(Retired Thread) Wallach's Hierophant Freezing Pulse Totems
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But you get to use a 2nd wand, which can give more dmg than a shield, so single target isn't that much worse. And 6 totems is way more coverage than 4, so it's better for clear speed, not worse. It's worse for freezing tho, that's true.
It's up to preference and what content you are doing. I tested early mapping with both setups, dmg is fine with both and clear speed is better with 6 totems, so I'm just gonna use multiple totems support if I get my 5l soul mantle before a +1 shield. | |
" Thanks, I have tried to make the guide as easy to digest as possible for people who are either new to the game entirely, or just new to totems as a play style. That said I probably will try to expand on the leveling tips section for the 3.8 guide update, so these are useful questions. " In general I think you'll have no issues using this build as a league starter and using it to farm your own items. I plan to use this as my own league starter for 3.8. The one thing I would say is that taking the First Snow jewel from the quest reward in Act 5 is super important, and if you're in a trade league, I think the first thing you should spend any early currency on is getting a second First Snow jewel. These will appear on the trade site extremely early because people will also be playing builds that don't use any threshold jewels for their own league starters, so people often pick one and sell it for a couple early Chaos while they are leveling. And because it is an Act 5 quest reward, nobody can really put them up for very much currency. Just having two First Snow jewels alongside rare gear is more than enough to get you started in maps. " Yeah I could probably expand a bit on the priority of getting the core uniques for this build for the guide. I do mention this a bit in the video guide, though - generally, you don't really want to switch to Soul Mantle until you have both Kikazaru rings, because (at least in my opinion) until you have 100% reduced curse effectiveness on yourself, the downside of Soul Mantle can be a real burden while you are leveling. So, when you are league starting from scratch, your order of priority should look something like this: * First Snow jewel x2 * Soul Mantle + Kikazaru x2 (do not equip until all three are in hand) * Self-Flagellation jewel * Wise Oak flask * Clear Mind jewel The last two are kind of your own call, because neither are really "core" items that the build leans on that hard. They're just naturally good items for the build and enhance the core foundation of the items above them. " I don't know if I really want to get so specific that I direct people through every single node, because I don't want people to think that each of the node choices through the tree are actually particularly important. For the most part, the node choices that I do think are that important are already mentioned in the leveling tips section (such as suggestions as to when to take Keystones like Mind Over Matter). So when you are looking at the Path of Building planner import, and you look at say the "Normal Labyrinth" tier from the bottom-left dropdown, you can pretty much follow that progression in a straight line because there is not much meaningful difference between when you take, say, Retribution vs Light of Divinity. Essentially, if you're feeling uncertain about progression of notables, just take a look at those Labyrinth breakpoints, and simply take every notable in a straight line as you come to those nodes. The only exception to this that would have any serious impact is the point at which you decide to take the Keystones in this build (Ancestral Bond or Mind Over Matter). I'll actually probably edit the leveling tips section to suggest people pick up Ancestral Bond a little bit later than I currently do (I previously wanted people to just get into the full totem playstyle earlier), and I already mention in the leveling tips section the information you should consider as to the timing of taking Mind Over Matter. Everything else in the tree you can pretty much allocate as you reach it between the leveling breakpoints I've outlined and you'll be perfectly fine. " I think as a general rule, you shouldn't really care about evasion. I think you need a pretty different tree setup to get any value at all out of that defensive stat, and it's not one I put any investment into for my builds. For the most part, your defensive stat priority kind of looks something like this: * Resists up to 75% caps (sans Chaos, which you don't need outside of what we get in the passive tree, though is still a fine stat to acquire on gear) * Life & Mana (keeping in mind our ratios for the Mind Over Matter using the formula I mention in the guide) * Armor (this is a decent stat as an affix since it helps shore up our low physical mitigation and helps improve the effective value of our Life and Mana totals) * Energy Shield (this is generally something I value lower than Armor because don't get much of any investment here compared to Life or Mana; this stat does not improve the value of our eHP as much, and generally only serves as a minor "first hit" buffer with a footnote of minor stun avoidance) " I'll try to have an update for the guide as soon as I can, so hopefully I'll have something together. Unfortunately there is not a large window between patch notes and league start, but I hope to have it done by Thursday. Bear in mind that Path of Building will almost surely not be updated before league start, so things like the updating Path of Building link (with the Labyrinth breakpoints for tree leveling) will not be something I can update until Path of Building is updated. I should however at least have the full level 95 skill tree planned out through the official website by then. Last edited by Wallach on Sep 2, 2019, 7:00:34 PM
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" Honestly, for the price of a Tukohama's Fortress you should be able to acquire a +1 Shaper shield. You only need an ilvl 70 Shaper shield to roll the +1 totem affix, and it is actually not that an rare affix. Crafting one with Alterations is probably the better option early on, and should be easier than an early game Tukohama's both currency-wise and build-wise. | |
" Sorry to quibble, but removing MOM & Divine Guidance (meaning 40% of damage going to your mana) means at most 40% less EHP, definitely not 66%. (It would be 100%-40%, not 60%-40%) --- Regarding Cold Snap- how useful are y'all finding it with CWDT-Bonechill? I didn't see it proc very often in the videos- especially on tougher stuff, which is where it's helpful. I'm considering going EB-MOM for auras, which means I'm getting pretty thirsty for sockets. Last edited by Toraeus on Sep 2, 2019, 7:52:38 PM
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" I think he's saying the 40% MoM is a 1.66 multiplier against your existing life pool, which it is. But you also have to consider that removing MoM implies a bunch of shifting out of mana from the tree and gear back into raw life, so it wouldn't have that level of raw impact in practice. As far as Cold Snap, it's honestly a little hard to see in practice because the visual for Cold Snap gets obscured a lot. If you were going to switch into EB though it would be the first thing I consider removing for socket room for sure. | |
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Sorry to double post, but I just wanted to say that after reading the balance manifesto for Blight, I feel like this build is sitting pretty. We'll have the opportunity to get at least +1 gem level for Freezing Pulse from main hand, and there will probably be some minor routing changes to account for the further mana node changes (which may wind up being a buff). If anything my guess is the build is just slightly stronger than now in Blight.
The only real question mark I have for tomorrow is how they are changing the Hierophant mana path. We may lose some defensive power if they change Divine Guidance, but I suspect their change is more directed towards Sanctuary of Thought. It's... possible I suppose that somehow Sanctuary of Thought becomes more desirable than Conviction of Power, but I think it is unlikely. We'll have to see when patch notes hit tomorrow. Edit - I just saw the leaked changes that apply to the Hierophant mana line. TLDR: we'll get about ~8% free total damage and lose a very small amount of total mana. Overall buff, and we may wind up with more overall mana (and thus damage) from the passive tree changes. Could be less, but from the way the balance manifesto is worded I expect more mana access in the tree instead of less. Last edited by Wallach on Sep 2, 2019, 10:49:54 PM
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Going into the next league, would the following make sense:
(weapon) Frost Bomb, Impact Mines & Charged Mines This will give frenzy charge generation (more damage, more cast speed) and a chance for double damage (as far as I understand the language on Impact Mines, it seems to apply it as a debuff so our totems would benefit?). & Coldsnap, Bonechill, Cast on Hit, Frostbite This mostly to make the coldsnap/bonechill debuff more accessible and not tied to being hit. | |
" In theory this would be very strong, in practice it's going to depend entirely on how clunky it feels to have throw the mine and detonate it to get your Frost Bomb. We'll have to see what the numbers on the new Mine supports look like but they will have to be very big to be worth the QoL IMO. IGN: Dmillz
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I actually talk a bit about Charged Traps in the Balance Manifesto video I'm uploading to my channel, but the short version is that I personally wouldn't add a trap or mine setup into my own build. I'll probably mention it in the guide update since people will be more curious about it with the mines changes, but I think that between totem summoning, curses and Frost Bomb the build is already active enough that adding frequent trap or mine throwing winds up being pretty obnoxious. Everyone is different, and some people aren't going to mind, but I personally would not bother with it. Especially so if you wind up anointing Disciple of the Slaughter as you'll always have 1 minimum Frenzy charge as it is.
I would agree though that adding traps is probably the "ideal" min/max option, but it was true in 3.7 too and I don't think my consideration will change much about it in 3.8 with the mine changes. | |
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Understood, but just a question for me.
If you tied curses to coldsnap (curse on hit and bonechill) and changed frost bomb to something like 'Frost Bomb', 'Trap Support', 'Charged Trap', 'Increased Area of Effect', then you would still only have 2 button presses outside of Totems (albeit, it would be more spammy without increased duration). Maybe not worth 12% more damage though. Last edited by faytte on Sep 3, 2019, 2:45:14 AM
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