Devouring Totem

One saving grace of this gem is that devouring totem + desecrate in uber lab trials is one of the few ways a life based vaal pact chars can regain infinite life (slowly of course) if they find a safe spot...

This skill hasn't been changed since 1.0, and it really shows. The clearpseed meta has not been kind to it.

I think the biggest problem is that there's no real way to scale it. Cast speed helps, but you can only stack that so high. If Spell Damage and general Damage modifiers applied to the leech amount, then DT might have a chance of keeping up with the ludicrous leech per sec you can get from self-casting/attacking nowadays.

Also, the fact that it only leeches when you have either Life or Mana missing doesn't mix very well with Ghost Reaver. Something to consider maybe.

I forgot to mention devouring totem is absolutely worthless in battle without vaal pact too, your courtesy of 10 stack horseshit mechanic ^_^

Make devouring totem also have the vomit bird attack. Heal you + shoot a projectile at mobs based on the corpses life, like a single target VD

Please make devouring totem supportable with Life Leech support. One of the alternate qualities benefit it greatly.

I know that suggesting two changes one right after another is provably because I had the wrong expectations, and I am the wrong one here... but it's not like Devouring totem is super popular or anything, so here I go.

I wanted to make a build with devouring totem as main skill, in combination with The Retch. It has been very very hard to go anywhere beyond 30k DPS (I didn't even "made" it, only planned it on PoB) as a Slayer, you could go a bit higher as trickster provably.

It either needs to increase the "maximum total recovery per second from life leech" by a lot, or directly ignoring making it's leech instant.

Ideally, I'd make it give a buff that "increased maximum life also affects maximum total recovery per second from life leech at X% efficiency". Stackable per totem. This would also work for support uses of the skill, and keeps away the "instant" leech you apparently dislike (understandable).

But ultimately and what really "broke" the build, was that The Retch only applies to the enemies you leech from. Unless it applies in an area around you this build is impossible. I learn this after spending a good while building the build, so... I understand I'm not trying to fix something broke, just to make a build enabling mechanic.

Another thing you could do, if you don't want a super-tank build (what I was aiming for) you could make The Retch damage not "reflect", so you can increase it's damage with DOT or Chaos damage, and while you're at it, if it gives Devouring totem the "Chaos" tag so +X level to chaos skill gems work the better. But I think there's a beauty in a skill so hard to support, and the inherent synergy with Kaom's Heart (only +X levels, cast speed, and maybe alternate life leech support quality (see suggestion above) can help this build's damage).

I am here once again. I know nobody is reading this but... I'll give some more ideas...

Please, make Devouring totem to devour corpses in a chain reaction, not one by one. Vaal Detonate Dead style. It doesn't need to be as fast or have as much chaining radius as VDD, just keep the (quite low) 1s base cast speed, and make the chains every 0.15 or 0.2s. The range should work for Desecrate+Spell cascade or tight packs of monsters. The delay should be perfect if when you reach the next pack of monsters, it's still leeching for you.

Also, You could make Devouring Totem an instant totem. If you do, and add a cooldown, please make it so it's dependable recovery (2s or so). And also consider giving it 2 charges, for compatibility with multiple totems support.

One edge that this skill could give, because there are no other sources, would be non-stop mana leech. And I mean as a buff, so you can even complement with other sources of mana leech. Totem death or walking too far would remove the buff, and losing the accumulated mana leech. The two charges and two second cooldowns play into this, this means you can't walk faster than 1 totem radius a second. Turn this into another element to play, and allow for increased area of effect and increased area of effect of non-curse auras to affect the range of this buff.

The skill works on the wrong "tempo". It requires corpses to work, but when you have corpses, you have to leave... and as a totem, is stationary. It's effects need to linger, so non-stop mana leeching and chain reactions are aimed at that. Instant placement is because this skill is inherently used by non-totem builds, and all other leech/regeneration methods are pretty much passive and constant (except for siphoning trap and flasks), it's the only way to be a competent recovery method.

The use of this skill is clunky even for the campaign, which is played way more slow than with map-ready characters, and you need to do a house of cards with limited sockets, lack of build enabling uniques, and even build enabling gems. Would be adequate for it + desecrate to be a reliable mana sustain for spell casters on boss fights during the campaign, where mana flasks become unreliable. I would love if this became a reliable mana sustain for a cyclone-cwc-projectiles so I can cyclone pack to pack without hitting enemies often, you know, now that this is an incredible mana thirsty playstyle.