[On Hold] Glacial Cascade Totems [ALL Content in the Game]

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Aevaris wrote:

My question though is that I just recently shifted into GC totems from firestorm (this char is level 35ish). I find the totems are really squishy, so getting them up to start doing damage is sometimes a challenge and a bit clunky because they often times die before they can start doing damage. I've mitigated this some with running zombies (found as RNG) as simple aggro. But I'm curious if that is normal or if I'm doing something wrong?

The totems will feel a bit squishy pretty much up until you get soul mantle. Mostly it is fine though, just don't drop them directly inside packs.

When you get your cruel ascendancy you'll be able to shit out totems at light speed, which also helps.

GC totems is a great league starter, and has the staying power to carry you all the way to uber elder on a modest budget.

But of course next patch is supposed to be a skill re-balance patch, so I'm hoping to be using one of the newly buffed skills instead.

I've decided to use this build as my next league starter, as had lots of fun with liftings aw totem build this league. Question is, when i input OP's pob link for hiero in to pob i get like gc dps of like 50,000 dps per totem.
Is this correct?
This doesnt seem enough damage to take down shaper, uber elder etc as my aw chief totem has like 200,000 dps per totem?

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Tyetan1 wrote:

I've decided to use this build as my next league starter, as had lots of fun with liftings aw totem build this league. Question is, when i input OP's pob link for hiero in to pob i get like gc dps of like 50,000 dps per totem.
Is this correct?
This doesnt seem enough damage to take down shaper, uber elder etc as my aw chief totem has like 200,000 dps per totem?

I think it does. My reaction speed is very, very bad and I got him down to less than 10%. I did fail but its because I suck when I am under pressure and start getting anxiety and shaking lol. I actually was taking him down fairly quickly though, just I started freaking out and fell about during the last round and my gear isnt all that special either.

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mtwilliams717 wrote:

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Tyetan1 wrote:

I've decided to use this build as my next league starter, as had lots of fun with liftings aw totem build this league. Question is, when i input OP's pob link for hiero in to pob i get like gc dps of like 50,000 dps per totem.
Is this correct?
This doesnt seem enough damage to take down shaper, uber elder etc as my aw chief totem has like 200,000 dps per totem?

I think it does. My reaction speed is very, very bad and I got him down to less than 10%. I did fail but its because I suck when I am under pressure and start getting anxiety and shaking lol. I actually was taking him down fairly quickly though, just I started freaking out and fell about during the last round and my gear isnt all that special either.

Thanks for the reply and info.

I have had another look at the pob and its his starting gear that he used to take shaper down within 6 days, so I'm guessing there is some background dps going on, like gc hitting 2 or 3 times or something that accounts for the damage.

Hi mate, first of all,amazing build!! I have an lvl90 frost bolt and i was thinking about fliping it to GC and i have one question! que chest is really mandatory for late game or is it possible to run it with a +2 cold skills staff?! ty and keep the amazing job!

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Isnenghi wrote:

Hi mate, first of all,amazing build!! I have an lvl90 frost bolt and i was thinking about fliping it to GC and i have one question! que chest is really mandatory for late game or is it possible to run it with a +2 cold skills staff?! ty and keep the amazing job!

So you mean not to use the soul mantle unique?

I'm no expert but I have read up enough on this build as I like to be prepared and from what ive read in previous posts on this thread is that the soul mantle is a 56% inc in dps (not my math). This is due to inc spell damage and the extra totem and the fact that you can run as a 7 link with this unique as the chest has lvl 20 spell totem already.

So I would argue it is mandatory for late game as the damage boost would be that great

Hope that helps

GC totems is definitely viable without a soul mantle.
Some quick stats from looking at poe ninja.

75% of softcore players use soul mantle with GC totems.
25% of hardcore players use soul mantle with GC totems.

The damage amplification curses + 0 defense chest armor is a pretty large drawback for hardcore players which I think is why most people shy away from it. That setup achieves large tooltip but is probably a bit too glassy. Simply running perma elder red maps with the defense of a tabula and 0 hp/mana rings sounds terrible from a hardcore perspective.

Top contenders for chest slot for this build:
Loreweave: Simply an insane chest for mapping to 100, ignoring -max mods and giving you juggernaut levels of elemental mitigation, as well as boosting your dps and stats. This chest can be acquired in hardcore or ssf through ring turn ins.

Crystal Vault: Stacking phys reduction with taste of hate gives you 40% of phys taken as cold, so a 10k slam becomes 6000 physical 760 cold damage. Good for doing harder physical damage and fire bosses. Not good for minus max maps or vs lightning/chaos damage. This chest has definitely saved my life in hardcore a couple times.

Shaper chest: These can get insane, and pricey: Mods to look for, +1.5% chance to crit, +1 active skill gems, 10% extra mom, phys taken as element, life/resists etc.

Cloak of defiance: 50% MoM. Increases your max pool. Evasion chest has anti synergy with kaom's roots.

Kaom's Heart/Pseudo 6L helmet: Running a helmet with hypothermia and 3% crit chance, you can use a kaom's heart and have 7k+ life + 3k+ mom or run magic find gear while having acceptable defense.

Off colours: You didn't need those chromes anyways.

Astral: Dirt cheap 6l readily available with decent defense options: Usually 1500+ armor and big life/str/resist rolls, frees up slots for dps. These are about 1/5 the price of a unique 6l but coloring will be real hard, may have to run added fire or hypothermia with this setup to get your colors which may not be ideal but probably still destroys red maps.

Belly: Same as above but less budget more life.

Brass Dome: Doing any content where a crit will kill you but a normal hit wont this may be a decent option. If you wanted to farm lab with this build or something hipster.

Crab Chest: Pretty strong chest frees up bleed flask and 30% physical mitigation aura is really good for doing physical content like lab.

Hello, first of all I would like to thank OP for sharing this build, this is the first build where I really invested a lot of money into because it's just so fun to play with.

With that said I wanted to know where I could improve my character on now, I've kind of hit a roadblock where I'm not sure where to go from now. I think that I could do with more life, but I'm kind of worried that that would impact too much on my damage.

Here is my PoB (https://pastebin.com/PhmVAMGt), do note that I made a few changes to the tree.

Thank you

It looks like you moved gear off your heirophant some but from what I see some ways to improve him.


4 link your helm, duration is important on IC and you should be able to cast vaal haste still because cwdt cannot trigger them afaik.

120% crit or 10% ele pen enchant for boots if you haven't killed. (Biggest dps boost for buck and a huge boost to any totem build.)

Craft some better weapons, crit chance to spells and low attack speed on your weapons. APS roll on each weapon improves whirl cast speed dramatically.

Drop mana flask for mapping and replace with duration dps/survival flask. If you are having mana problems you may want to pick up the 2 mana nodes in shadow area.

Life/mana/resist roll on your amulet. Looks like you are all in on the damage mods but life/mana/overcapping resists are probably more important as looks like you have plenty of dps for t16.

Get tri resist on helm instead of 2x res + int.

Hysteria Gloves for whirling blades. More attackspeed will probably improve your mapping speed more than adding more dps mods at this point. Link it with fortify for extra survivability.

I don't think your rare jewels are good enough to justify dropping long winter's for as these significantly improve your totem's reach.

I would definitely pick up a clear mind jewel. 60% spell damage is a truckload of damage with your current tree setup.

That is my advice but at the end of the day you should do what works for you and within your budget/time constraints.

I was messing around with a shaper dagger and ended up with something pretty decent I think. I've never really gotten in to crafting so I'm not sure how I should proceed with this. Would like to craft it up for my GC Heiro using this build:

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Empyrean Slicer
Fiend Dagger
{Implicit} 40% Increased Global Critical Strike Chance
60% Increased Critical Strike Chance For Spells
Gain 38% of Physical Damage As Extra Cold Damage
Gain 37% of Physical Damage As Extra Lightning Damage

Lucked out on the "Gain Physical..." as T1 prefixes and the 60% crit chance is a suffix. Do I want to chance an exalt on this and then craft crit multi or do I want to mastercraft and craft crit multi and spell damage? Totally lost at this point.