[1.1.0] Endgame Incinerate Totem Guide w Videos (Level 91, 57k dps, 8.6k life, 187/116 IIR/IIQ)

Yes, I am still viable, and still doing just as well in high level maps with Incinerate Totem. The day of the patch I did a GMP Residence Map and despite one or two scary moments, I did fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe__JnTl454

Note: I also have moved onto 77-78 maps without too much trouble. I can't do some bosses with some mods, but I can do the base bosses, which is more than a lot of builds can say.

Also, to speak to those who would suggest avoiding Incinerate Totem (and spell totem in general, I just made a video describing my comparison of Incinerate Totem v Flame Totem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDOXAGUIBN4

Totem Stats from the youtube video

Incinerate

1024.1 corrected tooltip dps = 4096.3 total dps (with 3 incinerate stacks, after 1.85s)
60 range (84 with 20q)
43 mana

Flame Totem

2953 tooltip dps
100 range
99 mana
+1 support gem

I tend towards Incinerate Totem. I prefer damage with ramp-up time, because I use Frost Walls to protect my totems. Also, I can just about spam Incinerate Totems (not that that’s a good idea), whereas Flame Totems require me giving my mana pool some time to recover. Flame Totem offers a bit more flexibility, but not more damage, and you do pay more mana for it.

Skills Used

First and foremost, let's talk skills. Obviously, there is incinerate + spell totem. Connecting allows us to bypass two of incinerate's major drawbacks (lack of mobility and mana consumption - which is insanely low when used this way), while adding some new ones. But incinerate totem is not very good if you can't protect it, so we also take some protective frost skills including my personal favorite: Frost Wall. Here's my soloing setup (I've been able to solo, one way or another, just about every map I've come across, with the only exceptions being particularly painful bosses like Shock and Awe or the Jungle Valley boss - though that problem may be solved now):

Incinerate + Faster Cast + GMP + Spell Totem + Added Chaos + Item Quantity
Frost Wall + Enfeeble + Ele Weakness + Inc Duration
Cold Snap + Trap + Ele Prolif + Cold Penetration
Haste + Purity + Reduced Mana

Since most people don't run a Kaom's + Staff, most people can also add Skeleton Totem (with a zombie linked, too, for corpse disposal) and fire trap (for times when incinerate's dps isn't enough or for lightning thorns).

Generally speaking, the way to play this build to peak efficiency is by keeping totems out and charged, keeping walls and curses up and using walls and using Cold Snap trap for added control to keep as much damage off the totems (and you) as possible.

Adding Enfeeble as a mitigation curse can be a good way of moving into higher level maps than you'd normally be able to run.

Passive Tree

My current passive tree looks like this:



Summary:



You'll notice a number of unusual things about my passive choices. First, you'll notice I'm not shy about taking elemental resistance passives. I have 44% to each one, and my reason for this is that doing so allows me to specialize my gear for things I can't take passives for - such as flat life bonuses and item finding stats.

In addition, I take 57% mana cost reduction for 10 points (in conjunction with only 8% increased mana for 1 points). 8% more mana and 43% spell cost gives me effectively a mana pool that is 151% larger (getting this would require nearly 19 nodes if we just made the 8% mana gain per node that most mana nodes give, and we get it for 11).

Also, for the bandits:

Normal - Oak
Cruel - Alira
Merc - Kill all

My Gear

Note: Before looking at my gear, please note that my experience in mid-level maps primarily comes from very low gear (pre-life change, I was running about 2.8k health, with 2.3k being my entry level health). This is a build that works well with little gear - that's how I got the gear I had. This wasn't a character that was built off of another character's success.
Note: I think a 6-link soul mantle with dual wands would also make for quite a strong setup. It would allow you to sub in another dps support gem, or (my personal preference) blind. The dual wand setup would also let you run with more spell damage, albeit with far less health. The biggest problem with Soul Mantle is when you're out of ways to remove curses.



Magic Find

I currently run 187% item rarity (250%+ when using the rarity gem for item find) and 116% item quantity. This means that (before diminishing returns), I would get 216% of "normal" white/currency items and 2.87*2.16 = 6.2, or 620% of the magic/rare/unique items. Players running 400%/80% will likely have something more like 900% (50% more items than I get) - but then, those are generally builds which deal very small amounts of dps, and therefore need to party, which cuts into their item acquisition (not to mention high rarity took a hosing in a previous patch, while high quantity is still as good as it ever was).

Clear Speed

As others have noted, incinerate fully charged deals a ton of damage - and because the spell requires you to be stationary, using it on a totem allows you to gain the spells major advantage (the damage) without it's major drawback (being stationary for notable periods of time).

Explanation of Incinerate's dps:

Incinerate gives your totems a buff that increases all damage done by 100%, and this stacks additively with additional stacks, up to three (which means 300% more - or 4x - damage). Therefore, when your tooltip dps is only 500 dps, your damage when charged is 2k dps - and thats per totem per projectile stream: meaning if both totems are around a large melee enemy absorbing all the streams, you're looking at about 20k dps ( x2 totems, x5 projectile streams). When your tooltip dps is 1k, therefore, you can be dealing up to 40k dps before resists.

Added damage gems have a nice interaction with incinerate - though their damage contribution is cut to 30% originally, the damage ramps up with incinerate stacks, meaning that at 3 stacks, it contributes 120% of the listed damage (every fraction of a second). This is the reason why my dps increases from 630 dps to 960 (a gain of over 50%) when I use added chaos. Something like added cold/lightning would probably add more damage against non-curse immune enemies, but would also be a liability against ele reflect, and it's reasonably hard to keep your totems up during ele reflect as is.

I do 1463 dps tooltip, which actually should be 1024 dps tooltip including the 30% less cast speed on Spell Totem (not factored in for some reason), 681 is fire and 343 is chaos. That means that against a cursed enemy with 0 fire resist and 0 chaos resist who is being shotgunned by both totems, my damage could be as high as 681 x 4(incin stacks) x 5 (streams) x 2 (totems) * 1.59 (ele weakness on a mob with 0 resist) = 43.3k fire dps. 380 chaos dps x 4(incin stacks) x 5 (streams) x 2 (totems) = 13.7k chaos dps

Giving us a maximum theoretical dps of 57k dps. Not that this is a number I expect to attain frequently (the 15k - 25k region is far more likely), but it conveys the general idea: these totems deal a ton of damage in situations where they can do their thing.

Frost Wall

Speaking of ways to let incinerate totem do their thing, Frost Wall is a major player in doing just that, in keeping enemies close to be hit by many streams of damage, or (most of the time) keeping them away to prevent the totems from taking damage.

Tutorial


Example:


Since a lot of people have measured Frost Wall and found it to be lacking, I thought I'd devote a separate section to discussing its uses. Frost Wall is not your intuitive skill - it does not deal high damage, nor does it allow for insane mitigation, nor is it easy to keep up - but if you can swing it, it can do no less than trivialize a great number of enemies, and is especially handy in this build to prevent your totems from being stunned, frozen, or dead. Totems don't move, so frost wall is the only way to avoid a large quantity of very incumbering attacks. Duration bonuses are big here (esp while levelling), because they allow you to spend more time casting other things, or being mobile.

A few uses for frost wall:

1. Placing them between your totems and the enemy - depending on the composition, you may want to completely wall off (if mostly ranged) or you may want to leave a few gaps in your wall (if mostly melee). The AI will run melee enemies away if you wall off completely. This can be obnoxious in large open zones. This is the most common use, as it deflect enemy projectiles, but not your own.

2. Placing them behind the enemy - this is particularly useful against enemies like Mer'Veil and the Graveyard boss, who are leader-types which will float away from you if you let them. Remember that if your cursor is over the enemy, you will put the wall between you and them, pushing them back. Instead, place one wall of to each side so that the connect in a 'v' behind the enemy. This can be very tricky to do.

3. Walling off a section of room - in tight areas, melee enemies move away from walled off areas. The result of this is that, if you have dangerous melee enemies in indoor areas (think Vaal Pyramid), you can wall, and they'll run, and then wall again, until eventually you've pressed them up again the back wall of the room. Then, you use your walls to keep them there and let the totems do their thing.

4. Walling off a room - often times, you'll want to retreat to a previous room and prevent your enemies from following you. Placing a wall right in the doorway accomplishes this perfectly. I personally have used this to great effect on the cells boss - who really should murder me every time. :)

5. Allowing your totems to charge - Walling first and then placing totems has the effect of letting them charge up without the risk of being frozen or stunned before the walls come down. Of course, you can continuously keep them up, but as I've said before, this can be a bad idea with melee enemies in certain situations.

6. Splitting melee enemies off from ranged - this is especially useful when you have lightning thorns packs in indoor areas, to kill the melee enemies away from those who would give them lightning thorns.

A note on chain - chain makes frost wall very difficult to use. Enemy projectiles will treat hitting the wall as though it were hitting an ally of yours - and will redirect a wide spray of projectiles at the nearest ally. Split Arrow archers and Lightning Arrow archers with the chain map mod are particularly deadly.

A note on doing nothing - Many maps have little pieces of terrain which cause your frost wall not to be placed, despite pressing the button. To get around this, move your mouse slightly before replacing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjdD3v1p81Y
Palace Dominus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AK2qFELlRY
Palace Map

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfsK64hgmBo
Courtyard w Boss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsyeaY51Iug
Shrine Map w Piety

Near Naked Spring Run


Near Naked Promenade


Near Naked Underground Sea


Near Naked Pier (low gems)