Hierophants Ruined with Ritual of Awakening Change

Support totems? Who uses support totems with a Hiero? That is practically blasphemy!

I've run with and without soul mantle (and the less curse effect ring and the less curse duration shield which I have never gotten the prophecy for) and, clearly, the soul mantle set up is FAR superior.

So, to answer a question, yes that should be a standard by which you compare optimal totem builds. When you can effectively get a 7 link, why wouldn't you? Especially when that 7L set up ALSO gives you spell damage and another totem.

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Slaanesh69 wrote:

Support totems? Who uses support totems with a Hiero? That is practically blasphemy!

I've run with and without soul mantle (and the less curse effect ring and the less curse duration shield which I have never gotten the prophecy for) and, clearly, the soul mantle set up is FAR superior.

So, to answer a question, yes that should be a standard by which you compare optimal totem builds. When you can effectively get a 7 link, why wouldn't you? Especially when that 7L set up ALSO gives you spell damage and another totem.

A specific item should never be mandatory for a common playstyle, especially when it necessitates using up ring slots to counter drawbacks. There are plenty of other great chests for heiros, such as cloak of defiance, and those should be at least viable.

I think what’s gonna happen basically is the extra totems gem will be useful for builds that can’t get +1 totems elsewhere, but otherwise we’ll have to use the new +1 totem affixes on rare gear.

Totems are definitely now more usable by more builds (which is good), but they need more specific gear now and their peak effectiveness has been nerfed along with heirophants. Maybe that second part is good too, not sure, but it sucks for existing builds.

this was "ninja" nerf if iv ever seen one - no explanation nor community demand for it. other skills and ascendencies are more powerful yet this gets randomly nerfed by quite big margin.

Punches you dont see coming, hurts the most!

It's ok. Hiero still strong and people wanted other classes to be more viable for totems. They got it with the support.
The change is kinda trash though since both sustain and placement speed still makes it a killer node for the ancendancx. Arcane surge path still trash, could be condensed into one node or given some totem leech.
We'll see.

Leech/life gain on hit/shield gain/mana gain etc for me made the delve much much easier. Thats where Heiro really lacks. If your just mapping its fine.

I really don't see any reason to take it now... Ascendant just looks better. leech and easier access to some nodes.

NS

Well as a "Totem main" i can agree - this change is a painful nerf. It is not even a quality of life change, because I feel like summoning 2 totems at the same time is basically a wasted node. I always had enough totem placement speed nodes to summon all 4 of my avaiable friends in a matter of second.

With that change I really think that I might migrate and return to Inquisitor as my totem-class (ignoring ele res is nice). Putting a point into RoA now feels pointless. And there is really nothing else to compensate it in Hiero nodes. Arcane Surge nodes works ok-ish, but it require AoE skill, otherwise it feels 100% like a normal node on a tree, not an ascendancy one.


Basically: it is not a best time to play totems as a old daddy, BUT it might be one of the best times to try pushing other interesting class-skill combinations with totems. MAYBE we will finally someday see a ranged attack totems being used.

Also I am sad because now I have less totems for my Frost Wall public destroyer :<

When I read that change I was thinking to myself: which build would benefit from placing two totems at once? And the answer was: none.

Makes me wonder if they actually play their own game or just make random changes and call that balance.

Just use Illuminated Devotion instead. Instant 40% dmg boost.

1 cast of orb of storm to proc EO/EE or link arcane surge to a curse.

I agree. Here is my suggestion about Ritual of Awakening:

- Remove "Summon two totems at once". People who really want it can use the support gem multiple totems.
- Raise Placement Speed to +100%, making a total of 140% with the small nodes.
- Also let Ritual of Awakening give totems "instant cast" (no delay between totem summoning and first skill usage).

This would be a true awakening, since it would make a very efficient use of totems and would finaly give totems a decent clear speed.

Less placement time -> more running
No Delay for first spell/attack -> faster clearing