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

Just wondering, been leveling with fireball. And i just hit 25 and i see you wrote to get herald of ice. Why? Is that the new leveling skill until 31? Or is it for some special mobs?

On the switch to low life, I just did it at level 58 and my dps is over 1200 per stream with a 3-link flame totem setup.

Switch to low life ASAP and you'll wonder why you didn't earlier.

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camuer wrote:

Just wondering, been leveling with fireball. And i just hit 25 and i see you wrote to get herald of ice. Why? Is that the new leveling skill until 31? Or is it for some special mobs?

At that level, I could only sustain 2 auras on mana. herald of ice was a nice dps boost to help speed through content. My clarity was levelling at the same rate my mana pool was growing. I always try to run with max resists from gear, so elemental resist auras aren't needed till Merciless. Once I could run haste, however.. HoI fell to my weapon swap sockets.

I'll give more of a real feedback when I level more, and get more good gears.
The below is more of a whining, mostly because this character is my first character and with the
fresh league, there aren't good gears to buy from xyz; at least, not yet.





Edit : But I must say, you are very passionate and helpful with the guide, consistently updating new infos and videos. Not to mention help everyone who posts comments. Thank you very much! Really appreciate it :)

Titty bitches are a pain for sure. You need to prime them with Fire Trap. If you are wearing an Eye of Chayula, life is 100% better. Run in and drop a totem behind them. They have a short cooldown while they are machine-gunning, but enough time to pop 3 traps on them.

I have my Fire trap linked with proliferate.

At the advice of your post - I ran a colonnade map with the solaris lorica using a 3L flame totem + rarity support gem.

Video posted in the first post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgKhao4SgWQ&feature=youtu.be

Here is my current gear/gem load-out at level 62:


I have a minor helm upgrade sitting the bank unlinked.. and I don't feel like wasting currency on setting it up lol..

Because you help people like this, I'm still trying this build out :)

Thank you very much for the reply! Really appreciate it.

imma quit whining and try to optimize the build at my best!

How does this compare to Emfx' flame totem build?

Here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/994653/page/1

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dxbydt wrote:

How does this compare to Emfx' flame totem build?

Here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/994653/page/1

The main difference, in a nutshell; Mine is geared towards mid/late game maps. The Emfx build is a 'Dominus Farming Build'. On paper, it looks good (as far as theory craft goes)

If you are happy with the non-map gated uniques, then by all means, farm dominus till you are tired of that tileset. Need some variety, challenge and the opportunity for iLvl70+ rares and uniques, try mine.


As a backdrop to his build, he has a level 73 Dual Flame totem Marauder on Blood Magic. I have no idea why he has a 120 point tree, when it would take 5 years of farming dominus level content to reach level 100. He could have just stopped at level 75. Could his build do maps for meaningful exp? Probably up until map level 73/74 with some great risk if the mods weren't specially crafted.

To examine it further, it has holes in both the leveling and the endgame that people won't realize until later.

In terms of the early leveling, Ice Nova has no synergy with the fire-based build. Plus it's REALLY weak compared to straight Fireball + Fire Trap. Couple Fireball with LMP, and you can skip Ice Nova, Flameblast and Searing bond. (These all smell of FOTM with no practicality). Plus it makes no sense to level so many primary skills and worry about when to switch to the next one.

Another reason to stick with Fireball and Fire Trap, is because the very same motor skills you use with this combo, is exactly the same as when you switch to Dual Totem + Fire Trap (and it's successor Cold Snap). Even if you don't realize it, you are refining the play style and strategies you will need in end game maps. I am not a great player (or even good) but because I saw the game from the perspective of run-n-gun FB+FT+Curse, it made me so much more adaptable later on (70+ maps).

Fireball and Fire Traps damage is predictable and linear - and most importantly, have great synergy with the build - so you can actually skip searing bond till the happy day you finally get Flame Totem. Once you add LMP to fireball, it becomes a beast with my build progressions. And fire Trap linked with Increase Burning and proliferate, is the solution to most problems that Fireball can't solve.

Don't believe the Hype. A 3-Link Flame totem is not only stronger than searing bond, but gives you a great positional advantage, not having to be tethered by a radius too close to mobs for comfort (Eh hem.. exiles and invaders). Need proof? I would be happy to match my clearspeed of mountain ledge or gorge against an equal version of Searing Bond.

He is also recommending you wait - to reach a level 65/67 zone to farm for chaos recipe. What he doesn't factor, is that most people following that build will reach an equipment plateau where your EHP is not sufficient to farm bosses like Piety/Dominus, unless you were bank-rolled by RMT.

By the level of 60, you can easily farm A2M Crypt (level 60 zone), and not have to deal with Titty Bitches. After that, farm Crematorium (level 67). There was an report a while ago that showed both these areas had better mob density and lower risk farming before level 70 (outside of maps).

In terms of analyzing the tree, he went with more dps (cast speed nodes) lost some dps (18% fire damage + 15% fire resists), added Mana Regen and Flask Charges. Let me address these points one-by-one as someone who has a level 84 Low-life Witch (and have been doing it since the sporker days).

DPS - The number one issue with a Low-life Dual Flame Totem MF is not damage. We do TONNES of it. The problem we have is in our defence, where it has to be the first priority. ES, resists and additional QoL bonues.

His tree left out one of the most valuable defensive clusers in Unnatural Calm. 30% increase energy shield, 15% shorter delay before recharging and +1 lightning resist. Your totems will be doing great damage versus white packs in high level maps, but you will get one-shot for showing-off your tooltip dps.

Mana Nodes - I have zero mana nodes. And there is a specific reason. You don't need any. I can chain cast Flame Totem, even on 50% reduced regen maps. How? Aura enhancements. My build features all of them. Everything is balanced and I know it works because I roll with it now. Max level clarity works on life even with the changes.

Flask Charges - If you learn some basic totem placement strategy and keep your mobility up, you will rarely use flasks (I use them maybe once a map - if at all). Granted, I think the only justification for spending these four (4) valuable passive points would be supporting a Divination flask. Let's do the math, 12% increase duration from a base of 5 seconds is.. 0.6s. Not worth 4 passive points when they could have such a large impact to your endgame. the best way to improve the performance of a Divination Flask, is to improve your timing.

There are other playability and leveling issues that his build sheet doesn't cover, but if you need more detail in terms of where to go in my passive tree, and when - have a look through my OP. If you don't see it, or have a question not already covered, feel free to post the question.

Would zealot's oath be any good or is it just better to hide behind the totems and regen?

So it's a bit rough on Act 2 Merci since I only have about 1700 ES, but it's doable if I'm careful and I'm having a fun time of it. How would you go about the keystones between the 50 and 85 builds? It almost looks like I might have to work toward them all bit by bit to meet the STR and DEX requirements on my gems.