Phrecia - Roots of the Grove mechanics vs Shaper of Flames?

Hello exiles,

I am confused about the Roots of the Grove wording from the Daughter of Oshabi compared to the Elementalist node like Shaper of Flames.

PoE Wiki:

Shaper of Flames is a notable Ascendancy passive skill for the Elementalist. It causes your hits to always inflict ignite and causes all damage types to scale ignite damage. It also grants more ignite damage if the element the hit dealt the most damage of is fire damage.

Wording:
All Damage can Ignite
Hits always Ignite


Roots of the Grove:
All Damage inflicts Poison against Enemies affected by at least # Grasping Vines: This modifier both allows non-physical/non-chaos damage to poison and guarantees that all hits have 100% chance to poison. This can add a non-negligible amount of damage to builds that can overcome the downsides with little specialization into poison. This mod only affects the wearer and does not affect allies; equipping it on an Animate Guardian will not allow the player or their other minions to poison.

Wording:
All Damage inflicts Poison against Enemies affected by at least 5 Grasping Vines
Inflict 1 Grasping Vine on Hit

Especially the part "This mod only affects the wearer and does not affect allies"



Why does Shaper of Flames work for Totems, but Roots of the Grove does not?



Background:

I mostly played Explosive Arrow Totems/Elementalist and Iron Commander Siege Ballista Totems/Hierophant (Dex Stacker) in the past.

Now in Precia, I planned to do another Iron Commander Dex Stacker, but ended up just going with Siege Ballista Totems and a rare bow, so only 6 Totems instead of like 15+, and it still works out amazing.

My character is public - BertaVonSchmock

At the moment I specced into Forest Tracking with the 2% inc dmg per 450 evasion, which gives me around ~200% inc dmg at the moment.

But I was wondering if I could drop it and spec into Roots, switch Hypothermia support for Barrage support, and inflict an extra ton of small poison stacks instead with my Totems.

But it looks like that won't work :(

"

DerPestmann#0723 wrote:

Wording:
All Damage inflicts Poison against Enemies affected by at least 5 Grasping Vines
Inflict 1 Grasping Vine on Hit

Especially the part "This mod only affects the wearer and does not affect allies"



Why does Shaper of Flames work for Totems, but Roots of the Grove does not?

....does it not?

The wiki gives a clarification of the mechanic because of the ambiguous wording on the item itself (Inextricable Fate), and on the passive.


It could be read that by taking this passive, if you apply 5 Grasping Vines to the enemy, then anyone that hits that enemy has 100% chance to poison it with all damage.
The way the passive actually works is that if an enemy has 5 Grasping Vines on it, then the modifier makes your hits have 100% chance to poison it with all damage. The modifier does nothing for your party members or your minions.


Totems are a different story, though. Totems are proxies, not minions; they use your skills using your stats. The passive should work for them just as well as Shaper of Flames works.

hmmmmmmmm....does it not..

I will try it out now, on some Conq/Elder/Shaper boss maps with inc HP, extra ES as HP, etc. and watch how it works out hehe.

Thank you for your input, I just was confused and a bit hesitant to try.

On the other hand, the Mini Map Icons for Rare/Uniques on the Forest Tracking node is super comfy ;)



Edit:
and there is also this, hmm... well i will test now



Ally refers to any creature on the player's side. They are subject to effects granted by equipment and skills, which have in their description "grants (effect) to nearby allies". Allies include:

Players in your party
Minions
Totems
Mirage Archers, Mirage Warriors, Mirage Saviours and Mirage Chieftains

Ok so I tried a Drox map with Life as extra ES map mod and two Titanic Scarabs of Treasures (60% inc toughness for Uniques), which makes Drox and all his banners super tanky, and it looks like it works.

His HP pool drops very slowly while his ES is still up, so I certainly deal chaos damage with my Totems and he moves around super slow due to a bunch of Grasping Vines.

I'm not sure though if it is actually worth it, since my build is purely focused on elemental damage and I probably can't invest a lot into poison scaling.

I'm gonna try some normal mapping with Hypothermia instead of barrage now to see how it feels, but I guess I'm gonna switch back to the Forest Tracking node sooner or later.

Anyway, interesting that it works ;)