Feedback on Artillery Totems and Totem Mechanics in Path of Exile 2
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I’ve been experimenting with an Artillery Totem build using the Warbringer Ascendancy, and while the playstyle has potential, several mechanics and interactions feel unclear or underwhelming. Below, I’ve detailed my observations and provided suggestions for improvements to enhance the totem experience.
Key Issues and Observations 1. Totems Are Ignored by Monsters Monsters completely ignore totems, making investments in increased health and resistances feel pointless (aside from surviving AoE damage). In contrast, Earthquake Totem appears to draw aggro, but Artillery Ballista does not. If this is intended, it significantly limits the viability of stationary totem builds. 2. Ancestral Spirits in the Warbringer Ascendancy The spirits are generally underwhelming in terms of impact: Turtle Spirit: Provides increased defenses/block, which is helpful, but block doesn’t benefit crossbows, limiting its usefulness. Witch Spirit: Offers some utility with her stunning Jade Ring, but the effect is highly situational. Bear Spirit: Frequently leaps away from mobs and becomes ineffective, making it unreliable. Rage Spirit: Adds rage on hit, which is understandable for melee builds, but feels useless for a ranged/totem build. Additionally, this spirit seems to appear disproportionately often, making it frustrating when more applicable spirits would better support the build. 3. Weapon and Stat Scaling for Totems Artillery Totem scaling appears to be limited to +X to Projectile Skills on equipped weapons, ignoring other relevant stats such as: Attack Speed Attack Damage Leeched as Mana/Life Elemental Damage with Attack Skills If this limitation is intentional, it makes weapon choice feel overly restricted to +Projectiles, instead of allowing players to experiment with more varied and synergistic stats. 4. Gem Quality Not Working Properly A 20% quality Artillery Totem gem (granting +20% attack speed) does not update the tooltip or appear to impact gameplay. Smaller bonuses to attack speed (e.g., +5-7% from the passive skill tree) are noticeable during gameplay, but the +20% from gem quality has no visible effect, suggesting a bug. 5. Damage Output and AOE Scaling Artillery Totem struggles to deal consistent damage: Mobs walking even slightly will dodge nearly all of the ballista’s projectiles. Area damage from explosions feels lackluster, particularly against scattered mobs. 6. Pile On Passive Notable Not Working The passive notable Pile On ("-60% increased damage to enemies with fully broken armor") doesn’t seem to work with Artillery Totems. It’s unclear whether this notable only applies to melee or physical hits, but the way it reads suggests that enemies with broken armor should take 60% more damage regardless of skill type. This becomes particularly noticeable against bosses, where breaking armor in under five seconds doesn’t seem to provide a significant damage boost. Suggestions for Improvement 1. Aggro Mechanics for Totems Allow Artillery Ballista and other totems to taunt or draw mob attention, similar to Earthquake Totem. Alternatively, clarify which totems are designed to hold aggro and which are not. 2. Ascendancy Spirit Adjustments Rework Ancestral Spirits to provide more impactful buffs and utility: Example: Bear Spirit could taunt enemies effectively or improve its mob engagement. Add a mechanic to allow players to choose which spirits they summon. For example, if four spirits can be summoned, players could configure it to 1 Turtle Spirit, 2 Witch Spirits, and 1 Bear Spirit to better tailor support to their playstyle. 3. Weapon and Stat Interaction Expand the range of scaling options for totems to include: Attack Speed Attack Damage Leeched as Mana/Life Other weapon stats that naturally align with projectile-based skills. Add more clarity in tooltips about which weapon stats affect totems and which do not. 4. Gem Quality Bug Investigate and resolve the attack speed scaling issue with Artillery Totem gem quality. 5. Damage and AOE Buffs Increase explosion AoE or damage scaling to help Artillery Totem handle packs more efficiently. Alternatively, introduce mechanics such as Ancestral Bond (e.g., "You can't deal damage yourself +1 to maximum totems") to improve synergy and enable more creative build options. 6. Pile On Notable Passive Interaction Investigate the interaction of Pile On with Artillery Totems and confirm whether its bonus is intended to apply to all damage types or only melee/physical. If it’s meant to work with all damage, ensure it provides a noticeable damage increase, especially against bosses. Final Thoughts I enjoy the concept of totems managing damage while I focus on survival, dodging, and looting. This style works particularly well in mechanics like Sanctum, where mobility is key. However, the current issues with aggro mechanics, scaling, and spirit utility hinder the viability of Artillery Totem builds compared to other options. I hope this feedback helps refine the mechanics for Artillery Totem and other totem-based playstyles in Path of Exile 2. Last bumped on Dec 17, 2024, 7:56:46 AM
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" Absolutely agree. " +level to gems is found outside of weapons but I believe your point is that your weapon otherwise doesn't assist your totem besides that. This is mostly true. I believe crossbow-based ballista builds will actually want their weapon stats to supplement OTHER crossbow skills (apply shock? oil grenades?). I think supplemental skills provided via a weapon swap leaves room for creative freedom new to poe2. Lastly, if you're playing a Warrior-based ascendency then you have harder access to Dex and Int which could be provided via the crossbow (as a attribute stick basically). It seems that the Cumbrous Crossbow (+1 to summoned ballista totems) isn't in the game which is real sad. " I played around with oil grenade to slow more. Also played around with Blueflame Bracers (100% fire damage converted to cold) to play with the idea of freezing. It's rough and didn't feel good. Leaning into Less Skill Effect Duration makes the explosion trigger faster but also kills your totem duration leading to a resource puzzle instead. " It's a less known feature (and often broken) that you can hold shift while hover passive tree nodes to see which skills they affect and how. The bugs here should be fixed and the feature should be applicable to looking at items. I realize this is slightly tricky because there has always been a challenge of showing the difference between damage adjustments from the source (the skill) vs the recipient (the monster) but some indicator would be better than nothing. We're all still so fresh to the new landscape and tools available in poe2 that it's easy to feel like certain skills are unplayable. Usually it comes down to supplementing them appropriately in creative ways. We also only have access to have of the weapons, skills, supports that will come in the full release. Even after they fix some of the bugs you raised I think totems will require a fairly expensive investment to feel viable. I think this would be a problem and I hope it doesn't get ignored. |
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