[1.1.2] Sam's Dual Arc Totem [[Fast Clears/MF Viable]]

Hey! I was wanting to make a dual totem build for a long time, and saw another guys build using Arc in Invasion and decided to try it for Ambush. He ripped when I was around level 50 or so and he stopped the build. But I kept playing. I had a read through other builds including FoxTactics self cast build, learned some things from his build and stream, realising that the Invasion guy had specced into crits/PCoC which was a bad idea considering Arc's 4% base crit.

This build focuses on area/map clears.

This will be my first guide ever written for any game, so I'm inevitably gonna leave stuff out and make mistakes somewhere. But on to the build!

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TL;DR spoiler

Spoiler
Here's the part for people who don't want to read anything but the necessary stuff.

Bandits:
-Oak
-Passive
-Passive

Current build as of level 77

Links:
Arc
Spell Totem
Lightning Penetration
Faster Casting
Increased Item Rarity
Culling Strike

Reduced Mana
Clarity
Disciple
Purity of Elements

Lightning Warp
Faster Casting
Reduced Duration

Conductivity
Faster Casting
Increased AoE

Arctic Armor

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PROS AND CONS

As with any build there's both good and bad points.

Pros:
+Cheap. You can so easily gear this character for a chaos a piece.
+Simple. Place totems > they slaughter.
+Fun and fast. Surprisingly fast to clear maps with.
+Parties will love you for your shock stacks and high level auras.

Cons:
-As with any totem/summoner build there's the not wanting to watch other things fight for you.
-Running around with low evasion/armor isn't for everyone.
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MY STATS

*will add screens later*

2k life
0 ES
98 Armor
734 Evasion
75/75/70/-48 resists
241 Mana regen

Arc Totem DPS
2688
2.87 casts per second
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PASSIVE TREE
So here's my tree as of level 77:

Level 77 tree

Keystones are Eldritch Battery and Ancestral Bond.

Eldritch Battery turns all our energy shield into mana. A larger mana pool makes high cost skills, like Spell Totems, easier to cast when you also use auras. Also increased mana regen has a much greater effect.

Ancestral Bond is the main node taken in this build. It allows us to summon two totems at once, but makes anything self-cast deal no damage. So we rely on our totems for all damage.

The rest of our nodes are Lightning/Elemental damage and cast speed for the most part.
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SKILL LINKS

Main skill
Arc
Spell Totem
Faster Casting
Lightning Penetration
5l-IIR
6l-Culling Strike

A 4l is all you need. 5l/6l would just add more MF and party support.

Auras
Clarity
Disciple
Reduced Mana
-Purity of Elements

You can run another aura instead of purity. I just run it because I want all round resists.

Curse
Conductivity
Faster Casting
Increased AoE

Utility
Lightning Warp
Faster Casting
Reduced Duration

When these gems get levelled up more, it just makes jumping around even faster.

This is all I currently use, you have 2x 4links to use. Could chuck in a CWDT set-up, I just never bothered buying the gems.

Also. Every single gem here can be levelled. Just keep an eye on Clarity when you're lower. There should be no problems in levelling it, but just in-case.
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ITEMS

Here's where the craziness starts. You've seen my stats above, and I just blow through any maps I do. Also I'm not too keen on finding gear for myself. If there's a unique that is good, I'll use it, unless something is clearly better.

I really shouldn't run with the gear I have, but I do, and I manage really well with it. I don't really care too much for death in this game. I would never play a hardcore league. That being said, if I can do this in Ambush with cardboard for defense with MF stats, you can run this with better gear in a Hardcore league.

Here's all my current gear:


I run 2x Moonsorrow. These add a ton of damage to Arc in the way of cast speed, lightning damage and spell damage. They're also perfect for your curse and lightning warp.

For my helmet/gloves/boots/belt, I'm running standard starter MF items. I have auras in my helmet as the itme has no stats requirements so it's easy to get BBBR as opposed to the gloves/boost being dex req.

Rings, using just any old rings with IIR stat, anything else is a bonus.

My Amulet is Atziri's Foible. This was a recommended unique from before, haven't really experimented without it as of yet, though you should check the Changes and Upgrades section at the end.

Chest is a random 5l I bought as is on poe.xyz.is. Look in the Change sand Upgrades part for what I would like to have.

Before I got my 5l chest I was using Arc Totem in a Geofri's Crest headpiece. It has more DPS that way, but it's restricted to a 4l which isn't good for me.


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HOW TO PLAY THE BUILD

Just run around, making sure if something attacks. It's the totems and not you. Use totems to block doorways or corners, or scout ahead if you're unsure of what's next. Arc has a huge range, especially if there's things for it to chain of off.

Single targets? Just curse them, and maintain both totems. They'll go down after a short while.

After playing a dual totem build for a while you really get to grips on how to place your totems effectively, and learn how to not die when you're as weak as a bag of gravy.
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CHANGES AND UPGRADES

There's a couple things I would do to alter this build.

With the tree; I could quite easily strip all life from it, I rarely take hits from anything, my life pool really doesn't mean too much. Though I wouldn't be too sure on what to spec in to, maybe cast speed/nimbleness to the right of Scion, or the totem cluster below Templar.

Eldritch Battery "could" be removed, sure it gives me a ton of mana/mana regen, but it could be possible to live without it, would also free up the Amulet slot for more MF.

CI? I don't know. I feel as though going CI would mean I'd have to actually spec into ES nodes, and get ES gear, which after seeing my gear it wouldn't be the greatest of ideas. Also it would be incredibly expensive looking for ES and MF gear.

Chest pieces. I had thought about a couple.
Tabula with +1 all gems would work nicely easy 6l, and the lack of stats wouldn't bother me.
Cloak of Defiance I use Eldritch, which give a huge mana pool, which people usually run with MoM. However, the totems take hits for me.
Soul Mantle I think this would be the best end gear. It would allow me to summon three totems at once. On top of this I would have a free slot because it has a built in level 14 Spell Totem (increased level/quality only increases totem duration) As a 7th link I think I would add Elemental Prolif


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END

Have any questions?
Spot any mistakes?
Know how to make this build even better?

Go ahead and make a post, or PM me. I'm no build master, or expert, so I'm sure there's a lot of improvements to be made.
Last edited by sam6555#5430 on Apr 25, 2014, 3:18:12 PM
Link to talent tree is broken.
Fixed link to tree. I'm forever making that mistake with url tags.
Hi Sam! :)

I think the Cast Speed nodes below Shamanistic Fury / Left of Witch 'Portrait' are really inefficient. It's 7% cast speed for 4 points (one extra node for going down) which is lousy compared to almost all the other points in the game. Alira gives 4% Cast Speed for 1 point in Cruel difficulty.

I would suggest re-routing the points a little bit to take more life (even if you're not dying now, you don't want to lose two hours worth of EXP later). I would also suggest moving points around to grab the cast speed around the Scion / Conduit area.

I came up with my own tree for this build that has 175% max life, and 66% increased cast speed (in the passive tree alone, no gems, wands, etc). I also included Static Blows, this build is only a few more points.

Let me know what you think! :)

Last edited by Jakzca#7793 on Apr 24, 2014, 9:10:23 PM
Sam how high have you been able to go in Maps? I tried Duel Flame Totems and did not like it much. But strangely enough I liked the totem play style. I need a IIR/IIQ guy to farm with, this may be a good choice. Any problem in high end maps?
Hi, can you make a tree progression plan ? idk where to go xD
"
FallenStar08 wrote:
Hi, can you make a tree progression plan ? idk where to go xD


Sure I can work on this a bit later. Though it's pretty straight forward. First you rush Ancestral Bond, then to Eldritch Battery, then flesh out everything else. If you feel you need anything first, like dex/strength, grab one of the +30 nodes. :)

"
shahmat1972 wrote:
Sam how high have you been able to go in Maps? I tried Duel Flame Totems and did not like it much. But strangely enough I liked the totem play style. I need a IIR/IIQ guy to farm with, this may be a good choice. Any problem in high end maps?


I have run maps up till 72 with general ease. Some bosses are a pain, like the Weaver spider, ot the Fideltis lightning strike boss. But it's all still doable. I too tried dual fire totems (fiery exalted scion build) I didn't like it either, Flame Totems are nice, though not nearly as good as Arc Totems. I currently run around with a fairly low IIR/IIQ compared to what others run (142/27) but hopefully I'll end up finding upgrades to my gear. I haven't really run any maps higher than 72 alone. I did some 74's with 6 people last night. I'd rather run 74+ maps with other for the increased IIR/IIQ and also because others want the exp, too, heh.




"
Jakzca wrote:
Hi Sam! :)

I think the Cast Speed nodes below Shamanistic Fury / Left of Witch 'Portrait' are really inefficient. It's 7% cast speed for 4 points (one extra node for going down) which is lousy compared to almost all the other points in the game. Alira gives 4% Cast Speed for 1 point in Cruel difficulty.

I would suggest re-routing the points a little bit to take more life (even if you're not dying now, you don't want to lose two hours worth of EXP later). I would also suggest moving points around to grab the cast speed around the Scion / Conduit area.

I came up with my own tree for this build that has 175% max life, and 66% increased cast speed (in the passive tree alone, no gems, wands, etc). I also included Static Blows, this build is only a few more points.

Let me know what you think! :)



I can see what you mean with all the cast speed stuff by going to the Harrier side. It also allows you to grab those spell damage nodes below the ES wheel. Looks like I'll be buying a few regrets later. ^^

With life. I barely get hit, and when I do it takes around half my 2k life pool. I have 2x Sapping pots, which regen about 1100 life in 3 seconds, gets me to full real fast. I think as this is a Totem based build I would much rather grab the life nodes after grabbing almost everything else. Something I noticed with your build, you grab the three life nodes to the far right, though you could get the 3 above Ancestral with Athleticism. It would save 2 points, give the same 3x8% life and also add 30 strength.

I was gonna bring up your lack of Influence cluster, though really you only need to run Clarity/Discipline, I just run Purity as a third because I could. I was also gonna say how not going into Templar would hurt mana pool/regen, but I don't really ever 'run out' as it regens so fast, I'm sure I could deal without all that additional regen and run a lower Arctic Armor.

With Static Blows...I have heard both opposing arguments to this, I really don't know if it's worth taking/how valuable it is.

--

I could also make some videos later maybe if this gets someones interest.
Last edited by sam6555#5430 on Apr 25, 2014, 3:32:42 PM
Would you recommend this in a new league(assume no buying selling etc)?
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shrandis wrote:
Would you recommend this in a new league(assume no buying selling etc)?


Definitely. You can see my defenses and resists. I'm level 80 currently. 80 I see as a level when I can leave a char to do whatever, not caring for deaths. I YOLO all the strongboxes, so I probably wont ever reach 81. :P

But if I can make it to 80 with my defenses, and most of the used gems are available through quests. Then you can make it too. :)
Maybe can upload video how work this build wit atziri ?

Build not bad, but i think need more totem dmg..... but good gear for beginers, no armor, boots and more for 40+ exlats, how more builds :D
Last edited by Jumaxas#0710 on Jun 24, 2014, 1:55:03 PM

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