3.1 Flame Totem vs Glacial Cascade Spell Totem

Hi there,

I'm planning to go Marauder this league and playing a totem build.
The reason for that is that I've actually never really played Marauder and totems are really intriguing since I've close to 0 experience playing these either.

I've singled out two builds which I can't decide on, I usually stick to one build / character per league so I guess it doesn't have to be the most starter-friendly build.



Option 1:
[3.0] FLAME TOTEM CHIEFTAIN, MOM BM EB, EVERYTHING VIABLE budget + rich version 300k+ DPS


Option 2:
[3.0] Quad Glacial Cascade Fire Totems - All Content Capable - 1.5 Million Peak DPS



I guess there won't be too many changes necessary to adapt them from 3.0 to 3.1 but the most obvious would be the new GC jewel I guess. Should I account for anything else?

On the topic of leveling: Should i go with Sunder as described in the Flame Totem build until the main skills become available or is there a better way?


Do you have any other tips I should consider?


On a side note: I really like the Idea of Spell Totem + Lightning Tendrils but I guess that would require going Inquisitor, right?

the new jewels wont interact too well with that GC build.

I too am deciding between glacial cascade, dark pact or chieftain totems. you could also look at milkyslice's RF totems.

for levelling a marauder it is pretty easy to craft 2 +1 sceptres in the early game and play as a caster with a totem, both with firestorm or something similar, if that suits you more than melee.

hey

the build guides look solid and as xep624 mentioned above you can easily level as caster an rush for the 2nd totem keystone, but sunder is also really viable since you start as marauder and have no caster-related nodes at the beginning.

I played GC Totems in Turmoil with Soulmantle and it was quite solid, but I played it as Inquisitor! Elemental-dmg totems are really good as Inquisitor since you simply focus on crit and you ignore the boss resistance and that's good for high tier bosses or shaper (More DPS possible then Warchief). Furthermore the mapmod Elemental Equilibrium doesn't effect you (saves chaos)!
Warchief has the bonus of the lifeleech, but if you are not running in the middle of a huge mob group you are safe behind your totems.

That Quad totem GC build looks awfully expensive, not exactly a league starter build. ;)

Flame Totem is rather cheap in comparison and can always be "upgraded" to Incinerate totems for moar damage as the tree is virtually the same. All you need for this are two unique jewels: Spire of Stone for totem stun immunity and Rain of Splinters for the additional projectiles.

I've played the non-crit variant (using Elemental Overload instead) to lvl 99 in Garbinger.

"

XEP624 wrote:

On the topic of leveling: Should i go with Sunder as described in the Flame Totem build until the main skills become available or is there a better way?

Dunno about Sunder. I went went with Magma Orb from the start, crafted me a +1 fire scepter, added the Flame Totem at lvl 4. Once you are in Act 2 you can soon link Faster Casting and Controlled Destruction to the totem (Iron Will if you're lucky with a 4L item), by the end of Act 2 you should have Ancestral Bond and all is well. ;)

Grab a Karui Ward as soon as you can afford it.

SSF is a different matter though as you won't be able to get the gems until much later.

"

g_target wrote:

Elemental-dmg totems are really good as Inquisitor since you simply focus on crit and you ignore the boss resistance and that's good for high tier bosses

True to a certain extent but with other classes penetration and curses that weaken elemental resistances turn into a "more damage" multiplier once you hit negative resistances. The Inquisitor does not benefit from this. And the Chieftain is generally a lot tankier, a lot of life regeneration and totem leech make for great sustainability, and then there are the taunting totems which let you play the game largely unmolested. ;)

Thanks for the input!

I'm still somewhat undecided but leaning to the GC build... we'll see :)

The GC quad totem build is a real DPS monster alright but it comes with a ginormous price tag. I'd say Xoph's Blood will be more expensive in 3.1 than ever before. Tukohama's Fortress is another 8-10ex and 6L Soul Mantles don't come cheap either.

Belt of the Deceiver has been nerfed and does no longer boost spell damage.

As for survivability, those four curses with only one Kinazaru ring look really scary with only 6.xk HP... has a glass cannon feeling to it. In comparison, my Flame Totemer has almost 11k HP, a real die hard toon.

And looking at the skill tree, starting as a non crit Flame Totem build and re-rolling later should be no problem, probably wouldn't need any Regrets, the refunds from quests will be enough, the tree is quite similar anyway.

As for the shield, Ahn's Heritage is a cheap alternative. Socket two Fragility jewels and you get +3% to maximum resistances and permanent Onslaught. Nice damage boost and good clear speed.

I had the impression that the GC build might work as a budget version as well without the shield and the corruptions.

Did you use any guide for your build I can look into or is that similar to the one I linked?

As the poster of the GC build being questioned, this is my 2 cents - there is no doubt that if you are looking at the ratio of damage per cost, the crit flame totem build is the clear winner (especially if you are comparing against the 1.5 mil damage GC version). I have never created a crit focused build myself, but reviewed a number of build guides and high DPS values seem to be possible at a lower cost. I have built (non-crit) Flame Totem Chieftains and have never been disappointed.

Regarding the "budget" version of the GC build (less than 1 Exalt in Harbinger League) - I used a 5 link Soul Mantle and replaced the Tuko shield and Xoph's with rare items. I was able to kill all Guardians and give the Shaper a reasonable attempt. I only played for about 1/2 the league and ended up with about 14 Exalt worth of currency. I enjoyed this build so much that I will be running it again for the upcoming league.

This build's base DPS (using Hatred) was 23k tooltip (3 totems, 2 hits = 138k). This value doesn't take into consideration the 49% fire penetration (before wise oak) and other ascendancy Chieftain passives that provide damage multipliers. Chances are the crit build still likely wins from a damage perspective, but not by much.

Although GC is a powerful skill (for the time being), the greatest strengths of this build are more class related. Having your totems leech life and taunt your enemies easily counters the negative impact of being cursed and makes the build feel solid. If you are going hard core then yes, go with two kikazaro rings (rather than one) for the extra curse resist - otherwise, you are good to go.

Both of these builds are powerful and easily end-game capable. In my opinion there is not a clear budget winner based on build stats. My recommendation is that you choose the build that seems like it would be the most fun for you to play. Any specifics you want to know about the GC builds let me know.

"

XEP624 wrote:

I had the impression that the GC build might work as a budget version as well without the shield and the corruptions.

As Durins_Bane says, of course you can play a budget version. You can take Avatar of Fire in the tree until you get Xoph's Blood, use a 5-link Soul Mantle to begin with and some random spell damage/life shield (not sure how important cast speed is for GC totems but I remember using Spell Echo with a self-caster once, so Onslaught from Ahn's Heritage + 2 x Fragility might be a good choice here too plus you get 3% max res, 120 flat Life, and decent Block Chance). For leveling purposes you can use two Kinazaru rings although lvl 22 Hatred surely is a sizable chunk of DPS.

And while we have Durins_Bane on the line... I see he's using a Stone Golem. If you can spare the sockets, maybe linking it with Added Fire Damage and Chance to Ignite is an option. Should be good enough to light up bosses so you benefit from the Ngamahu ascendancy bonus (increased damage vs burning enemies).

"

XEP624 wrote:

Did you use any guide for your build I can look into or is that similar to the one I linked?

Nah, I've played so many fire totem builds that I pretty much know the tree by heart now. ;)

And no, it's quite different from the build you linked as I went for non-crit with Elemental Overload, less DPS but more HP and easier to gear.

Here's my lvl 99 tree.

www.poeurl.com/bEwO

My profile is public if you want to check the gear. As I said, nearly 11k HP, decent armour rating and a sh*t ton of life regeneration supported by totem leech makes for great sustainability. if you want more damage to can grab more totem goodies at the expense of some max life nodes... or make the switch to Incinerate + Spell Totems but I never felt the need for it. Fully buffed the tooltip DPS was in excess of 50k. FT shows tooltip DPS per projectile so I was getting close to half a mill, this is before Flammability, penetration, and the various ascendancy goodies that don't show in the tooltip. Good enough for the Guardians although I struggled with Chimera, the hard-hitting adds there can wreck the totems faster than you can replace them (the only scenario where I wished I had pushed some totem life).

Stone Golem is preference. It's regen is nice but survivability isn't great when running higher maps and bosses. The Ngamahu ascendancy is an "increase" as opposed to a "more multiplier". If you can make it happen great, but not something I'd go out of my way to activate. My GC build didn't have any additional space to build around the Golem.