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

Alright - one month in, I'm close to starting a new character and I'm thinking of re-creating this one. Has any1 tried this beast in Delve?

How well does it perform in deep delves? How far down did you get?

Has any1 attempted Uber Elder?

I'm in the process of creating this in HC Delve, but a Scion version.

Any suggestions for the second ascendancy choice? I was thinking Hierophant, but would the 3rd totem have any use?

Does a third totem make sense? Probably not - there won't be enough corpses to explode.

I would say either Elementalist (more pen, then swap Haste with Herald of Ash b/c of the 40% herald effect, and then run Lightning and Flame Golem) or Pathfinder (for a little bit less pen than Elementalist but more zoom zoom and qol)

is this build still viable? Im returning to the game, and got a 05 Chieftain just hanging out in standard without talent tree :)

It is - I'm levelling it in Delve atm (lv 79) and it shreds content as well as Delves.

Here's my opinion thus far, although it should be discounted since I've strayed a bit far from your original build (Ascendant - Chieftain/Occultist).

Things great about this build for Delve:

- Stomps maps all the same as previous patches.
- Most Delve encounters are 'Elreon'-like phases: drop your DD-Totes, watch the phases be completed in automation.
- Fossils open a lot of potential for this build for very cheap. For example:



I crafted this with Pristine (Life) + Scorched (Fire) fossils very cheaply. I hit several similar rolls along the way, but the life rolled lower.



Same thing here with Pristine and Scorched fossils. Managed a decent life roll with fire damage after 10-20 tries.


Things not so great about this build for Delve:

- Evasion, dodge, blinds, slows, chills, freezes are currently king for high delving builds. Everything hits hard once you get into 600+, and the best way to mitigate that is to stop them from hitting you and killing them first. This build has great sustain, but as it is primarily fire-based and uses "high-health" as a defense mechanism, its capacity to delve deep is limited.

Isn't Trolltimber a good option there? It has increased area of effect for skills used by totems, which is huge, and also extra life leech.

This looks really fun! Thank you for the great write up and video. I'd like to use this build for 3.5, will this still work?

Also, would there be any other skills that could work besides DD? I'll be playing with a friend this league and it might be screen overload, lol. Flameblast or RF maybe?

"

Battles4Seattle wrote:

This looks really fun! Thank you for the great write up and video. I'd like to use this build for 3.5, will this still work?

Also, would there be any other skills that could work besides DD? I'll be playing with a friend this league and it might be screen overload, lol. Flameblast or RF maybe?

I would not worry about screen overload, but about the fact that you have to perform 2 actions (summon totem, create corpses) while your friend might be only using one main ability.

Which means that you will be slower than your friend in most cases. As I outlined in the build guide: the build is best suited for solo play. If your friend is not playing a zoom-zoom build then it will work fine tho.

As for 3.5 - we all haven't seen the patch notes yet. I can guess that it will be fine, but we won't know for sure until we see the patch notes.

Rest assured that I will test the build once 3.5 comes out and that I will update the build guide accordingly.

Thank you, r4wb1rd!