[2.2] Orcsalot's Ancestral Protector - Elemental Buzzsaw Totems

level 54 now, running around 4k tooltip dps.
I switched one of the brightbeaks with an axe that dropped for me and it's already been quite an improvement and the axe isn't even all that great.


I am now working on figuring out how to handle defenses for this char, since I won't have the benfits of a chest piece once the Bringer of Rain is equipped.

Aside from the inherent blind my totems will spread I've also been looking at status ailment chance. We can get 10% from the tree and there is an enchanement from the labyrinth that att another 6-10% if you haven't crit in the past 8 seconds, which we alsoways have up due to resolute technique. This has actually given me a good amount of freeze on white mobs, so it seems pretty nice.

Basically, high life is mandatory, since it'll be hard to get any defense type high enough to be reliable.
Armour could be possible but then again, blind and evasion synergise too well.
Dodge seems to be too far away to be worth the investment.
Lastly, Block could actually be a decent choice. We have a bonus from BoR and Dual wielding and quite a few block nodes are close to the basic tree. But it's unlikely we'll get past 50%.

While the Hierophant is still the best scion ascendency, the second one will probably end up being Pathfinder for me. It seems that using flasks to increase my defenses will be the easiest way and many of the others actually require the character to kill something to gain an effect, which means wasted points.

I'm also running a scion and she's 65 at the moment with the Hiero ascendancy and I'm working towards Chieftan. I'm using

and the dps is pretty dope, but there's one main difference from the Templar Hierophant variation of this build. The 20% elemental damage penetration from the totem being equipped to a helmet seems absolutely irreplaceable as of yet. No matter how much attack speed, totem damage, etc I stack I just can't get close to how much damage my templar was dealing at this point.

I currently have these jewels in my skill tree

and my tooltip can reach about 11k per totem (I can get three at a time) and the damage is still only barely comparable to my hiero's damage. I really think that ascendancy passive is really overlooked and undervalued.

I'm still leveling the scion but if they're both at 72 and the templar feels better I may go back to my original character.

I don't think Chieftain is such a good idea, you will only get 30% inc damage and 2% life regen from it. You can't get the 15% phys added as fire from Chief since you don't kill yourself and the passive requires that.
Compared to many others Scion-Chieftain really doesn't shine when using only totems. If you've already moved towards marauder, then the 10% more damage from berserker will probably be much better. Also, the occasional Attack Speed boost might be nice.

I think you might be better off with the Elementalist's damage bonus and extra pen, if you are going full elemental

That's why I am opting for Pathfinder, Chieftain isn't all that great, since one of his best boni is not available to us.
And as a pathfinder I still get 25% inc damage and a bunch of utility for my flasks which I am planning to use extensively. Especially the new smoke cloud flask paired with decent Evasion and one or two jade flasks should keep me pretty safe.

I've slowly gathered the gear I'll need, probably will be able to get actual damage numbers this weekend.

The jewels I am currently getting are all including Freeze chance, that's gonna be my plan for surviving larger packs.


With the final tree and these boots I'll be sitting at 33% chance to freeze on hit.

(10% from tree, 15% from Jewels and 8% from boots)

I also got some nice axes for cheap, on 5c each.


Once I can equip both of them, I'll switch to Hatred and Herald of Ash, maybe adding Herald of Ice to make frozen enemies explode.

I haven't had time to look at every O'Neal post but getting reduced movement speed should be a good idea so the totems have an easier time attacking and Snakebite gloves are a great idea to save gem slots and Bino's gives you great regeneration for you and the totems then can combine with wither and some curse nodes temp chains and easy damage for free. And I never thought of the Bringer of Rain great idea with all of those you basically have and 8 link which in I'd use melee splash, Fortify, and increased critical strikes considering I want to do a crit build

Tried dual wielding hyaons to compare them to the two axes I posted earlier.

With HoA and Hatred my axes' tooltip was 7488 DPS @ 0.19 attack time

With Anger and HoI Hyoans were at 6557 DPS @0.29 attack time.

I have not invested in any specific elemental damage and i'm sure Wrath and HoL would have been slightly better, but even that would not make up for a 1k DPS gap with my current skilltree.

So overall, unless you go get high ele pen the hyaon's will be sub-optimal. Mainly due to attack speed problems.



[guildie hooked me up with a 6L for testing]

This would probably be really good on a Totem Berserker. 40% More damage and Warcry for Life/Mana management.
The only real problem here is attack speed, the damage per hit is amazing and freezing was super reliable. Even if it is only 2 Totems this could actually be great.

40% more damage from berserker and 30+% more damage from hypothermia add up quickly. Curse elemental weakness and the overall damage multipliers per totem will easily double the damage, making each totem count for 2 individual ones.
The cold penetration is to ensure chill/freeze on high HP targets, and of course another big multiplier.

I think I'll reroll one when I get the time and see what the numbers are then, you are already ahead of me as a scion anyway :D

This thread has made me interested in rolling an Ancestral Protector build...

Question: Can AP totems be stunned? Just wondering if Spire of Stone is necessary.

So far I haven't witnessed any stuns happening. But any totem can get stunned.

Scion and Templar are really the best, I hope the berserker might be comparable.

I see. What's the reasoning behind going ele instead of phys? It seems harder for ele to stack auras since you can't really run both Wrath and Anger without aura nodes. Phys, on the other hand, only needs Hatred. You're also using BoR which has Melee Physical Damage in it...Idk, it just feels like phys is the way to go, but maybe not...

EDIT: Also, how close do you have to be for the totems to attack?

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hissnail wrote:

EDIT: Also, how close do you have to be for the totems to attack?

I think about 3/4 of the screen is the range for them to attack. generally if they are jsut at the edge of the screen the spirit will disappear but reappear if you get close again.

The OP's idea was to get the hierophant's 20% ele pen for skills in the helmet and scale based on that.
I haven't tried it myself but my Scion has been doing pretty well until level 63 with the phys/ele weapons I posted earlier. Running around ~7500 DPS without BoR, I think without any gear improvement I could easily reach 12+k once I have it on, basically adding more phys damage and added fire damage to the current links.

The thing with elemental penetration is that it is really amazing against high resistance enemies but only gives you a linear damage increase against low resistance enemies.
I am pretty sure though that a pure phys build would also work really well.
I am sure that Varunastra would also work really well with this, you just grap all the weapon nodes in one area and off you go, killing everything. Although they are way too expensive now, due to their current popularity.

If the Hyaon's Fury concept works out (low attack speed - high damage per hit) then the same can be done with any good 2h weapon as well.

Looking at poe.trade, good ele weapons also come much cheaper than good pure phys weapons.
Hybrid weapons, like the ones I am using, are super cheap, since they are technically sub-optimal in lategame scaling.


I think this character concept will never break the game but it can certainly be made viable for late-game.


EDIT:
Another interesting Unique that hasn't been mentioned yet:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Trolltimber_Spire

Since I probably won't end up playing this build due to time constraints, I'll share my crit version intended for HC.

http://www.poeplanner.com/AAAABAABJ0yzIG5QMBzcjxrr7nyDp5ReXdH9BAcfAjbFg_NEoa4Sg9tVxjpYl5VSUz1f-ehBh7c-g8w8LcauEMz4k3sg_ocYVmh02mKUoNhNpwjYJINfC2GvbGjy8B-iAASzwGb-Cti98kU64aZXMZ5N4_6PNZI8Be98n98nL5BVGjhZ83IPlG9mVGaeFkCFfVjlKhNaK6PyrKpyqfcykn3cI5hv5c_E9prgRZ1TUq4-Z5vkUVBH7w4UIF8_m1gx-_ZIjM89_Fhj5CJp_hPMT_Psyxpsna760hZv42okqjbp0B_v6zzvGF1YF6I-PEukoLFbpjIDBKhy

The Hierophant Scion class gives you 20% chance to gain a Power Charge when placing a totem. You can max crit without Assassin's Mark, which is possible with the Assassin Scion class, 6 Power Charges, Increased Critical Strikes gem, crit nodes, and weapons with base crit of 7%. You can grab two Cameria's Mauls with 7% base crit and scale that to 9.9% base crit, then scale that to ~95% crit. If you have trouble generating Power Charges, you can always use Ice Spear - GMP, PCOC. Later on, you can replace the weapons with better ones, like Death's Hand (which can allow you to drop Increased Critical Strikes for another damage gem). Keep in mind my tree requires maces/scepters since I get Galvanic Hammer for some easy, accessible crit/accuracy nodes.

BoR links would be: Ancestral Protector - Melee Physical Damage, Faster Attacks, Blind, Melee Splash, Increased Critical Strikes, Added Fire Damage

By running Hatred, you can chill/freeze mobs. You have 50% of mana pool left to either run another aura or use it for MoM. You can choose to run a defensive Blasphemy curse like Temporal Chains or Enfeeble. You can also use a Curse on Hit setup and grab MoM at the same time too, I guess.

Anyway that's my take on it! :)

EDIT: I should also mention that you have 80% IIR when killing frozen enemies with two Cameria's Mauls. I wonder if it works when "equipped" by Ancestral Protector.