[3.15] Forbidden Rite Totem Tank - Capable of all content, 20m+ dps

Hey everyone. I decided to share my build on which I have done all endgame content. I leaguestarted as en ED/C trickster, which did not have enough damage and respecced it to a phys-trapper. While it had the damage to comfortably kill all bosses in this game, it was a dead man walking, dying every couple of maps to some random oneshots.

I wanted a build that could comfortably tackle all content the game has to offer, so I decided to reroll a hierophant once I had some currency laying around. I read a lot of complaints of survivability about the build, so I decided to take a different approach at it and focus on survivability - the damage is there anyway thanks Forbidden Rite scaling off of totem life.
The build that resulted of this is what I want to share with you today.



As you can see, I completed every invitation and killed the Maven for all the Uncharted Realms passives:



Conclusion
I took this build to level 92 before I had my first death. My first death was to sirus on A8, I dashed right into his die-beam in the last phase. The build has yet to die in maps, but for nastier maps I suggest a more defensive/slower playstyle. I completed every invitation including The Feared deathless at least once.
I'm no expert build maker, I'm sure this could be optimized even further to squeeze out more damage or defensiveness. However, I think I created a pretty well rounded build with this.

Videos
I recorded multiple videos of this build in action, check out my channel. Here are some highlights:
A9 Sirus last phase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug3yXc99qZ0
A9 Sirus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSstBaYVFdE
A9 Hunter, 110% quant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63gWjgtcE00
A9 Drox with damage mods/reduced block: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_AcpZDuq_Y

PoB:
https://pastebin.com/MLjCnKbX

The PoB is non-BS apart from maybe the flasks being up. No tinkering with the config, no shocks applied. Flask uptime is fair I think since bosses die so quickly. 6 curses ticked, usually you have more since with most bosses you can spam enough totems before the fight begins.

Pros
-Tanky, doesn't randomly die while mapping
-Boss DPS of 10m upwards, currently sitting at ~21.5m
-Lazy, doesn't need to press multiple buttons most of the time
-Permanent, "automated" arcane surge
-Cheap to start out with, linear gear progression as you make currency

Cons
-Not a zoomer, mostly due to being a totem build
-Cannot facetank slams, need to avoid manually

The defensive concept
I decided to go with life/mana scaling for a respectable 6.5k EHP-Pool with MoM. I incorporated blind through Flesh and Stone, which also provides "less damage taken" from non-nearby enemies. We have more or less 100% uptime of fortify during mapping. The build has 75/74% block (with rumis up) and I restore 5% of my maximum mana when I block. Couple all of this with The Agnostic and my mana regeneration of roughly 1700/sec (more than 50% of my unreserved mana pool) plus whatever amount my mana flask provides and you get some very juicy defensive layers. We also get 4 permanent endurance charges for some physical mitigation.
The Dynamo notable restores a large chunk of mana whenever we use a guard skill, which is roughly every 5.5 seconds since we use Steelskin on left click.

Mystic bulwark provides damage, block, mana and regeneration all in one notable:



Take damage to life/mana -> The Agnostic heals you up very quickly -> restore lots of mana -> gain Mana on block

The offensive concept
I wanted to make use of all the mana I scaled for defensive purposes. Archmage doesn't really work, so I just decided to use a cluster jewel with Dark Ideations and use the notable Prodigal Perfection to get an easy 120% increased damage. Divine Guidance ascendancy also provides around 100% increased damage from all the mana nodes we take on the tree.





All those increases are woth absolutely nothing if you do not have respectable base damage. Luckily, Forbidden Rite gets a huge chunk of base damage due to the scaling of totem life. We grab all the easily accessible totem life on the tree and anoint the Ironwood notable on the amulet. One could use the torchoak step boots for even more damage, if you were to get your resistances from other gear slots.
Our huge mana pool with all the regeneration does allow for permanent Righteous Fire, however you should not use it during mapping as it severely lowers your survivability as The Agnostic is permanently draining your mana to heal you against RF.

The Spire of Stone unique jewel provides lots of damage and is a cheap way of acquiring immunity to Corrupted Blood. A rare jewel would probably be better damage wise, if you can afford it. We also scale even more totem life through 2 medium cluster jewels with the Ancestral Preservation notable.



To top it off, we go crit and reach 100% crit chance(with diamond flask) with 500+ multiplier.

Gearing/gem links
With this being a crit spellcasting mana build, you want as much life/mana on every piece of gear, grab spell/chaos damage and crit chance/multi wherever possible and max out your resistances, including chaos resistance if possible.

Helmet:

Viridi's Veil, there is no other choice. Provides all resistances, +1 gem levels for our auras and makes us completely ignore curses.

Chest:

Soul Mantle. Provides Spell damage, Totem Life and +1 Totems. Pretty much mandatory.

Ring1:

Dream Fragments is one of my favourite unique items. Provides damage, mana, regen and makes us immune to chill and freeze. Not mandatory, but its cheap and oh so good.

Ring2:

A magic ring with life and suffix of your choice. Enables our helmet. Easily crafted with a bunch of alterations. Make sure you quality it while its normal rarity to save a bunch of Catalists.

Amulet:

Life, mana, damage, crit, whatever you can get really. "Augment caster" guarantees spell damage if you only have an open prefix.

Boots:

Life, mana, resists and movement speed. Could go for Torchoak step for more damage if needed if you can get your resistances from somewhere else.
The enchant is permanently active as WE are not critting, our totems are. There aren't that many different boot enchants, you should be able to get it within a few lab runs, especially if you use the "Twice Enchanted" prophecy.

Gloves:

Life, mana, resist, faster casting shaper gloves. This is a great place to pick up dex, which the build lacks. The tree gives easy access to 60 dexterity however, if you can't find dex somewhere else.

Belt:

Life, mana, resists. Ideally a stygian vise for even more mana/life/crit/damage on the jewel.

Weapon:

Mana, spell damage, crit, cast speed, crit multi. Whatever combination you can afford.

Shield:

Now this might be more expensive than your average rare. Life, +1 totems, spell block and recover mana on block. If you can get one with spell damage or resistances as well, go for it. +1 Totems does not really do anything for mapping, but its a big dps boost for bossing.

Jewels

Make sure to place Spire of Stone below the Templar starting area to make the most out of it.
Rare jewels should have totem life, mana, attributes and preferably crit multi if you can afford it. Here are some examples:


Flasks


Diamond with +20 charges so you can use it twice in a row. I'm also using this as my anti shock flask. You might not need this if you get spellcrit from your shield/amulet. Check your own PoB to see if you get to 100% crit chance without one


Sulfur Flask, again with at least +20 max charges so you can use it twice. Ideal suffix would be "of Quickening" for the cast speed.


Core defensive item. Get one with +6 spellblock, attack block doesnt matter, you should be able to reach 75% anyway.


Oh-shit button. "of staunching" handles bleeds.


Core defensive item. Always keep this up. Suffix of your choice, again I went with quickening.

Levelling this build
I levelled this with holy flame totem up to level 68 where I could equip Viridi's Veil and then switched to Soul Mantle. You could go Forbidden Rite earlier with Kikazaru rings, however the earliest I would suggest switching is level 54 for the Ancestral Preservation clusters.

For the passive tree: Rush to Ancestral Bond (grab Avatar of Fire on the way there if levelling with Flame Totem), then focus on grabbing life/mana first (start with the combined life/mana nodes, then grab pure life/pure mana) and the block-wheel at the templar start. Only grab glancing blows once you have all the nodes providing block and spell block and make sure you have a 6% spellblock Rumi's Concoction. A shield with 12% spell block takes you to 74% spellblock.

You will most likely lack dexterity - the pathing of my passive tree lets you grab 60 dexterity for just two points and another 35 for two more points if needed (witch starting area)

Do not grab any of the crit nodes early on! You will not have enough crit chance from gear and supports - focus grabbing all the spell damage first and use Despair instead of Assassins Mark as your curse. Use Controlled Destruction instead of the crit supports before you start investing more heavily into crit.

When levelling with Flame Totem, use Flammability instead. I picked up MoM somewhere around level 40.

Important: If you level with holy Flame Totem, DO NOT FORGET to unspec Avatar of Fire once you switch to Forbidden Rite or you will deal literally zero damage at all.

Ascendancy order: Pursuit of Faith -> Ritual of Awakening -> Divine Guidance -> Conviction of Power

Best helmet for MoM Builds until you can equip Viridi's Veil:


FAQ
Don't hesitate to ask questions either in this thread or ingame (@BERSERKEST_MF).


What about ailments?
Dream Fragments takes care of chill and freeze, an automated flask handles shocks. Ignites and poison/bleed aren't really a problem with agnostic as long as RF is not running.

Why Self-Flagellation?
The curses from Soul Mantle are still applied to us, they just don't do anything. Self-Flagellation provides lots of damage.

HC viable?
I'd say so, however I would focus on getting even more life/mana and drop some of the damage.

Why Vitality?
To counteract the RF-Burn. It helps with mana management against bosses if you take a hit. Can be switched out for a golem or even a banner if you're better at avoiding bosses than me. Could also potentially enable a triple stat watchers eye though (Vitality/Precision/Clarity).

Pantheons
Brine King with upgraded Stun/Block recovery. Minor whatever you feel like. I mostly run Gruthkul.

Budget?
You can start this on a really tight budget. A 5L Soul Mantle is cheap, if you're absolutely broke you can even make it work on a 4L.

There are a couple of mandatory items however. I would not play this if you do not have at least a medium cluster with Ancestral Preservation and a recover mana on block shield is a must have. Rain of Splinters is not absolutely needed, but helps a lot. They are fairly cheap though if you don't want a perfectly rolled one.

The PoB in my guide is however with an investment of around 25-30 exalts - do not expect to deal 20m dps if you are playing some scuffed 50c version of this. The tankyness will be there if you at least have a shield with %mana recovered and you can probably still get 5-10m dps on an ultra-budget setup.

Can I use Headhunter?
Sure, it will fix your dex needs. It won't really make the build faster or deal more damage as most auras apart from the one providing speed are not useful to the build. Might still be fun. I'd rather go with a rare stygian vise.

Can I use Dying Sun?
People have done testing and apparently you cannot overlap more than 6 projectiles without heavier investment into AoE. We already have 6 projectiles - I tested this myself and it didn't feel like it added any damage. I might be wrong here though, do your own testing.

Why not Atziri's Reflection and Coward's Legacy?
It's not what the build was designed around and recovering mana on block is one of the core defensive mechanics of this build. The FR builds running Reflection/Legacy probably get more damage, but are not as tanky. You decide what's more important to you.

Why no Shrieking Bolts Medium Cluster?
I don't like conditional defenses (Shrieking Bolts is fairly reliable though), so I opted for other clusters to get more damage. The tankyness doesn't need to come from out totems.

Can I use Bottled Faith?
Yes, it's a huge dps boost against bosses. I actually used one for like a day. While it provides a lot of damage, I wanted something to handle shocks and provide 100% crit uptime even while mapping. So I sold it and funded some other gear. You decide.

Map mods?
The build can handle pretty much any map mods apart from no regeneration.
Adapt to a more careful playstyle when rolling reduced block, especially when combined with any damage/crit mods.
-max resist shoudl'nt be a problem, but don't turn on RF when you reach the maps boss unless you are absolutely sure you can nuke the boss within seconds. I actually died to baran once because of this. :D

Reserved for future remarks

hi, looks "ok" :)
i dont think i will go flesh and stone, but will consider it
thanks for the guide

edit: i will try flesh and stone in heists, should be good

Flesh and Stone adds a LOT of survivability. Could also drop vitality and experiment with banners for example, just make sure you have enough unreserved mana for 40% MoM

Bump

Hi
really cool guide
Running it now
what abort pantheon?
do we run all 4 auras? some of the videos seems you turn some auras off
+1 from here

I currently run all auras, but I would replace Vitality by a banner (Defiance/Dread) if I had enough unreserved mana I think. I only recently added Vitality to help with mana regeneration while running RF against bosses. That's why you only see it in my most recent videos.
You could move Flesh and Stone to the helmet and run a low level Golem in your CWDT for example. Lightning Golem is like 500k dps.

For Pantheons, I currently run Brine King (Upgraded Stun/Block Recovery) and mostly Gruthkul.

Always make sure your unreserved mana is high enough to support 40% MoM. I recommend Ghazzys Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bE0mOtgYsmDx-v2G-6iq-bOsiLp7I_yGMFHYHS__dxw/edit#gid=690621205

Edit: I updated the PoB to include Pantheons

@Siza1337

Thank you for the build guide.

I am wondering, have you ever considered using an essence worm ring with a 21 Zealotry gem instead of Dream Fragments?

Should be a massive damage boost...

That would indeed be a damage boost, however I'm currently at around 22m dps and I don't really think its needed. It would also drive up the reservation cost of other auras.

looking good!

Bought most of the stuff, the only thing I can not seem to get is the shield.

Should I go for Spellblock or maximum Number of totems (If I can not find both?)