[3.25] Frostblink Totems - 70 million dps, all content

Intro

Hi everyone!

I want to share my build, it's probably the most powerful all-round totem char right now. Why Frostblink of the Wintry Blast?
- Frostblink has 'movement' tag, so it gets +5 levels from Bronn's Lithe, allowing extreme level scaling, up to 35 gem level for min-maxed version. It's huge base damage, level 20 Frostblink deals 916 to 1374 damage, while lvl 35 deals 3837 to 5755.
- totems are moving on their own, chasing mobs and going screens away from you on dense maps, it's pretty fun
- off-meta yet very strong


Videos

[3.25] Uber Elder (life version)
[3.25] Sirus
[3.25] T17 Sanctuary map boss (Uber Lycia)
[3.25] T17 Abomination map boss
[3.25] Pure Chayula's Breachstone full run
[3.25] The Feared
[3.25] Maven
[3.25] Searing Exarch

Pros:
+ 40-70 million dps (depending on budget version)
+ Excellent Sanctum runner and bosser
+ Very fast for a totem build, totems move themselves toward enemies
+ Can be a league starter, just use any other totem skill you like until you get transfigured Frostblink and chest
+ Safe, freezes everything

Cons:
- Not a facetank build, you need to be good mechanically
- Frostblink teleportation range is rather short, GGG removed helmet enchant without any compensation. You have to place your totems near mobs, then they auto-target
- Gem swap for hardest bosses, until ubers don't bother
- Capping resists can require some effort

Mechanics
- Frostblink of Wintry Blast hits twice, dealing damage in areas at both ends of the teleport
- Frostblink of Wintry Blast removes chill and cannot chill on its own. That's why we use Cold Snap on bosses, chilled ground doesn't get consumed. Other chilling skills, however, are removed after hit, including Skitterbots chilling aura. We use Skitterbots anyway for shock effect. Also, during mapping it hardly matters, one hit is enough to kill almost every mob, we don't care about chill removed from shattered corpse.
- Frostblink of Wintry Blast has built-in scaling with chill effect, dealing 19% more damage per 5% chill effect on enemy. We chill for maximum 30%, which translates to 114% more damage.
- Low life version utilizes Petrified Blood, every regen source (notably Ritual of Awakening) is 2x stronger as they use %max life value and we have only half to recover
- Arcane Blessing gives 20% more damage. The thing is that this 20% more becomes a part of Arcane Surge effect, scaling with it. And we have 150% increased Arcane Surge effect, translating to 50% more damage.


PoB

Lvl 92 life version, 40 million dps
Lvl 96 life version with Forbidden Jewels, 44 million dps
My current Lvl 97 low life version, 72 million dps

DPS calculation:
PoB doesn't take into account that Frostblink hits twice, at the beginning and the end of movement. So when totems are on the top of boss (and they always are, see videos), they shotgun with both hits.


Ascendancy order

I personally like to level with totems, so: Pursuit of Faith -> Ritual of Awakening -> Conviction of Power -> Arcane Blessing

Bandits
Kill all. You can go for early Alira if you lack resists.

Pantheon
Major: Brine King for freeze and stun immunity.
Minor: Abberath to prevent burning ground from hurting us.

Items explaination
Spoiler

Amulet:

Best in slot, but quite niche and inexpensive. Anoint with new hidden notable 'Wood, Stone and Spell' (Prismatic, Indigo, Silver). Hierophant gets tons of damage from it, as Arcane Blessing adds 20% more to Arcane Surge, it scales with effect.

Chest:

Bronn's Lithe is how we scale damage, not being forced do use Soul Mantle. +5 to Frostblink level is great. If possible, go for corruption +2 AoE. +1/+2 Corruption is definitely the best and not prohibitively expensive, bought mine for 10 div (without sockets or links). Bronn's Lithe is 1c unique, you can buy them en masse and corrupt yourself. Then if you hit, do 4 socket bench craft, then use Tainted Jewellers Orb until 6S. Do 4L on bench, then use Tainted Orb of Fusing until 6L. If you go under 4L, just bench craft again. Color with Tainted Chromatic Orb, it's easy to get off-color sockets this way.

Helmet:

Sandstorm Visage to easily cap crit. Choose max cast speed roll, cheap and useful corruptions like % life regen are a bonus.

Weapon:

Wand or Dagger with +2 to Cold Skills and decent crit chance for Sandstorm Visage. Other good stats to look for are Cast Speed and Crit Multiplier.

Shield:

+1 Totem, life, resists and Critical Strike Chance for Spells. If you have an open prefix, you can craft +2 level to socketed support gems, to boost Enlighten. My shield has crafted life, because of 30% reduced reservation mod made it possible, but this shield is one of a kind.

Ring 1:

Life and resistances. If you have open suffix, you can benchcraft +1 to Minimum Frenzy Charges.

Ring 2:

Enables our curse setup. Somewhat meta, bought for 40c. Aim for high Cast Speed.

Boots:

Life, movement speed and resistances. Open suffix is extremely important, you have to craft 'Increased Effect of non-damaging Ailments' to reach maximum 30% chill. Until you have it, take generic boots with life, movement speed and resists and take 'Elemental Focus' notable near Shadow start co compensate. Respec once you get boots.

Gloves:

Life, resists, high dexterity roll. Use embers to roll Cold Exposure and Unnerve implicits.

Belt:

Life and resists, preferably on Stygian Vise. Use rare Heavy Belt at the start of league if you lack strength.

Jewels:

The Light of Meaning (cold) - socket near Templar start go get the most value of it.

Militant Faith (Dominus) - socket above Witch, look for Totem Damage and Elemental Resistance for 10 Devotion. Make sure that it doesn't brick any important notable in radius.

Forbidden Flame/Flesh (Sanctuary of Thought) - luxury upgrade, costed my 20 div a piece. Not mandatory, but allows to switch to low life version and drop mana flask.

Watcher's Eye - Cast speed (Zealotry) is the best damage mod, +% chance to evade attacks (Grace) is the best defensively.

Medium Cluster - buy 4 passives totem cluster, Harvest Reroll Speed for Sleepless Sentries

Small Cluster - buy 2 passives one with Sublime Form (Grace Reservation) until you have Forbidden Jewels.



Gem links
Spoiler

Main skill:

6L:

Frostblink of Wintry Blast
Spell Totem
Multiple Totems
Increased Critical Damage
Awakened Increased Area of Effect/Concetrated Effect (uber boss swap)

6th slot is flexible, here are your options:
Faster Casting/Awakened Elemental Focus
Mapping/uber boss swap. I like it more, high cast speed feels very good. Awakened Elemental Focus prevents freezes, so it's not recommended for any content other than uber bossing.
OR
Awakened Cold Penetration no swap needed, good if you're lazy

Utility:

4L:
Summon Skitterbots
Bonechill
Awakened unbound Ailments
Cold Snap
Very important setup, enables huge modifiers to hit against chilled enemy.

4L:
Arcanist Brand
Frostbite
Elemental Weakness
Assassin's Mark
Curse setup, drop on bosses along with a Cold Snap

3L:
Grace
Zealotry
Enlighten
Our aura setup. We use Grace, because Bronn's Lithe is high evasion base, it also allows our totems to survive longer when teleporting in the middle of monster packs.

3L:
Steelskin
Automation
Flame Dash
Movement and autmated guard skill.

Life version only 4L:
Cast When Damage Taken
Enfeeble
Temporal Chains
Clarity
CWDT setup to take advantage of out high curse limit, sometimes help when swarmed. Clarity on low level, for Watcher's Eye mod or just to give an extra bit of mana regen.

Low life version only 3L + 1L:
Arrogance
Tempest Shield
Clarity
UNLINKED! Petrified Blood
Why Tempest Shield? Shock immunity is nice, and 26% spell block is better than 0. For this buid, there isn't better 25% reservation skill to reach low life.


How to make money

My strategy was:
1) Early league - run Betrayal, it's nice exp and cash. Gravicius in Transporation can be big money, but don't try too hard, if you gather enough intelligence just rush to Catarina.
2) Mid league - chain Maven witnessed Guardian, Conqueror etc. maps, then run their invitation. Sell Maven Writs, but run Shapers, Elders ans Sirus. Don't gamble, sell unidentified jewels.
3) Mid/late - run Sanctum, it's safe and fun with this build. Totems can block fireball traps, you freeze everything and Lycia just explodes. Highly recommended to leveling safely.

Map mods to avoid
Elemental reflect - doable, but totems die after one hit. Can run map with it if needed to atlas, can do Uber Atziri, but you mostly just reroll it.
No regen - also doable, but requires mana flask. Too annoying, reroll.
Other mods are fine.
Last edited by Melnevacor on Sep 9, 2024, 2:21:28 PM
Last bumped on Sep 15, 2024, 8:40:37 AM
This is brilliant, I have a lvl 100 Hiero that I'm not playing anymore, I love totems, and I will definitely try this.

Thank you so much for sharing!
can u lvling from start to end wioth this skil/build?
"
thomzon wrote:
This is brilliant, I have a lvl 100 Hiero that I'm not playing anymore, I love totems, and I will definitely try this.

Thank you so much for sharing!

Have fun, fellow totems enjoyer.

"
can u lvling from start to end wioth this skil/build?

Frostblink of Wintry Blast is a transfigured version of gem you can obtain from font at the end of the Labirynth, so you won't probably have if it's you first character in a league. You can level as Freezing Pulse totem, tree is the same. Switch to Frostblink once you get Bronn's Lithe.
I went for the most expensive version as I had the funds, but in all honesty it's clearly too expensive for what you get, on a purely performative level. It's also quite fragile, but most totems build are, especially if you keep dashing into packs like I do.

I love it tough! It's fast, the freeze shatters are very satisfying, and the damage is quite good even on the full clear setup.

I might farm some time with this to go for a mageblood, as I feel it would benefit the build quite a lot. I'm thinking quicksilver, silver, jade and stibnite (or bismuth to alleviate resists from gear). That would remove the need for sleepless sentries as well, maybe allowing to invest in a better cluster.

Thanks again for sharing, this is the totem build that I wanted all league but couldn't find.
"
thomzon wrote:
I went for the most expensive version as I had the funds, but in all honesty it's clearly too expensive for what you get, on a purely performative level. It's also quite fragile, but most totems build are, especially if you keep dashing into packs like I do.

I love it tough! It's fast, the freeze shatters are very satisfying, and the damage is quite good even on the full clear setup.

I might farm some time with this to go for a mageblood, as I feel it would benefit the build quite a lot. I'm thinking quicksilver, silver, jade and stibnite (or bismuth to alleviate resists from gear). That would remove the need for sleepless sentries as well, maybe allowing to invest in a better cluster.

Thanks again for sharing, this is the totem build that I wanted all league but couldn't find.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoy it. Sure it's on the squishier side, but freezing is the best crowd control mechanic out there.

Regarding Mageblood - I've actually farmed it on this build (50/50 sanctum and bossing), was running with the exact flask setup you proposed. But I wanted to avoid showcasing anything with a 250 div unique, gave it to my wife who is grinding for 40/40, her build make a better use of it.

Another luxury upgrade I have planned is wand with "you are haunted by tormented spirits". It's 100% uptime 35%cast/movement speed with random ghost bonus, certainly worth trying before runecrafting go core in (probably) nerfed state.
Very nice idea with the runesmithing, did not even think about it.
I'll definitely try as well.

Also I never really played that much Sanctum, sounds like the perfect build to finally do.
which weapons can you recommend for early leveling?

edit: how do you sustain mana? it costs me 285 mana per totem and thus i cant reserve any mana by using auras?
Last edited by asdfgah on Sep 13, 2024, 3:05:49 PM
"
which weapons can you recommend for early leveling?

I like to use dual Axiom Perpetuum for massive crit chance early
"
how do you sustain mana? it costs me 285 mana per totem and thus i cant reserve any mana by using auras?

Until you get expensive Fordibben Flame/Flesh (which are mandatory only for low life version), use small 2 passive cluster with Sublime Grace. In leaves enough mana to play comfortably with enduring mana flask. I see that you went to +30 dex passive below templar, so you can also take Tireless cluster, life and reduced mana cost should help a lot. You can respec some life nodes and Pain Attunement, it has no use in life version.
Hi I liked the idea and farmed the gem on SSF, & I loved the playstyle.
Currently at act 6, single target damage is a bit on the low side, but I'm sure I can get to maps.

If it isn't too much to ask, could you please give a rough idea on tree for SSF/league start scenario?

Actually I made my own SSF tree based on yours
https://pobb.in/sZB4wtEuHx3E
But not sure if it's good, I never make a build myself

I'm planning to drop grace, running only skitterbots+zealotry and also take whispers of doom so I can have 2 curse (frostbite+elemental weakness), since I never get anathema on SSF
Last edited by Hansen_Haryono on Sep 14, 2024, 11:54:10 PM

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