[3.6] Milky's Scorching Ray Totems (updating process)

I think you're just talking to yourself at this point. This build is deader than dead. Reasons why:


1 - Soul mantle = No defense chest, curses = rip even with 2 kikazaru
2 - Low HP, again absolutely no secondary mitigation. Either for physical or elemental.
3 - Mediocre DPS
4- Extremely slow clear

I suggest theory crafting something else. There are better gems you can put in soul mantle than a RF, like Glacial cascade for example.

EDIT: I can already see there another RF SR totems build which seems end gamish and doesn't require soul mantle

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ivressemb wrote:

Hey,

TBH I've fallen in love with the build some leagues ago, and will again play it as a leaguestarter in Betrayal. I'm quite reluctant to play any character that would heavily rely on flasks for mere survival though...

It sounds like the choice comes down to Hierophant with higher DPS, Ascendant with higher survivability and higher maintenance (ie paying attention to flask), or Ascendant (with Kikazaru) with slightly higher survivability still, but potentially lower DPS (by a 10-15% margin?).

Hard choice: I like DPS, but I also like living. And you don't do DPS when you're dead (well your totems still finish bosses but eh).

If you really had to put numbers on this, in your best guesstimate, what would the difference in DPS / EHP end up being? I'll try and set up some POB, but work's getting in the way right now...

In any case, your guide's awesome for new and veteran players alike, and I hope you find it in you to keep it reasonably up-to-date :)

Cheers

https://pastebin.com/TJ21ZY5A my "current" Hierophant char (from 3.3 on standard with no changes :P)

https://pastebin.com/WqhhVbYd adjusted a bit for Ascendant (lvl 1 arcane surge added for the sub simulation, different flasks, rings and copied a jewel only).


Doesnt consider the 3% more totem dmg or the regen of hierophant.

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Hiero is a safe bet and it takes more to grab good rare opal rings over 2x kikazaru and self-flag. he also has the easier start.

Ascendant looks better for lategame bosses especially uber elder. totems drop like flies there, reducing the life/manaregen and the doubletotemplacement (which is the major... concern of hiero for me) doesn´t help either.

"

I think you're just talking to yourself at this point. This build is deader than dead. Reasons why:

1 - Soul mantle = No defense chest, curses = rip even with 2 kikazaru
2 - Low HP, again absolutely no secondary mitigation. Either for physical or elemental.
3 - Mediocre DPS
4- Extremely slow clear

I suggest theory crafting something else. There are better gems you can put in soul mantle than a RF, like Glacial cascade for example.

1. doesnt take... nearly any totem build soulmantle? Its as mandatory as for any build since for singletarget only the 7th link matters and the totemlife for clear.

Kikazaru/Self-Flag is nothing unique here as well. but whatever, i will most likely play some ascendant version without kikazaru

2. nothing noteworthy, thats true
3. 1.4 mil dps is fine for that budget. leagues ago i killed shaper with 55c worth of gear deathless (right after leaguestart) which is less of what other builds need for just a flask ;). Its very smooth after like lvl 40 til endgame without hickups or requirements to upgrade.
4. mediocre at best, saw slower builds.

For me its a leaguestarter build that clears all content til shaper on under 1ex budget comfortable to save currency for completing atlas, investing into stuff, affording the next build etc.

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I already theorycrafted something else. Will revive the RAT Nuke and go for uber elder with it ;)

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New Notable - Sign of Purpose: You can cast an additional Brand. Enemies take 10% increased Damage for each of your Brands attached to them. Brand Recall has 30% increased Cooldown Recovery Speed. 14% increased Brand Attachment range.

Thats insane, i thought about Brands as a orb of storms replacement anyway and this is a 10% increased dmg taken modifier per brand (at minimum 20%!)

"

Ritual of Awakening no longer grants +1 to maximum number of Summoned Totems. Instead it now causes skills that would Summon a Totem to summon two Totems instead, and grants 3% more Damage per Totem

lets see how it interacts with RF totem since it has a cooldown.

"

Malachai's Artifice no longer has reduced Elemental Equilibrium effect.

uh... ohhhh !!!




3points for 10% increased dmg taken on enemys basically, hmm better than many dmg nodes



+4% totemlife, +8% totem dmg etc!

https://pastebin.com/TJ21ZY5A

so this is my testsetup right now from a 3.3 character (rf totems was killed early last league with 1 sec cd).

Just ticking the covered in ash box to simulate double brand debuff (10% more dmg taken per brand on the enemy) adds a whooping 65k dps per scorching ray totem.
a third brand would push this over 100k dps gain for 3 skillpoints... considering we also use 4 SR totems on bosses in the optimal case ( 1 base, 1 hiero, 1 soulmantle, 1 shieldcraft).

On top it doesnt count in the 3% more dmg per totem placed. 12% from those 4 alone. Then we can place 3 more (well lets see how good it works with the multiple placement shit) Searing bond totems coupled with the new multiple totem support... resulting in 9% more dmg for:

21% more dmg
7% liferegen
3.5% manaregen


Even without a shieldcrafted extra totem its still at least as good as before i would say.


I would drop Conviction of power for the Brand node, reducing a bit QoL in favour of dmg.

Skilltree wise i might consider dropping dualcurse and add +1 brand. Also dropping totemic zeal since its not necassary at all anymore (saves 5 points).

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The gems will change around as well, not 100% sure yet and might change with gameplay:


Storm Brand + curse on hit + enfeeble or/and tempchains + critchance or faster casting or duration.

last support depends on how smooth it feels to play, trigger rates etc.

Best case are shaper gloves with faster casting and blind support for ultimate utility!

This replaces orb of storms.


Then i would remove all dmg supports from searing bond and use:

Searing Bond + Multitotem

Just for the mentioned dmg multiplier and regeneration.

This saves some gemsockets, probably for cwdt + immortal call or a curse (with dualcurse) or even phase run.
Vaal lightning trap, some chilled ground skill etc are also options

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I will adress that in the guide over the next days and keep making update posts

overall great buffs to the build

Gotta admit I don't really understand the comment about slow clearspeed: single-target DPS is decent (especially for the budget), and for packs all you need to do is put down a RF totem and keep moving. Sure there are faster builds (isn't there always), but despite the low-ish EHP of the build you're quite safe due to the use of totems for DPS, with Decoy Totem also being a huge thing in this build.

To each his own I guess, but as a low-budget leaguestarter and for non-ultra-high-end chasing players like myself, it will easily take you through POE content.

Well i see the clearspeed as consistent. I never run into issues that i need to cast several times to kill a mob or attack several times, just because the weapon or similar is shit.

Its smooth from start to finish, it doesnt really change, very consistent. you place the totem and know shit dies in 0.5 sec or somethjng like that. literally always.

thats what i really like about it especially for the budget.

and yes i played coccharge, cospris, autobomber, reave, poets pen arc and so on with shitton of clearspeed, but also more budget per slot than my whole build has :X

Dear milki

Does the fire brand trigger EE? If so only Strom brand as the only brand is usefull for us...

Or so you see a way to make use of all brands?

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hitreza wrote:

Dear milki

Does the fire brand trigger EE? If so only Strom brand as the only brand is usefull for us...

Or so you see a way to make use of all brands?

yes the fire brand will trigger EE and will be... counterproductive.

You could use Ancestral Bonds and it wont deal any dmg anymore and dont trigger EE... buy you need traps or mines to trigger it which makes everything clunkier.


Storm brand replaces orb of storms to procc ee, eo, curse, blind, get arcane surge and debuff with the hiero passive. on top it has more range than OoS.

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currently working on the guide (adding corruptions etc).

new skilltrees will probably come in like 11 hours once i am home and have time to make the pic :p

edit:

Most stuff is updated for 3.5

Skilltree, a skilltree pic i usually do and pob link (once pob is updated) are missing.

i also need to repost my character, its not 100% correct atm.

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as far as i understand is that brands only apply once to an enemy except with a keystone next to ancestral bond (which reduces 1 totem).

So the bonus dmg is basically capped at 10% for us and additional brands are not necassary beyond the two (if i understand it correctly.


RF totem and doubleplacement is another thing thats questionable. I assume that the cooldown will prevent double rf totems (hopefully). Its not as bad for SR, but also not great ;)

searing bond and multiple totem support is another thing. It should make ud able to use 3 searing bond totems on top of 4 rf/sr totem.
Effectively probably just 2 with the doubleplacement since nobody wants to loose a dps totem for that. Doublesummoning and odd numbers sound pretty bad, but we will see. maybe there is some kind of replace prevention once the max is reached.

a workaround would be:

place 2x two sb totems first, then cast 2x two sr totems and the last one replaces one sb totem, the rest of the 3 sb totems should stay over the cap.

for clearing it shouldnt really matter

https://pastebin.com/eJfsxPTC

This is an excample PoB link with my 3.2 char as a base and added stuff to match it for 3.5 Some mods/gems just dont do anything or dont exist and it added the stuff on a basalt flask. Here the major things i remember:


Placeholder gems

Multitrap should be multi totems.
Storm burst should be storm brand.

changed gems

removed supports for searing bond and added Multi totems, cwdt and enfeeble (could be immortal call and no dual curse... or with curse on hit corruption)

removed the 2nd curse on the curse on hit setup and added arcane surge. the singletarget boost is just good, but could be a 2nd curse as well.

shenanigans with gear

Added +1 totem on my shield to simulate the craft
created a basalt flask with:

Can have up to 3 additional Totems summoned at a time
PoB doesn´t count in searing bond and its +2 totems for it into the 3% more damage calculation

3.5% mana regenerated per second
7% life regenerated per second
pob doesn´t count in regen per totem, so i set it to the maximum for bossfights.

nearby enemies take 10% increased elemental damage
simulates the brand debuff of sign of purpose.

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Charlvl 94 (original 93) just to fill a cluster so it looks better :X

Presets

Shaper/Guardian
totem summoned
have been hit recently
enemy hit by lightning dmg (EE)
6 selfcurses including enfeeble

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tl:dr

Dps went up by a good chunk. roughly half a million dps more with the changes i made (adding arcane surge and changing some nodes) and buffs.

Without a +1 totem shield the dps is similar (maybe slightly lower) to the 3.4 dps.


I choosed a pretty offensive route on the skilltree and it could be more defensive without sacrificing too much dps (miniondmg cluster + heart of flame vs entering the marauder start for life/regen for excample)

basic layout is done, open in a new window is prefered for watchability.

pretty much how my lvl 85 char would look in any case.

the usual colorful one is in the making

edit: here is the first version



Tomorrow i will extend that with text ... to show you how to read the colors and why there are "!" etc.

i hint it here:

green: strong starting nodes. path out of templar will be respecced later

blue: early game. Ancestral bond until switch to RF totems is made (normal lab + start of act 5 at least)

purple: big burning dmg nodes and Elemental Equilibrium is picked up. !!!! respecc ancestral bond for comfortable EE proccs or use a trap for that until you dont want it anymore.

yellow: connect the paths for the "real route". Once finished respecc the rest of the "!". its the most efficient way out. reason why just now? the other way is more effective early game.

Orange:path to the remaining nodes and pick the strongest

Red: pick the rest of the strong nodes and remaining jewels

White: options after lvl 85 (offensive and defensive)


Done: