2.2 - Shockwave Totem **UPDATED FOR ASCENDANCY** (atziri viable) - We buff now *ENDORSED BY KARV*

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OAK - ALL - ALL

OAK - ALIRA - ALL

Although cast speed does not affect the placement speed of your totems, it does greatly increase the rate they pulse. The sooner your totem pulses after placing it, the better your clear speed will be. This also factors into your crit chance as well seeing that getting over 50% chance to crit with your totems can be pretty difficult.

This is a question that comes up often during both my stream and Karv's stream.

Initially, a well rolled wand with cast speed would be preferred over a dagger and this is solely because of the cast speed. Theoretically, there is a point where a dagger would become the ideal weapon but that is only at the highest levels of gear. Eg. cast speed on each piece of jewelry and cast speed on each jewel. Furthermore, I would only drop a cast speed wand for a 80% implicit crit dagger.

Spell damage has the benefit of scaling flat elemental components while physical will not. Eg. flat elemental damage on wands/daggers, herald of ice, herald of thunder and anger. In solo play this is not too substantial but in ideal group settings (see Karv's Kourner) this becomes paramount.

tl;dr - the crit provided is simply not needed and generating power charges becomes a hindrance... greatly slowing your clear speed

Back in 2.0 when I started to play this build, I invested heavily into the power charges both in the passive tree and the merciless bandit reward. I was even using a Romira's Banquet with incinerate to generate them as fast as possible. It got to the point that the only thing that would slow me down in clearing maps was generating power charges. So naturally, I played a few maps without Power Charges and I have not looked back since.

Fast forward to 2.1 and it now costs 1 more passive point to get all your power charges... making it even more unappealing for SWT. Not to mention that this takes up at least 3 gems slots in your gear and a ring slot. Of course you could use Ice Spear and PCoC but that combo really feels terrible.

What it really comes down to though is personal preference and with the suggested trees in this thread what you are willing to drop for the power charges (hint you need 8 passive points). Play it for yourself or come watch either my stream or Karv's stream where we blast high level maps without power charges.

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Personally, I think this may be an option as a 6th link... extensive testing is needed though so I will update this as I find out more. Karv definitely does not approve though.

tl;dr - the es/sec you can reliably achieve while sticking to this passive tree does not support SWT and Vaal Clarity just negates this investment completely... so why do it?

Oh boy... Zealot's Oath. Originally when I played SWT I used ZO. It was only when using Restless Ward did the ES/second feel decent but I lost the 20% increased AOE from Carcass Jack causing me to cast SWT more often. Even after this, I still found myself using Vaal Clarity. So if you are using Vaal Clarity why invest so much into Zealot's Oath?

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