Is this pure folly...?

And by "this", I mean this skill chain:

Is a Kinetic Blast totem even viable? I mean, right now it's doing pretty well at crowd control, clearing out rooms, and even bosses with some backup...but will this still be viable in the endgame? I just got to Cruel 1 with my witch, who is using this setup. I know the DPS is low, but it's not showing the AoE damage. Kinetic Blast will do more damage as it levels, and I can boost my attack speed further by increasing the quality of LMP, but a witch is probably still not the best choice for this skill set (in spite of her proficiency with wands), because of her low physical attack. But this witch started out life as a staff wielding totem user, so her strength is boosted via passives and gear already.

A further question... Should I replace the last socketed gem with Increased Area of Effect, Concentrated Effect, or leave it as it is?

My original thought was to try and replace my shotgunning Flame Totem with this, in the hopes that the overlapping AoE's would simulate the damage caused by focusing all projectiles on one target. To that end, it seems like IAoE might be my best bet.

I don't think it will be too good right now, but in Awakening it will get a few large buffs, namely damage effectiveness scaling on KB and lower penalties on LMP and RAT.

Players generally prefer Conc but feel free to swap them around and pick for yourself.

Anyway, I might stick with Flame totem if I were you, it's strong in beta even without shotgunning.

"

raics wrote:

I don't think it will be too good right now, but in Awakening it will get a few large buffs,

To add to what you mentioned, it is getting a seriously INSANE buff in the form of the new Notable Shaman's Dominion. It grants 100% Global Increased Critical Strike Chance for 4 seconds upon placing a totem.

That's insane! With a wand you are gaining between 8 - 11% chance to crit from that alone!

There's also that jewel that adds projectiles to totems, right?

Maybe I'm just not in the know but:
RAT has the bow tag - it shouldn't work with Kinetic Blast.

Did I get that wrong? Did I get it right but it will change in The Awakening?

"

Xeledon2132 wrote:

Maybe I'm just not in the know but:
RAT has the bow tag - it shouldn't work with Kinetic Blast.

Did I get that wrong? Did I get it right but it will change in The Awakening?

No, the Bow tag makes it work with all bow skills even when they are not projectile skills (e.g. RoA). But it also works with wands.

Thanks to everybody who responded to this. :)

Just an update...this witch just got about halfway through chapter 2, merciless. Everything was great, until I ran into Wilorin Demontamer, who killed me thrice. :(