[2.2, Outdated] Occultist Hybrid Chaos Incinerate Totems

Basically level flame totem - elemental focus - controlled destruction - faster casting, adding
searing bond, firestorm, fire traps to taste.

Edit: Heavy on the firestorm early. Firestorm totems honestly isn't bad either. Better AoE coverage, flame totems killed normal Voll in 3/4 the time of firestorm totems. That's a tolerable tradeoff, once you get projectile speed/damage I'd definitely switch though.

New league means no op leveling uniques, but try for +1 fire gems weapon.

May need quite some farming to get 2 X consuming dark (I'm leaning to no infernal mantle, I'll evaluate later), solid 5L chest, 20 quality incinerate, and other map-worthy gear. But 4L flame totem in dried lake is more than fine.(Edit: I got an exalted, 5L prophecy, and 40/14 Belly of the beast early, your mileage may vary.)

Gems: I'm leveling these for eventual use: Flame Totem, Incinerate (high quality), controlled destruction, elemental focus, void manipulation, faster casting, spell totem, whirling blades, faster attacks, fortify, anger, purity(elemental weakness maps), discipline, searing bond, CWDTX2, immortal call, enfeeble, frost wall, arctic breath, temporal chains, GMP, lightning golem, flammability.

All the gems witch can't buy from vendor are available to duelists, so try to make a friend with one.

Additional gems can be duplicates, especially incinerate, supports for incinerate, or just empower/enlighten or anything to sell.

Level 1 CWDT Immortal call, arctic breath, GMP. That's three off colors for ES, so get one piece that's armor/evasion or just armor.
Level 1 CWDT for Frost Wall, Enfeeble, temporal chains. Still considering leveling this CWDT to 5-6 for better curses.

If you get high level early, remember never take shadow chaos start now, and take ranger projectile start before chaos clusters if you still don't have consuming darks. Use flammability and possibly fire penetration until you get your second consuming dark.

Edit: With no gear changes (60% chaos conversion), looking at 28% less damage effectively.
Assumes: 0 Chaos resist, 0 Fire Resist, enemy in -20% chaos resist aura.

7.2% damage buff from spell totem buff, net 22.7% nerf.
It's worse than that, as fire resist is more common and stronger than chaos resist.
That's more than enough math until I actually see what legacy consuming darks become.
More tomorrow.

From testing, 60% conversion is good enough for dps, and elemental reflect. More on reflect in Build Viability.

Atziri: Fairly easy, deathless very possible. My first attempt on this build (also first ever) had three deaths. Two were because I didn’t know what to look for, the last would be avoidable with practice.

Hardcore: Dual totems with respectable life+ES means it’s certainly possible, but I’d recommend a tanky armor/endurance charge marauder-chieftain if you wanted hardcore. Up to you, though.

Newbie friendly: Reasonably, yes. You will likely level as flame totems (add searing bond and fire storm, another fire skill if you want), go dual totems, then switch to chaos when you prepare for maps.

Two consuming darks should run you about an exalted. Roughly an exalted for a good 5L chest, and the rest of the gear shouldn’t be too expensive.

A 4L is enough in dried lake as you farm currency. If you’re having trouble getting enough currency to go chaos, take ranger start projectile damage nodes instead of chaos damage clusters. Projectile damage increases base and poison damage, while also fully working when you’re still fire.

What’s the dps?: Tooltip dps is sadly close to meaningless for spell totem/totem passives, and while I can’t fully understand what it’s tracking, it runs high. (but does not count poison, or incinerate stacks)
Is it tanky?: It can take a 7k hit, but it’s totem-based so no leech. Also effectively no armor or evasion. You will have to dodge manually anything that doesn’t instantly die to your totems, but you should have over 4k life and instant flasks in emergencies.

Normal: Help oak for +40 life.

Cruel: Help Alira for +5% cast speed, or kill all for passive point. I go cast speed since I value 4% cast speed at easily a passive point. If you want future flexibility, feel free to take the point.

Merciless: Kill them all for the passive point. (If you instinctively use enduring cry constantly, oak for endurance charge)

(In order of priority)
Incinerate-Spell Totem-Elemental Focus-Controlled Destruction-Void Manipulation-Faster Casting. (replace faster casting with level 4 empower if available)

For 5L, drop faster casting, for 4L drop void manipulation and consider staying with flame totems.

For flame totems, added chaos damage should be the 6th link.

Whirling Blades-Faster Attacks-Fortify: Note that whirling blades can go through frost wall, if it didn’t I wouldn’t have CWDT-frost wall at all. (easy to get boxed in)

That’s three off colors, so I recommend putting it in your dagger or using an evasion/hybrid evasion base on one item for it. Consuming dark is more int than agility, so it won’t be easy (use vorici). But 3 off colors on a 4L pure ES item can be hell, I strongly discourage it. Quality is nice on all three of them.

CWDT-Immortal Call-Temporal Chains-Enfeeble-Frost Wall-Arctic Breath-GMP
This requires two items with CWDT, I recommend level 1 for both.

Anywhere: Anger, Lightning Golem/Chaos Golem. You gain little benefit from either lightning or chaos golem, it really comes down to preference. I self-cast golems, they die too fast linked to level 1 CWDT.

Multiple extra incinerates are advised, to try for 21/20. Also, all gems in chest can benefit from quality, so one of each leveled so when they both hit 20 you can gcp one and level it again.

Any extra slots can hold empower and/or enlighten, place them in haku support quality weapons on off slots for faster experience gains.

You will need strength on one item (or use the +30 str passive). Agility from tree should be sufficient, unless you want to run vaal haste.

Planning to drop fire trap and searing bond, considering vaal discipline.
Really tough time whether I want more damage or a lot of ES on shield, but it's got to go.
The ring without IIR also isn't long, and considering the helmet.

Fairly standard, three seething divine (or two seething one bubbling) health flasks, two utility of choice.

Anti-bleed is mandatory on one flask, and two isn’t a bad idea.

I really like quicksilver + move speed, with either +charges or less charges used.

Granite + armor% is never a bad idea, but I tend to forget to use them as totems, so I don’t run one.

The tree is fairly flexible, and can actually start Witch, Shadow, Ranger, or Templar.

Witch:
Occultist is the clear choice for Witch. Necromancer’s increased chaos damage is nothing compared to occultist -20% chaos resist, and elementalist isn’t much good for chaos damage. Occultist then chooses between dual curses with 30% increased duration, or improved ES survival. Both options increase your tankiness, I prefer dual curse. For fourth labyrinth, power charge is worthless so +100/8% ES and ES regen never hurts.
Level 80 Occultist

Current build (Level 93)
Current Occultist

20 point Witch
43 point Witch
62 point Witch
82 point witch
Go dual curse first, as you won't go chaos until well into merciless.

Shadow:
Trickster can add a fair bit. Choices of +250 flat ES plus survival boosts, whirling blades at 0 mana and triggering +20% cast speed, some good stuff there. I think Occultist beats it out, though. 20% cast speed, even up full time, doesn’t compare with -20% chaos resist.
Level 80 Trickster

Ranger:
Ranger has both deadeye and pathfinder. Deadeye boosts projectiles substantially, but some are limited to attacks, not spells. Damage is fine, not much for survival boosts. If you fiend after flask usage, pathfinder could be for you, but it’s not my playstyle. Raider has move speed and some survival, again I see occultist as better by far.
Level 80 Ranger
No clue what ascendancy option on ranger, up to you.

Templar:
Templar unlocks the Hierophant spec for 4 totems. Sadly, it has little else going for it besides totem placement speed. At 4 totems, 40% LESS damage means 4 * (100-40) = 240% damage. So to gain 20% more damage than just ancestral bond (200% *1.2), you need to place 4 totems. You do them somewhat faster per totem, but I don’t see how you get the clear speed of an occultist. Four totems have the advantage of twice the targets for enemies to hit, and I’d be curious to hear the opinion of this value from someone who’s played hierophant.
Level 80 Hierophant

Marauder:
Marauder’s Chieftain is an honorable mention. While I do like it, I don’t think it suits the build. It’s simply too far from the chaos damage/projectile speed nodes. If you want chieftain you can be very tanky and have totems that taunt, but I’d stay actual fire for that, not chaos conversion.

Duelist/Scion:
I love the champion duelist spec, but it’s seriously too far on the tree. I looked hard at ascendant, and was unimpressed for totem or chaos builds.

Frankly, both are viable. I’d advise staying with flame totems (likely leveling incinerate in off weapons/open slots) if:

You only have a 4L. Flame totem has a big more% modifier here over incinerate, which is noticeable. The mana is also more manageable with less links.
You lack 20% quality incinerate. Flame Totem will have much better range, which really matters.

2.3 Update: From leveling flame totem, incinerate has better aoe coverage. With flame totem + rain of splinters, it's about the same as incinerate + spell totem + rain of splinters. If you hate yourself enough to farm labyrinth and get a + flame totem projectile that could be tempting.

The dealbreaker was mana. Flame Totem I ran only anger, and had to use a mana potion very often. Incinerate totems I could add an aura (currently discipline) and don't need it at all. Even 60% reduced regen shouldn't be bad.

Incinerate Pros:

Mana Cost: 6L Incinerate totems is 43/45 (faster casting/empower) mana each. At roughly 1K mana, 500 reserved, 150 until double spell damage taken, you should rarely have issues even in -regen% maps. This also helps in no regen, and (to a lesser extent) blood magic maps. Flame Totem 6L is at 127/132 (empower/added chaos) mana, triggering double spell damage taken is very easy. This is the dealbreaker that makes me go incinerate over flame totem, raw damage I’d lean to flame totem.

Range: At 20% quality, incinerate appears visually to have somewhat longer range than flame totems. This is hard to measure, and I’ve read rumors incinerate may appear longer than it is, so it could be close.

Sustained Damage: At full charges, I estimate flame totem to be 85% of incinerate spell totem’s damage. These calculations were made with flame totem using faster casting, incinerate without. 6L will put incinerate somewhat further ahead.

Quality Spell Totem: Improved totem cast speed. Less time standing still to cast totems = slightly faster map clear speed.

Flame Totem Pros:

One extra socket: This value varies with how many sockets you have. Since we have multiple more% damage modifiers, the fewer sockets you have, the better flame totem is, relatively. As I said above, if on a 4L, I’d stay with flame totems.

Burst damage: In the first split second, flame totem roughly doubles incinerate spell totem’s damage, and it takes some time to catch up. In practice, you drop a totem or two and keep moving, so it’s not a big deal. In edge cases where your totems are dying quickly (some map bosses), flame totems could have a huge edge.

Quality Flame Totem: Increased totem health. Further boost in totem survival for hard-hitting bosses, synergy with burst damage for advantage in edge cases.

Extra projectiles: Flame totem has the option of rain of splinters for five projectiles, and/or more projectiles from helm enchant. No way to math that out, three incinerate projectiles has always seemed good enough coverage for me.

All map mods can be done, though some combinations can get very rippy.

Note: I have done all tier 9 and 10 maps more than once, 7 and 8 many times. Well over a dozen tier 11. I don’t honestly plan to go higher, as I mostly solo and higher tier maps can be a currency sink. If I ever aim for 100 I’ll start grouping and get back to you. Dps was never remotely an issue with a 5L mapping mid-tier.

I consistently alc and go (chisel 9+), rerolling nothing for pure survival. Full disclosure: I now skip malformation piety boss because apparently I’m a baddie. The build itself is well designed to fight her, she’s just rippy and I suck at it.

Temporal Chains, Chilled Ground: These slow clear speed quite a bit. If you lack good IIQ/pack size, these are ones to strongly consider rerolling. If they have both good IIQ AND pack size, suck it up.

-max resist, +damage as element, vulnerability, temporal chains. Especially in combination, you will want to be more cautious.

Elemental Weakness: I like to overcap for these, as well as stray curses. If you just started mapping and have barely capped resists, running purity instead of anger may be the wise move.

Blood Magic: Drop all auras. With 1.8% regen and over 4k life, that’s 72 regen per second. Totems should not cause issues at all.

No regen: Drop anger (if infernal mantle) or drop one aura (dual consuming darks). Drop two utility flasks for mana ones, they could really be white flasks for this purpose.

Elemental Reflect (2.3): This comes up, but nowhere near as bad as I feared. Testing on a tier 7 map, two totems on 2 big packs often one totem would die. Only when 3 packs or 2 high health blues would I have to recast, never more than 4 total. Vagan was there, fighting in the map itself (so reflect up) neither totem died. Trash before boss one totem died. Dropped two fresh on full-health boss, neither did.

So basically you're worrying about big high-health packs. Elemental reflect is no longer ignored, but mid tier is a minor nuisance at worst. High tier (red 12-15) mobs have enough health that it could be a problem, I'm considering sacrificing a T12 to roll reflect and test. Not likely this week, though.

This of course depends on gear/tree/etc values, following is 500% total increased damage, 200% increased chaos/projectile/damage-over-time/poison damage, 50% increased cast speed without faster casting, 100% with. (values are actually low but round numbers, mine is currently 670 total, 251 chaos, 122 cast speed with faster casting)

Without faster casting:
3% cast speed---------------------------------------12% spell damage
4% cast speed---------------------------------------16% spell damage

With faster casting:
3% cast speed----------------------------------------9% spell damage
4% cast speed---------------------------------------12% spell damage

Either:
10% chaos/projectile damage-------------------------19.1%% spell damage
10% poison/DoT damage-------------------------------9.1% spell damage
10% spell/all damage/fire/elemental/totem damage----10% spell damage

Cast speed is somewhat more valuable than shown. Cast speed also increases how fast incinerate reaches full charges, somewhat increasing burst, and greatly helping in edge cases where totems are dying in under two seconds. Tough to put a number on. That said, the argument could well be made to drop shadow 4% cast speed nodes for shadow start chaos and ranger start projectile nodes. Judgement call, I’ll think on it. I will still take 3% cast speed in witch start over 10% spell damage, for the above reasons.

Also, DoT damage is better than I thought. At two passives for Entropy, 37% DoT is 33.7% spell damage, or 16.8% per point. The 5% skill duration though, that’s a 5% more multiplier for poison (if it works how it should, does it tick 10 times per second?) that’s an additional effective 13.6% spell damage, or 47.3%/23.6% per point. Taking the five ranger start projectile damage nodes is an average of 22.8% each, and that damage is front-loaded instead of fully delayed. So Entropy is a valid choice for sustained damage, but keep in mind it’s poison only, so it helps initial burst very little. You could take it before 100, but only just. Fatal Toxins is simply too far, 7 passives for 70% poison will never be worth it before level 100.

After that wall of text, the above values are mostly for a few passive point choices, and jewel evaluation.

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Not well explained often, but there is a huge difference. To calculate the final damage, you take all sources of +%increased/-%reduced damage, and total them. Then multiply this by the base. Then each +%more/-%less damage, multiply them by the inc/red result, one at a time.

So if you have 1k base damage, 500% increased damage total, you get 6k final. 40% more at this point is really 40% more damage, 1.4*6k = 8.4k. 40% increased raises 500% to 540%, so 6.4k. So in this example more damage is 6 times as valuable as increased damage. (with my gear it’s closer to 7 times)

Multiple more damage multipliers stack multiplicatively. From above, 40% more and 44% more is 6k*1.4*1.44 = 12,096. These modifiers are most of our damage.

Reduced damage works like increased, so rain of splinters is a minor hit. Compare to lmp/gmp’s and spell totem’s less damage, which hurts a lot.

Increased %cast speed and %less cast speed (spell totem) works the same as damage.

Spell totem fully leveled roughly cuts damage in half (69% damage * 70% cast speed), but fortunately we have two of them. It also allows you to move/dodge/whirling blades while doing damage, and adds additional targets with thousands of health to occupy enemies. And mana is much easier than self-cast, allowing us to stack cast speed with no down-side.

The build is fairly simple: 4k+ life, 3k+ ES, 40% chaos resistance from tree, with dual totems generally taking most of the hits. Occultist provides -20% chaos resist to anything near you (reported range is 40, subject to future changes), and dual curse with increased curse duration. It can do very close to any map mods.

For survival it also uses two CWDT setups, triggering Enfeeble, temporal chains, frost wall, immortal call, and arctic breath. Whirling blades/faster attacks/fortify for mobility and a bit more survival.

The build relies on three uniques:


Consuming dark (legacy) converts 75% of fire to chaos, and causes chaos damage to apply poison (10% of base damage dot per second, for two seconds) Daggers enable whirling blades, honestly my favorite movement skill.

Infernal mantle converts the remaining 25% of fire to chaos, and adds +1 to fire gems for roughly a 10% more multiplier. It also has a respectable amount of ES, and some fire damage. A 5L is plenty for mapping.

For temp leagues/non-legacy gear, I suggest dropping infernal mantle and dual wielding consuming darks. Current prices on temp league for two are roughly an exalted, legacy on standard could cost you. You lose the infernal mantle’s +1 fire gems and fire damage, but gain an otherwise better chest.

Loss of the shield hurts, but the chest can have life and resists the shield would have, so you either likely lose spell damage from shield or a couple hundred ES. You also gain another aura, since you no longer worry about double spell damage on low mana. Taking discipline for example, this might be a survival boost overall.

End result lose block, gain spell damage and lose es, or lose spell damage and gain es. Big one is +1 to fire gems, as well.