[3.1] [WIP] "The Cursed Bomber" - Bodyswap spell totems. Mob eater, decent boss killer.

Link: https://pastebin.com/cqm3C08f

Things to note:

* The DPS shown has two modes. Self-explosion, and corpse explosion. With the play style of the totems, there will be moments of double dipping on both damages based on proximity of the totem, enemy, and corpse. UPDATE. Corpse won't give as much DPS, and is based off of desecrate corpse level. Still adds a bit damage umph though. Unearth I think only gives lvl 20 mobs, so not as much power there if you use that skill, but the self explosion is your main chunk of dmg.

* On top of that, the DPS is per totem. Since you'll have 3, you can triple the number to get closer to the true effective DPS, since PoB only calculates on 1 totem. You can check that's the case by un-allocating ancestral bond if you don't believe me ;)

* This also doesn't check DPS that you get per curse on you. Given my experience you'll realistically be around 3-6 curses at one time if you're constantly fighting. More if the maps have a permanent curse or two on you. You can check those numbers in PoB by setting lvl 20 on curses in the calc tab to see the increase.

* There's also the fact that for mobs, each kill gives you +6% more damage which adds up thanks to the Pursuit of Faith node. Yeah, your DPS on mobs just keeps going up and up. I'd say from my experience I get around 12-20 per cluster. Of course that's also not calculable in PoB.

Playstyle is pretty straightforward. Spell cascade your desecrate in front of a mob, place 1 to 3 totems depending on how "oh god I'm getting swarmed" you are, totems now start devouring mobs and they'll more or likely focus on the totems since they're targetable, which gives you a bit more breathing room. Alternate between corpse and totem placement for continuous damage, but not too fast as you've got desecrate's 3 use cooldown. If you need things taken care of faster or you need to protect yourself more, piano flask your utils. Luckily they aren't a huge requirement to clear mobs so you don't need to work out your fingers too much.

For movement, I use shield charge w/ faster attacks and fortify, as well as a lvl 1. bodyswap for cliffs or if you need to get out of a sticky situation. Bodyswap is also really nice if you need to backtrack a long way and you've laid a pile of monster corpses. Really nice travel speeds.

What's nice about this build is you can take it as fast or as moderately slow as you want to and the totems just work for you. A beautiful symphony of body explosion and death is quite satisfying!

What's really nice is you don't have to worry about effects being placed on you from corrupted blood or reflect, since your totems will be taking that for you! :D

LEVELING:
Had a tough time leveling, but when you're comfortable to switch to this mechanic around act 4-5, get your rings and 5 link soul mantle ready. You'll need mana pots to maintain your mana as totems are expensive to cast. When you get ascendancy points in order, you can slowly get off mana and switch to utils. Early level I did firestorm in a +1 fire gem scepter.

SOME ISSUES:
* Resists are going to be tough to fill. You only have your weapon/shield, glove, and belt to make it happen. Thankfully a number of passive nodes related to resists help out on this.
* If MoM deplets your mana, it can make a sort of sticky situation (currently seeing if getting the mana passives behind MoM help with that, still a WIP). Degen from things like desecrate are going to give you a bad time.
* You're dependent on regen. Don't run maps that remove regen.
* Dex is gunna be hard to fill. Desecrate is max lvl only for increased mana cost to proc arcane surge. Can't check wiki atm for gem progression, but desecrate should be at the lowest level where mana spent is the same as a lvl 20 gem to save on dex points. Again, WIP, I'll update that once I remember what it is. If you can gear your items to not require that big phat 30 dex node, I'd spend it on that +18 fire res ;)

Here's my current gear at the moment:


And my flasks:


Here's what to look for in your build.

Weapon
Void scepter with high spell and/or fire damage. Crit stuff also really good to have. Cast speed helps, hopefully your totems don't go too fast to eat your corpses.

Shield
Archon shield with 12% all res implicit. Spell damage with resists, life and either life or mana regen. Ideally you get an elder variant with % max life and phys reduction, those are really nice for survivability.

ALTERNATE: If you desire leech, try out Trolltimber spire. Though with this you will have a harder time filling your resists with other equipment. I'll need to check this out if leech deems effective. I think it might be for tough bosses.

Helmet
Played around with this one. I went with my helm being a damage amplifier. Increased area dmg and add fire dmg to spells. My current helm gave me a 6k DPS boost vs my old one. Armor/energy shield base. You can also aim for resists, life, etc to beef out the helm further.

Rings
2X Kikazu, no questions asked. More mana regen the better (you'll need it). They're quite cheap. You need these for the curses that'll stack on you so 80% reduction to curses is a must.

Amulet
Most expensive item minus the 6 linking aspect. The new Impresense amulet is awesome. Has to be of the fire variant so your flammability aura does not reserve any mana so you can run Anger for boosted damage. I bought mine for 2ex but I've seen prices go down slightly. Might change. Sad thing though is totems don't seem to give you the maddening presence effect when you kill a rare or unique monster (though I've got the effect sometimes when killing map bosses... I don't know, hmm.)

If you can't afford it, a nice Jade ammy with spell+fire damage, crit mods, life, and any other useful stats are a good supplement. You can get more DPS from it which can alleviate you from using anger and focus on your flammability aura. A good amulet to shoot for would be of an elder variant for area of effect, damage per strength, phys damage reduction, life regen. This slot in particular is one that can be used to fill needs if impresense doesn't seem like a good fit. Very tweakable.

Belt
Stygian Vise of course. Resists, life, the basics. For an abyss jewel, life, fire damage, and crit stuff works wonders. You can be creative here, stats shouldn't be difficult to obtain.

Gloves
Fingerless silk gloves for ES and spell damage implicit. Resists, life, and energy shield. Ultimately if you've got your bodyswap movement skill in there, go for a shaper variant and get faster casting so you can teleport faster. Not necessary though.

Boots
I got me some Kaoms Roots. Don't wanna get stunned or frozen. Nice armor and life. Didn't need the extra gem sockets as the ones I have do the job fine. If you've got a better idea on what to do with boots, go for it but I wouldn't be able to help you there. Maybe you wanna try orb of storms + EO or something. Maybe you can handle getting stunned in certain types of situations. Up to you.

Jewels
We've got 4 jewel slots! Here's what I use:


Self Flagellation - VERY IMPORTANT. We want damage per curse on us. We keep respawning totems, so it's definitely a boost in damage. Get max dmg if you can.

Other jewels - focus on stuff that increases damage (totem, spell, fire). Crit chance and multiplier helps. You can also get life or mana regen. Up to you.

ENCHANTS
Boots - Damage leeched as life and mana if you've killed (Note, may not work since you're using totems as I tried with catarina's mod and life didn't leech).
Helmet - Desecrate cooldown recovery speed, flammability curse effect

BANDITS
Get 2 passive points. You might also go for Alira as all of those stats are useful as an alternative.

PANTHEON
Major: Currently I'm going with Solaris but if DoT proves worse, go for Arakaali.
Minor: If you've got Solaris, get Shakari. If Arakaali, then Gruthkul.

Main skill (equipped on Soul Mantle):
Bodyswap (lvl 21, qual 20) - Concentrated Effect - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destruction - Chance to Ignite - Fire Penetration

We're upping dmg and penetrating fire resists. Yes, we are doing crits with this build and while we have controlled destruction, our Notable passive "Shaman's Dominion" increases critical strike chance by 100% if we've summoned a totem recently, which offsets controlled destruction. Our playstyle is perfect to fully synergize that combo.

Soul Mantle makes this whole setup a 7 link, and who doesn't love a 7 link? :)

Survivability:
Immortal Call - CWDT - Increased Duration - Summon Stone Golem

Your standard take savage damage, proc invulnerability. We generate endurance charges through
Conviction of Power, so that aids in the duration :)

Auras + movement:
bodyswap lvl 1 - Flammability - blasphemy - anger

Bodyswap is a nice cliff + movement speed when we've laid death everywhere. Auras really add to the DPS.

Corpse generation:
Desecrate - arcane surge (lvl 4) - Spell cascade (lvl 1)

Level of desecrate should be lowest that costs the same mana as a lvl 20 desecrate to reduce dexterity need.

Alternate corpse generation (weapon swap):
Unearth - GMP - arcane surge (highest lvl where 1 unearth cast procs this support)

I'm thinking of this alternate setup, haven't implemented it yet but could be good if you really need a quick supply of continuous corpses. This could work for bosses better. I'll need to see, but it should give you a good idea of alternatives.

Shield movement:
Shield charge - faster attacks - fortify

Haven't given too much thought into it. figured fortify could help.
IDEA: If you wanna go EO, you can switch to an orb of storms setup or something, since you already have bodyswap for movement. Could even change the shield entirely if you want, it depends. This build is really just a template :)

Spider Forest map + some abyssal depths action. Have a 5 link in this video, gems aren't fully leveled yet. Lvl 86.
https://youtu.be/YvWXJwWcFPY