Need guidance for my Templar (Ball Lightning + Flame Totem)

I'm a new player here just start play this game about 1 week
(a few day before Awakening arrive)

My Templar now lvl 44 on Act 1 Cruel
HP 1100 / ES 170 / MP 350
Str 110
Int 150
Dex 20

Spell caster
Ball Lightning + Spell echo + Life Leech
Flame Totem + Fire Penetration + Increased burning damage + Change to ignite
Flame Golem + Add fire damage + Lightning damage
Cast : Herald of Thunder / Clarity

Passive skill
http://poeurl.com/zsBNF17

In Act 4 normal mode with 5 last boss
I solo and die 1-2 time each boss and I'm ok with that
Use Totem for main single target dmg
Ball Lightning to clear minion group and gain life
But I have no idea with Golem I just use him to decoy

So anyone know a good use for Golem
What should I do next with my passive skill and other skill gems (Ball Lightning / Flame totem)

You probably need more life on your gear. Do you have max resist or close to it?

I would concentrate on one skill. You could go all flame totem by taking Ancestral bond (not far, just a few skill points away) and use 2 flame totems. If you do this you wont be able to do damage with ball lighting. You could still use traps and curses.

The golems don't do a lot as far as i know. Cast it mainly for the damage buff.

Imo you need to run some defensive setup to survive act 4. This could be enduring cry, life leech or things like that. It seems like you have enough damage. Go for life nodes in tree, and get some leech or high life reg. :)

Gl Hf

Update

Thank you for reply

Now I'm level 53 Just clear Act 2 on Cruel
And I find out that I need more Def to survive in Act 3
I change a lot of gears focus on 4L (but can't find or craft good stat yet)

I got some new gears 4Link : Helm / Gloves and Boots for more skill gem link
But those gears are just magic item base stat focus on Armour and HP + resist option
Since those are just magic item gears i didn't got much HP and resist

Stat
HP 1300 (about 1100 when Clarity active) / MP 450 (340 with Aura active) / ES 19
Armour 1230
Fire / Cold / Lightning resistance
50 / 75 / 61
Golem HP 6600

Skill (with buff)
FT : 2600 DPS
BL : 660 DPS



I try to follow FiveHundredRhoaPower's build
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1317863

But I to use Ball lightning to clear mops and life leech from long range
Flame Golem for damage buff and to decoy enemy
Then I place Flame totem / Hex elemental resist / Spam BL to clear mops and leech my HP



My passive skill now (I didn't spend that much got 10+ more left)
http://poeurl.com/zsNXpRS

My skill gem link now
Helm 4L +1 lvl minion gem : Flame Golem + Minion life + Minion and totem element resist + Fortify
My Golem now can stand longer to decoy

Gloves 4L : Flame totem + Faster casting + Fire penetration + Increased burning damage
My main damage but still looking for better combo link

Boots 4L : CWDT + Enfeeble + Molten shell + Increased duration
Temporary shield + Armour and Curse enemy to do less damage safe my life many time

Chest 3L : Blood magic + Clarity + Elemental weakness
Since new Clarity use a lot of mana reserved so i change it to use HP
But I keep this gem on low lvl (lvl 8) and with blood magic gem It's use about 200HP
And hex skill use my HP to cast but I can leech my HP back by BL + LL

1st Sceptre 3L : Ball Lightning + Spell echo + Life leech
I use this spam BL to clear mops and leech HP

2rd Sceptre : Lightning warp - Herald of thunder
Just utility skill



With this build I can solo Act 2 Cruel main quest without dead
But I die few time on some side area when random unique monster so tough 1-2 hit me to dead
So CWDT help me a lot and FT + Golem did their work pretty good while i keep run away from that damn unique :p



So...
Do you think how far my build can go
Do I need to change some skill gem
What passive skill I should focus next
(Plan to go for life passive but which node I should go first then more Totem dmg later)

More question
-If I go for spell dmg / elemental dmg / fire dmg in passive skill
Will my "Flame totem" did more dmg from that or these passive will gave more stat only my character
-In 2.0 did Reduced mana gem still work for Reserved mana skill gem ?
-----------------------

"

Humperding wrote:

You probably need more life on your gear. Do you have max resist or close to it?

I would concentrate on one skill. You could go all flame totem by taking Ancestral bond (not far, just a few skill points away) and use 2 flame totems. If you do this you wont be able to do damage with ball lighting. You could still use traps and curses.

The golems don't do a lot as far as i know. Cast it mainly for the damage buff.

I don't sure how "Ancestral bond" work
Use 2 Totems seem to be good
But if I take that passive then I can't cast any spell (except traps and curses)
Or I still can cast every spell but no dmg
And what about Life leech if my spell can't did any dmg how can I leech my HP
Did FT link with LL could leech HP to my character ?

Hi there man. I would like to share with you the same build i had with this templar build. (sorry if im not able to share my current tree with you, i am at the office). I am currently level 77 in warbands with 4.2k life, running wrath and herald of lightning with 2.5k tooltip dps of Ball Lightning with only 4 links (Ball Lightning + Spell Echo + Lightning Penetration + Slower Projectiles).

My objective with this build is simply to run maps till i get enough currency and gears to gear up my next project (armor-based Blood-magic Facebreaker something) or my older one (77 2hand cycloner, also in warbands).

I was pissed at first because i didnt know what to do with this build. I had made casters in the past and due to recent changes The Awakening has brought upon us casters, i felt lost. So what i did was to simply build a templar up with the simplest of tree with no notable nodes along the way, like no zealoths oath, no mind over matter, no eldritch battery.
Just good ol cookie cutter caster build. elemental damage, casting speed, high life, mana regeneration, a bit armor based.

So far its doing great man. i mean just for a simple build, this is just plain fun and needs no special attention really. even going as no crit. I still use the cheezy flame totem, but man my buddy sure is reliable against heavy lightning resist mobs and i also use it as a "decoy" totem with damage to keep bosses in place while my slow ball lightning zaps the bejeezus out of em.

it also has its fair share of problems; sometimes gets stunlocked and also nailed to its feet while throwing balls cause of spell echo. high bursts of physical damage is dangerous. Corrupting Blood will definitely send you back to your hideout or to nearest town if your not careful. Lightning thorns tears us apart (on which we could send out our totem buddy out to take all the damage and tanking for us).

Overall, the build is 8/10. simple, fun, it clears maps fast enough for you to blaze through, but is a bit slow compared to other builds.

if you are an old enough path of exile player and have made builds in the past due to their complexity and uniqueness. you will find this build, as i have myself, a breath of fresh air, away from the complexity of the skill tree and diversion offered by most builds. Its just plain simple, fun, but strong enough to beat most of the endgame content.

And so far ive clocked in about 20-24 hours with the characters with no uniques, mediocre gears, and i have reached level 77 with just 1 gear having 4 links (for the ball lightning).

An immediate fix for you would be to remove that increased burning damage from your Flame Totem. Flame totems do lots of small quick hits so it very rarely ignites and your burn amounts are tiny. Replace it with a faster projectiles for a bit more damage and much more totem range or an added chaos (or added cold or added lightning. I would suggest the Faster projectiles. I suspect you will like the totem enough then to consider going Ancestral and get two totems.

"

Meawer38 wrote:

I'm a new player here just start play this game about 1 week
(a few day before Awakening arrive)

My Templar now lvl 44 on Act 1 Cruel
HP 1100 / ES 170 / MP 350
Str 110
Int 150
Dex 20

Spell caster
Ball Lightning + Spell echo + Life Leech
Flame Totem + Fire Penetration + Increased burning damage + Change to ignite
Flame Golem + Add fire damage + Lightning damage
Cast : Herald of Thunder / Clarity

Passive skill
http://poeurl.com/zsBNF17

In Act 4 normal mode with 5 last boss
I solo and die 1-2 time each boss and I'm ok with that
Use Totem for main single target dmg
Ball Lightning to clear minion group and gain life
But I have no idea with Golem I just use him to decoy

So anyone know a good use for Golem
What should I do next with my passive skill and other skill gems (Ball Lightning / Flame totem)

as promised here is the tree that have at level 77



just when about I had exited the Templar tree and had gotten those mana and life nodes, I went straight down to the scion life wheel which boosts our survivability a lot.
im thinking of speccing out of crit first. YES I know crit is very good and it is the road of almost all casters, but we want the build to be very manageable just to safely run some maps in the endgame.

You want to progress steadily. no need to rush yourself. we just barely touched into the league and only 2 weeks has passed. scepters with added flat elemental damage to spells along with spell damage is really nice. just for now get your head out of crit. what will really bring the good out of ball lightning is AOE and slower projectiles gem. the ball lightning gets a AOE thus giving it a lot more time to zap enemies around its AOE, and slower projectiles is one of those gems that gives damage and makes your ball lightning crawl, again to give it more hang time to zap enemies multiple times. at first the links I used with ball lightning is spell echo + added lightning damage. I only got slower projectiles at around level 50. had some troubles at first trying to sustain the mana but it gets along well as I get more items with mana regen. auras I ran are wrath and clarity (that I think stopped leveling at around 6-7). I switched out clarity with herald of lightning at around level 60. I still cant manage to cast endless ball lightnings and run out of mana after holding it down for about 4 seconds. but what you want is to cast a couple, run and place yourself in position then cast again. with bosses, chuck a totem out on their face and hope they stick around long enough for you to cast a multitude of them zap balls.

here are the gears that im using.


my items are subpar really. weapon and shield were bought at 5c each. you want mana regen and resistance and life on your rings. necklace you want to get dexterity as the slower projectiles gem needs some of it (around 100+). rest of the gears are really self found. and yes. some of my gears still don't even have full links on it (cos im lazy). your totem is good enough 2 links. better if linked with added lightning damage + minion totem ele res + faster projectiles. again, 4 links on the ball lightning.

with the bandits I got oak for life in normal skill point on both cruel and merciless.