2.4 Low-Life Hierophant SWT - It's easier than you think - HC/Atziri viable and beginner friendly

LATEST PASSIVE PROGRESSION VIDEO HERE

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND WILL BE UPDATED ASAP

Atziri Kill

Recent YT video where I talk about this, also an atziri run.

So in addition to the videos I have been making on my youtube channel, some builds will have a forum thread as well. This is one of those builds! (aren't you lucky)


Low-life Hierophant Shockwave Totem (SWT) is a highly defensive, fast aoe clearing totem build. Thanks to our Ascendancy, we get 100% reduced cost (aka free) of skills while we are full on Energy Shield and 50% reduced when we are not. It is of my opinion that the only thing holding SWT back from being a top tier skill was its Mana cost and this solves this completely. Due to using Zealot's Oath, smalls bits of damage will be recovered near immediately and due to the general playstyle of SWT and totems builds in general, there can be long periods where no damage is taken at all resulting in free skill usage.








You can have quite a bit of flexibility in the passive tree. Traveling down to Harrier to get 6% more aura effectiveness if you need 1% more maximum resists, grabbing 5% increased AOE and more critical strike multiplier for slightly faster clearing or even using Inspired Learning for a mini head hunter.

120 Point tree
112 Point tree


Kill All
Kill All
Help Alira



Sanctuary of Thought is the Ascendancy passive that allows the player to have free skills when on full ES. However, it also grants a nice portion of extra ES. 1000+ when leveled and geared appropriately.

Conviction of Power allows the player to easily maintain Power Charges while playing. While this will work perfectly fine for map clear, I suggest also using an Orb of Storms linked with Power Charge on Crit. This allows you to maintain through boss encounters AND making it consistent enough to maintain your Endurance Charges as well.

As for the last 2 ascendancy passives you will most likely be going Pursuit of Faith (great for map clear) OR dropping Conviction of Power and going Ritual of Awakening. Doing this will allow you to shave 4 points off of your passive tree so you could allocate them elsewhere if you wanted to. It will also boost your single target damage considerably.







BUDGET CORE ITEMS
Solaris Lorica - Required, self explanatory
Prism Guardian - Not required, you can go low life without this item but you will not be able to have as many auras. Worth it though.
Obliteration - Not required, you can use a good rare wand in place of this if you would prefer.
Overflowing Chalice - Not required, however extremely powerful when used appropriately with other flasks.
Energy from within - Required, this makes the Melding cluster amazing.
Steppan Eard - Required, these are too good to pass up at the price and give you some nice extra benefits.
Eye of Chayula - Not required, dealing with stun is something you do not need until you start doing higher level content as you have plenty of HP to take a few hits when playing carefully.
Atziri's Promise - Great DPS flask that will also provide you with chaos resist.

LUXURY ITEMS
Shavronne's Wrapping - The obvious upgrade from a Solaris Lorica
Taste of Hate - Amazing flask for both DPS and defense.
Dying Sun - New Shaper unique flask /drool
Void Battery - Classic powerhouse crit wand. Requires constant maintaining of Power charges though.
Inspired Learning - This is completely optional and only works in the jewel socket above witch when you have Arcane Focus, Blast Radius, Alchemist and the Power Charge.



For leveling I suggest rushing Ancestral Bond and using dual Flame Totem linked with Faster Casting, Fire Penetration and Controlled Destruction.

After that you can begin to fill out some life nodes as you will level as life until about 70-72 (when you transition to Low-life)

In addition to using dual Flame Totem, getting yourself a pair of Deerstalker unique boots with Firestorm, Multitrap, Fire Penetration and Controlled Destruction will be fantastic for leveling.

You can probably do your first lab around level 50-55 and if you decide to do this I suggest getting Illuminated Devotion first. Socket your Flame Totem set up into your Helm for the additional 20% elemental resistance penetration. Personally, I do not know if I will be doing this due to the fact that it will add another cost of 10 regrets in order to respec Illuminated Devotion and just transitioning from life to low-life will use up all the passive resets you get from quests.


If you enjoyed this guide and would like to see the other builds I have done or the videos I have made on youtube you can check me out there! I also stream from time to time and sometimes I say things on twitter.

Good job, waba!

How are you proccing inspired learning?

Hi,

Completely new to totems - but I fancy something different in the new league coming up. A few questions:

1) 50-55 for first lab is quite a bit later then I've done with other builds. Is this normal for SWT ... does it flourish "late game"?

2) Levelling and Ascendancy ... you mention taking Illuminated Devotion first and re-spec'ing - but then you're not sure if that's what you're going to do. How did you level this in 2.3? Or did you completely re-spec from something else and 2.4 will also be the first time that you level this build from 0 (zero)?

3) Would be great for you to give some pointers on what stats to look for on items ... at the start of the league I'm guessing some uniques may be rare/expensive, so we have to make do with Rares we find ourselves until the uniques drop more and/or we have the chaos to buy them. Also ... I'm not hardcore so I don't know what those uniques are in the picture ... would be great if you could list them :-)

Thanks and advance :)

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1) 50-55 for first lab is quite a bit later then I've done with other builds. Is this normal for SWT ... does it flourish "late game"?

I would not say it is normal or even necessary, this is just what I do personally because Id rather be safe about it and I can level very fast without Ascendancies anyway

"

2) Levelling and Ascendancy ... you mention taking Illuminated Devotion first and re-spec'ing - but then you're not sure if that's what you're going to do. How did you level this in 2.3? Or did you completely re-spec from something else and 2.4 will also be the first time that you level this build from 0 (zero)?

I did completely respec this character however I have leveled this way countless times now since I started playing Shockwave Totem (2.0). Also as mentioned above, I say I am unsure what I am going to do because I do not need the Ascendancies to level... so maybe I will or maybe I wont. Depends on the difficulty of Essences I suppose

"

3) Would be great for you to give some pointers on what stats to look for on items ... at the start of the league I'm guessing some uniques may be rare/expensive, so we have to make do with Rares we find ourselves until the uniques drop more and/or we have the chaos to buy them. Also ... I'm not hardcore so I don't know what those uniques are in the picture ... would be great if you could list them :-)

I will be updating that portion of the section very soon. The guide is pretty time consuming and I spent most of yesterday doing what you see now haha ... my next day off (Wednesday) I will be updating more.

"

Thanks and advance :)

You're welcome!

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wabachaw wrote:

"

3) Would be great for you to give some pointers on what stats to look for on items ... at the start of the league I'm guessing some uniques may be rare/expensive, so we have to make do with Rares we find ourselves until the uniques drop more and/or we have the chaos to buy them. Also ... I'm not hardcore so I don't know what those uniques are in the picture ... would be great if you could list them :-)

I will be updating that portion of the section very soon. The guide is pretty time consuming and I spent most of yesterday doing what you see now haha ... my next day off (Wednesday) I will be updating more.

Thank you :-) Also if you get the chance ... what do you use to level early game? SWT is lvl 28 ... do you use Fire Totem until then, or something else? I guess there are no specific nodes for totem until we get to Ancestral Bond (+1 to totems) at around level 25/26 ... so just level with whatever comes to hand? Or use Fire totem to get used to the play style?!

"

zedzed_uk wrote:

Thank you :-) Also if you get the chance ... what do you use to level early game? SWT is lvl 28 ... do you use Fire Totem until then, or something else? I guess there are no specific nodes for totem until we get to Ancestral Bond (+1 to totems) at around level 25/26 ... so just level with whatever comes to hand? Or use Fire totem to get used to the play style?!

Dual Flame totem and Firestorm trap

Hey hey as an new player to Poe , do you have an specific lootfilter voor this bild or just a general one .

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gakkeroel wrote:

Hey hey as an new player to Poe , do you have an specific lootfilter voor this bild or just a general one .

A general loot filter will work, I suggest Neversink's. He does a great job of keeping it up to date for each patch.