3.9| DEADITOR |Elemental Hit w/ Ballista Totem Support| Use Any Gear! (Need a Big Investment Though)

Actually, I forgot to say one downside to use Scorch rather than Ignition. This guide had doubts about Blood Rage interaction with totem. Much has been discussed, but not about the Frenzy Charge on Kill.

I remembered now I levelled up with a Blood Dance, and sure enough sometimes I did gain some charges. It took me a while to realize, but apparently deaths by Ignite DoT are awarded as of being made by the player rather than the totem. So yes, technically speaking you could get the on-Kill bonus even with a totem build like this, but mostly it depends on how much you rely on the Fire part of EH. Of course, with Scorch this is no longer possibile.
Maybe an AoF version, or one that uses Combustion (which compensate EE bonus turning it in a +6% fireRes rather than a +25%) could work better, but AoF and EE are two different builds altogether.

I wonder if this onKill mechanic is still valid in case of Ancestral Bond. This is absolutely not my first totem build, but most of the time it was an Arc Totem, and didn't pay much attention during my Synthesis' Divine Ire Totem Elementalist Witch if it procced.

Hey Maxtrux, thank you very much for that great post! Lots of interesting suggestions and useful feedback. :)

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Maxtrux escribió:

- Bow: since EH does not scale with bow, I'm a bit surprised to see no one has suggested Death's Harp/Opus so far.

I have at least mentioned it on page 8 of this thread:

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SamothD escribió:

DPS calculation seems to have changed a lot, though. I have switched to Death's Harp for the time being - attacks a bit slower and displays slightly lower tooltip DPS than The Tempest, but feels better because the additional arrow helps with clear and the high crit chance (+ lower ailment threshold) is good against hard single enemies (map bosses, syndicate, etc), especially in combination with a crit flask.

While this is not entirely comparable (I fire EH arrows myself), I can attest to this bow being really good for EH.

Would love to get my hand on a Doomfletch's Prism, but never got the prophecy.

Farming those "Imperial Legacy" div cards hasn't been too successful recently, with only 1 in 5 maps or so dropping a card. I'm sitting at 15/22 currently.
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All in all, the slightly adapted 3.8 version I'm using is still a pleasure to play!

I'm sitting at 5,200 life, some phys reduction thanks to endurance charges that are up pretty much permanently, 56% chance to evade, 40% dodge and 38% spell dodge (+6% if taken spell damage recently - lab enchant on boots), and about 100,000 tooltip DPS fully charged (but w/o flasks) at a crit chance of up to 82% without flasks.

Game play is pretty much one-click indeed:
- Lightning warp to get my 3 endurance charges
- Fire away, double cursing on hit and regaining mana automatically*
- Repeat

I have added Siege Ballista to the mix, but they often die. Might add Blind Support to them for utility. Using them as main seems to require some more investment after all.

Another useful thing I added to CWDT: Summon Holy Relic. Cannot be targeted by enemies, gives me additional regen, gives my Ice Golem additional regen, and gives my ballistas additional regen.

*Mana can become a problem in boss fights without adds. I'm using a mana flask with increased charges for up to 7 uses in the 5th slot now for such boss encounters, and a chaos resist flask for incursions.


Currently rebuilding my Atlas - all smooth sailing. Six conqueror fights, all without the slightest problems, all deathless - just like all map bosses so far.

Two more deaths - once I got insta-killed when I entered a large, open Incursion room and a bazillion of Vaal constructs all fired at me from all directions, with at least 20 chaos projectiles hitting me in one second. XD
The second one was in a Scriptorium map where I was apparently standing on some ground effects that I couldn't see due to bookshelves blocking the ground from view, and some projectiles hitting me at the same time and critting (it was an increased crit chance & damage map). My fault for sloppy playing.

IIRC, that makes zero deaths in the story acts and lab, and four deaths in total due to other stuff up to level 88. Not too bad for me.

Going for level 90 to slot in another jewel now, and aiming at reaching level 92 for some more elemental damage. I'll probably stop leveling then because I expect the build to get squishy at that point.

Welp, sorry about the Death Harp suggestion...

Siege Ballista would be an idea, as long it doesn't accidentally have elemental damage in it (rings and amulets, or in case of Dodge builds maybe Hyrri's Ire). Thankfully, nothing that a Brutality can't fix. However, your idea of using Blind in it intrigued me: it could be a good idea to have it inside my Wave of Conviction in order to have something to do even in case of Hexproof bosses/Metamorphs. Also could sway me enough to return back to dodging attacks… I will consider it

Summon Holy Relic healing, unfortunately, procs only when the player hits the opponent with attacks, thus should not work properly with totems. Swapping Wave of Conviction with, maybe, Frenzy could help, but it would still be a poor choice.

I too keep a mana flask with me, even if mana stopped being a problem after Clarity and Inspiration kicked in. Stasis maps are a thing, and since I went Hierophant Ascendancy, sometimes ("sometimes" being "Every time I barely survive a oneshot", "Every time I step on a Lab's burning ground" and "Every time I must bathe in Conqueror's poison pools or Metamorph's caustic ground") it is indeed needed

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Maxtrux escribió:

Summon Holy Relic healing, unfortunately, procs only when the player hits the opponent with attacks, thus should not work properly with totems.

I need to monitor this more closely - what I can say with absolute certainty is that I have seen the Holy Relic healing symbol over the head of my character, over my Ice Golem, and over my ballistas when I was standing somewhere among this merry little flock (me, the golem, and the ballista bois) and firing away at enemies. The ballista totems themselves may not be able to trigger the effect, but it sure looked like they can benefit from it. I saw their health going back up after they got hit by enemies.

Your remark about mana scarcity reminded me to see if I can squeeze Clarity into my setup. It might end up reserving too much, even with the flat amount. However, I might use Vaal Clarity for an occasional 8-second damage burst where I just fire like a maniac with full flask buffs applied, totally ignoring mana.

Indeed, Holy Relic's effect is meant to work on character and minions - even more on minion as the skill specifies. What I said is that is was procced (as in, triggered) by the character's hits, rather than minion's and ballista's.

Since you fire EH yourself, I assume that is what makes Holy Relic work so well with your character. If, however, only ballistas and golem are used, only some other kind of support (like my Wave of Conviction, or even better Frenzy) would actually proc it. Since totem users usually leave most if not all the killing and hitting to totems, it means a lot less attacks from the player would come, if compared into a more synergic approach like your "My ballistas and my bow all together"

About Clarity, as suggested in this build, it is not paramount to have it at level 20, since it would reserve way too much mana. I find myself comfortable with a lv 11 one (and a 20 Precision, which mean ~300 reserved mana on a pool of 1000)

Elemental Equilibrium doesn't work with totems, because they are minions.

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corrinmana escribió:

Elemental Equilibrium doesn't work with totems, because they are minions.

Wrong.
Minions are allies whose skill gem is tagged with "Minion", some common examples being:

* Skeletons
* Zombies
* Specters
* Raging spirits
* Animated weapons & guardians
* Herald of Agony's Crawler
* Herald of Purity's Sentinels of Purity
* Dominating Blow's Sentinels of Purity
* Mirror Arrow's and Blink Arrow's clones
* Golems

Totems, Traps and Mines are not minions, thus they will trigger EE (provided they deal elemental damage, of course).

Quoting directly from Wikia (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Elemental_Equilibrium)

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Trap, Mine, and Totem skills trigger EE as they inherit your offensive stats, which includes keystones and passives. Minions do not trigger EE as they do not inherit your offensive stats, and are only affected by passives that explicitly mention minions.

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Maxtrux escribió:

If, however, only ballistas and golem are used, only some other kind of support (like my Wave of Conviction, or even better Frenzy) would actually proc it. Since totem users usually leave most if not all the killing and hitting to totems, it means a lot less attacks from the player would come, if compared into a more synergic approach like your "My ballistas and my bow all together"

Oh yes, I'm sorry - of course you're right and it only works this way if you do most of the shooting yourself - which is just what I do, but not what the main subject of this thread is about.

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Maxtrux escribió:

About Clarity, as suggested in this build, it is not paramount to have it at level 20, since it would reserve way too much mana. I find myself comfortable with a lv 11 one (and a 20 Precision, which mean ~300 reserved mana on a pool of 1000)

I could level Clarity to level 2. XD Not much mana left after Grace and lvl 20 Precision... it doesn't feel worse than before, however. Maybe even slightly better. In most situations I regain mana on hit anyway, and when I don't (mainly boss fights), faster regen may be better than slightly more mana because I may have to kite and dodge manually between shots anyway.

Oh. Well, adding a Grace would surely smother a lot of mana indeed…

Considering, however, that your character also attacks, maybe some manaLeech node could help?
Most of my bow builds solve mana problems by just allocating the first of the nodes for Essence Sap (the 3 node north-east in the joint between Watchtowers, Primeval Force, Lethality, Swift Venom and Arrow Dancing Keystone).
It provides a 0.4% attack as ManaLeech (which differs from what most uniques and jewels offer, which rather only base their mana leech on physical attack damage), and it is in a very convenient placement.
Alternatively, just the first node in Spirit Void and Vitality Void, right under Vaal Pact, would do the trick, but its positioning is more useful in case of high leech rate or physical bow (which is not this case).
This will kick in better in boss fights, in which you can give time to the manaLeech to provide during the kiting phases.
Remember, though: manaLeech is still capped by maxMana, thus increasing damage output can only work so far - either you'll need to increase this cap by allocating points for raising it (too much of a hassle, I think), or increase your manaPool (which would, by the way, make Precision less of a problem to allocate)

Mana Gain on Hit would be way better indeed, but I've only seen it working well in Claw builds, or Quill Rain + Thief Torment EA builds, so unless you want to try Poacher's Mark it is a bit difficult to achieve it.

I could try how well I fare without Grace, of course. Thing is, when I play an evasion character, I like to make sure that I'll actually evade as much as possible. And since I'm wearing QotF, it also helps my move speed, which is another good defense.

I'm using the Gluttony unique belt and Oskarm gloves to apply level 30 Poacher's Mark and level 10 Assassin's Mark on hit, both of which grant me life and mana on hit plus "free" maximum endurance charges whenever I use a movement skill. This interaction was kinda the key mechanism that I wanted to try with my build.

Still, in hectic boss fights I sometimes find myself running out of mana. General mapping is not the slightest problem, I never need mana flasks for mobs. Only boss fights. Guess a five-link skill is a bit too "heavy" on mana when it needs to rely on hitting only one enemy for mana regain. More of a luxury problem actually.

I might try adding that one mana leech node, though.

Increasing my mana pool will not be easy because small amounts will give me about 1-2 shot(s) more before my mana is depleted and large amounts aren't that easy to come by.

In any case, thank you very much for all your suggestions - I really appreciate your input. :-)