Triple Totem/Zero Aura/Perm Flask/Curse Immune Scion
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**WORK IN PROGESS**
Please leave feedback or requests for videos or more detailed information/specifics. Up to date as of version 2.0  This build is not for all POE players. It is a very fast paced/hectic playstyle that requires constant attention to Mana pool, totem/frost wall placement, and multiple flask durations. However, once mastered, it's a very engaging and fluid build. If you want a 1 or 2 button build that you only need 1 hand and don't want to pay attention to play, this is not for you. But if you enjoy juggling/managing your resources and reaping the rewards, taking advantage of mechanics overlooked by 99% of the playerbase, and covering the screen in projectiles, nothing beats this build.
Build Premise
- Soul Mantle + Ancestral Bond for 3x Spell Totem for a 7 link on top of 50% more DPS - Mana Flask with "Warding" suffix for curse immunity to negate Soul Mantle's downside. Saturated Sanctified Mana Flasks have a base duration of 21s (31s with passives/gear). - Mana Flasks will end prematurely if you reach full mana. A Sanctified Mana Flask will regen 75 (90 with 20% quality) mana/sec before passives. To help balance this out, ZERO mana is reserved for auras and the Unique Jewel Fevered Mind is used to DOUBLE mana costs. These steps make it possible to get the full duration from flasks quite easily. - Heavy focus on flask duration, effectiveness, increased charges gained, and reduced charges used allows for 100% uptime of other flasks such as Divination Distillate (loads of IIQ/IIR and 7% MAX res all), Quicksilver, and multiple uses from Life Flasks. - MoM with an unreserved mana pool adds a LOT of effective HP.
Build Strengths
- Very interactive/engaging. - Uses/abuses fringe mechanics (hipster) - High single target and AOE DPS. - Very defensive. 82% res all, good HP, huge mana pool for MOM, a lil block, lots of slow, hide behind totems, can disengage easily, Life Flasks are especially strong and have lots of charges in emergency scenarios. - No problem with most all Map Affixes or bosses. - Doesn't play like other lazier/more cautionary totem builds. Aggressively leap frogs totems. - Can effortlessly reach 200/10 IIR/IIQ without a significant hit to DPS/survivability. - Very flexible/modular build. - Cheap and straight forward to gear.
Build Weaknesses
- Very attention intensive. - Party members with Clarity Aura are cancer. - If somehow you run out of flask charges, you are a sitting duck (this should not happen if you're managing flasks and positioning well). - Lots of projectile and particle effects can be taxing on FPS. - Steep learning curve until it "clicks" like riding a bike VIDEOS
Shotgunning With Frost Wall 1:12
Atziri 10:22
Map Hightlights
8min Casual Gorge Full Clear 8:43
Jungle Valley Boss Fight (two fights + 1 RIP) 8:51
YouTube Link. First map is Ele Reflect+Fracture and really tests the limits of the build.
8 Mod Corrupted Twinned Museum 3:42
BUILD DETAILS
Skills
7L Main Attack: Arctic Breath + - Spell Totem (built into Soul Mantle) - Cold Penetration - Hypothermia - Faster Casting - Concentrated Effect - Slower Projectiles Alternative Supports - IIR (swap for Faster Casting or Concentrated Effect) - Minion and Totem Resistance for Elemental Reflect maps - Added Cold Damage if can't find a weapon with "Add x-y Elemental Damage to Spells" prefix. Slightly weaker than Slower Projectiles, but doesn't have the QOL downside. Also good for Atziri as Hypothermia is useless. - lvl 4 Empower (not sure which support would be dropped nor how much DPS could be gained. Definitely a very expensive alternative for negligible effect.)
Why Arctic Breath?
- High base mana costs makes managing mana pool easier. - Lots of multiplicative support gems. - Can effectively shotgun (explosions can overlap) with Unique Jewel Rain of Splinters. - Chilled ground gives defensive bonus as well as synergizes with Temporal Chains and Abyssal Cry. - Could be swapped for a different spell with appropriate support gems. Definitely flexible. 4L Dual* CoH: Ball Lightning + - Curse on Hit - Temporal Chains - Frostbite (can be swapped for Enfeeble or Elemental Weakness) *Requires Doedre's Damning or another means of 2 curses 3L Golem: Chaos Golem + - Minion Life - Fortify 3L Support Skills: - Frost Wall - Abyssal Cry - Increased Duration
Why Frost Wall?
Arctic Breath's explosions can overlap (like shotgunnning). A Frost Wall behind an enemy will cause all 3 projectiles to explode next to monster effectively tripling DPS! Also great option defensively to divide and conquer or to hide behind.
Why Abyssal Cry?
With Arctic Breath's chilled ground and Temporal Chains, enemies will hardly be able to move. This prevents you from being overwhelmed or surrounded. Also adds a little extra AOE coverage/clear speed. Especially handy in Fracture maps. Enduring Cry could be an alternative, especially in physical damage heavy scenarios.
The 2 remaining 4L's are open to personal preference. A CWDT set up and a movement skill are both top choices. 4L CWDT: lvl 1 CWDT + - lvl 8 Summon Skeleton - lvl 3 Immortal Call - lvl 3 Phase Run 2L CWDT: lvl 17 CWDT + - lvl 19 Molten Shell 2L Movement Skill: Flame Dash + - Faster Casting
Why Flame Dash?
By having a second CWDT for Molten Shell, I only had 2 sockets left. Lightning Warp is better with 3 sockets (Faster Casting and Reduced Duration). Definitely a flexible gem choice.
Passive Tree
Bandit Rewards:
- Normal: Alira for 60 Mana (Oak's 40 life is a close second and I refuse to conform) - Cruel: Kill all for Passive Point - Merciless: Kill all for Passive Point lvl 49 Tree lvl 70 Tree lvl 90 Tree
Jewels
* Fevered Mind (Doubles Mana costs of spells)
- Clear Mind (Not reserving any Mana, so may as well get the nice 50% Increased Spell Damage boost) - Rain of Splinters ("Free" LMP increases AOE coverage and gives "shotgun" effect potential with explosions - Rare Jewels with high damage rolls/Dex for attribute requirements/% Life or Mana/Totem Res
Why Scion Start?
Scion only takes 4 points to get to the primary highway path AND gets a Jewel socket along the way, which saves another 2-3 passive points. The build is tight as is on passive points and any lost DPS from not taking Templar or Witch starts is not worth the extra 3-4 points needed to reach all the important passives.
Why Not Crit?
The tree is already stretched as thin as it can get. I've considered testing crit variants that drop some of the Templar core area and skillgrimage to flask nodes between Duelist/Ranger to focus more on crit in the Shadow area.
This is a possible crit-lite variant that uses a non AOE skill. lvl 90 Crit Tree
Other Notes
* Since Soul Mantle only gives lvl 14 Spell Totem, our totems are a little squishy. This is why I prioritize the Physical Damage Reduction and Totem Res nodes in the Totem Clusters over more DPS.
- The Mana Flask cluster just SE of Scion is too strong until you can up your mana costs by leveling up Arctic Breath or get a 5L for a higher Mana Cost Multiplier. Same can happen with the Flask Effectiveness cluster NE of Witch. A second Fevered Mind may be an alternative solution. - The Elemental Damage cluster W of Templar (just south of Ancestral Bond) is a strong leveling option if DPS is insufficient.
Gear
Chest Armor
Soul Mantle. Even as a 4L, you'll have sufficient DPS. A 5L will increase your mana costs which will actually be helpful. Even then, when I had a 5L, I used IIR. A 6L will further improve DPS and Mana management and is a long term goal, but not required.
Belt
A belt with at least 19% Reduced Flask Charges Used and a good Increased Flask Duration roll is mandatory.
Why exactly 19% Reduced Flask Charges Used?
TL;DR Break points.
There are no "fractions" of a charge for flasks. Instead it rounds DOWN. This means this stat is susceptible to "break points". We have 15% Reduced Flask Charges Used from the Passive Tree. With another 19% from belt we hit 34%. This is just above the break point for 1/3 (or 33.3%). So any flask with number of charges used divisible by 3 will be reduced by 1 more charge per use. The relevant flasks are the Divine and Eternal Life Flask (15 charges used) as well as Granite Flask and Elemental Res Flasks (30 charges used). At 33%, the life flasks only use 10 charges instead of 15. Getting that 1% more pushes us over the break point and lowers it to 9 charges used (a net reduction of 10%!). This also means that instead of 3 uses when fully charged (15/45), we get 5 uses (9/45)! With 2 of these equipped with Seething (instant recovery), we get 10 instant life boosts. And with our 20% bonuses to Flask Charges Gained from tree, we only need to kill 7-8 white mobs on average to get 2 more uses. If you opt not to use any of these Flasks (Hallowed Life Flask recharge more quickly and are preferable in most other builds), a belt with only 16% Reduced Flask Charges Used is the bare minimum as this is the last attainable break point for our Mana Flask, our most important Flask of all. The 16% belt + 15% from tree = 31%, so our Sanctified Mana Flask will only use 6 charges instead of 10 (10*0.69=6.9, which rounds down to 6)! While leveling, you may need to start with a Hallowed Mana flask of Warding (Sanctified can give too much Mana/sec at first). These only use 4 charges normally. If you hit the 26% break point (a 9% minimum belt with 15% passive), it'll only use 2(TWO) charges, or half as many! Note that belts roll 10-20%, so any belt with this affix will work as an newbies first belt.
1 Ring
Doedre's Damning is needed for dual cursing. Whispers of Doom costs too many passives that we don't have. Frostbite is a lot of damage. In tough maps, Temp Chains + Enfeeble greatly increases survivability. For Curse Immune maps, I put in a Life/Mana ring instead for slightly more survivability.
Helm/Gloves/Boots/Amulet/and 1 Ring
All pretty straight forward. HP, Res, Max Mana wherever you can get it. Make sure res are at least up to 82 on Merciless. Move Speed on boots is a huge quality of life.
I squeezed on IIR where possible to improve my solo play and test the potential as a MF character, but definitely not a requirement. Based upon the gem colors required, 2 of the pieces can easily be Armor based to push a minimal amount of physical mitigation. My previous helm had 750 armor for example. Combined with a 1k armor shield and a Iron Granite Flask for 15k armor in a pinch, physical heavy bosses/mobs can be much less scary. I also have a Chaos/Armor alternate set of armor for situation like Weaver, PVP, or even the Atziri Trio, but I wont bother to link them for simplicity's sake. Voidbringer gloves would likely be an ideal choice for a crit build. 150% spell crit chance, 80% mana costs, 200ES, and +1 ele gems (COH?) are all pretty nice bonuses.
Shield
This slot has a lot of flexibility. For MF purposes, I use a Wheel of the Stormsail. On Elemental Weakness maps, I have another shield that over caps my res. I also have an armor based/chaos res shield I use for certain bosses/mobs, such as Weaver's EK. Lastly, Saffel's Frame can be especially nice on unique maps (or Atziri) where max res and spell block are invaluable.
Weapon
For your weapon, 10% spell damage = 3% cast speed (4% if using 20/20 Faster Casting) = 11 average flat elemental damage to spells. I favor cast speed slightly higher than that as a QOL mod (totems cast quicker after being summoned and less likely to be stun locked indefinitely).
Added damage to spells is especially powerful as we are not using Heralds or Added Damage as X support gem. If not using a lvl 20 Arctic Breath yet, added flat elemental damage to spells is even more powerful! I'm also linking my original leveling weapon. In a party with MF gear, Heartbreaker is a nice swap out to get those MF culls.
Flasks
My preferred set up is 2 HP Flasks (1 bleed, 1 freeze), Divination Distillate, Quicksilver, and finally a Mana Flask.
The Quicksilver could be switched out for a Granite for physical mitigation or Ele Flask if I want near immunity to a certain element (75% + 7% from Distillate + 12% from Ele Flask = 94% max res to one element) Seething (instant) Life Flasks have 100% effectiveness, doubling their tooltip effect. Flasks also have 50% increased duration or so. This makes Catalysed Life Flasks quite powerful as well (a Catalysed Eternal Life Flask will give about 1.7k HP/s for 4s*!). Do NOT quality your first Sanctified Mana Flask. It'll regen faster than you can spend it until the build becomes more mature and fleshed out. Expect to use upwards of 200 Alterations getting these mana flasks rolled correctly. I set my filter to show all magic Sanctified Mana Flasks to pinch a few pennies early in league. I also keep a 20% quality Sanctified Mana Flask of Warding for when I take out IIR for a different support gem or in a Reduced HP/Mana Regen map. Otherwise, the 20% quality flask gives too much regen. *Need to test further in No Regen maps
Tooltips
DPS
30k true* DPS before penetration (up to 90k theoretical/160k with penetration).
*Note that this 5.8k tooltip DPS is the projectile damage only. As such it does not include AOE damage modifiers such as Concentrated Effect or Increased AOE Damage. Factoring both of these give closer to 10.0k DPS per explosion before resistance penetration (both Cold Pen support and Frostbite curse). And since we have 3 totems, effective DPS is pushing 30k. If I have a well positioned Frost Wall behind the enemy such that all 3 explosions overlap from a single totem, the Christmas Land theoretical DPS is about 90k DPS! Factor in Cold Penetration + Frostbite (80% total), means an enemy with 0 base Cold res is taking over 160k DPS! This, of course, is 6L DPS when I'm not running the IIR support gem. As a 5L, my DPS is still plenty sufficient. 
Defenses
4.9k HP/0.4k ES/1.4k Mana (6.8k eHP)
82/82/82/-20 res (have alternate set of gloves/amulet/shield to cap chaos res with others at loss of IIR) 1k armor/1k evasion/28% block/2% spell block The first image is my standard defenses with Stormsail. The second is when I want to stack more armor and life with a more defensive shield. Note the 90%+ move speed.  
Magic Find
268/18
When I run IIR support gem, these are my MF stats. I frequently use all 6 portals in maps for vendor runs (currency, Chaos/Regal recipe, and top tier base rares only filtered).  MAPS
Notable Bosses
Notes on the most notorious of map bosses (ranks 4-5 on difficulty scale on POE.wiki). Enfeeble over Frostbite often recommended as a precaution. Full flask charges equally recommended. Fights with lots of incidental damage or prone to killing totems quickly are reason to bring 20% Quality Mana Flasks (because of MOM and re-summoning totems)
Desert
Engage with full mana flasks as this fight takes a while. Disengage and kill mobs to refill flasks if needed. Keep moving and re-positioning totems whenever boss relocates.
Dungeon/Colonnade
Maintain all slowing effects and dodge OHKO's. Use totems and Golem to aggro boss.
Pit
Pull boss out of arena and let tight corridors make for easy shotgunning. Position totems on either side of him to make him swing away from you. Engaging in pit is possible but not advised (one time had a Beyond boss in there with 2 of him... not fun, but did kill them all when I had just entered mapping and had mediocre gear. Had a couple deaths).
Channel
Keep boss slowed and space totems far apart and anticipate where he'll do his heavy attacks.
Museum
Equip Chaos res gear and make liberal use of Frost Walls to avoid being overwhelmed. Layer the Frost Walls as they are not 100% effective. Pin singled out bosses against walls and let totems shotgun to down them quickly. Enfeeble over Frostbite highly recommended. Easy to have MOM kill you, keeping you from casting totems if overwhelmed leading to inevitable death. Avoid unless looking for a challenge. Bring 20% Quality Mana Flask.
Quarry
Never had any particular issue
Graveyard
With sufficient slow, should be easy to avoid Mr. Evil's hardest hitting attacks. Animate Weapons give flask charges in case the fight last a lil on the long side.
Temple
Space totems far apart to avoid them all dying to one Lightning Storm or Ball Lightning. Frost Wall to keep her pinned and to maximize DPS from totems that survive. Disengage and recharge flasks with a TP or killing minions if needed.
Jungle Valley
High Chaos res and armor required. Wedge self in corner using Frost Walls and cast totems on other side of wall. Keep one totem with you to deal with smaller spiders who may harass you. Spam COH Ball Lightning frequently. If taking too many hits, MOM can deplete your mana and prevent you from casting spells, resulting in you becoming overwhelmed, and dying. As such, relocate if you need to re-position into another corner (Phase Run triggers help with this). I've killed double Weavers with shocking ground and equally nasty affixes like Curse Immune many time once I updated my gear for this fight. Bring 20% Quality Mana Flask.
Terrace
Never has giving me a problem. Devourers are frozen and shattered immediately. Boss is often frozen himself and never puts up much of a fight. Pillars naturally let explosions overlap burning him down quickly.
Torture Chamber
Just keep moving in a circle and refreshing totems. Lightning Warp totems aggro onto your totems instead of you. Frost Wall boss to ensure stray projectiles targeted at adds and totems hit the boss as well. Duck behind pillars if lazered. Plenty of adds keep flasks full. Have cleared double bosses with a Warband general pack with little issue. Bring 20% Quality Mana Flask.
Orchard
Do not recommend. Boss will target totems, create explosion on them that will hit and OHKO you. Have tried Frost Walls and other methods, but far too risky and inconsistent.
Malformation
Not too bad. Must have good timing. Simply Flame Dash over Piety's blood lazer. Refresh totems constantly. Keep those eyeball spawners dead as they can stun you at the worst time. Keep Piety slowed. Would avoid Twinned affix. Bring 20% Quality Mana Flask.
Residence
Never gave much issue. Stay a safe distance, surround boss with totems so his Ghost Spark is less likely to hit you. Frost Wall and keep cursed. Rather straight forward.
Necropolis
Never gave much issue. Keep moving and re-summoning totems when boss moves. Adds feed flasks quite easily. 20% Quality Mana Flask for incidental damage.
Volcano
Keep moving and constantly refreshing totems/COH. Tight room makes explosions overlap a lot, burning down the boss and his totems quite easily.
Academy
Never gave much issue. Tight corridors makes boss burn down quite quickly. Hide in-between bookshelves if needed.
Crematorium
Keep moving in circle and refreshing totems. No adds means if you run out of Divination Distillate charges (7% max res is very important), make a TP to refresh. Boss will aggro on one of the totems allowing other 2 to DPS her down. Use Frost Wall to help them out. 20% Quality Mana Flask recommended.
Map Pool Not Beyond This Point Yet
Will Update
Map Affixes
2 Bosses
Depends on boss. Due to shotgunnng potential, usually doesn't take much longer to kill, if not faster.
Curse Immune
Equip replacement for Doedre's Damning. Play more cautiously using totems as feelers. Frost Wall used defensively if needed to block doors/passages. OHKO bosses will be harder to avoid.
Elemental Reflect
Replace an Int Support Gem for Totem and Minion Resistance. Have to re-summon totems slightly more frequently.
Beyond
Enjoy extra loot/map drops. Have not faced Abaxoth, but others have been very manageable.
Elemental Weakness
Ensure Res are over capped sufficiently. Back up shield in weapon swap can serve this purpose.
Temporal Chains
Flasks last even longer. Totems mostly unphased. Don't put yourself in positions that are hard to get out of. Also note bosses with OHKO's.
Blood Magic
Not doable. Reroll
Fracture
No issue. Abyssal Cry and AOE explosions deal with fractures before they spawn.
Reduced/No Regen
LOL. Makes Mana management much easier. Bring 20% Quality Mana Flask.
Vulnerability, Monster Crit Chance/Multi, Minus Max Res, etc
Use Enfeeble over Frostbite.
Last edited by Uruloki on Sep 12, 2015, 5:51:19 PM Last bumped on Apr 12, 2016, 7:53:59 AM
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Saved
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" might be an alternate way to handle the self-cursing problem. Just turn it into a positive. | |
" I find the DPS to be sufficient as is. With a decent weapon, the build already has over 300% Increased Spell Damage. Each curse is then only giving a lil over 4% more DPS. I can't imagine the massive survivability and QOL (temp chains for example) loss to be worth 16-20% more damage (massive crit Rhoas don't need any more help lol). I did test it briefly, but only cause I thought the wording suggested it could be a replacement for Doedre's Damning XD Last edited by Uruloki on Sep 11, 2015, 8:59:14 AM
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Why no Totemic Zeal?
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" I considered it, but didn't feel the placement speed was doing me enough. It's great for getting all 3 up in a split second, but my play style was much more of a "leap frog" inching them farther ahead and covering each other (and me) rather than running to next pack, dropping 3 totems, run to next pack, etc. Being able to spam totems is great for burning mana, but I eventually got my mana to a place where it wasn't necessary. | |
" That IS what he meant. A proper ring is worth a lot more than a jewel so might as well use this instead of doedre. Last edited by Aggnog on Sep 12, 2015, 2:48:26 AM
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" Nope. It's more like "you can have one additional curse on you at any given time". It does not let you curse monsters with multiple curses. My builds: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1641740
My 6link collection: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1656425 |
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Great Guide Thanks for shareing
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Why Fever Mind jewel ?
You can easy get 25% dmg from rare jewel. |
