Flame Totem Support Gems

Hi
I'm using Dual Flame Totem (will turn to 3 without Ancestral Bond when I'll complete Labirynth on Cruel). Currently I own one 5-link chest with this setup:
Flame Totem-Faster Projectiles-Faster Casting-Elemental Focus-Fire Penetration

I think about replacing Elemental Focus to somethinge else, because it prevents totems from igniting enemies. What do you recommend other than Added Chaos Damage?

controlled destruction should work well.

Currently I use passive that makes global crit chance 100% after summoning a totem in the past 4 seconds. So how it will work with Controlled Destruction?

I'd stick with elemental focus, ignites you get from flame totem won't do much unless you're running Emberwake.

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dan14nr wrote:

Currently I use passive that makes global crit chance 100% after summoning a totem in the past 4 seconds. So how it will work with Controlled Destruction?

100% increased and 100% reduced will just cancel each other.

Yeah, but it reduces crit chance for supported skills. Considering that I will run 3 totems + selfcasting, it will still make my spells criticals, but not flame totems, right? Other possible setup is to remove Faster Casting and replace it with Controlled Destruction, still using Elemental Focus. Won't it make more damage than Faster Casting?

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dan14nr wrote:

Yeah, but it reduces crit chance for supported skills. Considering that I will run 3 totems + selfcasting, it will still make my spells criticals, but not flame totems, right?

100% reduced crit on flame totem means it just has 5% lower total crit chance, if they had more than 5% they will crit just fine with controlled destruction.

It's the matter of gain and loss, if you're running a crit build you want your totems to crit too. If you use controlled destruction your flame totems will lose 5% crit and with elemental focus they lose virtually nothing.

@OP: Critical chance doesn't work how you think it does.

You think that '100% increased critical chance' means you will have 100% chance to land a critical strike.

How it really works is that your chance to land a critical strike is increased by 100% of its base amount. Flame totem has a base crit chance of 5%. So increasing it by 100% makes it up to 10%.

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dan14nr wrote:

Currently I use passive that makes global crit chance 100% after summoning a totem in the past 4 seconds. So how it will work with Controlled Destruction?

I can't seem to find that node. What class is it?
Also, most nodes add 100% of BASE (usually a value of 5% to 10%) critical strike chance - they doesn't make your crit 100%. So increasing a base of 5%, by 100%, gives you end result of 10% crit chance.

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dan14nr wrote:

Yeah, but it reduces crit chance for supported skills. Considering that I will run 3 totems + selfcasting, it will still make my spells criticals, but not flame totems, right?

No. Reduced cancels out with increased, meaning that if you have 100% increased critical strike chance and 100% reduced critical strike chance, you'll end up with base critical strike chance value. Also, afaik crit can't go lower than 5% (excluding You can't crit mods). 100% Less critical strike chance would mean you can't crit at all.

You can look up your base critical strike chance on your spells and weapons, depending what you want to calculate crit for.

Also, it is worth noting, that burn damage DOES NOT STACK, and is calculated on the amount of fire you did with hit. Given that Flame Totem does little, but many, hits of fire damage, burning it causes is usually not worth investing in.

Actually I do not focus on criticals, but this one passive looked interesting, because I'm sure to crit when I summon a totem. I guess I will stick to elemental focus for now, until I find out myself to do something else :P

Anyway, thanks for help. One more thing - would you recommend to add Lesser or Greater Multiple Projectiles instead of Faster ones?

About these crits - yeah, but controlled destruction reduces crit chance for SUPPORTED skills. Passive tells me that my GLOBAL crit chance is increased by 100%, which is why I think that I would still crit with my selfcasting if gem is in another item

Passive is Shaman's Dominion. I play Hierophant

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dan14nr wrote:

Actually I do not focus on criticals, but this one passive looked interesting, because I'm sure to crit when I summon a totem. I guess I will stick to elemental focus for now, until I find out myself to do something else :P

Anyway, thanks for help. One more thing - would you recommend to add Lesser or Greater Multiple Projectiles instead of Faster ones?

About these crits - yeah, but controlled destruction reduces crit chance for SUPPORTED skills. Passive tells me that my GLOBAL crit chance is increased by 100%, which is why I think that I would still crit with my selfcasting if gem is in another item

Passive is Shaman's Dominion. I play Hierophant

GMP/LMP will increased your AoE coverage, but will decrease range... which decreased AoE coverage also. :P For best effect you'd have to use both. Bear in mind that GMP/LMP also have Less damage multiplier.

Unless you invest a lot in crit, it is usually not worth to take crit. Just spend those in other places. It is far more beneficial to have that huge % more multiplier, than petty 5% chance to crit (which is pretty weak, unless you invest heavily in crit multi).

Honestly, with enough Cast Speed from the tree and/or eq, you'd be best of with Elemental Focus AND Controlled Destruction, as both of them are MORE multipliers, and benefit from Increased Cast Speed gets worse and worse, the more you have of it (all increases add up to one multiplier).