[3.5] Soul Mantle Dark Pact Totems - League Starter - All Content

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SHEPUUURD wrote:

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thyriel wrote:

As you didn't even mentioned it in the alternatives, how about Chieftain Ascendancy ?

For Scion's chieftain, you get like 3-4% DPS and 125 regen, which is really bad.

On Marauder's chieftain you could get leech (which you can also get with a Trolltimber Spire), endurance charges, regen or taunt - and pretty much no damage.

You could play it on Marauder but even then I think there are a lot better choices (Champion is almost straight up better).

Thanks. Would you mind to explain why "+30% damage while totem is active" and phys dmg converted to extra fire dmg for totems only results in 3-4% dps ? For a noob like me it sounds far more somehow.
Especially when i compare that +30% damage to 2x +15% i currently get from Self-flagellation which results in ~12% dps increase

edit: Think i've got it after looking more closely at the Shadow node: Too much +chaos dmg missing then when i don't get that starting point

For it's price, it is an amazing weapon if you're using Power Charges.






Do you think it's worth it, since you could get rid of Inya's - use Heirophant, gain some defenses while staying pretty close in damage? I think the on-demand 7 charges is still nice. I just get smacked in the face pretty hard, I get 1 shot with 5k hp and 1k ES on occasion, or atleast it feels like it. Even with CwDT IC/Enfeeble.

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JSquiggle wrote:

For it's price, it is an amazing weapon if you're using Power Charges.






Do you think it's worth it, since you could get rid of Inya's - use Heirophant, gain some defenses while staying pretty close in damage? I think the on-demand 7 charges is still nice. I just get smacked in the face pretty hard, I get 1 shot with 5k hp and 1k ES on occasion, or atleast it feels like it. Even with CwDT IC/Enfeeble.

Well if you're dual wielding wands, then Void Batteries are actually still better defensively because they give you mana, which is more reliable than spell block.

If you use a shield it would be better than a good dagger, while having similiar damage to Apep's, but less mana consumption.

Inya's become a lot worse if you're using Hierophant and less Power Charges. you're basically only getting 25% damage and 70 life. I think rare boots or Kaom's (or perhaps the new Bubonic Trail, not sure yet) might fit you better in that case.

What a face-meltingly awesome build, thanks!

Q: What would be a good replacement for the Increased Crit gem in the 6th link, if one is not running a dagger? Is there a crit chance threshold before ICS becomes viable?

Stay safe!

Realy enjoying this build in Abyss! Killing Elder in yellow maps was super easy. I am now unlocking red maps to try him there.

I have a question regarding jewels..

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SHEPUUURD wrote:

Stats (other jewels):
-increased maximum life
-increased crit chance/multiplier (with spells)
-increased (spell/area/chaos/totem) damage (while holding a shield)
-increased cast (and attack) speed (while holding a shield)
-increased totem life

You can also use jewels to help with resistances early on.

Tip: Get one jewel with at least 9% totem elemental resistances to cap your totem's resists (75%), this can be helpful for endgame bossfights.

Is it still better to go for % (spell/area/chaos/totem) damage or are the new Abyss jewels with flat (chaos) damage to spells better?

Hello ! Love your build ! keep up the good work :)

quick question im using firestorm and flameblast right now ... and im lvl 47 . when do i switch to dark pact ?


thanksss

Hey guys, so I ve been tweaking this build a bit last two days and trying lots of new things. Something worth mentioning is:

- try to drop faster casting gem in wither setup for the new gem "storm barrier" .. damage reduction is AMAZING (no seriously, its CRAZY)

- also, I wasnt really feeling MoM with this build (may sound ridiculous I know) so I respecd from it

- now I run with kaom boots + rumi flask + enfeeble/blasphemy setup in shield and haste aura aswell, i must say, survivability went up a TON, and playstyle also became less intense and faster as you can just run into everything while leaving totems behind you

Hope someone will find this useful :)

I'm kind of torn, there is lighty bladefall totem build, there are dark pact totem builds like this one, and now a frost bolt totem build.

For now I went for the bladefall totem build, the passives are similar, same ascendancy, same bandit, so there is not that much to respec.

What would you guys recommend overall? Or how to put it better, what would be the advantages of this over a bladefall build?

Oh, and about the passives, I don't know, I'm still new to certain stuff, but neither path of building or the older passive tree shows them properly. Do you take heart and soul, then deep wisdom and go down the line taking int,dex,stry nodes towards trickery? I'm asking because it does not show the points you take towards trickery, it stops at heart and soul and then continues at trickery with something like 6 points missing.

I'm still trying to figure out what build to go for since my character is barely 41, but I will be hitting it hard next week when I will have more time and I want something to farm even higher maps smoothly, not interested that much in shaper runs.

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matevoz wrote:

What a face-meltingly awesome build, thanks!

Q: What would be a good replacement for the Increased Crit gem in the 6th link, if one is not running a dagger? Is there a crit chance threshold before ICS becomes viable?

Stay safe!

It's hard to give a number on a threshold because it depends on too many factors on your character (crit multi, -chance, cast speed, %damage, diamond flask, ...).
As a rule of thumb you want to use Increased Critical Strikes most of the time and change to Increased Critical Damage if your build is heavily relying on Power Charges (or is extremely well geared).

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poombaboom wrote:

Is it still better to go for % (spell/area/chaos/totem) damage or are the new Abyss jewels with flat (chaos) damage to spells better?

From my testing flat chaos is a tiny bit better on average (<1%), so either is fine.
I think Abyss Jewels are a bit better right now because of the flat Mana they can give, but I've yet to see all stats.

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drnomnom wrote:

quick question im using firestorm and flameblast right now ... and im lvl 47 . when do i switch to dark pact ?

As soon as you hit 49 and have the required uniques.

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Nosferat wrote:

What would you guys recommend overall? Or how to put it better, what would be the advantages of this over a bladefall build?

Oh, and about the passives, I don't know, I'm still new to certain stuff, but neither path of building or the older passive tree shows them properly. Do you take heart and soul, then deep wisdom and go down the line taking int,dex,stry nodes towards trickery? I'm asking because it does not show the points you take towards trickery, it stops at heart and soul and then continues at trickery with something like 6 points missing.

From my experience the only totem that can match Dark Pact's single target is Ancestral Warchief.
DP will have better coverage in indoor maps, while Bladefall wins on open maps, especially with the new Spell Cascade.

You need your final ascendancy (Path of the Shadow) so you can start spending skill points on the Shadow's start. Looks like I accidentally removed that from the guide :x

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SHEPUUURD wrote:

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BattleLeader wrote:

How would you use the Kalisa's Grace in this build, if I may ask?

They add a 5th link that you can use for the Wither setup and what's more important - they're very cheap.

If you get a CwC corruption on them you can get a 6-link.
Possible setups could be:

Wither - Faster Casting - Increased Duration - Arcane Surge - Storm Barrier
Wither - Faster Casting - Increased Duration - Arcane Surge - Cast while Channeling - S. Skeletons
Wither - Faster Casting - Increased Duration - Arcane Surge - Cast while Channeling - Despair

They also have life which makes them not horrible. I can't think of any good way to make use of the crit part (because we have MoM), but it's also nice to have.

Looking around on the wiki and on poe.trade, the Cast while Channeling corruption mod does not seem to exist. What gives?