[2.3][SC|HC|Atziri][Cheap] Quadra Flame Totem, Dual Curse Hierophant

Introduction

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Hello there, fellow exiles. This is my build guide for the Quadra Flame Totem Hierophant.

As the name already suggests, this builds focus is on having four Flame Totems out while permanently cursing your enemies with Blasphemy. It is quite mobil, deals good sustained damage, has several layers of defense and is really budget friendly.

I tested it in both SC and HC, killed Atziri without any effort and played it up to T13 maps. Given some better gear, I am sure it can also tackle both Uber and T15 without any problems. As for mapmods, only No Regen and Bloodmagic are problematic.

I currently got my main account locked up (never shittalk in global!) and therefore am unable to link my gear and character. I will add that plus some videos once I got this issue resolved.

This build is inspired by LiftingNerdBro's Dual Flame Totem Chieftain, I recommend checking it out if you are interested in running a Marauder instead. This threads layout is also inspired by supreme_pizza's guides, I highly recommend checking those out aswell.

Without further ado, lets push out some facts and stats.


Build Overview

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Pros:
+ High Damage
+ Very Defensive
+ Really good AoE, thanks to four totems
+ Good Mobility
+ Very budget friendly
+ Safe and straightforward gameplay

Explanation: Four Flame Totems will melt any targets health bar in no time. The build offers a high health pool, 6 Endurance Charges, a good amount of armour and up to two defensive curses via Blasphemy. Four Totems allow you to cover your screen and enemies with ease. As for mobility, you can either use Leap Slam, Lightning Warp oder Flame Dash depending on your weapon of choice. I recommend using Leap Slam as it offers both, decent mobility and the ability to support ourselves with Fortify. The build is very budget friendly and can be played with entirely self found items. However, a few uniques are recommended as they greatly enhance the builds damage output with little currency spend. Totems itself are pretty straightforward and offer an easy, yet safe gameplay. Set your totems, hide behind the next corner or kite your enemies around while grabbing your loot.

Cons:
- Can not run Bloodmagic / No Regeneration
- Most people find Totems boring.

Explanation: Maps with the mod Bloodmagic require an alternate curse setup. Preferably Orb of Storms with Curse on Hit as it can cover the totems easily and curse approaching enemies accordingly. Maps with really heavy regeneration penalties or no regeneration require are a pain in the ass. Being the lazy fuck I am, I usually reroll these maps. As for the Totems being boring, each to their own. I personally love them which is why I decided to make this build.


Skill Tree

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Templar
Passive Skilltree for 2.3

Ascendancy Points
Pursuit of Faith, Ritual of Awakening, Divine Guadiance
The last two points go either into Sanctuary of Thought or the smaller mana regeneration nodes.

Bandits
Oak(+ Life), Alira(+ Cast speed), Oak(+ Endurance Charge)


Leveling Tree

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Leveling Tree (34 Points)
Rush Ancestral Bond as fast as possible for your second Flame Totem. Grab some life and damage nodes on your way.

Leveling Tree (54 Points)
We further enhance both our damage and survivability. Nothing too fancy.

Leveling Tree (85 Points)
As we slowly transition into late midgame, we grab Whispers of Doom for our curses and more life to survive whatever the game throws at us.

Leveling Tree (111 Points)
The build is pretty much done at this point. Grab the missing life nodes, jewel slots and the endurance charge. Grab the armour and Marauder life nodes and become even tankier. At this point there are not much points left. Feel free to grab more damage or life as you like.


Skill Tree Breakdown

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Offensive Stats:
+ 58% increased Fire Damage
+ 34% increased Elemental Damage
+ 55% increased Spell Damage
+ 8% increased Cast Speed
+ 5% increased Attack and Cast Speed
+ 102% increased Totem Damage
+ Spells Cast by Totems have 4% increased Cast Speed
+ Attacks used by Totems have 6% increased Attack Speed

Defensive Stats:
+ 193% increased maximum Life
+ 6,3% of Life Regenerated per second
+ 162% increased Armour
+ +100 to maximum Life
+ +18% to all Elemental Resistances
+ +23% to Fire Resistance | +1% to maximum Fire Resistance
+ +2 to Maximum Endurance Charges | +3 with Bandits
+ 36% increased Endurance Charge Duration

Utility Stats:
+ When Hit, 40% of Damage is taken from Mana before Life
+ +150 to maximum Mana
+ 15% increased maximum Mana
+ 165% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
+ 20% increased Life Recovery from Flasks
+ Enemies can have 1 additional Curse
+ 10% increased Effect of your Curses
+ Can have up to 4 Totems summoned at a time

A full, more detailed breakdown can be found here.

Gear

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Recommended Unique Items
• Body Armour: Lioneye's Vision, Crusader Plate
• Gloves: Winds of Change, Ancient Gauntlets
• Shield: Lioneye's Remorse, Pinnacle Tower Shield

Note: A well crafted rare shield outperforms Lioneye's Remorse.

Recommended Weapons
• Doryani's Catalyst, Vaal Sceptre
• Doon Cuebiyari, Vaal Sceptre
• Singularity, Platinum Sceptre
• Apep's Rage, Opal Wand

Note: In most cases, a well crafted rare weapon will outperform these uniques. Also keep in mind that you won't be able to use Leap Slam while wearing a wand.

Gear Examples
Ignore the socketed gems, these gear pieces are from my old Chieftain and do not reflect this build. They are merely an orientation for stats.



Jewels
The current skill tree has room for 4 jewels.

Recommended stats, in order of importance:
+ % Maximum Life
+ % Spell Damage
+ % Cast speed
+ % Fire Damage
+ % Totem Damage
+ % Projectile Damage
+ % Resistances

Flasks
Flask setups come down to your personal preference.

My personal must haves:
• Removes Bleeding / Instant Recovery or Increased amount recovered
• Removes Freeze and Chill on use
• Increased Movement Speed with Increased Duration
• Granite Flask

Honourable mentions:
• DPS Flask: Atziri's Promise, Amethyst Flask
• Utility Flask: Rumi's Concoction, Granite Flask


Links and Gems

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Flame Totem Setup

Links: R-B-R-B-B-R
Flame Totem, Faster Casting, Fire Penetration, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, Iron Will

Note: An Empower Level 3 will outperform Iron Will. Our unique body armour also comes with an integrated level 15 Pierce. Flame Totem projectiles pierce by default, what we really want is the 24% more damage multiplier. That makes our damage setup an effective 7-link.

Mobility Setup

Links: R-G-R-R
Leap Slam, Faster Attacks, Fortify, Bloodmagic

Note: You can swap Bloodmagic with Endurance Charge on Melee Stun.

Buff Setup

Links: R-R-G-R
Enduring Cry, Molten Shell, Vaal Haste, Increased Duration

Note: You can swap Vaal Haste with Vaal Grace if you prefer another layer of defense. Due to stat requirements, I recommend leaving Vaal Haste on level 5.

Golem and Meat Shield Setup

Links: B-B-B-G
Lightning Golem, Summon Skeletons, Minion Life, Culling Strike

Note: You can swap Minion Life with Item Rarity for more magic find. I chose Minion Life to further enhance my meat shield skeletons and because I am too lazy to resummon my golem multiple times per map. As for the golem, the lightning one is superior to the fire one in terms of raw dps increase. The increased attack speed is also great for Leap Slam.

Cast when Damage Taken Setup

Links: R-R-R
Cast when Damage Taken, Immortal Call, Increased Duration

Note: With decent gear, you'll have 5,3k to 6k health. I prefer having my Cast when Damage Taken between level 14 and 17.

Curse Setup

Links: B-B-B
Blasphemy, Enfeeble, Flammability

Note: Whispers of Doom allow us to run two curses at the same time. I prefer the combination above since it offers both, a decent damage increase and really good monster damage mitigation. You can swap Flammability with Temporal Chains for even more safety or Enfeeble for Elemental Weakness for even more penetration.

You can also abandon Blasphemy and use Orb of Storms with Curse on Hit instead. That gives room for some auras but you'd have to adjust some sockets for that. I also found self casting the orb while maintaining buffs, the golem and four totems tedious which is why I prefer Blasphemy.


Leveling

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Leveling this build is easy and doesn't require any specific gear. Grab updates as they drop and progress through the game. Grab both Spark and Flame Totem as soon as possible and rush Ancestral Bond for your second Totem. Leveling uniques such as Lifesprig, Driftwood Wand, Goldrim, Leather Cap and Tabula Rasa, Simple Robe make the process easier but are absolutely not required.


Frequently Asked Questions

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Currently none. If that ever changes I will write them down right here.


The End

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That's it. Thank you for reading, if you have any questions or feedback let me know.

Version: 1.0.1 - Last changed on Friday, 10th June 2016

Reserved.

Looks really fun/good, Gonna try this out. I'll get back with updates after i start one :)

Hello good sir,

would it be possible to get a video of this build in action?


Also:
Since I am rather new to the game, how do you generate endurance charges, always self cast Enduring Cry?
If so, would we ever get more than 1 endurance charge in boss fights?

Thanks

"

Fernqvist wrote:

Looks really fun/good, Gonna try this out. I'll get back with updates after i start one :)

Nice, that makes me happy. Good luck :)

"

firef0kz wrote:

Hello good sir,

would it be possible to get a video of this build in action?


Also:
Since I am rather new to the game, how do you generate endurance charges, always self cast Enduring Cry?
If so, would we ever get more than 1 endurance charge in boss fights?

Thanks

I will get some videos done as soon as I have access to my main account. As for your questions, Endurance Charges are generated by self casting Enduring Cry. Most bosses have plenty adds and even if not, your Immortal Call barely pops because your character is not directly in the center of action. Maintaining the six charges with Enduring Cry is not a problem at all.

"

Crîmnor wrote:

"

Fernqvist wrote:

Looks really fun/good, Gonna try this out. I'll get back with updates after i start one :)

Nice, that makes me happy. Good luck :)

Started a character a few hours ago and just hit 60 and bought some starter gear. So far it clears really fast and since i always loved flame totem i'm loving every second of it ^^



Oh, and also got this waiting for me when i hit 69:

Glad you like it! Also, thats a nice helmet you have there. Let me know how the enchant works out, I only had the increased Flame Totem Damage one yet.

"

Crîmnor wrote:

Glad you like it! Also, thats a nice helmet you have there. Let me know how the enchant works out, I only had the increased Flame Totem Damage one yet.

The helmet is quite nice for mapping but for bosses i would recommend the damage one, got this after my first merciless lab run

And directly when i dinged 70 (8 Hours and 10 min on /played) I tried Atziri and she went down like butter on a hot summers day! Only annoying part was the split phase when the totems dies after being up for like 0.00001 sec but it got the job done in the end!

So, Apperently you can clear maps quite fast with this build. After 10 maps i had this xp/hour without trying to hard

"

Fernqvist wrote:

So, Apperently you can clear maps quite fast with this build. After 10 maps i had this xp/hour without trying to hard

Spoiler

Sweet, glad it worked out for you. :)

As for Atziri, I agree. The templar variant leaves our totems quite squishy, Chieftain is way better at that. Thats the price we pay for having 4 totems which is acceptable considering the damage those 4 dish out.