MjQEBx8CVcaD2zpYrJg22PFsSRsqjexVmuBTUkWdPQ8ki3y7_lQNzStQHM4abDbp42oWbySq


Am I thinking right when I try to make a build? I tried to focus on elemental dmg, adding more fire and some life to do not die. What did I do wrong, what should I avoid in these builds? From what I've read I should spend lowest possible amount on str/int/dex nodes. And thanks again, you do amazing job by helping me :) I don't ask to make build for myself, I want to do everything on my own, but wanna know if the path I'm taking is right or rather a waste of time. And I won't make another Templar who will be a melee fighter now :) Maybe later after I'll try more ways to improve my gameplay.
Last edited by dan14nr on Apr 26, 2015, 4:00:23 PM
Yeah, I'm being careful not to spoil it too much :)
Check the post above for Scion tips if you want, it's just general direction to take on the tree but maybe you don't want that.

That depends on the type of build, conversion skills (like molten strike, infernal blow, static strike...) don't really build much more differently than others. The thing is, damage converted from physical is still physical throughout the whole process of calculating your damage output. That means you can just make a perfectly normal physical build, use a converter skill and play as usual with the drawback of half of your damage being affected by resists and not being able to leech, but gaining another good support gem to scale damage with and practically halving damage from reflect.

Of course, you can just build it on 'buzzsaw principle', ignore physical and stack elemental auras instead, then you want elemental and weapon elemental damage bonuses. Actually, for that kind of build damage properties of your main skill aren't really that important apart from damage multiplier, you pick skills for coverage, range, because they do multiple hits or other properties. Infernal blow is a good example of 'other property', it explodes the killed enemy but that damage isn't considered attack damage nor spell, so it needs to be built somewhat differently.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.

◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]►
◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]►
Last edited by raics on Apr 26, 2015, 4:12:40 PM
"
raics wrote:
Yeah, I'm being careful not to spoil it too much :)
Check the post above for Scion tips if you want, it's just general direction to take on the tree but maybe you don't want that.

That depends on the type of build, conversion skills (like molten strike, infernal blow, static strike...) don't really build much more differently than others. The thing is, damage converted from physical is still physical throughout the whole process of calculating your damage output. That means you can just make a perfectly normal physical build, use a converter skill and play as usual with the drawback of half of your damage being affected by resists and not being able to leech, but gaining another good support gem to scale damage with and practically halving damage from reflect.

Of course, you can just build it on 'buzzsaw principle', ignore physical and stack elemental auras instead, then you want elemental and weapon elemental damage bonuses. Actually, for that kind of build damage properties of your main skill aren't really that important apart from damage multiplier, you pick skills for coverage, range, because they do multiple hits or other properties. Infernal blow is a good example of 'other property', it explodes the killed enemy but that damage isn't considered attack damage nor spell, so it needs to be built somewhat differently.


By conversion you mean that skill is converting damage itself to elemental, right? If not then please explain :)
I checked out Scion tips and I will go through projectiles, what next? We'll see :) And about that build I posted (Elemental Weapon) is it playable at least? Or I should change something for sure, because it's a huge waste or problem?
Right, it says '50% physical converted to fire/cold/lightning', that converted part can be increased by physical or elemental passives which makes physical ones a clear choice for builds that use strong physical weapons. For one, they are usually beefier, and the second is kinda obvious, it's better to increase both halves of your damage than one. It also goes for effects that add a percentage of physical, like hatred. The bottomline is those are physical builds with a little different damage output.

Your build would go for the elemental variant in theory, however, you need to pick the tree clean of reserve reduction nodes to stack as much auras and heralds as possible so you don't have points for stuff like that trip to witch starting area. You go for aura nodes and only the beefiest of attack speed and elemental passives, you don't have enough points for more than that, traveling expenses are a killer.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.

◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]►
◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]►
Last edited by raics on Apr 26, 2015, 4:34:04 PM

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info