[No longer updated] Pizza Sticks: Flameblast Totem Hierophant

Hi there,

Currently using this at lvl 79 on bestiary league.
I follow more or less the same passive tree and I curently have +140% cast speed and +120% aoe.

I really like it, although I understand why others may mix with frostblast as it should clear the maps faster, I cannot resign myself to not use the satisfying pizza sticks which covers basically the whole screen.


It's my league starter and I'm currently going for yellow map.

My gear so far:



If I could somehow reach +200% cast speed I would be so so happy \o/, I could by taking all the totems spell casting nodes in the skill tree but I intend for now to focus on criticals to see how it goes.

"

Kaari wrote:

If I could somehow reach +200% cast speed I would be so so happy \o/, I could by taking all the totems spell casting nodes in the skill tree but I intend for now to focus on criticals to see how it goes.

You could try dual-wielding Apep's Rage wands for up to 60% increased cast speed, they are very cheap.

Disadvantages would be losing Whirling Blades as movement skill and increasing your mana cost by 80% (the latter probably wouldn't really matter).

Also: Haste aura (16% cast speed at level 20) instead of Anger, has 155 dexterity requirement though.

Probably been asked before... anyone try clear mind with this build? No mana reserved makes dual apep's easy to use and gets that cast speed up there.

Decent build so far, but hopefully anyone can answer this question that's familiar with this build. Can someone explain why end up picking up an excessive amount of mana nodes? I'm only level 50, but I barely even end up using my mana, even with the totems and all of the leap slamming I do, the Mana Globe barely even moves........At 50 my HP base gets hit pretty damn hard and I almost died a couple of times, but I feel so off balance since I have so much mana, but not even 2,000 HP and I'm following the tree exactly.....

thanks all! Hopefully someone can clear this up for me.....

and thanks again for building this build guide out!

"

Mentoya wrote:

Decent build so far, but hopefully anyone can answer this question that's familiar with this build. Can someone explain why end up picking up an excessive amount of mana nodes? I'm only level 50, but I barely even end up using my mana, even with the totems and all of the leap slamming I do, the Mana Globe barely even moves........At 50 my HP base gets hit pretty damn hard and I almost died a couple of times, but I feel so off balance since I have so much mana, but not even 2,000 HP and I'm following the tree exactly.....

thanks all! Hopefully someone can clear this up for me.....

and thanks again for building this build guide out!

So what are lot of people are doing, is using Mind of Matter keystone, Cloak of defiance, and Divine Guidance (Heiro ascendency), to make it such that 50% of damage is applied to mana before hp. So we grab all these mana nodes because they are essentially life nodes. I for example, have 3.8k hp and 3.6k mana, so I could take a hit of ~7.3k and would still live.

"

Mentoya wrote:

Decent build so far, but hopefully anyone can answer this question that's familiar with this build. Can someone explain why end up picking up an excessive amount of mana nodes? I'm only level 50, but I barely even end up using my mana, even with the totems and all of the leap slamming I do, the Mana Globe barely even moves........At 50 my HP base gets hit pretty damn hard and I almost died a couple of times, but I feel so off balance since I have so much mana, but not even 2,000 HP and I'm following the tree exactly.....

thanks all! Hopefully someone can clear this up for me.....

and thanks again for building this build guide out!

Mind over Matter practically adds your mana pool to your life pool, so you have to be aware of how much (unreserved) mana (relative to your life pool) the different stages of MoM require:

1. Basic stage: picking the MoM node (70/30)
To utilize it fully, your mana must be at least 3/7th of your life pool. So, if for example your life is 4000, your mana should be 1720+

2. MoM node + Cloak of Defiance OR just Cloak of Defiance OR MoM node + Divine Guidance (60/40):
Mana must be at least 4/6th = 2/3rd of life. Example: 4000/2700+

3. Cloak of Defiance + Divine Guidance, doesn't matter if MoM node is picked or not (50/50):
Mana and life must be equal. Example: 4000/4000+

It's easy to see that especially the last one is hard to achieve, so we pick all these mana nodes in the tree and strive for mana increasing mods on our gear.

During leveling through the campaign you won't have Essence Worm ring yet to socket your Anger aura gem into (nullifying its mana reservation). So, if you want to have the aura active, you need even more total mana to compensate for that. I assume this is the reason why the OP recommends picking mana nodes early (keep in mind that this build is HC viable).

Since I play Softcore, I did not pay much attention to that during campaign and early maps. I picked damage nodes before life nodes and no mana nodes at all (except for the MoM cluster). Before entering an expectedly difficult fight (e.g. Kitava), I just deactivated Anger aura to have more effective life.

Hi, i'm playing this build, its really good, and i like it, but.... My totems can't hold even a few hard hits, especially with strong mobs like from abyss or from even some blue pack of mobs, can u give me an advice? What can i do to prevent this?

"

Raphael19_95 wrote:

Hi, i'm playing this build, its really good, and i like it, but.... My totems can't hold even a few hard hits, especially with strong mobs like from abyss or from even some blue pack of mobs, can u give me an advice? What can i do to prevent this?

- Play mixed totems (Flameblast for bosses and Frostbolt for map clearing), you have plenty of surplus gem sockets. If you clear with Frostbolt, you will very rarely have the problems you described because Frostbolt freezes all the baddies. Socket one totem in your chest and the other in your helmet. Check poe.trade for a Shaped or Elder helmet that can provide your totem spells an effective 5L/6L/7L. For Frostbolt 2 Frozen Trail jewels are absolutely mandatory.

- Get Spire of Stone jewel and put it in the jewel socket near Devotion notable. It provides stun immunity and increased life for totems.

- Get a Minion and Totem Elemental Resistance gem. I bought a lvl 21 one for 3 chaos (LOL, nobody seems to want them). This greatly helps your totems against ele-reflect mobs and against those with lots of elemental damage (your totem's resists are only at 40% by default). You will lose some damage if you replace Elemental Focus or whatever with it, but for certain situations it is worth it. Another option for this situation is running Purity of Elements instead of Anger (not 100% sure if this works).

- Other than that, just bite the bullet and spam totems.

"

saxisa wrote:

Probably been asked before... anyone try clear mind with this build? No mana reserved makes dual apep's easy to use and gets that cast speed up there.

Sure, if you can spare a jewel socket, go for it. Up to 60% increased damage is very nice. Depending on your specific built, there might be some multi crit rare jewels that give you more dmg (e.g.: +#% incr. Fire damage, +#% to spell crit mulitplier, +#% to elemental skill crit mulitplier), but those are generally much more expensive.

I myself need resistances from my jewels atm, so I cannot use Clear Mind (yet).

Hi, thanks for the guide, fun and newb friendly build (though I'm sure it has a very high ceiling!)

Quick question:

If I run Soul Mantle, what should I use as a 6th gem in place of Spell Totem? Crit Support? Empower? Controlled Destruction? Thanks!