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

Playing in beta..it just faceroll everything so far in act 7. started using RF totems as early as from lvl 30.. leveling with this easy af

currently at lvl 50 will post more after i reach maps.

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Rimmt wrote:

Hey Milky,

Very well crafted guide. One of the bests for sure. Thanks for all the effort you put into this.

I am torn between blood magic and mana reservation. I know you aren't fan of mana reservation but I really think in hardcore maybe determination+arctic armour and vitality linked with a 4lvl enlighten could be more durable. What do you think?

And I really want to know what do you think for essence worm ring especially while using blood magic maybe socketed with determination in a heavy armor setup?

Thanks in advance.

Good questions.

I have no problem with mana reservation in the build, it just has only specific uses.

Determination is only worth it if you stack the armour (no soulmantle) and you got a good chunk of base armour. If thats the case its good in that case. However it does nothing against elemental/chaos dmg of any kind.

Arctic armour is great, the chilled ground helps kiting if needed and protects against phys/fire dmg while casting the stuff.

Vitality is better with aura nodes on top. I would rather use Mind over matter with 35% free mana than vitality.

I like grace more than determination, but it requires tons of dex. It helps at least against elemental and physical attacks and a stibnite flask with % evasion can grant tons of survivability.

If you reserve 100% mana every skill except rf totems and vaal lightning trap need a bloodmagic support which limits slots for utility.

Enfeeble + blasphemy is powerful but the aoe only really helps against melees and it requires some tradeoffs (speccing/gearing for it or dropping flammability).


So if you use a 1k+ armour chest lioneyes remorse/tukohamas or a similar rare shield and other armour gear determination + AA would be my choice. it lets you use all skills without any trouble and doesn't have huge tradeoff like a big dex or curse investment.


Different routes are doable, i also played rft with occultist and triplecurse (2 on blasphemy) and it worked nice if there was no curse immunity arround :p


Personally i use bloodmagic because i need to for tukohamas and it saves gemslots which the auras require. Mind over matter in 3.0 basically does the same or might even be better without tukohamas.

With the guide i wanna give you guys a template to work with. Many of the skilltree/gems are mandatory, but some things allow high flexibility especially if you wanna focus more on defence/offence.

Earlier i didnt use ironwood and the whole path down and focused on curses, but then guardians/shaper apoeared with even higher curse effectiveness, some nerf for curses on bosses and tukohamas was more accessable for me

Currently testing around with a Hierophant selfcast firestormer with triple firestorm totems, kitavas feast with firestorm and probably cwdt firestorm in the boots :p

On top a lightning golem in a malavhais artifice for a slightly weaker EE

Wanna test some ignite changes, performance changes, MoM and most importantly soulthirst in a caster setup

maybe i slap in some selfcast rf who knows.

I am saving my sanity with rf totems for the 3.0 release now since i dont wanna burn out (pun intended) on it :p

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MusicalMind wrote:

Playing in beta..it just faceroll everything so far in act 7. started using RF totems as early as from lvl 30.. leveling with this easy af

currently at lvl 50 will post more after i reach maps.

This! RF totems are still strong post nerf so people can chill and stop freaking out :P

Path of Building has been updated to the recent beta changes. RF totems still more powerful than 2.6 version.

Milkyslice:

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@norc

Bloodrage doesnt work with rf totems. enemys needs to die from ignite, poison or bleed

Right, forgot that burning and ignite had that fundamental mechanical difference. Ugh. Might just need to not worry about frenzy charges until boss, but that's terrible.

It ooks like the only options for maintaining frenzy changes are:

1) Blood Dance
Yet another unique with no life)
2) Green Dream/Nightmar
(lose a precious jewel slot and ungodly expensive)
3) Doedre's Elixir
Impractical at best, costs flask slot.
4) Frenzy Active Skill Gem
Woould require manual use with a wand/melee weapon. This is a pretty desperate/terrible option, particularly with Accuracy considered. Maybe it would be almost sort of workable if wand implicit weren't all Spell damage or cast speet.
5) Conduit "power/frenzy/endurance charge on kill"
Requires points, is out of way, and not high enough chance.

Honestly, all of these options seem pretty terrible. Blood dance is probably least terrible option, espeicially since it would yield some decent regen.

In conclusion, frenzy generation is a gigantic (most likely fatal) problem to the prospect of going Scion Guardian/Raider.

you can forget about blood dance, green dream/nightmare and conduit nodes. Its the same as bloodrage - on kill effects that dont work on totems.

Doedres and frenzy are the only options then...

Well there might be another one which i haven't tested on totems: Victarios Charity

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Victario%27s_Charity

It grants frenzy charges when used with mines. Lay a mine with lets say arc, detonate and have a 5% chance per hit to gain those frenzy charges. On kill stuff still only works with ailments. Have used it on one of my miner (ssf had nothing better :p)

However the totems dont hit at all :p This would require a setup exclusively for for frenzy charges. Some ball lightning totem hits often and can trigger EE on top, but it would still feel bad to use.

Ball lightning cluster + multitraps could work as well and some other option, yoi get the idea.

I would just forget about the raider onslaught on this build ;)

Guardian + Necro looks solid since chaos dmg can be an issue in the gearing process, skill effect duration works well with OoS, totems, curses, VLT etc and it basically has a free endurance charges and some dmg. It just needs a lvl 1 clarity to work (if bloodmagic is used).

Assassin results in quick EO trigger, not great but frees up a slot in OoS for an additional curse, culling strike or other stuff

Chieftain for some regen and damage, gets the most out of the alternate start.

Gladi is nice for the 5% block and 30% spellblock in addition to guardians 5% block.

Raiders feats are nice to have and the frenzy charge generation on bosses is the bigges offensive choice in that case, but forget about the onslaught while mapping.

In longer fights the raider basically grants 30% movementspeed to dodge stuff and 12% more damage which is really nice. The attackspeed/castspeed buffs also help a bit for shield charge and slightly faster casting of rf. So it might be worth it.


For mapping Doedres flask on a guardian/raider would work the best if you kill stuff to use the flask every ~9sec or a oos frenzy procc on rares inbetween.

Ugh, right, of course. I didn't know about Victario's Charity at all, that's a pretty quirky little unique. I might use it on a different (meme) build, but it's very highly questionable in this build.

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I would just forget about the raider onslaught on this build ;)

Yeah, that's about where I am realistically ending up too. Sad.

I suppose technically if Orb of Storms culled things, it would count as your kill, and if you were running Blood Dance, Blood Rage, and maybe Poacher's Mark it might be enough, especially when combined with the Raider chance to generate against rare/unique. But that's getting way more than a little silly.

Not to go full hipster, but if i was to try out a bow for the Frenzy Skill, , Iron Commander is surprisingly interesting with its up to 20% Totem Life and Placement Speed. Having a second possible 6 link might open up some non-obvious possibilities also. It would pair with a rare stat quiver. Rearguard, Soulstrike, or even Maloney's Nightfall aren't (totally) stupid choices either. (Okay, so, yeah, rare stat quiver it is).

It's going to be terrible, but I think I'll mess around with Iron Commander Scion Guardian/Raider some in beta, because, well, beta, and because it's delightfully ridiculous. But, yeah, if it turns out to be workable I'll only be slightly less surprised than anyone else.

OoS + culling strike works well on bosses and some rares.
I have tested that setup to trigger kills for lesser shrines of the gull... it didn't work well on packs. I rarely got a cull since the timeframe is so low where it is possible to cull on most monsters. Wasnt really practical and i dropped the idea.

overall its a mess to keep frenzys up besides doedres flask and even that gives much pressure without a Restless Ward.

I also thought about iron commander but a a good sceptre + shield or two sceptres are just better overall

Maybe question is stupid but why we didnt grab Hinekora on ascendancy skill tree? I know that fire pen didnt work with degen but isnt 1% leech quiet good for survival ability? Or it doesnt work with degen too?

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kudrya wrote:

Maybe question is stupid but why we didnt grab Hinekora on ascendancy skill tree? I know that fire pen didnt work with degen but isnt 1% leech quiet good for survival ability? Or it doesnt work with degen too?

nothing on that node works for us