[2.1] Voltaxic Rift Crit Poison Spark Totems - Safe and potent for high lvl maps with all mods

What do you think about Drillneck and using Pierce gem instead of faster projectiles?

With Drillneck, tree and pierce gem you get 100% pierce which is a big dps boost. Drillneck makes it 100 increased damage. Plus pierce gem itself comes with increased damage. And that increased damage double dips affecting both the sparks and poison.

Looks very interesting. Any chance of a vid of you doing some harder content like a high lvl map or Atziri or so?

@diablomig
I use the nodes in the tree + the Projectile Weakness curse for pierce. Granted, you lose some curse effectiveness against uniques, making it dip below 100% against them, but not using the gem makes it worth it. Not all the projectiles can hit it at the same time anyhow, so if it eats a couple, it does not have that big an effect. Drillneck might not be wrong for a non-crit tree, as one of the huge benefits of running the tree that I do is that I can stuff a huge amount of crit stats on my quiver; the one I have is two tiers short of perfect for me (as life is the only relevant prefix). 100% increased projectile damage is crazy good.

However, if you used Drillneck with the pierce nodes in the tree and Faster Projectiles, you get 50% from Drillneck projectile damage (make sure to count the implicit for damage but not pierce chance), 29% from lvl 20 Faster Projectiles, 10% cast speed from FP quality, and the projectile speed. Seems better than 100% + the 10% Pierce gem quality. I think even if I were to use Drillneck with a non-crit tree like yours, I'd still use FP over Pierce.

Faster Projectiles is especially good if you take the duration nodes due to the amplification you get from combining them. For a tree that goes the route that you are looking at, it seems even better.

I should also note that if you don't use the Pierce gem with Drillneck, you can add Poacher's Aim to the mix as a cheap 25% damage jewel that also helps your pierce chance versus uniques that resist the curse.
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Poacher%27s_Aim

tl; dr Drillneck seems awesome for you, but I'd use it with the Faster Projectiles gem.

@Ulrira
I need to upgrade my computer before I'm able to effectively record. This may happen soonish. I may see if one of my buddies can record a map where they do not attack.

ok, no problem... Could you then maybe give us some information what content is possible (easy/hard/impossible)

Cause to be honest I'm really interested in trying this... but I already made a RF-char that runs into problems past T6 maps or so... ANd I don't wanna do that again ;)

Yeesh. Yeah, I would not want to run a build that can't get past T6.

I am currently running T10-T11 maps trying to build a bigger pool. I solo and party just fine. My buddies are running other off-the-wall totem builds and I get Purity of Elements and Wrath, which are some great QoL boosts.

I solo a T10-T11 map in 10-20 minutes depending on the map including running back to town to drop loot. I can handle -max resist Crematorium boss with other damage mods (ran 5 of them a few days ago after hitting 93).

There are NO MAP MODS that I cannot run. No regen and Blood magic are annoying due to to their interaction with MoM. Enfeeble is the most slowing (Temp Chains is actually fine). Vulnerability is the most dangerous, as degens circumvent the defenses (evade, dodge, MoM). Chain makes you play very differently, as the chains off your totems can create dangerous situations. If I see 3 damage mods, I may chaos a map, but otherwise I will look for good numbers rather than safety.

I have not run any T12+ maps yet, but mostly for XP reasons. I have not yet run Atziri.

Yeah, i did not think abput the curse. Putting it on frenzy, gmp, curse on hit works out pretty well. So no need for a pierce gem.

Question on frenzy charges. Do the more damage and increased cast speed affect totems?

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diablomig wrote:

Question on frenzy charges. Do the more damage and increased cast speed affect totems?

Yep.

If you have more room on your bow/chest for a 5L, I'd recommend Blind. Enfeeble works great if you can fit another curse.

I really wanted to make a version of this build that uses another defensive setup that I really like: Acro/Phase + IR. It sounds like a terrible idea until you break it down. Acrobatics cuts your armor in half, which makes stacking it seem like a pretty terrible plan. However, how much armor do you need for it to be good mitigation? 10K? 15K? 50K? And how much of that armor actually comes from non-flask sources that are on all the time on a normal armor-stacking build?

What I discovered is that if you are willing to spend your reservation on Grace + Determination, you can very easily get 10K armor up all the time after halving with 50K on a Granite of Reflexes/Iron Skin. That is what is EASY to get. All it takes is Hyrri's Ire, Charisma, Alpha's Howl (or Sovereignty and a different evasion helm), Atziri's step, and perhaps some evade gloves or Drillneck. All of these things are things you would consider running anyway if they are not locked into your dodge build already.

So you end up dodging 50+% of attacks and spells and then getting good armor + endurance charges and maybe even Arctic Armour if you want to further expand your reservation with Sovereignty or run off Blood Magic. You are clearly cutting out the MoM aspect of the mitigation so mana regen can be a bit less, but you need to invest a bit in evasion/armor nodes. Fortunately, some of the best ones are in areas you want to be anyway.

The problem is that it just seems like it needs too many points. I'm not sure it works if you want to keep your damage up. Even with a non-crit build, I get stuck cutting points at around this tree (Ranger start seems best):

http://poedb.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwIBAF4A7gHRA-4FLQW1BnAGoAguD6sS4RUgFr8ZihmOGbQaOBqPHb4hYCLqJIsmlScvKaUqEypNLOktgy3SLlMwcTIBM4c1kjpCOuE8LT8nQYdDMUSeSRNKyEt4TeNOn1FMU7tVS1WpWOVZbVnzWitaUl-YX7Bh4mHrZIRlTWZUZp5qAWqMbqpyD3KpdO108XXLelN6f3rve8N9W4LHg1-DzITFhO-Gs4ngjX6Nv5BVkx-Ub5cGl7SbJpuNm7WfPqEiokCi2aLqo_KmV6iarEesqq_rsNiyGbXytz69Nr6nv9XDOsSixPbGrsgUykrNmM8yz3rTb9Qj2L3awd2o5ljo1upi7YPyRfT49W_22vm9-ej7Cf4K_o8=

Sure I can cut some little stuff, but cutting the remaining Shadow nodes, the Ranger section, or Potency of Will seems terrible. Any ideas?

BTW no luck with Drillneck. Turns out it specifically says Arrows, not projectiles.

In any case i already reached lvl 65 doing into DOminus Merciless with Voltaxic and spark totems. And it feels very strong.

The build definitelly works on low levels. Now i only need to grind to higher level maps to see how it compares to my other builds.

Are you sure bout Drillneck? It says "Projectile Damage increased by Arrow Pierce Chance" which should mean that your global pierce from the tree + the 10% implicit + the jewel if you are using it should add to projectile damage. The implicit won't help you actually pierce, but all of it should add to your projectile damage except for the pierce you get from cursing.