[1.3.x] Dual Flame Totems: Solo, Self-Found, Beginner-friendly. AA+EB!

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poepoe091 wrote:

I like both (I have never found these gloves before!), but my concern is that it's two more pieces that have little or no life, and very low resists. On higher maps, I've been feeling fairly squishy lately, and I'm not sure if I want to drop my hitpoints even lower (then again, the auto-applied Temporal Chains is definitely a survival boost, so the sacrifice may be worth it). Where's your HP at the moment, with those two items?

Also, I use two wands, so I lack the shield as a source of life too. I could also see using the ring instead of Windscream and grab some rare boots with faster movement and a solid chunk of life on them, but then you'd be back to two curses. Three Dragons is something I won't give up again! (I've swapped in an Added Lighting Gem for the chaos one, so now some monsters shatter, though I'm still undecided if it is worth it.)

I'd really like to weave in some blocking, and possibly consider Rathpith, but that's still in the "mulling it over" phase and I don't know where to get enough points from. What do you think?

I never found those items either, I meant I “picked them up” from poe goods, lol. Only one chaos each – that’s actually why I wanted to try them, because they seemed like a cheap and useful starting point.

My life, currently, is sitting at 3000 with that set up. A bit low (well, very low), but I haven’t had any problems in low level maps, only died twice to some ultra-fast two-shot boss. I also died against the Firestorm exile on a lower resist map, but there’s not much you can do about that since he casts it directly on top of you. Speaking of resists, I have them capped at 78 with fairly cheap gear, so that’s not much of a problem with the ring and gloves.

It’s just the life, I guess. I’m also missing the last chunk of life nodes in the duellist area, just past Master of the Arena. To be honest, I’m tempted to avoid them even longer. I’ve become very curse-happy, and I can’t help but notice that Whispers of Doom is only 8 nodes away from the Static Blows cluster. That extra curse, curses cannot expire, 18% cast speed for curses, and 30 int is very tempting. It would allow me to drop the ring or the boots, OR – you could use 4 curses. Imagine that, lol. Flammability, Elemental Weakness, Temporal Chains, AND Enfeeble. Hell, you could even use Projectile Weakness for even more damage, since the totems do shoot projectiles.

But it’s mostly Enfeeble I’m interested in. I already have one levelling. Enfeeble + Temporal Chains seems like a massive boost to survivability, although I’m not sure how practical it would be, since you would have to manually cast Enfeeble and maybe the life + life regen in the duellist area would be a more effective defence. Still, I’m eager to try it (just need 5 more levels) and if it’s not so great I could just refund the points. I’m a sucker for debuffs, lol. Every RPG, I always gravitate to status effects. The extra int would be great too, since my wand requires 216. I wanted to avoid high requirement wands, but it had 40 total spell damage, 17 cast speed, 40 projectile speed, and 20 fire damage. Couldn’t resist, lol.

I dual wield wands too, but yeah, I’ve thought about a shield as well for the extra life and defense. But shields aren’t really worth the dps loss without nodes to support it, and like you said, where do you get the points? There’s several great blocking nodes nearby (8% block from the nodes leading to Phalanx alone) but there’s not much you could sacrifice. The nodes leading to Totemic Mastery are probably the most expendable, but losing damage from there and the wand would be pretty noticeable. There’s also Diamond Skin and Flask Life you could sacrifice for two points, especially if you could make up the resists on the shield. You could even get rid of the 8% life next to it. You could also get a bunch of points from sacrificing Elementalist and Celestial Walker, depending on if you need the resists or the int.

As for Rathpith, that’s waaaay out of my league at the moment, but it looks awesome. Not sure how great it would be without a lot of passive investments, though. Problem is, I have no experience on higher maps, so I have no idea how much dps/defence a character would need. But it would be awesome to include block in the build somehow. DPS is already fairly extreme, so maybe it would be worth sacrificing some.

But what do you think of four curses? Overkill? Not really viable for higher maps? Maybe Enfeeble + a shield would be a good combo, since sometimes it’s better to mitigate the damage rather than soak it up and regen it. I gotta level some more and try some of this shit out, lol.

I ran temp-chain gloves for a long time, I found them at low level and didn't get rid of them until level 83ish.

It's been said, but the build does feel a bit squishy in higher level maps. If you go three dragon (which I highly recommend) you are going to need life and res on the glove/ring/boot slot. Simple as that.

You will also find that running with a group at higher level maps there is usually a dedicated tank, making temp-chains far less useful where you could otherwise have damage. Shock stacks on the other hand will always benefit everyone.

Still loving the build though. :)

^ this guy's right, lol. Disregard my earlier post. Need dat life. I just got stun locked and killed by tentacle miscreations in a 67 map, lmao. It was a bit of bad luck (and I was watching trade chat), but that should never happen, so I'm gonna forget about extra curses and focus on defense.

I'm definitely gonna try a shield, though. I already got a cheap one with additional block chance and hefty spell damage (not even a dps decrease) and I'm gonna pick up Testudo in the deulist area for 10% extra block. If that goes well, I'll drop totemic mastery and get Phalanx as well before picking up a Rathpith. Seems promising.

Kind of disappointing how over tuned this game is, though. You need so much defense just to avoid the rampant insta-squish mechanics. :(

Yeah, I wouldn't go below 4500 HP life. Not just so that you don't get stunned or frozen as easily, but also because you want enough regeneration so that you can spam FT without having to watch your HP. (That's for 80 and up.)

Remember to use Conversion Trap. It really helps in dangerous situations.

You really shouldn't have trouble on 67 maps already, though. I'm currently doing 75 ones and doing well unless I run with crazy map mods. (Been pushing the IIQ a bit since I have issues with sustaining the map pool. Stuff like +75% fire res is surprisingly easy.) I'm getting more reluctant doing -player res and +monster damage ones (the physical damage).

Still melting faces!

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Mivo wrote:

You really shouldn't have trouble on 67 maps already, though.

I wasn't having trouble, it was just one death due to carelessness, lol. It was just a bit of a wake up call, that's all.

Actually, I've been using a shield a little bit, and even without any block nodes at all there is a noticeable decrease in damage taken. Seems like a good trade off, especially since it's not actually a dps loss for me at all. All I lose is projectile speed. Anyway, just mentioning, lol.

I'm also going with a shield since I found this little baby:

Sorry if I didn't go through the whole thread but I just got home from work and wanted to try this. I'm going Marauder and I'm wondering what's the best route to go. Life & Armor nodes and go through Fire Resistance or go Warriors Blood down get Blood Magic and go up to Ancestral Bond.

I really like Marauders for their early life armor nodes.

Thanks in advance.

I'm trying to understand why people choose some things over other things in the tree, so excuse me if this is a stupid question.

Up in the templar area you spend 6 points getting to Elementalist and Celestial Walker which grants you:
- 24% Elemental Damage
- 12% to all Resistances
- 52 Intelligence

Wouldn't it be better to take three 8% Totem Damage nodes and the three 8% X-Resistance +1% to Maximum Resistance nodes next to Diamond skin?
You'd only be sacrificing 52 int and 4% to all resistances in exchange for higher max res.

I went with a Marauder for this build and wanted to know if the Shaper Node is needed. If not, then I guess those nodes in that area I can use it for something else then right?