Skill Reveal - Ancestral Warchief

Well i don't care about clear speed, i care whether I'm having fun playing the game. This type of build may or may not be fun, I haven't played it yet to find out.
I can say this though, the synergy with multi totem builds intrigues me...

Why would a melee build go for 2+totems?

To use both of these totems you would need either:
A: A soul mantle (melee doesn't use this... and it sucks)
or
B: Hierophant class (also melee doesn't use this or shouldn't because its also bad)

And to get the class way you would need to be already have a high lvl to do all labs for the point; i think? maybe just normal/cruel)

More...

You have to be really close to these totems
You have to stop to cast totem
The totem dies 2 hits (well slower on junk things faster on hard things) (i have a lvl 21 totem i think)
Can't be used with CWDT...

This != melee build

I think this would be more along the lines of a elemental templar totem build or some such thing

Pls make 1hit kill skill on shadow like leathal strike on titan quest imortal throne :)

If it will have the same life as Ancestral Protector, it will get 1 shot by everything :\

"

Shppy wrote:

does it really *have* to be 'more melee physical damage'? Why can't it just be 'more melee damage'? I don't see why you've gotta exclude elemental melees yet again, there's already too many phys-only boosts that leave them in the cold.

There is a lot more flat elemental damage than physical I assume.

The only things that bugs me is the video recorded without fps drops. What kind of hellish spec does their pc have..

My biggest complaint as an old-school returning player is the fact that you guys made trigger gems unable to summon totems.

There are only so many hot-keys and if you count the requisite movement skills, war-cry skills, vaal skills etc.. It was nice being able to have some of these things on trigger gems, simply as a quality of life enhancement.

Cool! Looks like a fun ability -- I've been running Melee Splash on Ancestral Protector, so this one having built in AoE looks very nice.

@a lot of the posters in the thread: builds that include skills like these might not exactly be paragons of clearspeed, but I can't say I really care. Ancestral Protector is a lot of fun on my melee Hierophant, and clears just fine for my tastes. It's a game first and foremost guys, the objective is fun, not necessarily lightning-fast clear speed. I for one am grateful for the new skill.

Not the biggest fan of these totems but pulling out ancestral army could be fun. :)

I would love to see new real melee skill for once or shapeshifting. I am all for quality over quantity!

Also it would be nice to have some charging "sniper" bow skill which doesn't require multiple projectiles to be usefull. For example skill which consumes frenzy charges to charge up while holding the key. After key is released It will shoot high velocity arrow to the target location which would penetrate enemies along the way and explode in the target location dealing damage in a radius based on consumed frenzy charges. Character could move while charging up and each stage would be indicated by visual effect. https://youtu.be/xhUkJmCRr-A?t=34s

Really another one?

Ancestral Protector was a total fail skill design-wise (close to nobody is using it currently in an endgame scenario despite the powerfull attack speed buff it provides)

So this should be the "successor" i guess? More Melee Physical is nice, but melee doesn't need more situational/conditional damage buffs (there are plenty out there) - more melee damage would be more interesting instead of beeing only physical.

Beeing close to the totem for the totem to function is akward for the current game. Why should a melee character invest into totem nodes (placement speed/totem life/resist) when he instead can gain more survivability for himself, which he desperatly needs?. Placing a totem and then going in and attacking yourself in addition to the totem is slow and provides clunky playstyle over time (at the start when you first use it, it might be fun, but after going through 1 whole difficulty it starts to get tedious really quickly)

Next thing is, it works like Shockwave Totem, which is already in the game. Shockwave totem has the benefit that it works when you are not close by, has far greater AoE and is likly to deal more damage because it isn't based of your weapon. So why use this thing when you could just play a Shockwave Totem character?

As far as we know from Ancestral Protector; totems without any investment into totem nodes are very squishy when it comes to mid/high level maps. I can see them beeing usefull for harder bosses, but then there is the problem that the totem iikly get 1shot/2shot and dies - recasting it in the middle of a boss fight as melee character is very dangerous:
- the animation to summon takes time (you can't do anything while casting)
- while not attaking an resummoning the totem you can't attack --> no leech
- getting stunned during the summoning animation is dangerous
- totems don't work with Trigger gems (CWDT)

Melee totems are a failed concept imho, sry GGG - the time you are investing in those could be better spend in reworking, rebalancing and ajusting other old skills. Melee isn't going to be more vialbe/more competitive with ranged/more fun when you are trying to fix it with other additional skills.


another final point i wanted to bring up:
We should i play a melee skill with that totem to even make it work when i just have access to Cyclone/Reave/Earthquake which can do the job:
- better
- with less investment
- with less risk
- with more AoE
- with a more enjoyable less clunky playstyle

There is no other reason in using such a totem other than "i really want to use it" - this might not be enough incentive for a majority of players out there i feel.