[3.6] Milky's Scorching Ray Totems (updating process)

- Mind over Matter mananodes removed

- 20% reduced curse effect on us added to the skilltree!!!

- some changes favouring CI

- Guard skills, especially Molten Shell, added

+ Can do almost every mapmod

+ Most of the Damage comes from the Skilltree and Jewels

+ Great Leaguestarter with little gear requirements

+ High Tier maps viable

+ High singletarget dmg with a low budget

+ Can do any challenge and boss in the game

o medium clearspeed, could be faster but also slower

- Dots are often too delayed in good Partys.

- Not many layers of defence, rather weak in terms of survivability

Multiple Scorching Ray Totems DO stack the damage.

Scorching Ray + Searing Bond can all deal damage at the same time, however Searing Bond isn't used for dps.

Fire/Elemental Penetration does nothing for those totems or degeneration effects in general

The SR and SB totems count as a burns, not as a ignite. This means that ignite immune bosses like atziri still take the full damage.


Searing Bond(SB):

Further referenced as SB

It scales with the same stats as the Righteous Fire Totem except Area Damage and Totem Life. It acts as an additional Totem over our Totem limit.

It's not really used for dps in this build and more for hierophants buff effects.

Coupled with Multiple Totems support it grants us 9% more dmg, 3% liferegen and 1.5% manaregen which is worth it for 2 sockets.


Scorching Ray Totem (RFT):

Further referenced as SRT

It reduces the enemy resistance to fire by up to -24% (3% per stack up to 8).
The damage of multiple SRT stack, the debuff however stays capped at -24%

Spell Damage DOES increase the Damage of Scorching Ray

Curses:
There are some sources of additional curses. The Keystone Whispers of Doom, corruption on Amulets and several Unique Items. Its possible to Selfcast them, use a Curse on Hit Setup or with Blasphemy.
Curses have -60% effect on bosses, -80% Guardians and Shaper/Elder and there are mapmods which reduce our curse effect or make enemys immune to curses.
I usually stay away from going too ham into curses, 1-2 are usually enough and its usually better to go for defensive once.

Elemental Weakness grants us -% all resistance
Flammability grants us -% fire resistance
Despair grants 28% more degeneration damage.
Enfeeble reduces the enemy Damage, Critchance, Critmultiplier and Hitchance.
Temporal Chains slows Enemys and increases the Duration of Debuffs.

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Elemental Equilibrium (EE):

Further referenced as EE

It is a Keystone that gives the Enemy -50% Fire resistance if we apply Cold or Lightning damage. With Ancestral Bond we can´t deal damage, but we can with Totems, Traps and Mines. (Vaal) Lightning Trap and Orb of Storms Trap are good to trigger the debuff.

EE is not important for Packs, they die really fast without it.
It has its strength in high Resist Maps and against Bosses and Curse Immune Rares. It ALWAYS reduces the max Resist by 50% regardless of Boss curse effectiveness since it is none.
The degeneration effect from RFT, SB and SRT do not apply EE!

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Elemental Overload(EO)
With this node we gain 40% more elemental damage after we crit. This does not work with traps, mines and similar, the player has to Crit himself to get the buff.
For this we use Storm Brand
The Storm Brand has the advantage that it has a duration and every single lightningprocc has his seperate critchance.

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Soulmantle, Kikazaru Rings and Self-Flagellation Jewel
This is a powerful combination in the build.




Soulmantle is powerful because we get a free link with the lvl 20 spelltotem and 50% totemlife, which is the best way to increase our damage output. On top we gain one additional totem for more screencoverage with RFT or singletarget with SRT

The Downside is that everytime a totem dies, runs out of duration or replaced by a new one we are cursed with a random lvl 20 curse.

To counter these curses we use two Kikazaru Rings

Two Kikazaru reduce the effect of curses by 80%.
The liferegen per Ring is around 1-2% of the life depending on the character level and total life.
With those Rings we only need 93 elemental resistance (to be overcapped against two elemental curses at the same time (instead of 169 for just the elemental weakness mapmod cap).
The sad thing is that the ring has no life.

Self-Flagellation benefits from being cursed. This jewel negates the effect of the weak enfeeble debuff and even adds damage on top.

Here are the remaining debuffs of curses with 80% reduced curse effectiveness of Kikazaru:

"

Poachers Mark: 9.8% less evasion, life/mana gained on hit and frenzy on kill are meaningless

Projectile Weakness: 10% knockback from Projectiles, Projectiles deal 8.8% more damage

Temporal Chains: should have no effect with its 40% reduced effect on players. If it still has an effect its a 5.8% slow

Assassins Mark: 1,8% critchance, 4% critmulti

Conductivity: 8,8% lightning resistance, 2.8% chance to shock by lightning dmg

Elemental Weakness: 7,8% elemental resistances

Enfeeble: 5% reduced critchance, 6% less damage

Flammability: 8,8% Fire resistance, 2.8% chance to be ignited by fire dmg

Frostbite: 8,8% Cold resistance, 2.8% chance to be Frozen by cold dmg

Vulnerability: 5,8% more physical damage taken, 4% chance to bleed/maim, 5,4% more dot phys dmg taken

Punishment: we dont attack and don´t apply the "punisher" buff. Should have no effect.

Warlords mark: 6% reduced stun and block recovery, 0,4% leech and 2% chance to be stunned

Numbers are rounded UP in the game

Alternatively you could go for 1-2 curse immunity flasks and drop Kikazarus and Self-Flagellation. Usually its great to play with (since the ringslots can be used for dmg/life), but it requires some flaskmanagement and can suck in endgame bossfights.

This route can work very well with a Ascendant Hierophant + Pathfinder route since the flask sustain is very easy with it.

On the first look it's a good question because RFT do not stack. But SR does.
Lets go about the big selling points:

+ 1 extra totem. This greatly increases our RFT screen coverage and SRT singletarget dmg. It is easier to sqeeze in a decoy totem as well.

+ 90% totem placementspeed. It's huge for a smooth gameplay and also safer if your animations are shorter.

+ 0.5% Life/Manaregen per totem for you and the totems. This is huge and almost alone enables MoM for us.

It's worth noting that 0.5% manaregen of 2000 mana are 10 flat manaregen which scales again with manaregen%! Thats the equivalent of a lvl 9 clarity... for 1 totem. We use 5.
The manaregen can be so high that it refills the pool in 3-4 sec completely.

this combined with the good liferegen and 40% mom gives us good substain which can be even pushed further (arcane surge, stone golem etc).

+ 3% more dmg per totem is pretty sweet

+ 10% MoM and flat mana. Nice synergy with the high manaregen and reduces the pressure on our lifepool. Worth noting that you still can cast RFT if your mana hits 0!

+ 10% increased dmg taken by enemys per brand. only one can be attached to a single target regulary.

+ The minor nodes grant a shitton of manaregen, maxmana, placementspeed and charge duration.

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The next best choice is Ascendant Hierophant + Pathfinder.

It can drop Kikazarus + Self-Flagellation jewel and use a stibnite flask with curse removal to be immune to the drawback of soulmantle.

She also has +1 totem, better flask sustain and a good chunk of dex (easier gearing).

The mana/life sustain and totem placementspeed is a lot lower and the missing double totemplacement lowers the smoothness while mapping.

3.5

Shaper on a "5 link"
Uber Elder on a "5 link", not deathless :(

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3.2:
Uber Atziri, one trashrip Better use the flasks ;)
Shaper
Minotaur
Hydra
Chimera
Phoenix

Yellow Elder fight

https://pastebin.com/ZhLW31y5

310k dps per SR Totem, i use 5 for 1.55 mil dps combined. Path of Building doesnt count in 3% more dmg per SB totem as well which is roughly 1.7 mil dps. On a 5 link.

A 6 link (swift affliction) would push that to 447k dps per totem for 2.5mil combined + 9% more dmg for roughly 2.73 mil dps.

could be way more with Sign of Purpose and Herald of Ash, 20/20 gems, more level (jewel) etc. Around 3.5mil to 4mil dps if not even more.
presets are realistic:

Boss: Shaper, all charges active (charged traps support + 5 traps per throw), totem summoned, hit with lightning dmg (ee), ignited (golem + combustion + ele prolif), blinded and just a average of 7 curses on me including enfeeble, spider web applied.

Gear is overall pretty average, payed 60c for the shield, the rest was like 10c average and found the boots myself

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https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCAAOaBFEEswj0EFgQzBEtEmkWbxccGDwYVhhqGjgc3B0UHxghsCSqJy8o-ioTKo0rJiu2LJwulDD4NPc1kjbYNuk5UjoWOlg62DrhPC1Bh0WdSRtJT03jUftTUlXGVkhYB1htWfNaK15dXypkM2aeaFpqQ3F5cYVyD3RVfIOCm4LHg1-DzIPbhIOFMoaCh2WLjIxGjxqPRpBVlG-XLZeFmK2a4JuhogCj8qZXpwinlKyYrv-xQrc-uJO8qrzqvSfAZsMTxq7NFtH91abYJNi942rmfevu7FXvIfAf8WzyRfMR99f4k_nd-ej60v4K_o8=?accountName=Milkyslice&characterName=Crapparian

The shield could be waaay better, just didnt have the 2 ex for the craft and a good base to slam it on, so i bought this one for 1/3 of an ex :P

2c amulet, could have better life, resists and some spell/fire dmg for excample.

Boots are self found and would love an exaltslam.

some cheap non abyss belt for around 10c

gloves were like 20c with blind, faster casting, life and a ton of dex

helmet with enchant was 10c as well

catalyst 18c, kikazaru and soulmantle 1-2c each. all jewels costed 5c average

I could squeeze out way more out of the char, but it isn´t really necassary :X

I will update the picture later. Ancestral Bond is now favourable even in the lategane and Conviction of Power a better alternative with the use of Charged Traps Support.



open i a new window or save it if you want, its better to look at this way

Got no time to update the pic before leaguestart. Nothing changed in the core, same pathing, important nodes etc. Just a few different lvl 85+ options like the new channel skill cluster near AB

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCAHIPLJzyRf4K_o864aZXTeM1kti9j0ZaK6PyKhPDE5eFLpRJGyqNNtjxbOxVNPchsPnolG-HZRBYJy-QVRo4rJiEg-Z97yEo-oLHcXkXHBJpOtgdFL0nGDwYVtgk8FX53acIJKo26RZv42p8gyu2jEb4kxDMOVJYBxhqogDwHwSzXyp0VTpYVcaD26eUXl3R_Qj0vOpqQ_fXaFoEUSsmA5pYbYaCOhZkM0GHtz6FMprgRZ1TUoKb1aau_zD4Zp5R-x8YzRaXLUlPvKqYrcBmm6GDXzwtg8yLjBEtWfPr7riTHNyPGvrSxq5mVFZIAAAAAA==

This basically discribes my leveling route, the transition in the endgame skilltree and options after lvl 85 depending on your desires.

I choose different routes out of the templar area early and late game because some lead tonpowerful nodes waaay earlier, but the other routes are more efficient later on.

This pic should cover everything important skilltree wise while leveling in case the forum goes down.

Ascendancy order:

1. Pursuit of Faith
2. Ritual of Awakening.
3. Divine Guidance
4. Sign of Purpose or Conviction of Power


Sign of Purpose is debateable. enemys "just" take 10% more damage for mainly singletarget.

Sanctuary of Thoughts adds a chunk of ES, but we have no way to recover it properly. It will be empty most of the time.
The reduced mana cost isn't great either, forces a lower leveled arcane surge in our setup.

Conviction of Power is the real alternative. The charge generation helps the defence (endurance charges) and some QoL via faster EO proccs with power charges.

Illuminated devotion is just some spelldmg which is worse than the Sign node.

Want more dps, pick Sign of Purpose
Want more defence/QoL, pick Conviction of Power.

Ancestral Bond is debateable.

Nowadays i use it all the time since RF totems are cut out. This gives more room to for sockets and the skillbar. Throwing traps for EE isnt that bad if we can also use the charged trap support for pretty reliable frenzy/power charge generation. Basically throwing traps all the time i have nothing else to do ;)

No AB lets your Storm Brand trigger EE which reduces your required actions, but also removes one max totem (3% more dmg, regen and 25% or 33% more dmg via the extra totem).

A jewel with 9% totem resistance is needed to cap the Totem resistances.

The start

We basically pick the big dmg nodes and Elemental Overload, this grants good early game dmg.

Use freeze pulse or another spell you like until lvl 12 and grab a spelltotem support on the way. With lvl 12 you can use scorching ray or arc to level further. Selfcast until you picked up ancestral bond and you can use a spelltotem with SR for extra dps when needed.

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Transitioning into Totems

Rush Ancestral Bond, you should have it with ~lvl 24

At that point you use totems only. If you can use 2x Pyre ring for a huge dps boost for scorching ray totems.

The rest of the nodes are basically for survivability and totem nodes. With Mind over matter survivability is good for a long time.

Use Storm Brand to procc elemental Overload when you need it!

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Elemental Equilbrium and dmg

once EE is skilled use at least a lightning trap (no links required) to trigger it when needed.

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Closing the real pathes
just traveling and lifenodes on the skilltree.

once you skilled it respecc into this Skilltree

We used the other route earlier to gain quick access to the most powerful nodes early on. The reskilled route however is more efficient after this point!

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The remaining meaty nodes

What you prioritize is your choice. I would go for the top area first, then the witch area and grab the scion lifenodes at the end.
Dual curse is picked up once you can use a 2nd curse. You could even skip it entirely.

Jewelslots ofc only if you have useful jewels.

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The remaining core nodes

After merc lab grab Divine Guidance, for Uberlab Conviction of Power or Sign of Purpose. Both have their own strength, the first for utility and defence, the second for dps.

Check the useful nodes after this point in my skilltree picture in the skilltree section

Keep the limited Hotkey Bar in mind when choosing utility skills (as i offer options).

assuming leftclick is used for forced move (i always do) we are left with 7 keys:

SR totem, SB totem, flame dash (or another movementskill), Storm Brand already take 4 slots.

selfcast golem takes a slot as well

a trap with AB skilled another one.

In that case using Vaal RF + Vaal lightning trap isn't really useable since the skillbar is full for excample.

You can see on MyCharacter what i personally prefer, but that might not apply to your style.

Chest:




With a Soulmantle there is no need for the spelltotem gem.



use this instead of spelltotem as your 6th link.

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Four Link 1:

Storm Brand + Curse on Hit + Temporal Chains + arcane surge (level depending on storm brand manacosts so you only need to cast once for the buff)

Shaper gloves can have faster casting and blind as mods, look out for that. Blind is great for defence and faster casting increases the EO triggerrate and adds to a smoother playstyle.

One could argue for Bane, but we need something for elemental overload!

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Four Link 2:

Utility setup

With Ancestral Bond i would use:


(Vaal) Lightning Trap + charged traps + cluster traps + multi trap (or blind etc)

This generates Frenzy and Power charges, applies EE and can also generate some endurance charges via conviction of power.

VLT is not that great here since all charges are used at once.

Without Ancestral Bond you can go for a big lightning warp + less duration + faster casting + swift affliction setup or cast when dmg taken stuff or enhance other utility skills from other setups.

Hell you could even add some dmg supports to searing bond, but thats not that great of a dmg boost.

Nowadays i would prefer the trap route since the alternative isn't that great and some frenzy charge generation is a nice dps boost!

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Four Link 3

Searing Bond + Multiple totems + flame dash + faster casting OR decoy totem.

prefered with a white socket to switch when needed.

decoy adds safety in many fights (especially labyrinth!), but faster flamedashes help clearing and dodging shit

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Three Link 1:

cwdt + Enfeeble + (vaal)coldsnap or immortal call


cwdt enfeeble only with dualcurse. alternatively use immortal call for one of those.

Coldsnap can still procc via cwdt while vaal coldsnap is useable by the player. Vaal cold snap basically just chills and generates frenzy charges, use it only if you have enough space on your skillbar.

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Three link 2

Flamegolem + Combustion + high lvl cwdt


Flamegolem and Combustion is a pure dmg setup. Flamegolem with combustion debuffs enemys with -19% fire resistance if they are ignited by the skill (the golem). Minions do not have any impact on elemental equilibrium!

If doryanis catalyst is used it also benefits from elemental proliferation for ignite coverage and extra 20% ignite chance.

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i recommend switching in a frost wall gem (prederable with inc duration) for the normal Elder fight only to protect shaper in phase 2

Rallying or Enduring Cry are also good options if the skillbar allows it (probably not).

Herald of Ash is a option until you get your hands on Aspect of the Spider (Or both). Any reservation reduces the survivablity tho, keep that in mind.

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Overall I prefer (number of skills on skillbar):

- SR setup (1)
- SB + multiple totems (2)
- flame dash + faster casting (3)
- flame golem + combustion + cwdt
- Storm Brand + coh + temp chains + arcane surge (4)
- Vaal Lightning trap + Cluster traps + charged traps + multitraps (5+6)
- cwdt + enfeeble + vaal coldsnap (7)

With some warcry on a belt i would cut vaal coldsnap and add immortal call.

For regular gameplay you just use SB totems, flame dash and some Brands here and there. The other stuff is for harder fights or runs passively.

Kill all bandits and grab the 2 skillpoints.

Its the most flexible choice.

Major God

Soul of Lunaris is on its own not so strong, but after capturing Lycius its very powerful for any totem/minion build. Avoiding projectiles that chain counters one of the biggest weaknesses of totem builds. besides that it offers some mitigation here and there.

overall all major gods offer something useful and we can switch around like we want. Solaris is a good choice for atziri and in critmaps, Arakaali helps a lot against chaos damage and often gains benefit of extra recovery.

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For the Lesser Gods Soul of Shakaari is my favourite with poison immunity and some chaos dmg reduction. Garukhan, Gruthkul and Ryslatha are also good choices

Aspect of the Spider is pretty common this league and highly recommended on any rare item you can find it. The slow and more dmg is worth the reservation

Chest



Its the prefered chest for raw power (explained in the Informations).

Until this use a rare chest with life and resists or a Tabula Rasa

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Helmet


medium life, decent armour, 30-40% firedamage and freeze/chill immunity after using a fireskill (any totem). A good mix of Utility, damage and Defence. The Chill Immunity is awesome for Chilled Ground maps as well, the main selling point of this item.

A Rare Helmet with Armour/Life/Resist/Rarity - preferable with a useful helmet enchant - will be defensively stronger

Delves -9% fire res aura is pretty nice and recommended on rare helmets.

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Weapon


Doryanis Catalyst is a stable in the build.

Rare Sceptres with Firedamage% and Burning damage% CAN be better than a doryani if other stats are useful as well. Keep your eyes open for those!
Besides Fire/Burning dmg we look for stuff like attack speed (faster shield charge), mana, manaregen or castspeed.

If you got "supported by socketed gems" stuff on it keep in mind that it can be bad and shuffeling gems might be needed. A prime excample is socketing the flamegolem + combustion in a sceptre with 'elemental focus' which removes the ignite chance on the golem again ;)

Do NOT get any added fire damage for spells on you weapon or other gear!!! It will increase enemy resistances with Elemental Equilibrium!

is great at the start. Pumps up the Scorching Ray dmg a lot until we got some lvl 20 or 21 scorching ray and a weapon with a "global" effect.

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Shield

Then we can use a Rare Shield with high Armour, Life and Resists.
With 3.5 we can craft +1 Totem on one, so best in slot!

Delve fossils help a lot crafting a decent one with high life, life% and liferegen for excample.

Some elder/shaper mods are nice as well like max resists or charges on block.

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Boots

Rare Boots with 30%+ Movementspeed, Life and Resistance.

Nothing special.

Increased duration Elder mod is useful for almost any utility setup.

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Gloves

Rare Gloves with Life, Resists and Armour.

Shaper gloves with blind and faster casting support are very good for Storm Brand.

A good pair is pricey and just one mod is enough. each support on top of the 4 link just adds more utility and is not mandatory.

Corruptions are insane on this slot. See corruption/enchant post

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Rings


two times.

Before those just use Rings with life and resistances. Mana and manaregen are good as well.

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Amulet

Rare Amulet with with Life, Resists, Dexterity, Firedmg%. Especially Dexterity is important to level Gems.

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Belt
Life, Resists and Flaskmods. Preferable on a Stygian Vise.

Elder belts offer %life and rallying/enduring cry which can be handy.

If you dont need resists on the slot Cyclopian Coil is good. High life, Ignite and Shock immunity (usually) and around 20-30% inc dmg.

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Flasks

I recommend:

Bubbling Divine Life Flask

Catalysed Divine Mana Flask (seems the best, but other choices might be better)

Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline - Experimenter's, Chemist's and Perpetual all work

Granite Flask - Experimenter's, Chemist's and Perpetual all work

Chemist's Basalt Flask


"of Staunching" removes Bleed and has to be on one flask
"of Heat" removes Freeze and has to be on one flask without Hrimnors Resolve
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"of Grounding" removes Shock and can be helpful
"of Curing" removes Poison and can be helpful
"of Iron Skin" grants 60-100% armour an can be helpful
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Additional useful Flasks are:

Sulphur Flask for a damage and liferegen bonus
Amethyst Flask if you have problems with chaos damage
Bismuth Flask can be useful if all resists are bad
Topaz, Ruby and Sapphire can be swapped in for encounter with high elemental damage
Silver Flask for more speed

For Unique Flasks we can use:

Blood of the Karui - Recover much hp in a short time
Forbidden Taste - heals you for 75-100% hp instantly. Great panic flask!
Rumi's Concoction - for armour, block and spellblock


Any of the Utility or Unique Flask can be swapped in for your needs, just keep something for bleed and Freeze removal!

Spire of Stone
It gives a good chunk of Totem Life and Stun Immunity for Totems. With this the Totems cant be interrupted by stuns while casting SR. Not mandatory, but a cheap choice to buys with cool corruptions

Self Flagellation is a stable if we have a Soulmantle and Kikazaru/Atziris Reflection. it grants 10-20% increased damage per curse on us. Usually we have 3-10 on us. Only useful if you use the Soulmantle.

Fill the rest with rare Jewels, those stats are important:

- Player life
- Burning damage
- Fire Damage
- Totem Damage
- Damage over Time
- increased damage
- 9% Totem resistance to cap their resists

optional:

- Area Damage (only increases Righteous Fire, not Searing Bond)
- Player Resist
- Rarity
- Dexterity

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Abyss Jewels

Prefixes:

Life
Mana
DoT while holding a shield

Life/manaregen are okish

Suffix:

Dexterity
Resists
Life/manaregen% while moving

hinder on spellhit is also great for Storm Brand coupled with temporal chains

Abyss jewels are overall not that great for the build dps wise.

Corruptions can destroy you gear, use it with caution and only if you have spare gear.
Corrupting cheap uniques like kikazaru is safer than your 6link soulmantle ;)
you cannot change quality, sockets, links or color nor craft them once corrupted with the exception of high level, rather expensive crafts.

Gloves

Commandment of Spite is nice with chilled ground projectiles when hit or the consecrated ground when critted.

Corruptions are way stronger in this slot.

The curse on hit corruption is the strongest. Despair, elemental weakness, enfeeble and temporal chains are all great offensive or defensive.
They are not as strong as lvl 20 gems with quality, but save either 2 sockets (curse on hit and curse) or can work for dualcurse. on top they curse via movementskills.

Then there are weaker, but still useful corruptions in that slot. Hard to not hit something good.
socketed gemlevel (all, duration, curse, aoe), max life, cast or attackspeed all have a purpose

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Boots

Life and Manaregen when hit recently is the strongest bootenchant and is worth farming with a good pair of boots!

if you hit critchance when not crit recently its fine as well since it helps the EO proccing.

For corruptions, nothing comes close to the regen enchant.

+gemlevel dont affect elder boot spelltotems and are not strong in that case. there are some decent corruptions but not worth the risk over the regeneration.

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Helmet

There are no extremely powerful Enchants around for the specc, but if you grab one of these its nice to have it:

Righteous Fire AoE, everything i want is even more AoE. However its reported that this enchant is probably bugged on totems. Couldnt test it myself.

Curse effectiveness for Temporal Chains or Enfeeble (if you use it). Flammability and Ele weakness would be great too, but i would prefer stronger defensive curses.

Scorching ray enchants are nice to have since they help in bossfights.

If you use hrimnors resolve its worth corrupting over time since they become pretty cheap.

30-40% burning damage,4-6%life and 1.6-2% liferegen are the strongest corruptions here

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Ring

a cheap slot to corrupt since kikazaru drop down to 1-2chaos over time and are easy to replace.

Immune to bleed, poison or ignite are three potent corruption which save flaskrolls for something else (or unique flasks)

all ele resistances (14-16) is usually better than the lightning res implicit (30 max vs 48 total) if your gear is allowing it.

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Chest

+1 gemlevel or even better +2 gemlevel for duration gems are insane for SR.

others like 40-50% inc dmg, %life, 50% critdmg reduction against us, maxres or reduced dmg taken are all good as well, +2 duration gem level is just the jackpot.

Risky to corrupt, but with the popularity of the chest there might be some to buy if you want :x

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Shield

Physical dmg taken as x element dmg, blockchance, reduced crit dmg taken and %life are the strongest.

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Amulet

+1 curse is the king.

Others are good as well, but keep in mind that the build desperately needs dexterity and dex implicits are important on this slot.

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weapon

don't do it on sceptres which we usually use.

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belt

% allres and % life are good, but usually not worth it over a stygian vise + abyssal jewel (can have flat life and resists alone).

can be worth on shaper/elder belts with a bad base to make em better.

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Jewels

4-5% aoe/dmg, immunity to silence, corrupting blood, hinder and maim are all nice to have. Immunitys are always good.

if you cannot decide between two jewels in your stash... just slam a vaal and maybe there isnt a decision to make anymore.

risk depends on the price of the jewel.

There are no wrong questions in general, but there are many questions already answered IF you read the guide.

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How can I procc Elemental Overload

I use Storm Brand for this.

We need to selfcast something to procc Elemental Overload, Totems or Traps won't do that
Storm Brand has a high triggerrate and every trigger can potentially crit, which grants the Elemental Overload buff.

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How can I procc Elemental Equilibrium?

Use Lightning or Orb of Storms Trap for this.

We need to deal Lightning or Cold damage to get a beneficial EE procc. As we cannot deal dmg ourself with Ancestral Bond we use traps for that.

Without Ancestral Bond Storm Brand does the job.

As a sidenote, SR and SB do not hit and thus won't negatively impact EE. They just benefit hugely from it.

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Check my gear, what do i need to upgrade?

If you got the best in slot unique items get better rares. See Gear section for what we desire.
Get the dexrequirements via gear, cap resists, get life everywhere possible.
After that point try to overcap resists (for elemental weakness maps or monster curses), get some chaos resists, more defence (upgrading your 100 armour gloves to 600 armour gloves etc.) and higher life rolls.
Enchant the gear and/or try some essence crafting.

---

Why don´t you use Fire Penetration?

Penetration gems/skillnodes only work on hits, not damage over time effects

Path of Building The best offline planner aviable in my opinion

Path of Building youtube Guide

Tool to calculate AoE nodes/gear with your skill for 2.6 This also has DPS calculation in it!

Calculator to chrome items

That new Eldrich Battery helmet can be interesting in one scenario:

Specc Sanctuary of Thought over the Brand node.
Use aspect of the spider and herald of ash.

This adds a good chunk of es on our mana to compensate the extra reservation (while still sitting at ~60% unreserved mana).

Going full EB with near 100% mana reservation is not that great i would assume with no way to properly refill it except vaal discipline

The leveling skilltree is slightly different than the later skilltree. The main difference is the templar starting path for a stronger early game and a slightly different pathing for early powernodes. Those will be respecced later via reskillpoints from quests (around 6-7 points total)

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCAKIABLPwVfnd4XOaO4KbwJoJqtn8wGaLjAAAAAA=

First create a Shadow, pick up Freezing Pulse and do the Mercy quest. This grants you the volley support and a quicksilver flask. Store it in your stash (basically everything) and you start a templar.

After entering the town pick a skill. I prefer Freezing Pulse, but magma orb, spark and Frostbolt are good as well. choose what you like more.
Grab the quicksilver flask and volley supportgem.

After Mercy mission grab the Quicksilver Flask and arcane surge support. Link it and volley to Freezing pulse if you can.

Those two quicksilver flasks make leveling a lot quicker. You can slam a transmutation orb and augmentation orb on them, but dont craft them further. The better rolls are available on higher itemlevel flasks.

After the Breaking some Eggs Quest you can buy a Decoy totem and Orb of Storms. You can also do it later once the gems are really needed.

Buy two spelltotem support gems (and level it in your gear) and leapslam after the Caged Brute quest

The Siren Quest offers Scorching Ray, take it. You can now use SR or buy firestorm, depending on what feels better for you. Scorching ray however should be leveled.
Also buy a Searing Bond Totem.

Volley isnt needed anymore ;)

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http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNyiAASz8FX53R0Uj0YSaXF5Fxzhc5o7gpvAmgmq2fxFRzLRKPrAZouMVkia4EWdU1Lr7klPvKqXLdrdpwjYJJithTIAAAAA

The next step on the Skilltree. Rush Elemental overload first, 30 dex for leveling gems is handy as well. If you use Scorching Ray the burning damage nodes and Elemental Equilibrium have priority after that. Use orb of storms to trigger EE (read more about it in my EE section).

NOTE: if you use another spell instead of Scorching ray and searing bond do not skill Elemental Equilibrium yet.

Gearing starts to be a bit more important from this point. Quartz Sceptres are pretty good and i would use two of them. Either they drop of you buy em from vendors, preferable are already 3 linked ones. You can do the +1 firegem level recipe: Vendor a magic sceptre + 1x orb of alteration + 1x ruby ring together. Helps a lot for scorching ray and searing bond damage.

The other gear just needs some life, resists and maybe some dexterity. Movementspeed on boots makes everything quicker.

I also recommend identifiend Magic (blue) two-stone rings since those have balanced resistances and a good resist and/or life roll on those is often better than rare items you could find. All magic resist have potential.

Left or Right way out of town doesnt matter.

Kill all the bandit lords you encounter.

Sharp and Cruel quest offers elemental focus (3x!), controlled destrution (1x) and concentrated effect (1x)

The other quest offers righteous fire (dont use it yet, just level it).

---

Act 3 has again some useful gems for us.

Lost in Love is the first one. You can pick up purity of elements. This helps your resistance a lot in the leveling process and i would use it until you are in maps after act 10 and have your resistances capped without the aura.
Purity of Elements also helps our totems with the resistances. We want 75% elemental res on the totems once we play with rf totems. 40% is their base, 26% on the skilltree and the remaining 9% need a jewel with totem resistance. Until the jewel purity helps out for your totem as well.

pick up flammability as well. Later on we skill a 2nd curse, elemental weakness or enfeeble work out for that. I prefer temporal chains (monsters hit/move slower, are longer in the totem radius) which can be bought later.

The fixture of fate quest enables most skillgems at siosa (except lvl 38 gems at this state).

Important are 3 burning damage gems, efficacy and swift affliction. Temporal chains, faster attacks, critchance and other gems in the guide can be bought here as well.

Its good to have those gemsetups at this stage:

Scorching Ray + Elemental Focus + Burning dmg in a +1 firegem sceptre

Searing Bond + Elemental Focus + Burning Dmg in a +1 firegem spectre

Purity of Elements

Orb of Storms

Flammability

Basically 2x 3link and 3 sockets, the rest can be used to level gems (weaponswap 2x 3 socket items to level more gems).

If you can and want, using a second SR setup on a spelltotem can help a bit.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNzwH6IABLPDE1jl8FX53frSHRSvbI9GEmlxeRcc4XOaO4KbwJoJqtn8RUcy0Sj6wGYrtoxGEMz4k4uMVkhmnprgRZ1TUuvuSU-8qpct2t1o8qcI2CQLYcaumK2FMgAAAAA=

This is the next step, basically preparing for going full totems. This should be at level 39

So you do your things in act 4 and after daresso and kaom you get the increased aoe gem and curse on hit.

If you can link orb of storm + curse on hit + flammability.

You can do the labyrinth around lvl 32-40. Doesn't really matter before we switch to rf and scorching ray totems anyway. I just do it when i feel safe.

---

Ok you got EO, EE and the totemnodes on the skilltree, lvl 40 and the first labyrinth done... you can now switch to rf totems. With lvl 40 the rf gem gains extra radius and it feels better to use ;)

You want now at least:

Spelltotem + RF + Burning dmg + AoE or Elemental Focus (can swap for bosses)

Scorching ray + spelltotem to debuff bosses, burning dmg + ele focus if possible

Orb of storms + curse on hit + flammability

Purity of elements

Searing bond with as many dps supports as possible (dont force it, if you dont have the links. do not waste currency for it).

A 4link, 3link and 2link should be np at this stage, anything above that is great but not required.

Now just run around, place rf totems, cast orb of storms if you need extra dmg and use the other totems for more singletarget damage.


http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNydrvAfogAEs8MTWOXwVfndakO86vrSHRSf3-98r2ybof4K2L1VxjpYES2PRhJpcXkXHCcvkFUaOOFzmjuCm8CaCarZ_EVHFm_jajLRKPrAZiu2jEYQzPiTi4zR_V5dp5RfBJErA3VWSGaemuBFnVNS6-5JT7yqly23Ptrd99do8iycpwjYJOw4fIM8LYPMrJgLYcauOtiYrYUyAAAAAA==

This would be my next step and slightly after i would start respeccing the pathing to this:


http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNydrvAfogAEs8MTWOVPBPBVakO86vrSHRSf3-98r2yboUPI_grYvVXGOlgRLY9GEmlxeRccJy-QVRo44XOaO4KbFm_jaij6gsf56HwOp1VboCu2jEYQzPiT0f1eXaeUXwSRKwN1VkhmnprgRZ1TUuvuSU-8qpctQYe3Ptrd99do8iycpwjYJOw4fIM8LYPMrJgLYcauOtiYrYUyAAAAAA==

Overall watch your elemetal resistances and try to keep em at 75% at least after act 4 (a5 and a10 boss reduces your resists by 30%!!!). get life wherever you can. Those are the top prioritys

"

Only a hit that deals damage is required to apply these resistance modifiers. Blocked hits or hits with no damage (e.g. while having Ancestral Bond) are not capable to trigger Elemental Equilibrium.

If you hit an enemy with two different elements at the same time it will give -50% Resistance to third element and +25% to both elements used. A hit carrying all three elements types will give +25% to all elemental Resistances.[1]

Totem skills trigger EE as they are treated as your hits. Minions' hits do not count as yours so do not trigger EE.[2]

Multiple attacks that hit simultaneously are still processed independently, so the first hit that is processed will trigger EE that affects the other hits. [3]

Damage which does not come from a hit, such as Searing Bond or the burning ground from Fire Trap, does not trigger Elemental Equilibrium.

Traps and Mines trigger Elemental Equilibrium.

-wiki

This means, as long as we use Ancestral Bond we NEED a trap or mine with cold or lightning damage to debuff the enemy with -50% fire resistance.

If we DON`T use Ancestral Bond, because we have additional totems with Soulmantle or Tukohamas Fortress, every DIRECT HIT can apply the debuff. In that case no trap is needed because we use Orb of Storms that applies the debuff.

DoT skills like righteous fire, searing bond or scorching ray DO NOT debuff enemys with EE since they do not hit a target.


With the build i usually skill Ancestral Bond for the extra totem and screen coverage UNTIL i use SoulMantle and/or Tukohamas Fortress. Then i respecc Ancestral Bond so i dont have to use traps anymore (which can be quite annoying)

Fire damage to spells like this item has



has to be avoided!!!
If our trap or OoS deals fire damage, elemental equilibrium will increase enemy fire resistance by 25% instead of reducing it by 50%!

added Fire damage only counts for attacks. We only use shieldcharge or leapslam as a attack.



Enemys gain fire resistance if we hit them with a attack skill, but it will be overwritten once we use orb of storms! With ancestral bonds it doesn´t matter since our attack doesnt deal damage anyway.

So it´s not that bad to have this stat on the gear, but if you can avoid it ... do it.

Elder/Shaper items are not required, but some mods can change the way you socket the gems. Mods that grant extra support or active gems can free a socketspace to link extra supports or shift active gems around.

for excample my 3.0 char linked in the guide uses scorching ray in the boots with duration, faster casting and efficacy for long duration fire resi debuffs. There is a mod that grants a duration supportgem which frees up the slot and would allow either a different support or active gem like vaal lightning trap.

if you find something useful or can grab something cheap you can make room for extra utility.

---

Amulets:

Increased dmg% per 15 Str/Int/Dex can be useful
%increased attributes
%item quantity
Spellblock
liferegeneration%
Physical damage reduction
Attackspeed

Those are all useful mobs, but nothing exciting. The Amulet slot is mainly for statrequirements (dex), life and maybe resists, any shaper/elder mod listed can be a nice addition but there is no must have stat.

---

Belt:

Notable ones are 'grants Enduring Cry skill' which frees a gemslot, %life and take reduced dmg from crits.

There are several other mods that are quite useful as well like effects while a flask is active etc

---

Ring and Chest are reserved for kikazaru and soulmantle

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Shield:

hard to justify anything other than Tukohamas or lioneyes in terms of life/block/armour and in tukohamas case utility.

Useful are max resists, life on block, %life, %area, %dmg per block (with rumis) and physical reduction.

A good one will be probably too expensive to use over the alternatives.

---

Boots: you want those for movementspeed, life and resists mainly. Getting a good mod on top won't be that easy, but there are some:

Unaffected by any ground effect is not bad to have.
Spelltotem with dmg/placementspeed is nice for the scorching ray totem (+1 dmg gem)
Decoy totem is nice to have, frees a gem slot

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Gloves

Blind supportgem. With orb of storms linked its pretty good for the extra defence it offers
Faster casting is similar, either for scorching ray or OoS. Not a mandatory gem but nice to have for smoothness.
Chance to block and attackspeed/castspeed are always nice to have as a bonus

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Helmet:

Increased area of effect can be useful for oos, but its really not great.
Burning dmg support is also great for searing bond
Less duration is fine on the hierophant with his increased totem duration.

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Weapon

Sceptre with faster attacks/elemental focus can free up a gem for either shield charge or searing bond
Efficacy can also be useful for searing bond or scorching ray, but comes with spelldmg which is not a desireable stat for us.

Other weapon types arent really desireable due to the worse implicits.

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Abyss Jewels:

Overall less desireable for the build since totemlife is not a mod aviable and the dot rolls are lower than on normal jewels, but some stats can be useful.

- Flat Life is easier and cheaper to get on those abyss jewels and should be on any you use... if you use one.
- resists and stats are always good if you're missing some
- physical dmg reduction against abyssal monsters. Those are the most dangerous thing while mapping and this stat is very good for those.
- Liferegen while moving. We rarely stay on one spot and the value is rather high.
- damage over time while holding a shield
- hinder on hit with spells is okish with orb of storms.
- some defensive mod for armour/block/dodge/etc.

Overall no chasestat on any abyss jewel, but one or two with flat life + dot dmg + one or two of the other mentioned stats

I won't do any personal gearchecks. You can whisper me ingame, pm me in the forum or write here, i will ignore it. This stuff takes way too much time for me.

But i will help you in this section how to check your own gear!

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I assume you use 2x kikazaru and soulmantle and defeated the act 10 boss for the last resistance penalty.

You got survivablity problems?

Check you gear first.

Resistances.
You need with a soulmantlesetup 91 fire and 90 cold/lightning resistance. Balance your equipment around that.
Using a few jewels with double or all resistance helps a lot until your gear gets better!
Chaos damage is not that dangerous at the beginning of maps, but you want at least one item with 20-30% in t9+ maps.

Life

Get life on every item that is not a soulmantle or kikazaru.
50 life per slot at the start of maps are ok, over time you want to upgrade that to higher life rolls.
Strength also grants a good chunk of life, but competes with resistance rolls.

Flasks!!!

This is most of the time overlooked. Well rolled flasks are even more important than the gear... and cheap!

Cover your weaknesses with flasks (like low chaos resist with a amethyst flask) and increase the physical defence via granite/basalt flasks.

Even a bismuth flask with elemental resistance roll on top can carry your garbage gear ;)

Just use them everytime you encounter a pack of monsters and you will notice a big defensive boost!

Also don't forget to 20% WHITE flasks before crafting them, this increases the duration of your utility flasks.

More about them in the flask spoiler inside of the gear section.

I cannot stress enough how important flasks are!

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Offence

You struggle with the dmg a lot?

The first thing is: Check if you have any fire dmg to spells on your weapon. This would increase enemy resistance via elemental equilibrium instead of reducing it.

If you don´t use a soulmantle yet keep in mind that spelltotem levels are very important!

Besides that the maindmg after the passive points on the skilltree and a weapon comes from Jewels

2-3 damage mods on jewels are preferable (see jewel section).

Besides that gemlevels matter and links.

a 4 link Soulmantle was enough for me until ~tier 10 maps, until t15 a 5link is prefered and a 6link for guardians and shaper. Those can be done without a 6link, but higher damage makes those fights WAY EASIER

Here i want to explain how i play the build, which skills i use when and so on.

This is mainly for mapping and bosses in maps, while leveling you probably wont have enough sockets for each skill and you can skip related steps.

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Regular packs with white, magic or rare monsters

- Place the Righteous Fire Totems only in most cases.
- mobs die.

The placement is important.

- got a slow or stationary pack of monsters, like zombies or ranged mobs that dont move much palce the totem in the middle of the pack. If its a huge pack try to place them seperated so you cover the whole area.
- against charging enemys, flicker striker and similar mob types place one totem slightly in front of you and the next totem in the pack. This way you hit all monsters in the path and they cannot avoid the burning hell.
- against fleeing enemys like apes try to spread the totems as much as possible in a area around the pack. this way they cannot avoid the totems.

In normal cases this is enough to kill any pack. There are rare cases where one orb of storms can be used to debuff and buff yourself, like in maps with enemy resistance coupled with enfeeble on you (non soulmantle) and elemental resistance auras.

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Breaches

- before opening the breach place the totems and cast or of storms. The placement depends on the location. Got a room with 2 doors, place them there. Got a open map try to cover a big area around it.
- after opening the breach the first wave should be dead instantly. in open maps i regulary go to the edge and run in cicles through the breach, placing totems in front of me all the time.
- place a searing bond totem in front of you as far away as possible. This way it stays up longer and the beam follows you and the totems a longer time.
- a rare beachdude spawns, recast orb of storms on him. use a trap to trigger EE if you have ancestral bonds.
- keep the flasks up to remove bleeds, shock or chill/freeze, depending on the breach.

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Bosses

Some Stuff depends highly on the the boss but i try to generalize it here.

- Place a decoy totem except on shaper (he is taunt immune)
- watch your positioning
- place the rf totem on the enemy
- watch your positioning
- cast orb of storms
- watch your positioning
- place sr totems
- watch your positioning
- use searing bond
- watch your positioning

- watch your positioning, watch your positioning, watch your positioning, watch your positioning

Positioning is the most important part.

If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time you can die or loose health which requires a flask use.

Dont think "izaro is jumping in my place but i neeed to finish the cycle". Just dodge and use the skills when youre in a safe spot.

orb of storms has a decent aoe, the curses, elemental overload and elemental Equilibrium have a duration and you dont need to recast everything instantly.

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Endgame-Bosses

Guardians, Shaper, Elder, UberAtziri, UberElder mainly.

- Switch RF and AoE gem out and replace it with SR and controlled destruction.

- we are now a scorching ray totem build. Place em until your totemlimit is reached, searing bond and orb of storms.

- dodge and repeat.

4x fully linked SR totems + SB will deal more damage than a fully linked RF + 3x 4link SR totem + SB.

It's not worth casting RFT on those bosses where you wanna maximize the dps.

First Question: Is this build Hardcore viable?

Yes it is. I´ve had many posts from players playing the build on HC into the early to late 90´s.

I am not a exclusive hardcore player anymore. I played HC a long time, but with my limited playtime its too restricting for me to write this guide and to test different things out per league.
I still enjoy ssfhc for a change of pace inbetween and know what it takes to build for HC.

If you don't agree with some suggestions or have different experiences let me know!

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The Skilltree is until ~lvl 90 the same. Choices after that level lead towards even more survivability or offense capabilitys.

So you are safe to pick the same skilltrees in the mainpost. For leveling you might wanna pick some lifenodes earlier than later.

---

Gearing however is different.
For Sc i recommend Soulmantle and 2x kikazaru because it adds so much more power very cheap.

For Hardcore i suggest more defensive items, gaining over 200 flat life on rings and chest with rare items is not a problem on top of extra armour, elemental/chaos resists and so on.

The combo can work on hardcore since it also grants defensive aspects, but who doesnt want more health and mitigation instead?

The Price for Hardcore chars is in general higher. Starting can be really cheap since we can use puritys for resists a long time, but good gear to feel safe in red maps will be more expensive.
A 6 link is more expensive and desireable on hc in the long run, where on SC a 5 link Soulmantle (a pseudo 6link) is all you need for any content.

For Hardcore you need (with any char) more awareness of your character and surroundings.
Keep track of your endurance charges, stuff like volatiles and bearers and some mapmods especially 'chain'. On SC you can be more lazy with that except you wanna reach the high lvl 90s.

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Alternatives for HC in terms of gearing are the Belly of the beast or some rare chest with life in particular.
A skin of the loyal/lord also works well, grants extra damage with the +1 gemlevels and increases defence on other items, while having freedom on the ringslot.

For rings life + resist rings work fine. Ultimately you want Opal rings preferable with fire% dmg for the most damage output.
Doedre´s ring works like a charm as well. Has no life but you can easily swap in a defensive curse which is totally worth it.


Self-flagellation is replaced by a totemlife + playerlife jewel.

Those gearing changes alone grant tons of life and mitigation

---

If you wanna try mantle on hc we have additional defensive options aviable (same thing if you dont use mantle).

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Decoy totem alone trivializes anything not taunt immune.

The Shaper cannot be Taunted.
The Guardians can no longer be permanently taunted,they can only be taunted every so often.
And there is a mapmod with taunt immunity

Taunted enemys deal 10% less dmg to other targets (us). It is insanely tanky with capped resists and tons of totemlife our build offers. It tanked me the uber atziri trio already ;)

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We can invest more into endurance charges. Especially on a marauder we gain those sweet extraregen on top. Keeping those up is effortless after the uberlab points.

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Enfeeble. Its great. Swapping out Flammability for Enfeeble can be a good choice if the damage is already good enough. +curse items enable both at the same time and can be swapped in our curse on hit setup.

Temporal chains is also a good choice.

---

Flasks

Play with mom? Laviagnas wisdom or a normal manaflask help
Forbidden taste is the best panick flask aviable
Rumis is great in any aspect.

Overall we dont need offensive flasks like many other builds.
Witchfire brew even gives a mix of offence and defence (the vulnerability curse is mainly used for lazy cursing against trashmobs).

---

Fortify on Shieldcharge is another layer, the stonegolem grant regen and taunts and enemys near your totems deal 8% less damage come on top. With many rare items its easier to add chaos resistance as well.

---

Those things stacked can even make Soulmantle playable on hardcore with over 6500 life.

7500 - 8000+ hp without a mantle are achievable.

Your main concern might be that the damage is WAY lower than with a mantle. It i lower for sure, but still more than enough to run red maps comfortable.

The mantle is cheap and grants a huge boost, but it can be compensated with other item choices.

50% totemlife + 1 extrasocket + ~100% average self-flag dmg
vs
potential lvl 21 spelltotem gem (more basehp) + 2x 56%+ fredmg crafted opal rings + totemlife jewel can close the gap, but it obviously costs more (and offers more defence).

The build is not the fastest/best uber lab runner out there, but it also has no big trouble in it.

There isn´t really much to talk about the uber lab since its pretty easy on this build.

Preperation: If you are scared use 2-3 lifeflasks and have bleed + poison removal on them. Bleed can hurt on traps and poisondmg + the slow can be dangerous in some cases. Besides that a granite + basalt flask helps a lot against izaros attacks (which shouldn´t hit you in the first place).

The Soul of Ryslatha Pantheon is also nice to have, but usually not necassary.

Traps: For tough trap encounter you can place all traps before the encounter and have enough regen to run through basically anything.

Argus: Place a decoy totem, place your scorching ray totems and do the usual debuff/buff stuff. wait until he dies and recast decoy totem if its destroyed. very easy, mainly sit and wait.

Izaro: The most dangerous part is his first attack. He always attacks you and ignores the decoy totem for his first combo.

Place your Decoy and SR Totems (can mix in 1 rf totem) before the fight, use orb of storms. Spread the totems around his pod and place searing bond where you get the most coverage.

He now spawns, sidestep his leap/slash/sunder attack and after that you can usually wait a moment until he dies. Just dont stand in the direction of your decoy totem ;) The decoy totem usually lives longer than izaro, if not recast another one before the old one dies.

Thats it

We want/need

- Granite, Ruby and Topaz flasks. Granite for the Trio, the other two for Vaals and Atziri. Bleed removal on at least one Flask is necassary.
- a leveled Concentrated Effect Gem and Purity of Fire which we probably already use.
- remove Vaal Gems from you gear, except Vaal Lightning Trap. With this we can make sure that we have 3 Charges in every fight.
- remove Curses you have on Cast when damage taken for Atziri.
- switch your Curse on Hit setup, if you have one, to Blasphemy, Cursemines or Cursetraps for Atziri. She reflects Curses and this way the Curses don´t get reflected. The last thing we want is -Resists on us.

If you're not comfortable with the fights wait until you hit lvl 80-85, do it right after a level up so you dont loose xp on Softcore.
If you do her on Hardcore you know what you´re doing, you probably don´t need to read this ;)

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Trashmobs

Don´t get hit by the Melees, use Bleed removal against the snakes, the rest is a joke on normal. Fill up you Vaal Lightning Trap charges before Dual Vaal and Atziri!
In Uber Atziri the trashmobs are way more dangerous, hide and throw a totem around the corner.

---

Dual Vaals

Very easy if everything works planned.
Swap increased AoE Gem with Concentrated Effect. Use Ruby/Topaz Flasks and a Quicksilver or movement skill.

Go into the room and trigger both Pyramides at the same time.
Just before they spawn throw your Vaal Lightning Trap on both Spawnpoints, place Searing Bond in the middle and one Righteous Fire Totem on each side (so your Searing Bond hits both).
If everything works well both should be dead at the same time.

If not, its still relatively easy.
The most important thing to know is that one Vaal enrages if the other one dies before. Run in circles and place your Totems.

One time i´ve made a run the bottom Vaal died almost instantly and the top one went into the ground immidietly before spawning minions... which is normally not the case.

However, a pretty easy fight.
Switch to the AoE Gem afterwards and equip the Granites so you gain charges for the next Boss.

---

Trio

Use Granite flasks and Bleed Removal.
All Bosses are Shock Immune.
Watch out for the Degen Ground.

First kill the ranged guy, pretty easy. Place Totems, throw Traps and kite (the gameplan for every of those guys).
2nd, every boss is on full health after a kill. Kill the Dualstrike guy. Searing Bond is awesome for this.
After him we have the Cycloner/Cleaver. Dodge his skills, if hit use Bleed Removal. Kill some spawned mobs inbetween for Flask Charges.

After the fight switch to Ruby and Topaz Flasks again.

A decoy totem is a great help in the fight, it can even take many hits in the Uber version!

---

Atziri
Before you enter the room swap you inc AoE Gem to Concentrated Effect. Remove Curses on your Cast when damage taken setup (or swap with a level 1 spell) and change your Curse on Hit Setup if you have one.
Note: Blasphemy Curses don´t get reflected by Atziri!!!
If you have a +1 Curse item you can swap it for another one if you want.
Place a Portal if you aren´t experienced so you can reenter faster.

Enter the Bossroom.

We have 3 Phases.

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Atziri Phase:

She spawns different Flameblasts and Storm Calls which deal Fire, Lightning and Fire + Lightning damage. With this build you have the time to dodge them without big trouble. If you know that you get hit (she has one faster single Flameblast) use your Ruby/Topaz Flask and you can survive.
This will probably not work on the big Flameblasts.
From time to time she thows physical dmg dealing Spears which inflict bleed. Its possible to dodge them but on normal Atziri they wont deal much damage.
Just use your Bleed removal if hit.
Use NORMAL Lightning Traps for Elemental Equilibrium and place your Totems. Dodge her Spells and you´re fine.
Keep in range for Blasphemy or use you Mine/Trap Curses from time to time.


Minion Phase
While she switches her phase i place all my Totems in the direction where the minions spawn. Switch Concentrated Effect with the AoE Gem. done.

If you see only one or two minions the phase starts to end and we switch to Concentrated Effect gem in again.
Minions that reach Atziri will heal her, not the end of the world, but avoidable.


Mirror Phase

Atziri spawns 4 Mirrors of herself, one reflects damage (which doesn´t affect us) and the other ones cast spears, Flameblasts and Stormcalls.
This phase will occure only 3 times!

The tactic is to throw Vaal Lightning Trap on one spawn, place the Totems nearby and dodge the Spells. Recast Totems if necessary, Cursetraps/mines if you don´t have blasphemy, but use only one Vaal Lightning Trap per phase! Use regular Lightning Trap inbetween.
Use Pots if you can´t dodge.
The Phase can end in <4 secs.
You only need to kill one!


Yeah thats it.
The encounter takes some practice if you are not familar with it, but with some practice it´s a very very good build to kill and learn her!

---

Uber Atziri

Everything works the same as Atziri, you just have to play it perfect with lvl 20/21 gems.

Shaper is in theory easier than Uber Atziri, but uber atziri can be practiced via the normal atziri... the shaper not.

First i suggest reading this http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Shaper so i don´t have to explain anything he has and can focus on how to deal with it.

Most important Stuff

1. Keep calm - panicking will kill you!

2. Keep track on your surroundings! Phase 3 can be very overwhelming with two shapers, but you need to watch out which abilitys they use

3. don´t give up. You might die, rip some sets but thats part of the process. I ripped 2 sets before my first kill, you might do it better or worse.

4. See 1. and 2. You might be nervous entering the arena first the first times - its the final boss! Once you keep calm and keep track of your surroundings it gets easier and easier.

5. Never go out of his sight, except for the Slam. If you dont know what he is doing next you will die.

Either you have a build that can facetank anything of him and deals immense amount of dps with a 100ex+ gear or you need to learn the fight.

This build can kill him with a low investment in the character, basically hrimnor resolve, doryanis catalyst,5 link soulmantle, 2x kikazaru and random rare gear are enough to kill him comfortable.

my Shaper kill - this is a deathless Shaper kill on this build. Its not flawless (like taking a hit after the bullet phase or some totem placements), but that happens if you´re nervous (trying to record a perfect run^^)

---

Preperation

- You want a Lightning warp setup. Its great to move in between his phases, better than shield charge or leapslam on this build.

- a 5link six socket soulmantle or a 6link chest if its not a soulmantle. We need dps for the fight! The shorter it is, the easier it gets.

- scorching ray + spelltotem helps in this fight a lot for the dps. Add it in your 6th socket (or link) in the soulmantle or those gems instead of your cwdt setup. - 24% fireresists are great to have and easy to utilize in this fight.

- a cold resist flask with flaskeffect and chill/freeze removal can help if you come into a situation where you need to stay on a vortex for a shot time.

- a 2nd doryanis catalyst can be a big boost for your damage. The lifeloss is not that bad since we need to dodge anything anyway, armour and block doesnt help in the fight as well. For soulmantle its not really needed but might be required for a non soul mantle setup (havent tested it yet)


Now lets go phase by phase through the shaperfight.

---

Phase 1 Part 1

The entry area is X shaped and contains four paths, each leading to a boss that must be killed before a portal in the middle opens. The bosses are four randomly-chosen map bosses. (wiki)

This phase is pretty easy, some bosses are harder than others, but remember there are no mapmods in the shaper area. Even stronger bosses like daresso, malachai or rigwald are easier than map encounter. Just kill em.

---

Phase 1 Part 2

The first shaper fight begins after you enter the portal. it takes a few seconds until he finished talking, this gives us enough time to position, place totems and so on. With Soulmantle + a self-flagellation jewel you can spam totems to curse yourself if you want.

The Slam is a shaper attack in which he teleports to your position and deals massive damage which will oneshot most non ES builds (like us). Its important here to find the correct timing to move away via our movementskill (lightning warp/shield charge). He remembers your position once he disappeared and will appear on that one. If you move too early he can appear at your new position and will hit you! This needs some practice. You can learn it at a malachai fight which does a similar move (just a bit slower and with worse aoe).

The Slam will kill probaly you the most if you dont know the fight well enough.

Shaper Beam is a laser targeted at one location and deals massive tri element damage. Always have the shaper on your screen to see which ability he uses. if he casts it just move to the side a bit.

Golden Projectiles will kill you if you get hit by two of those. Same as the beam, sidestep em. He often casts 2-3 times those balls. So keep moving in circles around him.

Dont go in melee range since he will attack with his bare hand and deal pretty high damage with those (probably facebreaker!)

The portal phase is very easy. Place a searing bond totem on shaper or zana, 1-2 rf totems inbetween and your orb of storms. After the portal closed he will use one of his skills (beam or slam), watch out for it.

Shapers Cold Vortex Ballz. Those Balls spawn randomly on the edge of the screen and leave a chilled ground which deals high cold damage on the ground. They *pop* once they reach you position. Its important to keep the mid clean of those vortex grounds especially in phase 2+3. If you see one of those run to its postion on the edge of the arena and pop it there. you can also collect 2-3 balls and pop em at once after kiting them

Dodging his skills is one thing, another one dealing damage inbetween. Luckily we are a totemer which give us enough room to deal damage and survive!

We have always time after his slam/laser to place totems next to him. Fighting him in mid-range is a good idea to easily place orb of storms inbetween.

Shaper is also shock immune, vaal lightning trap does nothing here.
Its also not necassary to use in the portal phase.

Step 1: Watch the Shaper fight, a real one not a 2sec 500ex character fight, and watch how shaper behaves!
Step 2: learn his attacks
Step 3: find the time where its safe to place totems
Step 4: place rf + searing bond + Scorching ray + orb of stroms in his range. If you dont have the time dont overcast yourself and set yourself in a dangerous position. RF + Orb have priority
???
Phase finished

Phase one was the easiest one^^

---

Phase 2 Part 1

You enter a new zone after the first phase ends. Shaper regenerates hp until you enter his arena again so run quickly!

Lightning warp is better than shield charge in those phases, it can cover a bigger distance and ledges.

Kill a few packs in between (place totem and warp away) to recharge your flasks and vaal lightning trap.

at the end of the zone the 'uncreated' miniboss waits for you. Just stay far away and dont get hit by his slam or projectile attacks. Throw everything at him, even those vaal lightning traps to kill him as quick as possible

---

Phase 2 Part 2

The vortex balls spawn more often than in phase and he gains a new ability: Bullet Phase.

Zana (if she is alive after he portal phase) creates a bubble in the middle where you should stay! Shaper spawns tons of balls all over the place which get absorbed by the bubble. He does that for around 5-6 secs and while the balls are still flying around he casts his beam on your location.
Thats a very hectic and dangerous situation! run out of the middle but dont run into his remaining balls, they will often oneshot you (one deals almost 6k damage and you might have lost some hp from the beam or vortex).

Its important to keep the middle vortexfree so you dont take massive damage in the bullet hell phase!

If a vortexball appears dont move! it will most likely start moving towards you. Try to pop all balls before the phase starts in a good position.

If you are in the bulletphase and a vortexball is flying towards you, try to run in small circles but never leave the bubble!

The bullethell phase combined with the beam afterwards and the vortexballs is the hardest part of the fight and you need to master everything related to it!

---

Phase 3 Part 1

same as Phase 2 Part 1, except the miniboss has a new ability. he spams balls in all directions which deal high damage to you. hide behin a tree or rock and place totems if he doesnt do it. Done.

---

Phase 3 Part 2

The Shaper keeps all his abilities from phase two, and gets a new one: He can summon an invulnerable, spectral double that uses one of his skills, which disappears after several seconds.

Additionally, the vortex balls appear significantly more often than in the previous phases

tl:dr more stuff happens. Its even more hectic than phase two. There is not much to add if you read anything.

The double often moves towards you for autoattacks and his spells deal the same damage as shapers, so watch out for those.

Keep calm, place the vortex in good places and dont loose sight of the shapers

GOOD LUCK!

Got any more quesions? ask me :)

Hi PoE Community,

If you are looking for an effective build that can kill any boss in the game, has no trouble with mapmods, clears with a decent speed, can farm the labyrinth pretty safe and all that on a low budget you are in the right guide!

It´s also one of the best Leaguestarter around.

Don´t get me wrong, you will find builds that clear maps faster or run the labyrinth faster or kill a boss faster, but many are focused on one part or need a heavy currency investment.
This build can do it all.

The guide is based around the Berserker Class with Bloodmagic.

Soulmantle, Kikazarus and Self-Flagellation are used in this guide.


For Information about other classes, gearoptions, skilltrees and much more check the posts after this mainguide!















You will find more information in the following posts about the leveling, playstyle, some major bosses, more details about gear, other classes and much more!

I won´t go over each sidequest, its more about the character progression! If i write "After breaking the eggs get the Decoy Totem and go for Brutus." you can/should still do the sidequest Dweller of the Deep for excample ;)

For the Skilltree Progression check my Skilltree section.

If you want you can also check out my playthroughs on the 3.0 Beta client (spoiler alert). Maybe it helps you in the leveling process since i have some tips ready ;)

3.0 Act 1 Playthrough
3.0 Act 2 Playthrough
3.0 Act 3 Playthrough
3.0 Act 4 Playthrough

Microphone was quiet at the beginning, should be better halfway through act 2 recorded in the 3.0 beta, nothing important has changed for the videos

---

Tips

- Keep an eye on your elemental resistances and life. If you have trouble with your defence this is often the mainreason

- upgrade your flasks. Higher tier lifeflasks heal more so use them.

- dont be shy pressing the utility flasks when they are off cooldown and you see monsters. They refill quickly ;)

- dont kill every single monster. I rather kill 5 mobs with 1 left and move to the next pack than wasting the time to kill the remaining monster.

- kill essence monsters. even essences with stuff like minion speed can be used on items for a chance of a decent rare item. One fixed bad stat can still result in a decent item while leveling

---

Act 1
optional: Create a Duelist and run into town. You will have at least one sword (for cleave), chance to bleed and cleave as drops/rewards.
You could also do the medicine chest quest quickly for a quicksilver flask.
The 3 scrolls of wisdom can help to purchase iron rings/rustic sash early on.

---

Create your Marauder and go into town, buy cleave from Nessa after turning in the quest, equip it and use two swords/axes until later. If you dont have any sword/axe use groundslam instead with a Mace or Staff. I recommend the onslaught gem from Nessa as well since the attack/movementspeed bonus helps leveling faster. The chance to bleed gem is pretty good with fast 1handed weapons as well

Ther Mercy Mission grants you a Quicksilver Flask which makes running a bit faster.

After breaking the eggs get the Decoy Totem and Ancestral Protector and go for Brutus.
Ancestral Protector can help with singletarget as long as we use attack skills.

When you enter the Prison, use the waypoint, go to the town and buy 1x Spelltotem gem and equip it to level. You can also level gems in your second weapon set!
You also receive added fire damage for your cleave or groundslam (later sunder)

Back in the lower prison you should look out for the first trial to unlock the labyrinth.

After Brutus take the leap slam reward (helps to move over cliffes/river)

When you enter Marveils Liar pick up sunder and use it with a 2handed axe or mace.

Alternatively you can use a 1handed axe/mace and a shield or offhand dagger/claw/sword (there are some uniques that work very well, but are not easily aviable on the first day of a new league)

Buy and equip searing bond to level it. It wont do much at the moment, no need to place the totem at this stage.

Kill Marveil, welcome to Act 2.

---

Act 2
Take the right path first, and take the top way to the chamber of sins.
In chamber of sins 2 you find the second trial (left of the entrace) and finish the quest.

After Sins, pick up Herald of Thunder (easier lvl stat requirement than ice),
Herald of Ash and Righteous Fire at the gem vendor. Use both heralds and level the righteous fire gem (dont use the skill yet).

Now we go through the Riverways on the left until you reach the western forest.
Do the Weaver Chamber, kill alira and finish the way forward quest

You can now buy faster attacks and melee physical damage support gems for your sunder. We even need the faster attack gem later for shield charge or leap slam.

Take the waypoint to the crossroads, go right and kill kraityn at the broken bridge.
Take the waypoint to the crossroads, go down to the crypt 1 and finish the Trial. If you want finish the quest in crypt 2, but its not important to do.
Take the Riverways waypoint. You can see right next to that waypoint that the road is broken and two pillars are standing there. Follow that path to the Wetlands. Kill Oak there, search the waypoint and grab you 2 skillpoints at eramir.

Dont forget to get your reward in act 1 for the "the way forward" quest.

Enter the Vaal ruins, northern forest and the caverns until you reach vaal and kill him

---

Act 3
As long as you dont use RF totems to deal damage do not skill ancestral bond ;)

After the first quest buy flammability and purity of fire from Clarissa. You can also grab Hatred and switch it in for Herald of Thunder.

Herald of Ash + Purity of Elements is what i would use if the gear is bad.

In the Crematorium is the 4th trial, the 5th in the catacombs (entrace in marketplace) and the 6th in the Hedge Maze (entrace at the imperial gardens, top-right of the waypoint in the wild)

Just progress until you did the Fixture of Fate quest after Piety.

At Siosa you can buy most of the gems in the game (with few exceptions).
Buy Burning Damage, Elemental Focus, Orb of Storms and Curse on hit at least.

Now kill dominus and proceed to act 4

---

Act 4
Get your Stonegolem and the increased AoE gem.


There is not much else to say about act 4, everything is pretty linear.

When you reach the harvest waypoint you can go to the act 3 town and open the labyrinth. At this stage its very easy to run.

Then kill malachai and proceed to act 5

With level 40 you can switch to Righteous Fire Totems

- unequip anything related to sunder including the hatred and heralds
- equip a sceptre and a shield or two sceptres. The Sceptre even can be white :P
- link Righteous Fire + Spelltotem + Burning damage + Elemental Focus (earlier i would´ve picked AoE, but you need the dmg at that moment more)
- if you have a 3 link left with 3 blue colors use orb of storms + curse on hit + flammability.
- Use at least purity of Elements so your totems have capped fire resistance and die slower.
- skill ancestral bond
- be level 40.

- If you have room use searing bond + burning damage + elemental focus. A +1 firegem sceptre is good for that (sell a Magic Sceptre + Ruby Ring + 1x Orb of Alteration to a vendor)

Thats all you need to start.

The AoE will be small at the beginning.
Righteous fire gets bigger every 4 levels.

---

Act 5
If you look in the gemsection you will see way more gems than you are currently using. You will probably not have enough sockets to use em all and the ones you are using are the most important ones.
If you have a free socket aviable in the gear or weaponswap, go to the gem vendors, buy the gems and level them.

There is not much to say about it. There are no new gems aviable and the skilltree should be selfexplaining with the picture in the guide.

Run around and do the quests :P

Here are the major Bossfights on the build (with a hierophant i tested... dont use it :P)

OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT Innocence Fight

OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT Kitava Fight

---

Act 6 to 10

Take care of your resists, you get a -20% all resist penality after the Kitava fight.

Here are some videos against the act 6 final boss and a boring act 7 playthrough with no commentary :P

OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT Brine King Fight

OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT Act 7 Playthrough Part 1/2

OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT Act 7 Playthrough Part 2/2


There is atm nothing to say about act 6+7+8. Run around and kill stuff like in act 5.

In the beta you receive a 40% resist penality (on top of the earlier 20% for a total of 60%) after act 8. This might change to another act like end of act 10... who knows.

There is nothing known about act 9 or 10 quests which might give a quest with different options like the bandits.

---

When should you use the Soumantle Combo?

First you need to have the Currency to buy the items. The price can be different from league to league and the time into the league. On day one every item is more expensive than after 1 month.

I would pay 10-15 chaos in the first 2-3 days for Soulmantle + 2x Kikazarus, but it can also be cheaper.

A few days in they cost 1 chaos per item on average ;P


You could use Soulmantle with lvl 49.
If you have no currency to get the rings, use a flask to remove curses (of warding roll).
a 4 link is a good start

Get the rings next. Keep an eye on your resists when switching ring!

If there are some Self-Flagellation jewels on the market with 17%+ damage you can invest in one and upgrade it later to a 20% one.
You can also try your luck corrupting Viridian Jewels to get one (or other good jewels to sell).


So you just need the chest, lvl 49 and a 4link mantle to start, kikazarus to make it easier to use and the jewel is just the topping and no required at the start.

---

Maps
Don't roll Chain on your maps, its dangerous on Totem/Minion builds, especially on some bosses with projectile attacks and quill beasts.

You should already have 75% elemental resists.

Get more life and armour on your gear. The best source for Armour is the shield.
The chestpiece depends on what you choose.

Now its time for a 5link if you dont have one, buy a white/blue/rare 5link and craft it OR buy the unique you desire and get a 5l on this one.

Its really important to craft good flasks, one instant, bubbling or panicked flask and bleed removal is important.
get 5 20% flasks (flask section) with bleed, freeze and curse removal.

30% movementspeed help a lot on boots, get it.
A good Dexterity Amulet is nice, you vould drop the +30 dex node on the tree. Dex on other items is possible too, its just the easiest slot for it.

You already should feel strong with capped resists, a good chunk of armour and life on the gear.

At this point just look at your gear and check which item is the worst and upgrade it if you want.
Now it can get really expensive to get really good rare items, but you should already clear most of the content without problems ;)

The leveling skilltree is slightly different than the later skilltree. The main difference is the templar starting path for a stronger early game and a slightly different pathing for early powernodes. Those will be respecced later via reskillpoints from quests (around 6-7 points total)

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCAKIABLPwVfnd4XOaO4KbwJoJqtn8wGaLjAAAAAA=

First create a Shadow, pick up Freezing Pulse and do the Mercy quest. This grants you the volley support and a quicksilver flask. Store it in your stash (basically everything) and you start a templar.

After entering the town pick a skill. I prefer Freezing Pulse, but magma orb, spark and Frostbolt are good as well. choose what you like more.
Grab the quicksilver flask and volley supportgem.

After Mercy mission grab the Quicksilver Flask and arcane surge support. Link it and volley to Freezing pulse if you can.

Those two quicksilver flasks make leveling a lot quicker. You can slam a transmutation orb and augmentation orb on them, but dont craft them further. The better rolls are available on higher itemlevel flasks.

After the Breaking some Eggs Quest you can buy a Decoy totem and Orb of Storms. You can also do it later once the gems are really needed.

A caged Brute grants chance to ignite which can be used for scorching ray we pick up a bit later. Buy two spelltotem support gems (and level it in your gear) and leapslam.

The Siren Quest offers Scorching Ray, take it. You can now use SR or buy firestorm, depending on what feels better for you. Scorching ray however should be leveled.
Also buy a Searing Bond Totem.

Volley isnt needed anymore ;)

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http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNyiAASz8FX53R0Uj0YSaXF5Fxzhc5o7gpvAmgmq2fxFRzLRKPrAZouMVkia4EWdU1Lr7klPvKqXLdrdpwjYJJithTIAAAAA

The next step on the Skilltree. Rush Elemental overload first, 30 dex for leveling gems is handy as well. If you use Scorching Ray the burning damage nodes and Elemental Equilibrium have priority after that. Use orb of storms to trigger EE (read more about it in my EE section).

NOTE: if you use another spell instead of Scorching ray and searing bond do not skill Elemental Equilibrium yet.

Gearing starts to be a bit more important from this point. Quartz Sceptres are pretty good and i would use two of them. Either they drop of you buy em from vendors, preferable are already 3 linked ones. You can do the +1 firegem level recipe: Vendor a magic sceptre + 1x orb of alteration + 1x ruby ring together. Helps a lot for scorching ray and searing bond damage.

The other gear just needs some life, resists and maybe some dexterity. Movementspeed on boots makes everything quicker.

I also recommend identifiend Magic (blue) two-stone rings since those have balanced resistances and a good resist and/or life roll on those is often better than rare items you could find. All magic resist have potential.

Left or Right way out of town doesnt matter.

Kill all the bandit lords you encounter.

Sharp and Cruel quest offers elemental focus (3x!), controlled destrution (1x) and concentrated effect (1x)

The other quest offers righteous fire (dont use it yet, just level it).

---

Act 3 has again some useful gems for us.

Lost in Love is the first one. You can pick up purity of elements. This helps your resistance a lot in the leveling process and i would use it until you are in maps after act 10 and have your resistances capped without the aura.
Purity of Elements also helps our totems with the resistances. We want 75% elemental res on the totems once we play with rf totems. 40% is their base, 26% on the skilltree and the remaining 9% need a jewel with totem resistance. Until the jewel purity helps out for your totem as well.

pick up flammability as well. Later on we skill a 2nd curse, elemental weakness or enfeeble work out for that. I prefer temporal chains (monsters hit/move slower, are longer in the totem radius) which can be bought later.

The fixture of fate quest enables most skillgems at siosa (except lvl 38 gems at this state).

Important are 3 burning damage gems, efficacy and swift affliction. Temporal chains, faster attacks, critchance and other gems in the guide can be bought here as well.

Its good to have those gemsetups at this stage:

Scorching Ray + Elemental Focus + Burning dmg in a +1 firegem sceptre

Searing Bond + Elemental Focus + Burning Dmg in a +1 firegem spectre

Purity of Elements

Orb of Storms

Flammability

Basically 2x 3link and 3 sockets, the rest can be used to level gems (weaponswap 2x 3 socket items to level more gems).

If you can and want, using a second SR setup on a spelltotem can help a bit.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNzwH6IABLPDE1jl8FX53frSHRSvbI9GEmlxeRcc4XOaO4KbwJoJqtn8RUcy0Sj6wGYrtoxGEMz4k4uMVkhmnprgRZ1TUuvuSU-8qpct2t1o8qcI2CQLYcaumK2FMgAAAAA=

This is the next step, basically preparing for going full totems. This should be at level 39

So you do your things in act 4 and after daresso and kaom you get the increased aoe gem and curse on hit.

If you can link orb of storm + curse on hit + flammability.

You can do the labyrinth around lvl 32-40. Doesn't really matter before we switch to rf and scorching ray totems anyway. I just do it when i feel safe.

---

Ok you got EO, EE and the totemnodes on the skilltree, lvl 40 and the first labyrinth done... you can now switch to rf totems. With lvl 40 the rf gem gains extra radius and it feels better to use ;)

You want now at least:

Spelltotem + RF + Burning dmg + AoE or Elemental Focus (can swap for bosses)

Scorching ray + spelltotem to debuff bosses, burning dmg + ele focus if possible

Orb of storms + curse on hit + flammability

Purity of elements

Searing bond with as many dps supports as possible (dont force it, if you dont have the links. do not waste currency for it).

A 4link, 3link and 2link should be np at this stage, anything above that is great but not required.

Now just run around, place rf totems, cast orb of storms if you need extra dmg and use the other totems for more singletarget damage.


http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNydrvAfogAEs8MTWOXwVfndakO86vrSHRSf3-98r2ybof4K2L1VxjpYES2PRhJpcXkXHCcvkFUaOOFzmjuCm8CaCarZ_EVHFm_jajLRKPrAZiu2jEYQzPiTi4zR_V5dp5RfBJErA3VWSGaemuBFnVNS6-5JT7yqly23Ptrd99do8iycpwjYJOw4fIM8LYPMrJgLYcauOtiYrYUyAAAAAA==

This would be my next step and slightly after i would start respeccing the pathing to this:


http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCALiTHNydrvAfogAEs8MTWOVPBPBVakO86vrSHRSf3-98r2yboUPI_grYvVXGOlgRLY9GEmlxeRccJy-QVRo44XOaO4KbFm_jaij6gsf56HwOp1VboCu2jEYQzPiT0f1eXaeUXwSRKwN1VkhmnprgRZ1TUuvuSU-8qpctQYe3Ptrd99do8iycpwjYJOw4fIM8LYPMrJgLYcauOtiYrYUyAAAAAA==

Overall watch your elemetal resistances and try to keep em at 75% at least after act 4 (a5 and a10 boss reduces your resists by 30%!!!). get life wherever you can. Those are the top prioritys