Totem nodes behind Ancestral Bonds

Right now, I'm playing a Flame Totem build on Nemesis (lvl 64 right now) and had a lvl 66 Flame Totem Marauder before 1.0 release. So I think I have enough experience on this field.

My Equipment:
5L Chest with Flame Totem, 10% GMP, LMP, Faster Projectiles and Faster Casting
Helm with +30% fire damage
Wand with 70% Spell Damage

Right now, Ancestral Bonds ist totally underpowered. While totems are great in normal and cruel difficulty, they are practically useless in merciless. Enemies here have tons of life und more important: extremely much elemental resist. When I set up 2 flame totems, it can take up to 5 minutes(!) to kill the rare mob.

Example: Today I ran into a group of 12 blue fire skeletons which shot LMP fireballs. They had fire resistance and killed my totems in 2 seconds... Even with flammability I had much trouble to destroy their energy shield and even more trouble to kill them. I had to lure them out one by one to kill this group. Took me over 5 minutes. Ofc I could have ignored them, but the point is: Shouldn't I be able to easily destroy some blue mobs with 2 totems...?

Here is a comparrison:

Advantages of Ancestral Bonds:
+ You can have 2 totems
+ Both totems can tank damage for you, while you stay unharmed
+ Totems automatically focus enemies, so you don't have to aim
+ You can farm rooms without being in the room yourself

Disadvantages of Ancestral Bonds:
- You have no life leech, therefore you really need to stay outside of the enemy range
- You have no mana leech, therefore you need alot of +mana and +mana regeneration equipment or must eat alot of potions
- Mana cost for totems is incredible high and a totem can cost easily +200 mana per totem. This ridiculous high Mana consumption prevents you from having 2 totems activated at the same time
- When using spell totem/ranged attack totem, the damage output from totems is incredible low compared to people who just use the skill themselves (30% reduced cast speed and 50% reduced damage... wtf).
- The grafic-effects from having 2 totems at the same time results in massive fps drops and you have the feeling the effects will cause eye cancer (2 flametotems with GMP+LMP cause massive flames with alot of screenshaking. It's hard to dodge enemies when you don't see them between the flames. Same goes for other spells with Spell Totem)
- Totems get one-shotted by bosses and can't stand a group of 10+ enemies. One Storm-Herald Mob can take out 2 totems in 2 seconds (even with element res and life nodes for totems).
- You can't deal damage by yourself anymore, therefore you have to run around like a chicken when the enemy charges at you instead of the totem because you can't have life leech
- Damage output is awefully low (even with increased totem damage nodes). Most spell totem or flame totem builds use GMP and/or LMP. While this results in a massive AOE damage, the damage output is only great when the enemy stays directly in front of your totem...
- Enemies who flee are a big problem. As a player, you can easily chase the enemy. As a totem caster, you have to cast the totem over and over again.
- The only chest that allows you having 3 totems, give you MASSIVE drawbacks due to vl 20 curses, which can be your death...

Well, there are more disadvantages and it seems like I have to respec my ancestral bonds and go for totem+self-casting... Right now, it seems useless to stay as a pure totem caster. When I play with others, I can see how they face tank big groups of monsters without struggling and do alot more damage then I do. I have many life nodes and my equipment is decent if not good, so I don't think it's the fault of my equipment at all.


Besides critism, here is my suggestion: Add some totem nodes BEHIND ancestral bonds (like the onces behind CI or blood magic etc.)

3 Nodes:
- Increase Totem Damage by 30%
- Increase Totem Life by 30%
- All totems get +15% element resistances and additional 10% physical damage reduction


Those are examples to make it worth going for Ancestral Bonds. If you have better ideas, I'm open for it.

Apparently, totems were OP. Is it any surprise that now they've removed MF builds that you don't see a single sporker? Kids who whined 24/7 about them just didn't know that MF were all they were good for, not dps, not tanking, not nothing but MF.. But hey, that deserved a nerf :)

Well, now they are by far underpowered. You can't kill aynthing anymore with it and the disadvantages outweight the advantages by far... I don't care about spark totem users, but there are some people who use skills like flame totems and if they are not viable, why are they ingame then?

Why you don't use incinerate+spell totem? Flame totem was known to lack offense compared to incinerate.

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ignarsoll wrote:

Why you don't use incinerate+spell totem? Flame totem was known to lack offense compared to incinerate.

Well I tried it out, the real problem is, that incarnate+LMP/GMP does no damage at all if the enemy is not directly in front of the totem (because only only ray is hitting, while all the others miss).

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AceNightfire wrote:

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ignarsoll wrote:

Why you don't use incinerate+spell totem? Flame totem was known to lack offense compared to incinerate.

Well I tried it out, the real problem is, that incarnate+LMP/GMP does no damage at all if the enemy is not directly in front of the totem (because only only ray is hitting, while all the others miss).

At first I didn't noticed you use both gmp+lmp. My personal opinion is that it's a bad practice to use them at the same time. It really minimizes the damage output and honestly most of the time the packs are not that crowded so it's hard to utilise 7 rays.

After the release I respecced one of my ripped characters to a totem build to test if they were powerful (with the additional totem nodes). Actually I was really satisfied with what I witnessed that I even decided to create a totem build as my second nemesis character. So I'm surprised to see there is others that are not happy with the changes.

Your problem may be related to your skill combination + passive tree allocations but I can't say for sure as you stated that you have experience with totems, just my opinion on the subject.

Well, the thing is:

I use GMP/LMP and even enemies at CLOSE range (so all projectiles hit) take forever to be killed. I see mace/axe/sword character who 2-3hit those guys, while it takes like 10+ seconds for my totems to kill the same enemy, even when they are very close and eat all my projectiles... Removing either GMP or LMP may give me a little bit better single target DPS on mid/far range, but it will greatly lessen my damage at close range, which is already poor.

Actually no.

Before, Totem builds could kill easily with alot of gear invested into MF.

Now, you need to actually invest into damage to get closer to the efficiency of other builds who also have to invest into damage.

And, the fact Totem builds are the safest kind of builds to play just needs some sort of drawback, no?

Simply put - if you were killing well, safely AND getting better rewards, something was wrong.

Now you have two options:
Get normal loot while killing slower but safely
Get better loot while killing much slower but safely

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Peenk wrote:

Apparently, totems were OP. Is it any surprise that now they've removed MF builds that you don't see a single sporker? Kids who whined 24/7 about them just didn't know that MF were all they were good for, not dps, not tanking, not nothing but MF.. But hey, that deserved a nerf :)

Not just 'a' nerf. They also nerfed spark's duration, and damage, and they massively nerfed RF. Sporkers got a triple-nerf, and that's not even counting the aura nerf.

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Nurvus wrote:

Actually no.

Before, Totem builds could kill easily with alot of gear invested into MF.

Now, you need to actually invest into damage to get closer to the efficiency of other builds who also have to invest into damage.

And, the fact Totem builds are the safest kind of builds to play just needs some sort of drawback, no?

Simply put - if you were killing well, safely AND getting better rewards, something was wrong.

Now you have two options:
Get normal loot while killing slower but safely
Get better loot while killing much slower but safely

Sorry, but you actually never played a totem build. If you would have, you wouldn't write such bs about totem users.

First: You have no life leech or life gain on hit. If you get just once in close-combat, it can be your insta death on merciless.

Second: Because of the slow killing speed, people with melee level faster and kill more stuff in a shorter time. This results in more uniques/rares/currency/levels. This alone makes up for the "safety" that the totems users have, because melees/bow users are always well equipped while it is hard for totem users to make a little fortune.

Third: I have 5L Chest with GMP+LMP+Faster Projectiles+Faster Casting and a lvl 16 Flame Totem. I got I helm with +30% fire damage and a staff and shield that give me way beyond +100% spell damage and I have nearly all increase totem damage nodes and some spell damage nodes. I can't concentrate on any MF gear, because I need tons of mana/mana reg to keep up 2 auras (purity+clarity) and still being able to cast 2 totems (one totem costs over 220 mana and I have 250 mana left with the 2 auras activated...).

Fourth: Safest build? Don't make me laugh. If there is an enemy with haste, (for example rare snakes), then they are faster in your range then you can cast a totem. If you aren't able to even cast 1 totem before the enemy comes in range, you are totally screwed. This results in: alt+F4 or a quicksilver flask and run for your life. A good melee tank can just smash the enemies face into the ground.


So no, totems are way underpowered, still.