[1.1.0] TankyTotems - Dual Searing Bond Templar

Level 89 on Domination
10118.5 DPS with MF Searing Touch setup
11453 DPS with DPS +3 Sceptre setup
116% Rarity with basic rarity Searing Touch setup (not focused heavily on MFing - balance between XP and MF)
195.6 Mana regen with +3 Sceptre setup (can run level 17/18 Arctic Armour without much problem)
164 Mana regen with Searing Touch (can run 15/16 Arctic Armour)

4534 life (could be 5.5k+ with some cheap purchases or swaps)

Found well over 20 exalts worth of items

90% of gear was self found with the exception of Searing Touch and +3 Sceptre, which I traded for. Also, bought the Shock Nova at 14q, bought 1 trap and 1 multitrap.

Skill Tree: http://poeurl.com/yHXKpnX

- EXTREMELY cheap to build
- Not expensive on sockets while leveling
- One of the best and fastest solo specs in the game
- VERY easy to run Magic Find on
- Totems can block damage + provide other targets for mobs
- Can still run traps
- Elemental Equilibrium will NEVER be triggered by Searing Bond as it is a burn, not a damage hit!
- Albeit risky, this build can SOLO ANY BOSS except Jungle Valley.

- Late game DPS can be lacking - mostly an issue with the scaling on the gem right now
- Your character may have some problems tanking mobs
- Placing totems ahead of you will not make devourers pop up (don't have the shit scared out of you by this!)
- Mana regen is a big deal if you want to be more tanky
- Fire resistant mobs are a problem until you have EE Traps and Elemental Weakness/Flammability running
- Searing Touch/+3 Sceptre is hard to get - not required, but it helps.

The first thing you should do is to create a Shadow. Why? Because you're going to kill Hillock, talk to Tarkleigh, and get the Fire Trap gem. Stash the stuff from the shadow and then you are done with him.

On the Templar, you will kill Hillock and take Ice Nova as your reward off Tarkleigh.

Your Tidal Island reward should be either Fireball or Spark. Spark is fast for killing the act 1 bosses if you know how to use it, but this takes experience. Fireball is the safer choice for brutus.

You pretty much have all the gems you need until you kill Brutus at this point. Take what you want from the Glyph reward.

After killing brutus, you should take Flameblast. This skill is really good for farming Coves and Sins 1. It has also now been buffed by 100% as of 1.1.0

Entering Caverns of Wrath, take Added Lightning. You should probably link this to Ice Nova.

Flameblast, Fire Trap, and Ice Nova should give you all the AoE you need. I like Ice Nova for most parts other than Coves and Sins 1, where Flameblast is extremely strong.

In act 2, you'll want to get Flammability from the Chamber of Sins quest. The Weavers quest you should choose totem resistance.

Try to make sure you get life nodes. You'll want to try to progress to Ancestral Bond notable, like so: http://poeurl.com/yGAXMbo

Please note - you can change this tree up how you like to get more life early or whatever you wish - remember Normal alone gives you 6 respec points!

Once you get into Act 3 and do the Crematorium quest, however... it is time for Searing Bond.

By now, your skilltree should look something like this, or you should be going for this: http://poeurl.com/yGAXlie

The most important thing is that you want to get Ancestral Bond. Pick Holy Fire if you feel you can go without life, but get the life if you feel you need it.

If you took other talents, don't worry! You'll get respecs, and be able to move things around.

At this point, I would recommend getting a red-red-blue linked sceptre. Quartz/Crystal/Opal is optimal, but not necessary!

You will want to make this sceptre blue by using a Transmute. After that, take 1 white ruby ring and 1 alteration orb, and vendor the blue sceptre with the ruby ring and alteration. You will get a +1 fire gems sceptre. Put searing bond in that Sceptre and use it. Use totem resistance if you have a blue socket available to link to it as well. (Alternatively, you can also use Item Rarity instead of Totem Resistance, too - and I REALLY like doing this)

It's pretty straight forward from there on. Make sure resists are fine and all, and you should have enough DPS to go.

As I mentioned earlier in the leveling section, you can craft a +1 sceptre. This should be enough for your DPS needs, but you can start finding +2 Fire Gems at Itemlevel 55. I would not recommend trying to craft for it unless you have tons of Alterations - in which case, you can probably just buy one!

Other than that, it's all resistance/life gear. If you find any sort of 5 link with ES on it (Hybrid or pure ES) then you can potentially use it for a shock stacking trap!

A Searing Touch is obviously one of the best options you can get, but you can struggle for resists with it. Try to use a Ceremonial Kiteshield or Angelic Kiteshield while leveling - you probably don't need the 2nd sceptre's damage while leveling up. Hell, while playing this character, I was doing maps with a shield and a +2 sceptre that was alt/regaled for a long time!

(I eventually bought a Searing Touch for an absurd price thanks to some very lucky RNG during the 1 week)

Mana Regen becomes a big deal. Arctic Armour is very helpful as you WILL struggle getting armour. In many cases I consider Mana Regen more important than Life, even.

Also something I will stress over and over again - IF you can sacrifice damage for rarity, or a slight loss of life for rarity, DO IT! Rarity will lead to better drops and a lot more currency. Even 50% rarity is something you will notice after a few hours of playing!

Main Skill!
Searing Bond - Increased Burning Damage - Empower (if level 2 or in +3 sceptre)
Alternate links: Minion And Totem Elemental Resistance, Item Rarity, Faster Casting, Item Quantity

Notes: Increased Burning Damage is something you should always link to Searing Bond. Empower should only be linked if you are using a Level 2 Empower, have a +1 Fire +1 Gems Sceptre, or a +2 Fire +1 Gems Sceptre. The rest is personal preference - experiment and see what you like!

Utility skills:
Bone/Flesh Offering - This is extremely helpful farming places that have Necromancers.
Lightning Warp - Movement skill to get around.
Elemental Weakness - Curse of choice, provides most elemental resistance reduction after you get quality on it. Also helpful when you start running a shock prolif trap!

Auras:
Clarity - Well, this is a Mana based character. Absolute must have for anyone Mana Based!
Grace - Main source of Armour when you have Iron Reflexes.
Purity of Elements - Helpful if you have no shield or you need the resistances or running Elemental Weakness. Keep it around to run over Grace when you need to!

Traps:
Ice Nova (level 1) - Trap - MultiTrap

Notes: Try to level the trap/multitrap and use the recipe to get them 20 quality!
This trap is for an additional -50% Fire Resistance on mobs. It also helps if you want to throw another shocking trap as it lowers the Lightning Resistance by -50% as well!

Shock Nova (q) - Elemental Proliferation - Trap - Lightning Penatration
Additional Links possible: Iron Will, Concentrated Effect(?)

Notes: I don't really like Concentrated Effect, as it lowers your Proliferation range. It does take some getting used to using.
You don't NEED Shock Nova quality and you can also try a setup with Lightning Trap. Just get the Static Blows passive! This will REALLY help you against bosses and rares by shocking the blues/whites around them!

Arctic Armour
Try to watch your mana regen and level Arctic Armour accordingly. Don't overlevel it! You don't need a high level Arctic Armour for a lot of things, but it will mitigate a lot of hits from the fast hitting mobs (Tentacle Miscreations, Suppressing Fire, Voidbearers)

Also a trick with Arctic Armour is it can be used as a panic button! If you can't run it consistently, you should have more than enough mana regen to stand still and use it!

The trick is to cast Arctic Armour and move around with Lightning Warp. Lightning Warp never counts as "moving" according to Arctic Armour, thus keeping the mana cost low in those moments!

Other options
Cast When Damage Taken with Enduring Cry is a great option for defensive survival. Would recommend this if you can use it.

Normal Bandits: Help Oak. Obvious reasons.
Cruel Bandits: Kill all. 4% cast speed is not worth the lost skill point imo
Merciless bandits: Kill all. (You can help Oak if you use Enduring Cry)

Tree at around 65-70 should look something like this: http://poeurl.com/yH4Xgeq

At this point, there is a lot of options. I would suggest mostly life at this point.

Getting the rest of the life would make you level 76 or so with this: http://poeurl.com/yH4XOeh

At this point, you have a lot of options. Immolation gives you 6-10-10-18% for damage making it the best damage increase. Fire walker gives you some extra fire resist. Totemic Mastery gives your totems damage as well as making them more tanky. Totemic Zeal will allow you to summon totems way faster - basically a free Faster Casting gem for 3 points. Shamanistic Fury is probably last resort - I wouldn't get this until 90+.

If you don't have a quality shock nova and want to use a shocking prolif trap, getting Purity of Flesh (18% life, 8% chaos res) before you get Static Blows would be a great idea.

You can refer to my level 89 tree in the Current stats section.

My level 91 tree would look like this: http://poeurl.com/yHXKpnX

From there on, I would just get Totem Damage nodes or Mana Regen nodes.

A lot of people may play searing bond differently. Some basic notes:

- When the Searing Bond totem is connected to either a player or another totem, the burn effect surrounds the totem and the player from all sides, not just on the line. Some mobs will be able to stay outside of this range, but you can simply summon another totem!
- Totems will die fast to fast attacking mobs - tentacle miscreations, suppressing fire guys, and voidbearers. You may want to use yourself as the damage source in that case.
- For the most part try to summon totems ahead of you to create a line through the pack you are fighting. It will take some getting used to, but it becomes natural after a while!
- Using a level 1 Ice Nova on trap will make it easy to activate Elemental Equilibrium.

On fire resistant mobs, try to cast Flammability or Elemental Weakness to kill them faster. Using a trapped level 1 Ice Nova will allow you to activate Elemental Equilibrium. Some may prefer not to multitrap Ice Nova, but it will cover more area. The downside of multitrap is that you can't throw it through closed doors or over ledges.

COMING SOON

Q: Why not 1 Searing Bond totem and 1 Lighting warp totem?
A: Losing a beam of Searing Bond results in less area covered by beams. Lightning Warp also has a requirement for the minimum distance travelled by the warp, and it will continuously do this.

Q: Why Elemental Weakness over Flammability or Vulnerability? What about Dual Curse?
A: Elemental Weakness with quality will result in the highest possible resistance reduction - Flammability can't go higher. It also boosts Shock Nova DPS.
I would love Dual Curse. It's a great option. I would probably pick Flammability because you really want to push those fire resistant mobs to as low fire resistance as possible. If you're able to push a mob from 75% fire resistance to 50% fire resistance (many mobs are overcapped), that's 2 times the damage. Vulnerability only multiplies damage by 1.4x, and this is WAY less effective against fire resistant mobs.
By a quick calculation, Vulnerability is better than a level 20 no quality Elemental Weakness if a mob has -23% fire resistance or lower. (or if a mob is over 89% overcapped on resistances, taking into account equilibrium)
TL;DR: Fire resistant mobs are the problem, and vuln won't help as much as the elemental resistance reductions.

Q: How hard is it to run Arctic Armour?
A: It can be hard early on, especially with lower mana values. Try to get mana regen on gear or spec into some extra mana/mana regen on the tree to compensate if you can. Presdigitation, scion mana, and the 20% mana regen nodes on the way to IR are great options.

Q: How is Searing Bond in group play?
A: 2 Searing Bond characters in the same party will weigh the party down as the damage of those 2 characters will not stack on top of each other. Therefore, solo might be the better option if you can. A coordinated party of friends may want to have a Searing Bond character do mostly support DPS with dual cursing and equilibrium.
My personal opinion is having a small party with a lot of fire damage is great for Searing Bond. Teaming up with Burning Miscreation summoners, firestormers, fire trappers, etc. is great because you can equilibrium for them and potentially more as well.