Three Melee Totem Build - Hierophant

All the defense of a melee build and all the clear speed of a totem build, or maybe the other way around.

Video Guide

The tree is going to look something like this. Give or take a few points. Could drop the totem life and resist nodes for the duelist jewel socket. Could use an axe or staff instead of a mace. Could use swords, but swords can't use earthquake.

Until you get multiple 5 links use the Illuminated Devotion ascendancy node. Increased AoE in gloves for the Ancestral Warchief, life leech in boots for Earthquake.

I went with maces because the warlord divination card set gives a guaranteed 6 linked mace. Before then the Kongor's Undying Rage is a great pickup at about 450pdps with other nice benefits like 60 resist and free resolute technique. The Marohi Erqi is also a nice weapon but the attack speed on it is atrocious for leap slam speed.

My gear is really good. A good benchmark would be to expect about a 400pdps weapon, 2,000 armour across all gear and capped resists. Currently I have a 480pdps weapon, 3100 armour, and was able to fit in some chaos resist and flat physical damage on my jewelry.


Let's talk Voidheart. This thing is busted.


This ring guarantees poison and bleed on melee hits. Poison is scaled by several multipliers. Less duration gives 30% more. The earthquake aftershock effect gives 80% more. Generic tree and gem damage scaling gives ~50-100% increased 'poison' damage through increased damage (like from the Culling Strike gem), totem damage, area of effect damage and melee damage.

This means that poison is going to add .1(base DoT scaling)*2(seconds)*.5(Less Duration duration)*1.3(Less Duration damage multiplier)*1.8(aftershock multiplier)*2(increases to damage)
or 45% more damage to the earthquake aftershock over 1 seconds.

The bleed from the aftershock will do (.1 to .6 if moving target)*5(seconds)*1.8(aftershock multiplier)*2.5(physical damage scaling)
or 2.5 to 15 times the initial hit damage over 5 seconds.

Don't ask me why Less Duration gem applies to the poison but not the bleed, I don't know.

Basically the voidheart means you hit 3 additional times for every one use of earthquake. Most things should die in one hit.

Because leap slam and earthquake can bleed the totems can be linked to bloodlust. Assuming we're hitting things every 5 seconds with leap slam or earthquake it's safe to assume that the totems are going to get a 60% damage bonus.

Totems are a strange beast, they use the skills exactly as how you use them (unless they are hardcoded not to, as is the case of righteous fire totems). Since Ancestral Protector is a melee skill, it gets to use melee damage on full life. Except the totem uses the skill as YOU would use it, not as the totem would use it. If YOU, not the totem, are at full life the gem applies a damage multiplier.

So the totems get access to bloodlust and melee damage on full life for 60% and 50% more damage. I could let the totems do the bleeding and link bloodlust to earthquake or leap slam do the bleeding and link bloodlust to both skills but this setup is the fastest for general clearing. When extra damage is needed, the totems are there to provide it. If the extra damage isn't needed, why waste time summoning totems?

For when you do need the extra damage my totems have 24000 dps each with all 3 out. With bloodlust that puts them up to 38k dps.

Poison is going to add .1(base DoT Scaling)*2(seconds)*1.18(Ancestral Warchief melee damage multiplier)*2.5(increased damage)
or 50-60% more damage as chaos damage.

This puts the totems up to about 60k dps per totem, or 180k for all 3. Swap out increased AoE for conc effect and activate the Lion's Roar flask and I'm looking at like 375k dps total. Add in an atizi's promise, 500k, add in vulnerability, 750k, add in shock, million dps maybe. I dunno.

Point is, the Voidheart is busted. This build is only pretty decent. Juggernaut with one totem could be better defensively. Scion with an ancestral protector and ancestral warchief in the helmet for the double self buffs could be about the same.

Thanks for inflating item prices again.

whoever from GiGiGi allowed this ring into game must be insane

nice build :=)

Seeing how melee damage does not affect poison and Ritual of Awakening grants 24% less totem damage (with 3 totems up) the poison bonus on totems is actually ~30-35%. Still very good, but we should not inflate these numbers unnecessarily.

For those interested, here is what Ghudda posted on Reddit for leveling wise:

"Follow the tree to resolute technique first, then get whatever.
Get a 2 hander and equip the skill sunder and ancestral warchief until level 28 when you can use earthquake.
Swap out whatever you're using for one of one of these. Search for it at poe.trade
Progress until endgame. Maybe get a new weapon and better gear at level 75."

sorry senpai im WED scaled :C





some notes,

hiltess downsides totally avoided.


getting up to 100k/totem flasked+charged

"freeze/ignite/shock" np.

should get Facebreakers with COH+Eleweakness corrupt



have about 7.2 k life atm accuracy is an issue atm "i was using hinekora's to get 92% before" ive had to take it out to cap resist atm, need to fix resist with jewels to get my acc back on 80% ish atm just from %acc nodes on the tree "2h sword" currently using enfeeble to increase hitchance




im playing Chieftain to get the leech off the totems and the added fire dmg




i dont have the ring yet, bought thew prophecy today because your going to inflate the price.. thanks for that


i guess scaling fire would not be too bad from melee dmg as it will add yet another degen

Earthquake aftershock does not double dip on poison/bleed/ignite etc degen effects at all. It only scales your initial hit. It's the same deal as stuff like incinerate, flameblast, and shield charge.

Ancestral warchief's melee damage multiplier also only applies to your attack damage, not the degen effects. Melee damage isn't considered a "source" unlike % projectile damage. In this case, the only thing scaling both your hit and the degen will be totem/area damage.

Totem damage modifiers are rather scarce on the tree, so the main source of poison/bleed scaling would be concentrated effect, and possibly less duration, but it also impacts your poison and (most likely) bleed duration.

The damage modifiers that can scale poison/bleed have been on the wiki for quite some time.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Poison

"

darkmark009 wrote:

It only scales your initial hit. It's the same deal as stuff like incinerate, flameblast, and shield charge.

FB = "more spell damage"
EQ = "more damage"

clearly the same thing...

ty!

bandits? :)