[On Hold] Glacial Cascade Totems [ALL Content in the Game]

Hiya, a few questions for you:

1. Does recasting totems and overwriting old ones count as them "dying" and thus cursing you?

2. You use Soul Mantle without the Kikazaru rings, in which case do you just try and flask through the curses? Depending on the answer to 1, I imagine that could be easier or harder? If so, what do you do for bosses, since I imagine it's hard to keep good uptime on them since the flasks remove curses on use, and not for the duration, correct?

Essentially, for an Abyss league starter I'm trying to decide between this build and an Ascendant (Guardian/Assassin) Crit Dark Pact Totems with a Soul Mantle and 2x Kikazaru to nullify curses entirely. If I went GC totems I would feel pressured to take Inquisitor for the ele bonuses, and I could still do Kikazarus and reduce the curses to 20% effectiveness, but you mention that in your guide.

Thanks!

Going to try this build as a starter when the new league starts. Thanks for the guide :D

Can somebody more experienced tell me the pros and cons of totems vs mines? All I hear about mines is that saboteur gets heaps of AOE, but looking at totem gameplay videos (yours and others'), the difference in AOE looks inconsequential.
Just from watching others, it is my impression that totems are both faster for mapping and safer for bosses, while mines win when it comes to boss killing speed (I'm not sure if that matters much anyway). Am I correct?

Here is my video in Shaper, first try:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4mHF7c-T_E

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Zhain wrote:

Hiya, a few questions for you:

1. Does recasting totems and overwriting old ones count as them "dying" and thus cursing you?

2. You use Soul Mantle without the Kikazaru rings, in which case do you just try and flask through the curses? Depending on the answer to 1, I imagine that could be easier or harder? If so, what do you do for bosses, since I imagine it's hard to keep good uptime on them since the flasks remove curses on use, and not for the duration, correct?

Essentially, for an Abyss league starter I'm trying to decide between this build and an Ascendant (Guardian/Assassin) Crit Dark Pact Totems with a Soul Mantle and 2x Kikazaru to nullify curses entirely. If I went GC totems I would feel pressured to take Inquisitor for the ele bonuses, and I could still do Kikazarus and reduce the curses to 20% effectiveness, but you mention that in your guide.

Thanks!

1º Yes, it does, that's why we need anticurse flasks and things like "Increased Flask duration" mods in Passive Nodes and/or Belt.

2º I am not using Kikazarus because you lose life and res (and the Essence Worm ring which is specially useful for this build).


Thi3n -> Im going to try Uber Atziri, have you done it? Any tips?

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Zhain wrote:

Hiya, a few questions for you:

2. You use Soul Mantle without the Kikazaru rings, in which case do you just try and flask through the curses? Depending on the answer to 1, I imagine that could be easier or harder? If so, what do you do for bosses, since I imagine it's hard to keep good uptime on them since the flasks remove curses on use, and not for the duration, correct?

Thanks!

In my experience with this build (only to lvl 75 in mayhem): You can do Kikazaru + Self-Flagellation Jewel if you are lazy with pressing your flasks, but it's a pretty big loss in stats. Being able to run Hatred and potentially getting some sick Opal Ring for the other slot seems to good to pass. Also, the free'd up jewel socket in the tree might come in handy for some insane new abyss jewel.

I personally use a Saturated (= Less Recovery speed) Mana Flask of Warding. It gives 7.5 seconds curse immune without the flask nodes and you can spam it all day because it only costs 5/30 charges per use. If you can get a Taste of Hate then probably you could replace the mana flask and get "of Warding" on the Diamand(or Silver) Flask.

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BlazeB75 wrote:

Can somebody more experienced tell me the pros and cons of totems vs mines? All I hear about mines is that saboteur gets heaps of AOE, but looking at totem gameplay videos (yours and others'), the difference in AOE looks inconsequential.
Just from watching others, it is my impression that totems are both faster for mapping and safer for bosses, while mines win when it comes to boss killing speed (I'm not sure if that matters much anyway). Am I correct?

As someone who's played both, mines are far superior for single target but are a lot slower, clunkier and not as safe as totems.
The AoE on mines with full mines out off screens pretty hard.

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1. Does recasting totems and overwriting old ones count as them "dying" and thus cursing you?

2. You use Soul Mantle without the Kikazaru rings, in which case do you just try and flask through the curses? Depending on the answer to 1, I imagine that could be easier or harder? If so, what do you do for bosses, since I imagine it's hard to keep good uptime on them since the flasks remove curses on use, and not for the duration, correct?

Essentially, for an Abyss league starter I'm trying to decide between this build and an Ascendant (Guardian/Assassin) Crit Dark Pact Totems with a Soul Mantle and 2x Kikazaru to nullify curses entirely. If I went GC totems I would feel pressured to take Inquisitor for the ele bonuses, and I could still do Kikazarus and reduce the curses to 20% effectiveness, but you mention that in your guide.!

Yes, totems falling down in any capacity will place the curse on you. Increased Flask Duration nodes and belt suffix really help in this case. I like using a reduced charges mana flask and with all the duration I have I'll have somewhere close to 20s of curse immunity per press of the flask! I have answered the Kikazaru question multiple times but yes you lose out on quite a bit of stats by using non-rare rings. If you're looking at Essence Worm you're reserving half your mana which eats into your effective HP. If you're comparing it to a rare ring you can get quite a lot of stats using rares. I've played the Scion DP totem build and it is quite strong. I don't think it's as safe as this one but it is probably higher end damage (pre-nerf) due to the scaling off of totem life.

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Going to try this build as a starter when the new league starts. Thanks for the guide :D

Nice! Feel free to have my stream up on a second monitor and I can answer questions for you. I'll be going hard right when the league is released!

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Can somebody more experienced tell me the pros and cons of totems vs mines? All I hear about mines is that saboteur gets heaps of AOE, but looking at totem gameplay videos (yours and others'), the difference in AOE looks inconsequential.
Just from watching others, it is my impression that totems are both faster for mapping and safer for bosses, while mines win when it comes to boss killing speed (I'm not sure if that matters much anyway). Am I correct?

It sounds like you've looked at gameplay videos and guides and I think your assumptions are fairly spot on.

"

Thi3n -> Im going to try Uber Atziri, have you done it? Any tips?

I was able to do it. In the 4 mini phase put your totems behind the blue arm chick to go through that phase quickly. Other than that - you will want to min/max your gear in order to get some good attack speed which will help your movement ability. I have a hard time with her pizza phase but you might have a problem with her another phase. I almost always die once at the trio. Not sure if I'm killing them in the right order but I always try and kill the ranged chick first and then just run around and kill whichever of the two next. Bring a bleed remove life flask for this phase.

I am torn between this and dark pact totems for my league starter. Has anyone played both and can comment on clear speeds, safety, boss killing? I'm planing on playing HC

@thi3n Thank you for the guide! Great work! I will do this as a league starter after playing around with it in turmoil and theory crafting A LOT in path of building! Also curious if the Threshold Jewels will be worth it (I suspect it won't).

I have a two suggestions/questions if you don't mind:


1. What do you think about Hrimsorrow in this build?

I think it's the best conversion for us. I would argue it's better than using Phys to Lightning gem because

a) It gives us 100% Cold Conversion, so we can use +% Cold Damage on gear and can freeze/slow monsters up to a much higher HP

b) We can use Controlled Destruction, which gives me +40% DPS. Phys to lightning is 15-25% for me depending on exact tree. Other alternatives are LVL 4 Empower or Increased Crit Damage Support. Those are up to ~30% more dps depending on how much crit multi I have in the tree.

c) Bonus: due to low dex requirement you can color hrim cheaply for CWDT Immortal Call (3-4 red). Also possible to find good vaal versions (curse on hit for example, works with totems afaik).

Best other gloves would probably be Maligaros (~8% DPS for me) or some sick Fingerless Silk Gloves for for HP/Resist. Once you get the Helm Enchant (or if the new Threshold Jewels are worth it) you could ofc swap into one of those anyway OR go for the 40% DMG enchant instead and keep Hrim.


2. Have you considered using Herald of Ash?

HoA provides 8-10% additional DPS for me in exchange for a 35% mana reservation (due to Essence Worm). A perfect Clear Mind (60% Spell Damage) also gives me 8% DPS, but steals away a jewel slot, which we can use for some life and damage (2 dmg mods: 5%, 3 mods: 7.5%). At least for soft core I think it's pretty nice.

Works out on my sockets pretty well, even with Kaoms Roots.

Edit:

3. Kaoms Roots
In the guide I can only see corrupted versions. I strongly recommend getting non corrupted and enchanting for the +120% Crit if you haven't crit recently or the +flat lightning damage. Both are big boosts!



Thanks & Best of luck in 3.1!

Was thinking of this build for 3.1 league start. Not seeing a path of building link. Did I miss that somewhere? Pretty new player here, PoB has been a huge help.