[3.4] Blood Magic Detonate Dead Totem Chieftain (Boss Killer/Mapper. All Map Mods!)

Abstract



This build is for you, if you want to:
* Run almost all the content (except Hall of Grandmasters)
* Do all the map mods (and I mean: all!)
* Kill all the bosses (including Uber Atziri, Red Elder, all Guardians & Shaper)
* Chill out while doing so

I made this build so that I can explore the Atlas in 3.1 alone and kill Guardians, Elder and Shaper reliably. It's not so well suited for groups as the totem/corpse interaction is a bit anti shield-charge-and-everything-blows-up meta. Playstyle-wise you can compare it to a mix of trapper and miner (although it's a totem build). It's also not perfectly suited for SSF since it requires the Detonate Dead helmed enchant to function in red maps. Still interested? Then sneak peak into an Atziri run before getting into the depths of the guide:

Videos and Links
* Atziri kill
* Shaper kill
* Endgame
* Example Character
* Leveling Guide Video
* Path of Building PasteBin
* Full build diary

3.2 Ascendancy Buffs and it's performance in 3.4
This build was already BROKEN and stupid stronk in 3.1 ... but in 3.2 it got even STRONKER:

* You get 10% fire pen much earlier (Ngamahu, Normal Lab)
* Rares & Uniques now can be covered in Ash when you hit them with Orb of Storms, Unearth, or Shield Charge, making them 20% slower and let you deal 20% more damage
* You get 10% increased Strength and thus a lot more life and life regen \o/

Overall it's still a strong contender and a refreshing difference to zoom-zoom builds.

3.4 brought some changes to the pathing in the Templar area and with it more area damage \o/

Build Functions and Interactions

Spoiler

Targeting a corpse, Detonate Dead deals massive fire damage in an area. The damage consists of 6% of the corpse's health (scaled to 1 player HP in parties) and a flat amount of fire damage. The added fire portion is considered "spell damage" and can be scaled that way. All the damage is scaled by "increased fire damage" and "area damage". When scaling area damage, fire damage/penetration, and spell damage (in that order) we can make Detonade Dead a really hard hitting ability.

Putting it on totems greatly reduces its damage potential (less damage, less cast speed), but successfully prevents reflect deaths. Running on Chieftain allows us to:

* let the totems leech a f*** ton of damage back as life, making us extra tanky
* ignore reflect (chieftain's totems are immune to fire damage)
* gain extra fire penetration
* let the totems taunt enemies, making us more tanky

The leech is so strong that even "No regen" maps are fun to run, and you'll generally only need your health pot if you really screw up - otherwise the leech will carry you!

Since there's little Aura options, we're speccing into Blood Magic, which results in a higher life total and us not ever worrying about the mana cost of a 6-linked totem. Also, Blood Magic allows us to wear the Clear Mind jewel, which grants a ton of increased spell damage when no mana is reserved. Blood Magic counts as having no mana reserved.


Playstyle

Spoiler

Unearth creates initial corpses and triggers Elemental Overload. A single DD totem then kills the first pack in (mostly) a single cast. If more mobs are rushing in, it'll keep casting while you keep moving. Once you're half a screen further, you place the next totem. Corpses will cause a chain reaction of explosions. Occasional unearth casts will direct the totems and keep Ele Overload procced. Bosses and tough rares are weakened by Orb of Storms + Curse on Hit + Flammability + Culling Strike. Desecrate + Spell Cascade provides the highest level of corpses for bosses. Shield Charge + Fortify + Faster Attacks is mobility and defence combined. A lightning golem grants us increased cast & attack speed as well as Haste in an Essence Worm ring. Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call + Enfeeble protects us even more, as does Vaal Grace + Increased Duration.


Passive Tree

Spoiler

Focus is on Life, Fire Damage, Fire Penetration, Elemental Damage, Cast Speed, and Totem stuff:

Level 95 Tree (3.3)

Level 95 Tree (3.4, currently only works in PoB

For leveling, you play Molten Strike + Ancestral Call into Sunder w/ Hatred/Herald of Ash, and you don't pick Blood Magic until you have the Templar area completed. Shortly before you pick up Ancestral Bond, grab all the totem stuff in Marauder/Templar area. Save up 2 passive points and then spec into Ancestral Bond and Blood Magic at the same time. Make sure you have gear to support your gems when you swap. The Uber Lab helmet enchant is not required until yellow maps.

Alternatively, you can grab Ancestral Bond and a good weapon together with Ancestral Warchief to continue levelling with weapons, until you found a good set of spell caster gear, before making the swap to DD totems (thanks to user Camaron). In that case, don't swap into Blood Magic just yet, as Hatred and Herald of Ash are too good for leveling.

Bandits: Kill All.



Required Uniques and Special Gear

Spoiler

This is not a cheap 10c build, nor does it work well in SSF. Why? Because without the Detonate Dead helmet enchant from Uber Lab you'll be dealing only half the damage and you'll feel sad for not playing a meta build. That being said, in a normal trading league it's easy to get the build started. The minimum required items are:

* a 5l Carcass Jack (4l works until yellow maps) ~30c
* a Clear Mind Jewel ~30c (for a well rolled one)
* a helmet with the enchant "Detonate Dead has 45% chance to detonate an additional corpse" ~30c

So you should save up to ~100c to get the minimum gear to kick this off. I didn't notice that so much as I leveled this guy as a league starter and I bought the items in stages while I was progressing.


Gems

Main Skill - RRGBBB

* Detonate Dead
* Spell Totem
* Fire Penetration
* Combustion
* Controlled Destruction
* Efficacy/Concentrated Effect

Efficacy is not the best 6th link, Elemental Focus would be more raw damage but then we would lose out on the -max Fire res we get from Combustion. For red tier bosses, Efficacy can be swapped with Concentrated Effect for even more boom.


Corpse Generator - GBB / GBR

* Unearth
* Greater Multiple Projectiles
* Spell Echo or Increased Critical Strikes. Empower for endgame

All of this should be 21/20 for the max level of corpses, highest cast speed and biggest crit chance. We only need the crit chance to proc Ele Overload reliably, as it's another 40% more multiplier.

For convenience and bossing, I found Spell Echo to work a bit better even. Ele Overload procs a bit less, but the QoL of always having 10 corpses on a single cast is too good. The map clear goes down, since you can't distribute corpses at multiple locations (Unearth has a limit of 10 corpses, before older ones get destroyed) but as I'm not optimizing for speed, I don't care...

As soon as I got Unearth to 21, I swapped in a level 3 Empower. This helps a TON against Shaper, Uber Atziri, as the generated corpses have a LOT more life and do a LOT more booom!


Boss Kill Assists - GBBB / GB

* Orb of Storms
* Curse on Hit
* Flammability
* Culling Strike

Not just does Orb of Storms help triggering Ele Overload, Culling Strike will be your best friend for tough bosses. If you don't need it or you find it clunky, a self-cast Flammability is also fine.

* Desecrate
* Spell Cascade

Unearth can only generate level 77 corpses at level 20. Desecrate can generate corpses up to monster level 100 - so it will always be on zone level and provide bigger booms for bosses. I found it quite useful.


Movement - RRG+B

* Shield Charge
* Faster Attacks
* Fortify
* Lightning Golem

The classic. Requires you to wear a Scepter over a Wand. But to be honest - it's better anyway! Scepters give you up to 40% Elemental Damage, which scales the entirety of Detonate Dead, while wands with %increased Spell Damage only scale the flat fire portion.

I also listed the Lightning Golem here - grants you more attack (and more importantly: cast speed) and just fits into that 4 link.


Utility - RRB / GB / G

If you counted correctly, we have another "hand slot" and 2 more links in our equipment left. Here's how you fill them:

* Cast When Damage Taken
* Immortal Call
* Enfeeble

Another classic. Saves you against porcupines and other burst damage. Instead of Enfeeble you can use Increased Duration, but I find it better if my dangerous mobs are tamed when it counts...

* Vaal Grace
* Increased Duration

I like this combination more than Vaal Haste. Keeps me alive longer in hectic situations.

Finally we use an Essence Worm ring for

* Haste or Herald of Ash

Haste is not as powerful as Vaal Haste, but allows us to use Vaal Grace for more survivability. The additional Move/Cast/Attack Speed helps both offensively and defensively. The loss of the ring slot puts more strain on gear in terms of resist/life, but makes up for it with overall higher DPS and more mobility. If you can sacrifice mobility and want more damage, you can also use Herald of Ash instead of Haste.


Gear

Spoiler

Focus on (in that order)
* Life
* Resist
* Dexterity
* Cast Speed
* % Increased Fire Damage / Elemental Damage
* Area Damage
* Spell Damage

My current gear




A word on the Warped Timepiece: It's a weird amulet for this build, but I have yet to find something better. Even though it's missing life and resist, it offers:
* Cast speed (DPS boost)
* Attack speed (helps with shield charge)
* Movement speed (always welcome)
* Leech rate (this is the big boy)

I would only replace this with a rare amulet if I get a top tier life + cast speed roll. The movement speed and leech rate are underrated imo - especially with this build, that can leech so much life with a single explosion...

Another word on the weapon: a well rolled Void Sceptre (40% increased ele damage implicit) with % inc spell damage (better: fire damage) and 10% or more cast speed is the ultimate beast! If you can't get that, invest into a Doryani's Catalyst. Good staple with decent spell crit for Ele Overload proccing, also has decent attack speed for shield charge.



Leveling this build
Spoiler

Your leveling tree should look like this - and you want to head towards Blood Magic first (without picking it up) and then head upwards to Templar, going towards Ancestral Bond through Purity of Flesh.

The pathing will do itself while skill-wise you should just play any Melee skill into Sunder. Use Hatred and Herald of Ash and you'll be golden. During all this you want to level an Ancestral Warchief totem and your DD totem gems in your weapon swap.

As soon as you reached the passive tree state of the link above, you will want to save up 5 levels without spending them. Once you got 5 unspent skill points you can spec into Ancestral Bond, Blood Magic, and Mortal Conviction (the nodes behind Blood Magic). Drop Hatred and Herald of Ash and start using totems.

Depending on you gear you will want to continue with either Ancestral Warchief or DD. Then you continue into the Witch area to get totem nodes, more spell- and fire damage while filling out life and jewel sockets as needed.

The best time to switch to DD totems is probably around level 70 when you already have your helmet enchant. Up until this point Ancestral Warchief totems are probably faster/more damage.


Frequently Asked Questions

This was a 3.1 build ... does it work in 3.3?

Yes. In 3.2 and 3.3 it got even STRONKER:

* You get 10% fire pen much earlier (Ngamahu, Normal Lab)
* Rares & Uniques now can be covered in Ash when you hit them with Orb of Storms, Unearth, or Shield Charge, making them 20% slower and let you deal 20% more damage
* You get 10% increased Strength and thus a lot more life and life regen \o/


What level would you start using DD over Sunder?

I would wait until I had somewhat decent cast speed leveling gear (on either scepter, shield, rings or amulet) and at least one totem cluster with cast speed besides the Ancestral Bond cluster. Since you won’t be wearing an Uber lab enchant helmet until lvl 70ish you will want that as QoL. Alternatively, you can transition from Sunder into AW totems into DD Totems to make gearing easier.


How does the damage compare to Facebreaker Ancestral Warchief Totems?

If you're looking for efficiency, then Facebreaker AW Totems is probably the better option. If you're looking for a good and fun MEME build that's cheaper to gear up (you don't need flat phys on gear nor steel rings), DD totems is for you.


Is it better to go Hinekora or Tukohama for first 2 Ascendancies

Definitively Hinekora as you want the leech as soon as possible! Leech is the corner stone of this build and its tankyness. Having Tukohama as the Uber Lab Ascendency means you delay the ability to run ele reflect maps, but its a fair trade for the survivability that Hinekora offers...


Isn't Mind Over Matter better defence than Blood Magic?

Maybe. I never played BM and really wanted to try it. Doing it on a totem character seemed obvious as the mana cost of 6l totems is ridiculous (>160) ... as a positive side effect I also can completely ignore less/no regen maps, as the totem leech carries me both health and "mana" wise with Blood Magic.


How does this build handle red Elder? Mostly curious about the ad and unstable phase.

Just fine! The damage is good and with a little practice surviving is not a problem as well. Biggest issues are his Ice Spears which can 2-shot me with 6.2k life. Maybe running a level 20 Purity of Ice in the Essence Worm over Haste could fix that...

Ad phase / unstable phase is fine - with conc effect you can destroy the portals + ads rather quickly, I had no problems there. It's important to have totems on both sides and cast corpses in alternating directions.


Isn't Volatile Dead way faster for map clear???

Hands down: it is. Only reason I settled for DD is because the helmet enchant for VD at this point is time is 10x more expensive than a DD enchant and I couldn't afford said helmet. Also you will need a cremation single target setup, as VD is not so good for bosses...


Is it worth using a 20/20 DD/Vaal DD over a 21 DD?

Good question ... and honestly I don't know as I couldn't test it yet. Vaal DD might be a good addition for bossing, but as bosses flop dead instantly anyway I don't see the point...
### r4wb1rd ###
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Last edited by r4wb1rd#1549 on Sep 17, 2018, 3:06:41 PM
Last bumped on Nov 25, 2018, 9:56:01 PM
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Last edited by r4wb1rd#1549 on Dec 27, 2017, 3:07:25 AM
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### r4wb1rd ###
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### r4wb1rd ###
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What lvl would you start using DD over sunder?
I would wait until I had somewhat decent cast speed leveling gear (on either scepter, shield, rings or amulet) and at least one totem cluster with cast speed besides the Ancestral Bond cluster. Since you won’t be wearing an Uber lab enchant helmet until lvl 70ish you will want that as QoL..

I switched to it as soon as I had access to Ancestral Bond which was mid-Act 4. That was too early :D
### r4wb1rd ###
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Last edited by r4wb1rd#1549 on Jan 15, 2018, 2:03:54 AM
this looks fun
how is dmg of this build compared to AW facebreakers?
Hmm .. hard to tell - I don't have any good comparison. I'd imagine that AW FB is faster and easier as it doesn't require you casting corpses all the time, plus you can make use of the additional phys to fire conversion that Chieftain has. If you look at Ziz's build guide from 3.0 you can see the raw power of a well versed AW chieftain.

If you're looking for efficiency, then AW totems is probably the better options. I was looking into making sth fun out of the new Detonate Dead, so if you're willing to be a bit more on the MEME side - this is more for you.

Gearing will be easier with this build! As stated above you need ~100c to get it started and you only need the 6l Carcass Jack if you want to take a crack at Shaper...
### r4wb1rd ###
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