Spell Totem

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Mark_GGG wrote:

The reason totems can't have frenzy and power charges is because they fundamentally cannot benefit from having those charges.

They can't currently benefit from them, but only because there are no in-game mechanics which would allow it yet. Totems can have endurance charges, because they benefit from them defensively. It is possible that there will be some future skills or items which allow totems to benefit from Frenzy and Power Charges defensively too.

For example, an attack which did less damage to enemies based on how many power charges they had. Totems would benefit defensively from charges if being hit by that attack.

Or, a unique which gave your totems extra cold resistance for each frenzy charge they have.

etc...

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It is not possible for them to have any effect on skill used by the totem. They are using your skills, which depend on your stats, not the totems. This giving to totem stats from charges cannot affect your skills.

There are some skills where the offensive capability of the skill defends on the defensive capability of the totem. For example, RF lasts for longer on the totem depending on its elemental resistance, increasing the total damage it can deal before fizzling out.

Totems are already unacceptably OP, and you want to buff them...?

Is there any list what kind of damage you can do besides the totems when you take the Ancestral bond keystone? Traps still do damage, what about the new "Cast on..." support gems?

solved - sry

Okay, I'm having trouble understanding how this support interacts with Righteous Fire.

I've been operating under the assumption that the Righteous Fire effect will damage both the totem and the enemies based on its own hitpoints, but recent testing suggests this isn't the case. Righteous Fire appears to deal the same damage whether it's supported by a level 1 spell totem or a level 12. (Interestingly, both the totems lasted for the same period of time.)

Based on how much faster the level 1 totem dies when attached to a more normal spell, I'm led to believe that the totem gains ALOT of hitpoints from leveling up (but I have NO idea how many: can't find that info anywhere) so I assume that if the damage it dealt was based on its own HP, the difference would be obvious between them.

I conclude two things from this test:
1. The damage the totems deal to themselves IS based on their own hitpoints.
2. The damage they deal to enemies is NOT based on their own hitpoints (but are based instead on your hitpoints and mana, as expected.)

Can I get a confirmation on this from GGG? Also, knowing how many hitpoints these things have at which levels would be super.

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Damon_Tor wrote:

-RF with totems-

this was already tested long ago and confirmed with a dev on same forum thread in the gameplay discusion section of forums.
spell totem that uses righteous fire will do exactly as you mentioned:
1) deal self damage based on its own hp, and importantly as this is new, also based on thier own defenses (the passives and support gem to increase thier resistances).
2) deal damage to foes based on the owner's stats. as viper said, this is always the case and RF isn't any different.

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soul4hdwn wrote:

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Damon_Tor wrote:

-RF with totems-

this was already tested long ago and confirmed with a dev on same forum thread in the gameplay discusion section of forums.
spell totem that uses righteous fire will do exactly as you mentioned:
1) deal self damage based on its own hp, and importantly as this is new, also based on thier own defenses (the passives and support gem to increase thier resistances).
2) deal damage to foes based on the owner's stats. as viper said, this is always the case and RF isn't any different.

What confused me was the fact that the self damage was obviously scaling based on the totem's HP (ie, RF always lasts the same amount of time regardless of the level of Spell Totem). I don't know why that would be the case for one instance of damage but not the other.

EDIT: I guess the question remaining is this: is Righteous Fire effected by the totem's 50% less damage? I know burn damage isn't effected by most modifiers that aren't specific to burn damage.

not at this present moment, check back in for the next patch or a bit later on the next patch, depending on how long it takes them to get stuff working on DoT's.

till then, enjoy free DoT's. get the totem resistance items to make it last somewhat longer.