[Build of the Week Submission] Tawhoa and The Boys | One Button | Minion Stacking | Tawhoa Totems
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Hello Exiles. Just in time for Halloween, I present to you Tawhoa and The Boys! In this build we stack totem life via gem levels, the passive tree, jewels and the absolutely BUSTED Greatwood II support, in order to generate base damage for Tawhoa's Tending. Then we use "The Boys", an army of Skeletal Clerics, in conjunction with The Dark Defiler to more than double our damage as Chaos. Lastly we solve both our mana problems and sustain through the brand new Undying Hate Jewel.
As is tradition, feel free to leave any questions and comments here or join me on: Twitch!
Pros and Cons
+Excellent Regeneration +Hybrid Life/ES hit pool +Sacrifices are made for QoL to ensure true one button gameplay +Extremely high gear ceiling as you acquire currency +Comes with an entourage of Skeletons so you aren't lonely! -Level 65 support means we cannot level as this build -Takes a moment to get Tecrod stacks going at instance start -So far off meta, crafting is required for upgrades
PoB and Showcases
Questions and Answers
Why Shockwave Totem?
Shockwave totem is my favorite skill in both PoE and PoE2, but 0.3.0 was not kind to it. That said, all totems have the same level based life scaling. Shockwave totem, being melee, has the added advantage of skill levels on gloves, making the coveted level 40 much closer of a reality than other choices.
What's up with The Dark Defiler
This sceptre grants us damage as extra chaos based on the number of skeletons we have, then grants us 2 free skeletal warriors and at least 100 spirit for more friends! If only making friends was this easy IRL.
How do you deal with skill costs?
1. We take blood magic so that we only have to manage life as a resource instead of mana as well. 2. We invest in a bit of efficiency through the efficiency 2 support gem and life cost efficiency on gloves. 3. We turn our life spending into regeneration via the Undying Hate Jewel
Why reserve Blasphemy and Withering Presence, wouldn't more skeletons be better?
Blasphemy linked to Despair provides -15% chaos resistance to bosses. It costs us about four skeletons and provides a much larger bonus. Similarly, for the price of 2 skeletons, we can wither our enemies increasing their chaos damage taken by 5% per stack; a larger bonus than 2 skeletons.
Why are you stacking totem limit when we can only have 1?
Greatwood is an amazing support Gem. With a totem limit of 4, it will instead provide a single totem 20% increased AOE, 60% more life and 60% more damage. This is more than worth the investment of additional totems.
Offenses
1. Gem Levels are still king. We want to get as close to 40 as possible. A level 21 Gem, +8 weapon, +4 amulet, +2 on gloves and +3 on the Prism of Belief puts us at 38. I've not found a way to get the last 2 levels yet, but im working on it! 2. With a modest 20 skeletons, we are gaining 120% of damage as chaos damage. Another way to look at this is Tawhoa's Tending deals 22% of totem life as base damage; 10% as physical and 12% as chaos. There for we scale totem life first. 3. Totems placement is affected by placement speed. We can think of this as cast speed or attack speed for this build. Ideally we want to cast 5+ totems per second to keep both DPS and Regeneration up. 4. Totem Damage, Damage against broken armour, Global Physical Damage and Chaos Damage all give increases to damage. 5. Greatwood II Support, Shock (via Esh's Radiance) and increased damage taken when armour is fully broken; all apply more multipliers.
Defenses
1. Totems take 20% of damage from hits - Essentially 20% less damage taken 2. Physical damage reduction from Jade Heritage 3. Hybrid Life/Energy shield scaling gives us a decent hit pool as well.
Ascendancy Points
1. Answered Call - While we won't make use of the spirits due to summoning totems 5+ times/second, the +1 to maximum totems here frees us from having to get this somewhere else. Remember, each totem is worth 5% AoE, 15% more base damage and 15% more damage as well. 2. Anvil's Weight - Between 40% and 50% of our damage is physical. Might as well have said damage ignore physical reduction. Fully broken armour also applies a 20% increased physical damage taken debuff. This functions as another more multiplier to this portion of our damage. 3. Wooden Wall - 20% less damage taken. We always have a totem up, so the condition here is a non-issue. 4. Jade Heritage - 10% physical damage reduction is great, especially since we are skipping armour on this build. I never use the guard, lets keep it to one button.
Detailed Gearing Section
Helmet
Budget: Life>Resists>Attributes
First Upgrade: Atziri's Disdain socketed with Minion reservation Final Upgrade: 400+ Energy Shield>Resists>Spirit Corruption>Socketed with Minion Reservation
Amulet
Budget: Life>Resists>Attributes Expensive:+3 to level of all Melee Skills>Spirit>%energy shield (or global defenses)>Attributes>Life Very Expensive: +4 to level of all Melee Skills>Spirit>%energy shield (or global defenses)>attributes>life - This requires Sanctification to get +4
Anoint Choice
Lord of Horrors
Mace
Budget: 1 Handed Mace>+5 to level of all Melee Skills>Damage as Extra Chaos
First Upgrade: 2 Handed Mace>+7 to level of all Melee Skills>Damage as Extra>Melee Attack Skills have+1 to Maximum Number of Summoned Totems Expensive: 2 Handed Mace>+8 to level of all Melee Skills>Damage as Extra>Melee Attack Skills have+1 to Maximum Number of Summoned Totems>Strength - This requires Sanctifying of a mace which is... gambling to say the least
The Dark Defiler
Budget: Any you can find
Expensive: Corrupted for 6% damage as Chaos | 2 sockets with increased spirit
Body Armour
Budget: Life>Spirit
Expensive: 150+ Energy Shield: Life>Spirit>Resists>Attributes
Rings
Budget: Life>Resists
Final Upgrade: Life>Resists>Attributes>Rarity
Belt
Budget: Life>Resists>Attributes
Expensive: Energy Shield>Life>Resists>Attributes
Gloves
Budget:+2 Level of melee skills>Life>Resists
Expensive:200+ Energy Shield>+2 level of melee skills>life>resists>attributes
Boots
Budget: Movement Speed>Energy Shield>Life>Resists
Expensive: Bones of Ullr. In order to be worth it you would need 28%+ reservation and 3 sockets with move speed. This makes these an extreme end game min/max
Jewels
Unique Jewels
Undying Hate - Glorifying Tecrod - This is where our regeneration comes from.
Prism of Belief - +3 level of all Shockwave Totems - Totem life scales with levels, this gets us much closer to 40
Rare Jewels
Priorities: Totem Life>Life Regeneration Rate>Totem Placement Speed>Energy shield or Totem Damage
Crafting
As we mentioned earlier, this gear is barely meta adjacent, let alone meta in anyway. As a result, we need to be able to craft some of our gear to get the most out of the build. Luckily, 0.3.0 added pretty good crafting; and that's coming from someone who hates crafting.
Weapon
For the early one handed mace I'd suggest just buying something with +5 skills and any of the other useful mods. Once you are ready for a two-hander follow the below steps.
1. Purchase a two handed mace with +7 to melee skills and under your strength ceiling (don't forget Giant's Blood triples the requirement). Like This Cost: 1 ex. 2. Purchase a two handed mace with +28-30 strength and under your strength ceiling (don't forget Giant's Blood triples the requirement). You can go for t1 strength if you like, but it will make step 3 MUCH harder. Like This Cost: 1.01ex. 3. Recombinate the maces selecting these 2 stats. In my experience this was 1 in 7 chance. Thank you GGG for instant buyout or I would have instant logged out at this step. Total Cost: 8ex 4. Use an Omen of sinistral exaltation then exalt the weapon. Total Cost: 11 ex. 5. Use an Omen of sinistral Crystallisation then a Perfect Essence of Abrasion. Total Cost: 148ex. 6. Use an Omen of Dextral exaltation then exalt the weapon to fill suffixes (we don't care what it is). Total cost: 155ex Note: While we have been deterministic so far, the following steps introduce a level of RNG. In the notes I will put additional things we can do to mitigate. 7. Use an Omen of Sinistral Necromancy and an Omen of the Sovereign. Reveal and hope for "Melee attack skills have +1 to maximum totems". 33% Chance. Total Cost: 186ex Note: An 87ex Omen of Abyssal Echoes can give you a second chance at hitting this mod. 8. Add sockets to the weapon and put in two Fenumus' Rune of Agony. Total Cost: 210ex. If you stop here you've likely spent less than a divine crafting a weapon that will carry you to through the end game. But if you are feeling froggy: 9. Use an Omen of Sanctification and a divine orb. You have a 33% Chance of turning your Mace +8 and improving all other affixes. Which means you have a 66% chance of starting at step 1. Still better odds, with a higher upside than a vaal orb so... there is that!
Gem Links
Shockwave Totem
Tawhoa's Tending>Greatwood II>Urget Totems III>Efficiency II>Magnified Effect (for clearing) or Esh's Radiance for Bossing
Blasphemy
Despair>Magnified Area II>Ritualistic Curse - Large area on our negative resistance aura
Withering Presence
Chaos Mastery>Prolonged Duration - The longer duration allows for more wither stacks.
Skeletal Cleric
Brutus' Brain - Can't have the boys dying on us.
Current Character
Change Log
10.4.25: Guide Published (I hope the name is catchy) 10.5.25: Added Mace Crafting Guide Last edited by f1rstborn#2550 on Oct 5, 2025, 9:15:49 PM Last bumped on Oct 6, 2025, 3:54:15 PM
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Added mace crafting guide. Good luck with your +8!
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Hey f1rstborn, fancy seeing you here after all these years! If this build is anything like your poe1 builds, this promises to be fun. Currently leveling a warrior to try it out! Thanks for the guide. :)
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