Flame Totem vs. Incinerate Totem?

Note that I have a 5-Link Soul Mantle (Incinerate) and a 4-Link Searing Touch (Flame Totem), so DISREGARD SPELL TOTEM GEM as far as the argument of "Incinerate uses up a socket".







Question 0: Does Faster Casting affect how fast a Flame Totem fires?

Question 1: Which totem would be better for Endgame damage (practically)?

Question 2: Would it be worth it to add a 20% Added Lightning Damage with Static Blows to either totem? (Can ignore this one, I looked it up and it seems like status mechanics say the answer is no).

Question 3: My current setup for Incinerate is Fire Pen, Faster Cast, LMP (will get GMP soon), and Faster Projectiles (Blind for hard bosses). Is this good or would you recommend something else? I'd use the same setup for Flame Totem except for Faster Projectiles probably, unless there is a change I should make.

I've tried looking this up but I'm constantly getting mixed answers. "Incinerate DPS is better." "30% less cast speed makes Incinerate ineffective." "Flame Totem costs too much." "Flame Totem survives better and doesn't need to charge up its damage to be useful."

I just want to know the truth here so I don't continue wasting my time. Much appreciated!

Incinerate should do slightly better damage against high-HP targets (once it has had time to charge up), but Flame Totem will hit harder initially, so better against trash mobs and in situations where you have to keep resummoning it.

Totems benefit from generic bonuses to cast speed as well as totem-specific bonuses. Flame Totem casts a spell, so cast speed is the relevant speed here (attack speed won't do anything).

For shocking things, your best bet is to get that new helmet that gives 'your fire damage can shock'. I think it should work with totems, in which case it's a great item to use with flamethrower skills. The main issue is getting over the damage threshold per hit, as each puff of flame won't do very much damage.

Blind is a good defensive support to use. Knockback is also hilarious on this kind of skill, although it might reduce your damage output a bit (by knocking monsters out of the kill zone).

You cannot ignore the extra socket in a discussion about this, even with the Soul Mantle. You either have to sacrifice a socket, which means less damage (or less customizability), or you have the equivalent of a level 14 Spell Totem, which is also a damage loss.

But anyway, there was a discussion about this with some math recently (a month or two ago, in one of the class forums) and the consensus was that Flame Totem does more damage. You can probably locate the thread through the search function or Google.

As for your questions:

- Yes, Faster Casting does affect the damage of Flame Totem (as well as any casting speed increases from passives and gear).

- See the thread I mentioned about, but if I recall correctly the difference wasn't so significant that Incinerate spell totems would be completely outclassed. However, this was before the changes to Spell Totem in the 1.1.0 patch. They may have made the difference more substantial.

- No, it's not worth it. If you want to add another damage type, the best choice is Added Chaos Damage.

My Ambush character uses a Blood Magic Flame Totem build. She's 82 right now and she's doing fine. I played a mana-based Flame Totem build before in other leagues (and a couple other Spell Totem builds), which I felt was far more demanding on the gear because of the high mana costs.

It's much easier to get a large HP pool and HP regeneration (my character currently regenerates around 400 HP per second) than it is to get a large HP pool, a ton of mana, and mana regeneration. A 5L Flame Totem (FT + Faster Casting + Fire Penetration + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Added Chaos Damage) with all gems at 18 costs around 320 mana (or in my case: life). With the mana build I also needed auras, EB/AA, and aura reduction nodes). For me, Blood Magic (the keystone) works much better.

Searing Touch is not necessarily the best choice for Flame Totem. I haven't fully tested this (due to not having a 6L Searing Touch), but two wands can give you more %fire damage, more spell damage, and also assorted other mods, especially increased casting speed and faster projectiles, both of which do affect the Flame Totems. Whether the +2 to fire skills makes up for that, I can't say with certainty, but I have doubts. You can also craft a staff with better mods than Searing Touch. (The burn damage is largely irrelevant for FT.)

I think totem life isn't all that relevant. On maps, I frequently spam Flame Totems rapidly and drop them on priority targets. Duration doesn't matter much on maps, either. Mobs either melt in two seconds or they kill the totems quickly (I use two curses, Flammability and Elemental Weakness, the stacking ability is provided by the unique Windscream boots). Against map bosses like Temple Piety, FTs last instants only, just like Spell Totems. FT's advantage is that they start at the full damage before they fold.

edit: For shocking, you can also stick a quality Shocknova in a Trap gem.

So Incinerate > Flame Totem in sustained damage while Flame Totem > Incinerate in damage "bursts" (such as resummoning and trash mobs). But on the same token, Flame Totem, like I mentioned, costs a TON of mana and to summon those consistently is difficult if I want to be using auras. Also, considering they are "trash" mobs, those don't really require the higher initial damage from Flame Totem in order to be effective.

With that in mind, Flame Totem's only REAL appeal is in situations where your Incinerate totems would be dying too fast to do effective damage. It is also great in the sense that you can give it 30% extra health so that it can possibly survive longer. The PROBLEM, however, lies in the mana cost. 60 mana is just too much of a burden when its cost skyrockets because of supports. Maybe if it was a fun/unique skill like Lightning Warp I'd make the sacrifice, but it's essentially the same as Incinerate so I don't think the sacrifice is worth it. While Incinerate dies faster, it also deals damage over a longer area assuming 20% Quality. Also, the mana that is now free allows auras such as Discipline and Purit[ies] to be used, increasing survivability.

Unless there's a reason to switch to Flame Totem, I think I will probably stick with Incinerate and try to get myself a 20% quality gem so I can use Blind fulltime.

Yeah I had a feeling about the cast speed but I just wanted to confirm it to be true.

I never knew about the damage threshold until I looked it up, so that's why I put that clause up top. Made me realize that it's a cute idea but frankly will rarely work.

I like Blind a lot. Not only does it give me some defense to work with, it even gives the totems some defense. I actually put 3 on merciless Vaal and it kept trying to smash the totems, but it kept missing them and they just obliterated him XD It was hilarious.

I didn't use Knockback gem because I REALLY wanted to use Fire Pen and I only had one red socket available, so I sought a different approach. After looking at my skill tree, I noticed Fending near Ironwood and Bloodless (near Blood Magic). Believe it or not, I took for fun to see how well it works...and it's great! I LOVE throwing three totems around a rare or boss and watch them get shoved into each other's flames so they can't move, it's basically a death sentence for any melee that can't get out of it. I also have Projectile Weakness linked to CWDT so that if anything tries to attack me, it gets even more of a chance to get knocked back, though I usually just end up casting Flammability anyway so I might just get rid of it. It's also a low percent that is compounded by 15 knockback checks per second (roughly) so while it doesn't activate TOO often (so that things don't completely leave the stream of fire) it activates often enough to provide a little extra defense so to speak. At the moment it's still just a toy, but for now I'm keeping it <3

Thanks for your response! You're not as incompetent as your name implies :P

When I said that, I meant the fact that one of the leading arguments I found against Incinerate was the fact that you needed to give a socket for Spell Totem which could have been used for another damage support. In this case, I have a 5-link Soul Mantle. Whereas another person would have a 5-link, I essentially have a 6-link since I don't need to waste a socket on a Spell Totem gem. All the negative modifiers still apply, but it doesn't ACTUALLY force me into having only 3 supports to choose from.

Hmm, I never considered a Blood Magic build. Truth be told, I don't actually have my full passive tree planned out as I planned to have it as malleable as possible. I had NO IDEA what kind of character I was going to make, aside from KNOWING it would be a totem build, so I played it by ear and just picked up passives I thought would be the most beneficial. Once I hit 62, I'm going to try out a Lightning Warp totem build (I don't need to respec because the only points that don't help it are the early Witch passives) just for fun, but I'll likely switch back in the end.

...where was I? AH YES, Blood Magic. That passive is actually not far away -- in fact it's only two points away. You make a very valid point and it allows me to drop Clarity. It also allows me to cast constant Flame Totems without fear of mana deprivation. I will probably try it out at some point once my Flame Totem gets leveled up enough to be used. It's currently level 11 whereas my Incinerate is 15, I got this gem late.

While we're on the subject, would you actually recommend the added chaos damage over anything else, or are you using that only because of the coloring? If we assume we lived in a perfect world where all 5 sockets were white, what supports would you use?

I never knew that YOUR cast speed affected the TOTEM'S as well...I guess it makes sense since Karui Ward affected my Incinerate when I used to use it, I just never connected the dots. DEEEEEERP! xD The waste of burning damage was a concern of mine, but I didn't think much of it. Now that you put it in perspective, it does seem unnecessary. What I AM concerned with at the moment, however, is that my Soul Mantle would be relatively unnecessary as well. Aside from the third totem, the main draw of the armor is the built-in Spell Totem gem. Using a totem skill with this armor JUST for the extra totem would be ok...if it weren't for the curses. Temporal Chains, Enfeeble, they would ALSO affect the totem, wouldn't they? Even with flasks of warding, it just seems to be too much of a hassle for such little benefit. It makes more sense to just switch to another armor altogether. I have some white 5L that I could Alc-Scour until I found a good one to use.

What are your thoughts on this? And also thank you very much for your detailed reply! I know that it's not exactly fun to do so so I applaud, commend, and appreciate your attention span <3

add dmg type gem, may depend on what curse you intend to use, if any.

If you use the one that decrease element resists by 30%, both your flame AND cold/lightning increase by 30% dmg.

p.s I have NOT done any maths. Not sure if the initial chaos dmg outperforms (element dmg + 30%) or not.

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GlitchyVirus wrote:

Hmm, I never considered a Blood Magic build.

I hadn't either, until I saw someone mention it at Reddit a few months ago, and then I started to think about it. It solves a number of issues and simplifies gear choices (you only really need life and resists on gear, everything else is a bonus), and no passives are needed for mana/mana regeneration/aura reduction, so you have more for damage, life and life regeneration. There's only one resource for everything. This also helps with flask choices (more room for utility flasks).

There were two concerns that I had:

No auras: This really isn't a major issue from a damage perspective, because the only aura that affects totem damage is Haste, and it's not such an incredible damage boost either (considering it takes up at least two socket spots and you need extra passives for it), everything else is just survivability stuff. (I toyed around with the 40% reduction passive behind Blood Magic to see if I could fit an aura on the character, but even the 40% ones take up too much life to make it worthwhile at all.)

Survivability: The idea of using HP to cast expensive totems worried me initially because I saw myself running around half dead all the time. So far (82), this worry was unfounded. With around 400 HP/sec regeneration and 5L totems costing around 320, the character's health is always topped off even when I spam the totems. Due to having a rather large health pool, getting hit now and then is not an issue, either. After I added Cast When Damage Taken (Enduring Cry, Immortal Call, Molten Shell), I even started to tank for the totems. I'm considering a second CWDT setup (at a different CWDT level) with Enfeeble and Temporal Chains. Oh, and I use an unsupported Conversion Trap for situations where I want to create temporary tanks and decoys, which works really well (you can even convert yellow mobs).

On the flip side, with a mana-based build, you can do neat stuff like Eldritch Battery + Arctic Armor + Mind over Matter (from Cloak of Defiance), which is an incredible combo, but one that requires even more mana and mana regeneration, and you have to teleport a lot more. I can handle miscreations and snakes just fine, though.

As for links, I feel that only FT/Fire Pen/GMP/Faster Casting are essential. For the two others, good choices are Added Chaos Damage, Faster Projectiles (makes the beam longer), Iron Will (since there are so many STR nodes taken with the BM build), Knockback (for PvP), Item Rarity, or the Blind you mentioned (this is actually a good idea for certain situations!). Minion and Totem Resistances were something I considered, and it may still be good in some encounters, but spamming totems works well.

I went with Added Chaos Damage for my 5th gem because it offered the biggest damage boost and also goes through energy shield. With dual curses, I wonder if a different element could not turn out to be better. Would need some math. :)

My character's skills look currently like this: Scion at 82

This would also work for a Marauder.

The next three points will either go into the +1% max resists in the Marauder area, into the 30 INT and DEX nodes to the left of the Duelist area (Quickness and Hard Knocks) to further remove item dependency, or into the remaining totem damage nodes. I tried the Shamanistic Fury cluster above templar instead of the Totem Zeal one down at the bottom of the tree, but this worked out to be less damage. Apparently, "30% casting speed for summoning totems" isn't "you put down totems faster" (as I had read this originally), but 30% faster casting for the totems. It impacts both the dps tooltip as well as the "felt" damage the totems do.

The build is good up to at least 75 maps. I don't doubt it'll do fine on 76, 77 and 78 maps as well, but this is the experience so far that doesn't relay on theory. :) I still only use 5L, as does Assmucus (we both started BM-based FT builds at the same time and then merged our builds together), so there is untapped potential yet, too. I obtained an ilvl 80 Full Dragonscale chest armor, but it refuses to get six linked so far. (I went with STR/DEX armor for the chest because it's easier to color it -- a pure STR armor would be a pain in the behind to get properly colored; STR/INT armor would work, as well.)

A lot of this applies to Incinerate totems as well. With a Soul Mantle (I had one in Domination, but found the curse and the immunity flasks dependency really annoying!), I'd probably do something crazy like triple Stormcall totems, or shock Arc ones, and a mana build. Or dual Stormcall totems with a Carcass Jack. Perhaps next league! :p (Trying to focus on one project this league so I have a chance to get the level 90 achievement out of the way.)

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BisuProbe wrote:

both sucks.
why? lightning thorns

Not an issue. Annoying, yes, but you can drop totems on top of the low-HP casters and take them out quickly. Use Conversion Trap to provide temporary tanks while you run it. You can also lure away the other mobs. It's pretty trivial. Reflect isn't an issue, either.

I run all map mods except "no regeneration". Half reg is fine. I also skip fractured because of the massive lag, but they are perfectly do-able.

While this would apply to either Flame or Incinerate Totems, you cannot underestimate the quality bonus of LMP/GMP, and what it can mean to your DPS, thanks to the faster casting from the quality.

My dual totem build, without access to either Soul Mantle or Searing Touch (in Ambush, and just too miserly to want to make the investment on a character that is a "bootstrapper" and not intended to play past the first few weeks), is planning on a 5L Flame Totem with quality LMP/GMP + Blind + Faster Projectiles + Fire Pen. Dual wield Redbeak, Pain Attunement from the tree, and enough aura passives to run all four Purity auras, Discipline and Clarity (with Blood Magic + Reduced Mana), with just enough mana left over for two totems + curses.

As for lightning thorns/elemental reflect, drop a decoy totem to distract the mobs while you drop Searing Bond directly on the source of the thorns/reflect.

My personal bias is that all totem builds should pack both Searing Bond and Decoy totem, at all times. You could even put both on the same 3L with Totem Resist and still have a powerful tool for taking off some heat.

Something that I think a lot of players fail to accept when playing a totem build is that your kill speed is likely going to be a bit less than other builds. I find slightly lower kill speed to be a wholly acceptable trade-off for the survivability boost that totem play affords, but I understand where some players might not.