$$$ Grave Intentions Flame Totem MFarmer: I'm Cheap 'n' Easy $$$

Jiaozy,

I will assume you aren't running the build/setup I posted? I run Clarity off a Blood Magic/Reduced Mana support gem and have plenty of regen balanced from the tree.

We all know that the sustainability to chain cast FT is based of 4 key mechanics,

# Mana pool
# % Regen
# Base mana cost of the active skill
# Level of clarty (tied directly to how much life you have to reserve).

I think everyone has always been having problems finding that delicate balance of all four - sacrificing a defense mechanic to fill that gap for mana-based builds (Yes, I am looking at EB). I purport that GGG had to drop the mana cost of many skills to counter-balance the weight of this problem and the changes with the Clarity/Aura requirements.

Luckly, the Witch start area gives us a bit of a lead on the first two stats, just by moving through the Witch tree. With the proposed HP boost in update 1.2, we may have some room to move there as well. Again, reducing the base mana cost of Flame Totem also will work in our favour.

If that isn't enough, then we will still be faced with dropping a defense mechanic like Eye of Chayula (lowering the amount of reservable HP), to satisfy hungry mana requirements.

"

OneShot wrote:

Do you have a link to poebuilder tree?

It's at the beginning of the introduction... but incase you missed it, here it is again:

Passive Tree for patch 1.2.0 is here:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMA37DfioIQ6QIHpY-mS64C40SrGyVJslWu2VssnG0ZEFgRUIdlNbmvt6crMjQfAjbF2CSnCI9GuJMdFJuh6-6nlPrS99co-l5d0f1mnhcvrJiESFfJgsfAGmTn8Wxcaw18-egMfZBVWfNV1jbYw23qukGHEH-sqioTgKRJGzQKtAy3PsaecqlaKyqNN2aTJ0Zxxq73Miyn7FUsphzcgwnhiBDM6hij8pDWf8Zvnh2qK7b468HFoqPKSoxGFHFKxOwYwfPDOviTDjx4aY_6cLtcipu1QqP2rnvX2RMZiicLL28tg_sJg7aXBvbaxKIajxVQ

How do you think this stacks up to expjah's FT life-based MF mara?

I'd not given Lorica a second glance until just a few days ago (I assumed that it was just a very poor Shav knock-off) until I realized it could be used for cheap low-life MFing. Lo and behold, here you are.

I've already got expjah's build on a 77 mara and quite frankly, I find it very difficult to do anything above Vaal efficiently. I'm just too paper, as are my totems, and they struggle to kill anything in short order. How quick is your average Piety or Dominus run? With the arc nerf, I'm considering a swap to a build similar to this (yeah, I'm that FOTM guy I guess) on my high-level witch.

"

Fri3dchick3m wrote:

Jiaozy,

I will assume you aren't running the build/setup I posted? I run Clarity off a Blood Magic/Reduced Mana support gem and have plenty of regen balanced from the tree.

At the time of posting I still didn't use Clarity, cause I was missing a few aura nodes and couldn't afford it on life nor on mana, I now have all the reduced reservation nodes and run Clarity and have no problems spamming totems and curses.

"

ConsPark wrote:

How do you think this stacks up to expjah's FT life-based MF mara?

I'd not given Lorica a second glance until just a few days ago (I assumed that it was just a very poor Shav knock-off) until I realized it could be used for cheap low-life MFing. Lo and behold, here you are.

I've already got expjah's build on a 77 mara and quite frankly, I find it very difficult to do anything above Vaal efficiently. I'm just too paper, as are my totems, and they struggle to kill anything in short order. How quick is your average Piety or Dominus run? With the arc nerf, I'm considering a swap to a build similar to this (yeah, I'm that FOTM guy I guess) on my high-level witch.

It's a totally different playstyle and it's still to be seen if RF will do decent damage or will have a decent survivability given the loss of 3% max fire res from tree.

The key thing I noticed for this build is that a 20% Flame Totem gem makes a HUGE difference in your totem's survivability, also picking up the Totemic Mastery cluster will help immensly with keeping your totems alive.

From the patch notes:

"

Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence skill: Herald of Ice: Channel ice through your hands, adding cold damage to spells and attacks. If you shatter an enemy, they explode and deal cold damage to enemies near them

So, an aura that actually adds direct damage to our totems with a chance to chill or freeze them.
Depending on the amount of cold damage added, might it be worth dipping into Freeze chance nodes?

"

ConsPark wrote:

How do you think this stacks up to expjah's FT life-based MF mara?

I'd not given Lorica a second glance until just a few days ago (I assumed that it was just a very poor Shav knock-off) until I realized it could be used for cheap low-life MFing. Lo and behold, here you are.

I've already got expjah's build on a 77 mara and quite frankly, I find it very difficult to do anything above Vaal efficiently. I'm just too paper, as are my totems, and they struggle to kill anything in short order. How quick is your average Piety or Dominus run? With the arc nerf, I'm considering a swap to a build similar to this (yeah, I'm that FOTM guy I guess) on my high-level witch.

If you want my honest opinion, I can run 6 auras, 84% all resists, a choice of 80Q/290R or 26Q/482R all the time (no drop in MF when distillate flask is on recharge) and 25000 dps dual Shotgun at level 83. Not only that, but my totems are very tanky (due to my passive selections) None of my gear is focused on dps aside from my Doryani's and a 5-link Flame totem setup.

Not a good idea either for a MF totem build to rely exclusively on HP for auras, damage absorption and skill casting. Yes, you have over 5k life, but once you start casting and taking a few hits, you are on "Low-life" pretty quick.

This is a TRUE dual totem MF build which takes advantage of several mechanics and uniques. The only thing that could compare is a summoner - except for the Aumvorax hit to rarity.

The most important point of this build is that it's so easy to play and have fun. I am terrible at video games, and even I can manage any map with any mod (except chaos spider boss)

"

Jiaozy wrote:

The key thing I noticed for this build is that a 20% Flame Totem gem makes a HUGE difference in your totem's survivability, also picking up the Totemic Mastery cluster will help immensly with keeping your totems alive.

Jiaozy is spot on here. Getting your key skill gems leveled and 20% quality will give you a great deal of benefit when it comes to both DPS and Survivability.


From the patch notes:

"

Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence skill: Herald of Ice: Channel ice through your hands, adding cold damage to spells and attacks. If you shatter an enemy, they explode and deal cold damage to enemies near them

I honestly don't see where I could move points around once I pick up the essentials, which are spread all over the tree. I've always looked for a balance between doing a great deal of damage versus making your totems live longer. There is a diminishing returns for both and if you over step on one side, you really feel it on the other. This is all with the caveat that we stack as much MF gear as possible.

I would rather keep my 4-link Cold Snap trap in my Doryani's, but if I wanted that Herald of Ice/Fire effect, just setup a 4-link with Detonate dead instead. At the end of the day, as long as I am sitting in town with a bag full of loot, and a full exp bar - I am a happy panda.

Herald of Ice would also serve as a mean of CC, since it'll chill or sometimes freeze mobs too, keeping your totems even safer.

Looking at the new tree, there's a lot of Elemental Damage nodes, that might be worth picking insted of simple fire damage nodes if Herald of Ice grants a decent damage bonus to spells.

Not trying to go crit or anything, but simply grabbing ele damage instead of fire damage nodes could mean a huge DPS boost at basically no cost if Herald of Ice is decent on its own.

Updated first post:

- Working 1.2.0 POEbuilder Tree
- Playstyle video

Hey Fri3dchick3m, since the league are starting tomorrow and I'm probably rolling this character. Would you care to make a little list of which route I should go from early to late (HC)?

Thank you!

WOW!

Just, wow!

I just hit level 68 and wanted to try out the Doryani's Invitation fire belt I recently got and the results are amazing.

Not only it increases the DPS of the totems by a nice chunk, it also helps with their survivability since the "1% fire damage leeched as life" applies to them too, making them a lot more sturdy!

This is my current gear:
Looking to replace the ring with a second Andvarius and the helm with something with a bit of rarity but the same amount of ES and the Sceptre with a good roll Doryani.

Leveling Cold Snap, Trap and Cold Pen in off hand atm, since without Ele Prolif from Catalyst the Cold Snap trap isn't that good.

The choice of shield + mace is because, using Lorica, I would have piss low ES otherwise, plus it gives a decent amount of spell damage which makes up for the damage loss due to no second Brightbeak.