[TITAN] Stampede Totem: Currently 500k + dps mapping / 800k + dps bossing - Fun and Easy to Play

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eqve#0599 wrote:

Any idea if this could be played on HC with a two handed weapon and a shield or does having minus 7 level to gems reduce the damage so much that it is not playable?

Ofcourse it will reduce it quiet a bit, but definitly viable in hc or ssf hc. You can skill bit more into Block Nodes with a Shield then.

Hi, for me this has to be one of, or perhaps the best build for Warrior. And I have tried multiple other builds. The following text has become a bit of a discussion about my experiences and a review of yours and my altered version.

My original day one playthrough build was a high rage stampede, rolling slam, hammer of the gods build, that got me to tier 13's before I threw in the towl with the slow, clunky, glass armour, life stacker.

2nd, for a long while I ran a pure shockwave totem build. But I grew tired of not being able to visually see much on the screen when things got busy, my slow movement speed, and if I wanted high damage I had to temporarily become a glass cannon, switching away from a full block shield; precarious to say the least. I started dreading fighting the Arbiter, simply because there wasn't a single inch of room for mistake with the circular explosions. And I personally don't like having to switch gems/utility for mapping/bossing.

3rd I tried Kripparians Ghost Warrior. Which I was very excited about, for the extra movement speed, and utilising Energy shield in a unique way that maybe only the Warrior could handle. However, this build made me remember why I disliked my first build. Stampede... which is an absolute pain to handle. Bouncing around like a pinball, getting stuck on things, occasionally not going in the direction you intend. So I didn't see this build through to try and gain high damage.

We are playing a Warrior class strength stacking TITAN! You'd think our man would be an unstoppable force, and that enemies that don't die would bounce off of us! Anyway..

Finally I found your build Empulseee, and due to my experience with Kripparians Ghost Warrior, I decided to make something between yours and his, I admittadly like my defenses. I did not choose to use Ghost Writhe however which I do not believe would be a good match with Atziri's disdain, and I kept on with a solid, workable amount of life regen + BloodMagic for the totem placement.

Alas! My Warrior found a home!

This build rocks, he may not have the blistering speed of most other classes out there. However due to the energy-shield based defense system, I became comfortable at most times to wield dual-two-handers (esp. grim feasted in mapping), 24%+ speed has been very doable for the Arbiter circles (30% boots, I think I can do T4's now, if I want to get the fragment soon, *I am however getting close to the end of my league session*).

My build weapon switches to a super cheap one hander axe + shield, and secondary skill-tree changes for whenever I feel my energy shield might have weakened too much or been broken. As with Kripparians Ghost build, I utilise the "Adamant Recovery" node at all times, which is important in order to recover energy shield more rapidly; however I heavily armour boost with the shield out + max block, in order to further quickly, safely and reliably recover ES.

I differentiated with HOTG a bit from your build, by trying to push it towards more ignite damage (with a bit of advice from an inspiring Carnarius). Something I'm sure could be done better.

Stampede is a great ability for map clearance, and not having to actually be the one stampeding, means I can move around the map more freely and happily, leap-slamming and dodge-rolling without qualms.

I have a couple other differencers, I use seismic cry, and I have been testing different curses in the meta-gem Blasphemy (not quite settled on one yet).

My build is ofcourse very endgame now, especially as I fitted an Ingenuity in there. Without Ingenuity I am not confident I would have been able to max my chaos res. However I will definitely come back to this build one day, to see how it can be run fully from the start of the campaign.

If you are interested, I can maybe figure out and post my skill-tree on some website.

Thankyou Empulseee and the yt'ers I mentioned above, you all inspired me to create a very rewarding build.

OK, Haven't played poe2 in a long while, but I uploaded my version to share, or in part, so I personally don't lose it.

I am using a corrupted +23% quality Blasphemy gem and a +28spirit corrupted Atziri Helmet, so as to grab every little bit of spirit I can. This enabled using Enfeeble (or others, as I am not sure what was best) as an aura.

It might be quite difficult to attain the strength levels required like I did without using the southern most (star) set of nodes on the passive skill tree (which I had to sometimes). To get the strength, I used an "Against the Darkness - Time lost Diamond" with +4% increased strength per Notable passive skill in radius. I was then able to use Maces that have a maximum strength requirement of 174. 174 is a nice target to go for, due to the price not being terribly high, you are looking at 1 to 7 divines per Mace for +7's (at the time a month or two ago). Maces can start getting very pricey otherwise.

The 75% block chance in my weapon swap version allows for recovering from dangerous situations, due to the (Kripparian-inspired) faster start of energy shield recovery. We add to this 2 of either: "Dependable Ward", "Rapid Recharge", "Quick Response" or maybe "Convolescence" - perhaps others. To do this you can go up on the skill tree to manually grap Dependable Ward, and anoint your Amulet. Or the more expensive way is to use a "Megalomaniac Diamond" like I did (1 divine for a meh one). Maybe there is another way.

Additional:
Weapon set 2 is a shield with a one hander axe - We are just maxing our block chance and optimising for ES+life regen, and the one hander is purely just for attack speed, no other stat required - this is for faster leap slams. What is important is that these 2 items do not have additional total health or energy shield, and the total +strength MUST be = to the total +strength on your 2 two-hander axes in weapon set 1.

I hope someone finds any of this useful.

Links below (poe2db shows my second weapon set):

https://poe2.ninja/pob/10fd

https://poe2db.tw/pob/TUNG9Gnxg8


And for good measure, here is my build beating the Arbiter, tier 2or3: https://streamable.com/xfuu4p

I never understood the appeal of a totem build.. you drop an object then run around avoiding everything? Kinda like an aura bot who runs around and doesn't attack but with totems? Each to their own but to me, weird.

This stampede totem build using HOTG gives plenty of action outside of placing a Totem. I personally have been using Leap slam both defensively and aggressively, for getting in or out of situations and to aid ES recovery. I apply solar orbs and seismic cry in different situations for push back and ignite/heal. This is a fun totem build, and in my opinion, how a totem build should be.

I did try someone else's shockwave totem build, and for me it was uninteresting gameplay with little to do, and visibility problems all round. The hardest part was switching gems/util for bosses or mapping. Plus it was a bit glassy without ES.

So yes, I understand your reaction Sydneydonza, but this one is different. I really wanted to enjoy melee warrior, as my last character in PoE1 was Carns Sunder Slayer. But right now from what I have seen, if you're not abusing stat stacking, then nearly every warrior build trying to be a warrior is clunky, and this type of totem build is one of the few good ones.

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Sydneydonza#3078 wrote:

I never understood the appeal of a totem build.. you drop an object then run around avoiding everything? Kinda like an aura bot who runs around and doesn't attack but with totems? Each to their own but to me, weird.

I think its a good "compromise" build. I switched my warrior over to a Sunder totem build and it's like pressing the easy button. It's not the most entertaining thing in the world, but until GGG figures out how to make a melee class good at actual melee combat, this is a good alternative strat once you get deep into endgame.
I loved the actual melee combat with the warrior through the campaign, but IMO once you reach maps it all goes out the window. Takes a full calendar year for most attack animations, and you can't tank enough damage to warrant being balls-deep in all of the mobs with how annoying all of the death penalties can be.

0.2.0 patch notes are out. A huge nerf for our build is in Atziri's disdain:

- The Atziri's Disdain Unique Helmet now has 10% of Damage taken bypasses Energy Shield (previously 20-25%), and +60-100 to Maximum Mana (previously +40-60). It also now has "Gain 10-15% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield" (previously 25-30%).

Personally the 10% bypass is a nerf for my version, as I can handle plenty more % being bypassed, as I have plenty of life regen. Some peoples builds (outside of this stampede totem) don't want the bypass, so it is a buff for theirs. HOWEVER, the 10-15% of life as ES, is going to be brutal. My build could have just about survived the removal of Grim Feast, but now Grim Feast in it's old state would be necessary with the new AD, which is a nuiscence, because Grim Feast did nothing for some of the endgame bosses.

Anyway, looking forward to trying to make it work somehow.

HOTG has changed a lot, and is now dependent on how much we stun. Can we work around this? Maybe. I guess at worst, if we can't get enough stun output, we can switch to using Perfect Strike.