[2.5 Video Guide] Beginner's Build: Dual Flame Totem, Blood Magic Chieftain [Atziri & HC/SC Viable]

I was lucky enough to get a



so I went the dual curse way and I don't regret it. After summoning totems there isn't much to do and cursing seems natural. Flammability, Elemental Weakness, Enfeeblement, Projectile Weakness all add a lot to your character (multiplicatively). Even Vulnerability is usable if the target is burning (and as a Marauder is just easier to obtain)

Here's my final build (105 points)



Currently mapping in HC effortleslly. I'm just avoiding maps like this




A great build to start in a league, easy to play, and reliable

And I'm avoiding DEX absolutely



Iron will provides the same damage as Added Lightning right now for me, pretty good IMHO. More life, less troubles. Added Lightning is better in this flavour of the build than Added Chaos as long as you choose Flammability and Elemental Weakness as your curses. But of course, you can always change to Added Chaos, Projectile Weakness and Enfeeblement if the map requires it

This Commentary made level up my Incinerate gem lately and thinking about mana based with Soulmantle/ Belly/ high armor/ life plate...



Gonna post how it goes in a week or so, since I don't have a lot of time atm.

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flipser wrote:

This Commentary made level up my Incinerate gem lately

RaizQT about Flame Totem vs Incinerate Totem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37RW-HrrFMw

That looks like a very different build to me. RaizQT assumes that Flame Totem builds go crit (this build does not). And his build looks a lot less tankier too. Much less life with some ES instead (4300/800). He is dual-wielding without the defensive bonus from a shield. And tbh, for a dual-wielder his damage output is rather mediocre, 5k (which amounts to 15k at stage three) is certainly nothing to write home about. If I add some bad@ss wand/sceptre in my offhand, I get 25k tooltip DPS.

Then he goes on saying Inccinerate totem suits his playstyle better??? Heck, I place my flame totems, move on and let them take care of business, it's what we do... what's so different? ^^

And wether he likes it or not, 30-50% reduced damage from Rain of Splinters is a drawback. With Flame Totem you now get the two additional projectiles without the penalty imposed by Rain of Splinters or LMP.

I'm not saying that Incinerate / Spell Totem doesn't work, but I have my doubts if it really is the better alternative. Spell Totem casts slower and even with 20Q Incinerate the flame range is way shorter than Flame Totem with Faster Projectiles (wich at 20Q adds another 10% cast speed).

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flipser wrote:

and thinking about mana based with Soulmantle/ Belly/ high armor/ life plate...

I was thinking about this as well but the real beauty of BM is the access to Mortal Conviction, 35% max life is huge! And being mana-base would require to invest into some mana regenarion, on gear and probably in the tree as well. On the other hand we gain access to some nice auras/buffs. In the end it comes down again to sacrficing survivability in favour of more damage. And for me this build at the moment works just fine as it is. Imo the only way to drastically increase the kill speed against really tough bosses is critical strikes (but then this would be a vary different build again), just a few hundred DPS more simply won't cut it.

Well, I am not talking about an entirely different build. I love this build to take on Totems. I love the Totem playstyle in general, it's got a great defensive tactic by default, place and run. I don't want to loose my high armor and life for going dual-battery crit, even though it could get a buttload more dps, I love to stay in an Atziri Flameblast without flask and not get one shottet! I also prefer a shield over a 2nd wand since I get a load of armor and block, aswell as the possibility to swap Saffels for Atziri. When opting for like 200 str more (atm i could gain a fifty on boots, some on rings, another fiddy on a rare plate...) I can also imagine a double Doon setup beeing as tanky as a Remorse while giving cast speed. The damage of this build is totally enough to take on high maps till 80 (didnt find 81s, 82s yet, despite running domination and craps, but this ain't the right place to complain about map drops ^^). It can also run any map mod, just pack another Sapping for no regen. I even replace my 6th link usually for an Item Quantity gem and only switch the IW in for bosses.
However the build like it is will never ever be able to take on content like Uber (let's put aside my bad reflexes and non-existent muscle memory for a sec XD)... It takes me round about 3 Totem placements (so 6...) to get out of normal mirror phase. When I compare this to a friends Cybil's Incinerate it is way too slow. The add phase is horrible because the totems tend to focus Atziri despite her beeing immune and when I place them at the outer sides I usually miss one spawn point (anyone tried Fire Trap?), a no go for Uber, Incinerates range could prolly help a lot here. To get to stage 3 atm is like counting 1,2,3... not a big deal at all. Also the placement speed makes the Totemic Zeal cluster obsolete and those points could go towards life or dual curse.
Once I got my Incinerate and Spell totem at around 18ish/ 20% I will definetly try out this exact build first by replacing ft with st and added Chaos with Inc, even though IW is inefficent compared to added Chaos, I don't feel like changing sockets on my Mantle (took me around 800 Chromes to get 3r, 1g -.-). As I said, I exspect this to happen around the end of next week and I will definetly post how this minor change worked out for me. In case I am totally happy with Incinerate (which would be Inc dps > ft dps at stage 1), I will definetly try to step it up a bit, minor tree changes and maybe going mana based. A lot of people complained about Incinerates hunger for mana at the start of 2.0, so most effective builds were about mana management, since we just chuck ours on a totem we won't have that problem, it will cost like what? 30? 40 mana? Could also think about EB with recharge rate and EC and Curse on BM gem, but thats another story...
I'll keep it short about RoS. I got a 31% one and its no big deal, because it is only reduced damage.
A Belly would be a perfect replacement for the 35% hp from BM, a good rare plate could help me to free my mastercrafts for more dps/str/dex,int, since im opt for ele weakness/ Volcano atm. and finally Soulmantle with a Quicksilver of warding would be the offensive Variation. The really big disadvantage of Sould Mantle however is not the curse I think, but the lvl 14 Spell Totem, which prevents me to get a quality one for placement speed and it would give 37% instead of 31% LESS damage.
I know all this might seem like an entirely different build, but the basic layout would be the same, but I am really just trying to enhance the dps for badass Bosses while remaining as tanky as this build is, which crit totem builds lack atm.
Maybe I am also just spoilt by success for running builds like Fakener/ Quill CoC for too long and comparing everything to it.
Big thanks for your thoughts, really appreciate it. You really seem to ground me everytime I'm proposing a more squishy variation, thx Tomay. Like dual battery crit - you gonna die. Hope you gonna read this wall too and ground me again. :)
P.S.:

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tomay wrote:

And tbh, for a dual-wielder his damage output is rather mediocre, 5k (which amounts to 15k at stage three) is certainly nothing to write home about.

It gets multiplied by 4, not 3 and his gear is very minimalistic ;)
Happy burning :)

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flipser wrote:

It gets multiplied by 4, not 3 and his gear is very minimalistic ;)

Indeed, my bad. And his gear was by no means optimised and he was missing quite a few fire nodes in the Witch tree (also surprised he did not invest the 3 or 4 nodes required for Arsonist).

However, because of the nature of Spell Totem the cast time decreases by 30% , Incinerate from a Totem will take about 3 seconds to reach stage four (maybe a bit less if you're dual-wielding with lots of cast speed in your off hand). So you will want to keep your totems up and burning for as long as possible in oder to benefit from the higher DPS and this is a quite significant change in playstyle IMO.

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flipser wrote:

I'll keep it short about RoS. I got a 31% one and its no big deal, because it is only reduced damage.

Someone had a change of heart... ;)

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flipser wrote:

I find Rain of Splinters rather uninterresting. The Aoe is big enoug without it already, most of the "bonus AoE" overlaps the old projectiles anyways. Also the drawback is to big imo, not talking about the -Damage, but on investing a Jewel Socket, which you can't spend on some Op rare Jewel.

So rather than using a bad@ss jewel which may gives you 1.5k more DPS you will have to use a jewel which will in fact reduce your damage in oder to get the additional projectiles, or does this not hold true for Incinerate? ;)

And I did not say, someone using this build trying (or even switchting to) Incinerate will make it a different build, I was referring to RaizQT's build.

I might fiddle around with Incinerate myself (after lvl up), I have the gems ready and a +1 Gems Tabby somewhere, saves me from changing colours. ;)

But I doubt I will opt out of blood magic. While you may consider Belly a good replacement for Mortal Conviction, I am already using Belly and I don't really want to drop 800 HP and worry about mana regenration.

P.S. I dug out my Rise of the Phoenix, switching shields makes dealing with the likes of (Malformation) Piety and Megaera a walk in the park.

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tomay wrote:

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flipser wrote:

I'll keep it short about RoS. I got a 31% one and its no big deal, because it is only reduced damage.

Someone had a change of heart... ;)

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flipser wrote:

I find Rain of Splinters rather uninterresting. The Aoe is big enoug without it already, most of the "bonus AoE" overlaps the old projectiles anyways. Also the drawback is to big imo, not talking about the -Damage, but on investing a Jewel Socket, which you can't spend on some Op rare Jewel.

So rather than using a bad@ss jewel which may gives you 1.5k more DPS you will have to use a jewel which will in fact reduce your damage in oder to get the additional projectiles, or does this not hold true for Incinerate? ;)
(...)
P.S. I dug out my Rise of the Phoenix, switching shields makes dealing with the likes of (Malformation) Piety and Megaera a walk in the park.

Well, RoS for ft and Incinerate is a different story, for Incinerate you kinda need it and the Projectiles do not overlap like on ft, besides its reduced and not less damage. Still the rare Jewel argument stands very strong!

Malformation Piety deals physical and lightning damage not fire (unless there is a +x% as fire) and I really think our high armor saves us from her beam, I can't find any confirmation on the beam beeing physical or lightning or a combination, but the bleed thing afterwards makes me think of it as a high phys dmg source. Also Immortal Call mitigates it, but the bleed is still applied. Good news for you, since you do it with a RotP, you can do it easier without ;) Also switching shields is sooooo big, it is amazing to play a shield build to just switch according to encounter, but I think most of the time Saffel would be better then RotP, maybe excluding Crema, cause of the spell block, even with non legacy one.

Hands down Incinerate totem > non crit Flame totem in endgame. I would not advise it for leveling though.
I got a bit over 10k tooltip atm with HoT and RoS, Spire instead of a GG rare jewel (bit over 20k with ft). Even the AoE without quality on Incinerate is a tiny bit bigger then ft and the spread is nicer.
Note: spell totem lvl 17/0% ; Inc lvl 18/0%
It doesn't feel different on mobs, I can feel it on bosses though. I didn't run an Apex in the last days, as mentioned didn't have a lot of time, but I'll see after the next level up^^

I was afraid of temp chains at first, but it doesn't really feel different then ft.
However you should pack an Atziri Flask for ele reflect to be smooth, because the totems ain't as tanky as lv 20/20 ft.
It also opens up a lot of possiblities. Mana based is possible for sure (40 mana for my 6-link)(HoT nomore on life other chest though, Auras,...), maybe sometimes slower proj once Inc is 20%, could maybe drop the dex hungry proj support(s) on 20%, running eb and linking bm gem to EC and movement skill. Just some first impressions, didn't test or even calculate those thoughts yet.

All in all I love this build and love Flame Totem for leveling and first maps, but I will switch to Incinerate now and probably check out other options of running it.

P.S.: One more proof how broken Incinerate is atm. Linked to a spell totem gem it is more average damage then an imo. very well balanced and specially introduced Totem gem that is designed to do basicly the same.

I'm running blood magic Incinerate totems now as well. I had 11k Flame Totems, now I have 9.7k Incinerate. Night and day. I use GMP Frenzy(70%to hit/3 Charges) to jump to 11k, and Vaal Haste to 13,500. Those are base tootips before curse or ramps in Incinerate stages. 11-15k Flame Totems will never compete DPS wise. Rain of Splinters, and the totem cannot be stunned gem. Just a very easy and very nice transition. 174% Projectile speed doesn't hurt either. With projectile speed out and slower projectiles, it's 13k before charges/haste/curse. Lifting's build is awesome, no doubt. Just there are greater end-game possibilities to transition to. Doesn't make anything about this build bad, just better.

How did you get to 174% projectile speed? ^^

I have done a few maps myself now with Incinerate and have to agree with what has been said about it here. Since I'm not quite ready to change colours just yet I'm using Iron Will, Fire Penetration, Faster Casting and Faster Projectile. Base Tooltip DPS is at 12.7k (with all gems 20/20, Flame Golem, RoS, CM and one rare Jewel) and the difference to FT (21k) is already significant. Tested with Tabula and Added Chaos instead of Faster Projectiles which yields 2k base DPS more so I may change the colours of my sockets and go with Added Chaos Damage instead.

I'm also using the Golem now for the culling since he has feck all else to do. ;)
I'm using FG+GMP+CS+LL, quality on GMP and CS is boosting the Golem's cast speed nicely, works like a charm. With +2 Minion the Golem life is nearly as high as with lvl 20 Minion Life and eventually I might swap LL for IIR.

I think Spire of Stone is kind of needed (Templar spot), so the Totems dont drop stacks. It also replaces the quality bonus on Flame Totem, 21% at that spot.