[3.15] Elemental Hit Ballista Totem Hiero | Budget Friendly | League Start to Endgame

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wayne8181 wrote:

Great guide! I have never played any totem build before and managed to finish act 10 in four and half hours with tabula, quill rain and combat focus jewels.

a few thoughts as new to totem: ...

Thank you!

The leveling guide was written with a few goals in mind:

- Being able to League Start with it
- Minimal Purchase required
- Minimal Skill Tree Respec required

Thus it might not be the most ideal one if you already have some currency and not doing it at league start.

Like you, I also used Tabula Rasa's Elemental Hit setup to level up my second character since I already have access to all the Core Items for this build.

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wayne8181 wrote:

not sure but making a bow with +1 socketed/ +2 support might be another option. this requires to buy a 6L bow+ empower lv4 but free up helm slot for berserk buff effect + addition pierce craft. the crafting cost about 4~5 ex and another two ex for empower. since it's cheaper than corrupted forstferno (+2 was like 15ex?), I was wondering if you have any comments or thoughts about that.

I personally has no interest and desire to explore any 6 Link Elemental Hit Ballista Totem Setup so I don't really have any comments or thoughts about this.

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To everyone:

Since 6 Link Elemental Hit Setup and Cluster Jewels have been a common question recently, I have added a new FAQ section plus a subsection "1.1 Goal of this guide" to my guide today so everyone can understand better the goal and idea of this guide plus the answers to these questions.

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bartpio wrote:

@Vei - regarding your Jewel Cluster comparison.
Indeed using your POB it is downgrade in DPS.

But ...

If you know the game the 5.1k life is enough for the build.

Here's what i did :

Drop Allira.
Drop Juggernaut Wheel.
Drop 2 small nodes near Purity of Flesh wheel.

This way i can have King of the Hill and Cluster wheel. Plus primeval force wheel.
Also if you have enough accuracy, the Farsight is better than Acuity :)

For me the cluster is around 20% More DPS.

What's more - now i am thinking about changing the cluseter to fire one with Cooked alive and Cremator. Additional 200k dps.

But that's min-maxing for the passionate ones.

Basically you are trading Life plus Quality of Life stuff into DPS, that's totally fine if you are good with 5.1k life. I recall there was a guy, in 3.11 or 3.12, who is fine with playing with 4k life. Objectively speaking, as one plays the build, they will find an amount/point(In terms of Life and Quality of Life stuff) where they will be comfortable with. That will be something everyone has to discover for themselves. Before that, my guide's starting point will be to provide a safe and comfortable amount for people to adjust later.

Which means, with regards to the guide's direction/contents, I try to balance it halfway(A slight bit towards casual side) between the most hardcore/meta and softcore/casual players:

For example, if

0% = Impenetrable Defense
100% = Total Glass Canon

I kind of positioned my guide around the 40% mark. Like I mentioned before, most people tend to adjust things towards the DPS side compared to adjusting it towards more defensively, so I would prefer to position it a bit more defensively.

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aaOzymandias wrote:

This build has been a blast so far! The most fun I have had in a long long time tbh!

I sold off all my league starter items from my other failed build, reinvested into this and just went for it. Doing most content easily now! (Well, except that 4x breach lord invitation)

I am still not finished leveling, only at 93 now (as Ascendant: Chief/Raider), but I am curious on what you guys would recommend for trying to squeeze more damage out of it? I am still working on my rings, and I guess perhaps my belt could be better:

Spoiler

Awesome to hear that the build has been a blast and lots of fun for you! :)

There is basically 2 approach you can consider, either one or both

1. Pay Currency to get big DPS

This means:

A. Switching to Double Curse Setup(Awakened Hextouch Level 5 or Whisper of Doom)
B. Buying Bottled Faith

2. Min-Maxing

This will be the harder, more work approach. If you look at your rare equipment, they are not very min-maxed, i.e. we try to fill up all 6 affixes on each rare with the most useful high tier affixes, e.g. DPS, Resist, etc that we can get on them and each one at the correct equipment slot. For example, Flat Accuracy should be obtained from Gloves because they can go up to 600 at that slot while other Rare slots only go up to 480, if you look at 11. Mid-Tier Equipment Details I indicated specific thing on specific rares slot and there's a reason for that.

And as Bartpio has pointed out also, Marylene's Fallacy does much more DPS than your rare amulet, so unless you need the defensive affixes on your rare amulet, it's better to use a near max crit multi Marylene's Fallacy.

Other Small Adjustments/Upgrades

- Adjusting small Passives at Primeval Force - You took the lower path, the 10% chance to Freeze, Shock and Ignite doesn't do anything for us. We have more than 100% chance to Ignite, and we don't do cold and lightning damage so the Chance to Shock and Freeze is useless.

- Switching to 20% quality Divergent Ballista Totem

- Getting a Boot Enchant, refer to 24. Enchantments in the guide for details

Hope the above helps.

Regards

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GikGokJung wrote:

Thank for you guide, i can do all boss with low cost gear in this league. this build so fun

Spoiler

Your welcome, happy to hear it's serving you well. :)

Have fun!

Cheers

Thanks for the inputs! It does make a lot of sense.

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bartpio wrote:

Just a question to 2 posts above. Why did you drop Marylene Fallacy ...

Not sure on their parts, but Marylene's with my amulet appears to be about 9% worse. Since I self-crafted mine the cost was relatively low, but Marylene's is definitely more than enough for 95% of cases from what I've seen.

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bartpio wrote:

@Vei - regarding your Jewel Cluster comparison.
...
What's more - now i am thinking about changing the cluseter to fire one with Cooked alive and Cremator. Additional 200k dps.

This was interesting and got me thinking - I have been running Cremator and Master of Fire (nearby enemies get fire exposure). Does Cooked Alive work with our totems or does the wording cause it to not work? Seems like the "you" part works when it's something that affects enemies such as Cremator, but doesn't work for things like Cinderswallow's recovery so I just want to make sure.

I swapped my PoB around by respeccing Alira -> 2 passive to grab another jewel socket since I didn't need the res from her.

Here's my PoB in case anyone is interested:

https://pastebin.com/EgLMGPDY

I have Sniper's Mark disabled since it isn't totally realistic to assume everything is on a boss all the time during fights, but I do my best to have it and all our other debuffs up on the big stuff. Also some other configs like intimidated are not on, though I do have chance to intimidate thanks to a Timeless Jewel bought from Vei.

If anyone seems glaring issues to fix or has questions about the PoB let me know.

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Brutalextremez wrote:

This was interesting and got me thinking - I have been running Cremator and Master of Fire (nearby enemies get fire exposure). Does Cooked Alive work with our totems or does the wording cause it to not work? Seems like the "you" part works when it's something that affects enemies such as Cremator, but doesn't work for things like Cinderswallow's recovery so I just want to make sure.

I swapped my PoB around by respeccing Alira -> 2 passive to grab another jewel socket since I didn't need the res from her.

Here's my PoB in case anyone is interested:

https://pastebin.com/EgLMGPDY

I have Sniper's Mark disabled since it isn't totally realistic to assume everything is on a boss all the time during fights, but I do my best to have it and all our other debuffs up on the big stuff. Also some other configs like intimidated are not on, though I do have chance to intimidate thanks to a Timeless Jewel bought from Vei.

If anyone seems glaring issues to fix or has questions about the PoB let me know.

Since you are going the Cluster Jewel route already I can suggest something better than your current Medium Cluster Jewel. Go for a Large Cluster Jewel(Fire Damage Enchantment, 8 Passive) with Cremator and Corrosive Element(To Replace Cooked Alive) being the 2 nearest Notable(Will need a 3rd unwanted Notable taking that furthest away Notable Position) so you only need to invest 5 Passive Points for 2 Notables + 2 Jewel Socket

This has 2 advantage over the Medium Cluster Jewel:

1. Lets you access 1 more Jewel Socket with just 1 more Passive Point

2. Corrosive Element's Fire Exposure will be triggered by totems so we don't need to bother with whether Cooked Alive works with our totem or not, plus Corrosive Element also gives another 15% Elemental Damage.

To bartpio: The above is also for you if you go for the Cluster Jewel :)

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Vei wrote:

Since you are going the Cluster Jewel route already I can suggest something better than your current Medium Cluster Jewel. Go for a Large Cluster Jewel(Fire Damage Enchantment, 8 Passive) with Cremator and Corrosive Element(To Replace Cooked Alive) being the 2 nearest Notable(Will need a 3rd unwanted Notable taking that furthest away Notable Position) so you only need to invest 5 Passive Points for 2 Notables + 2 Jewel Socket

This has 2 advantage over the Medium Cluster Jewel:

1. Lets you access 1 more Jewel Socket with just 1 more Passive Point

2. Corrosive Element's Fire Exposure will be triggered by totems so we don't need to bother with whether Cooked Alive works with our totem or not, plus Corrosive Element also gives another 15% Elemental Damage.

Excellent suggestion, thank you! I made the swap after finding a cluster for 2ex that fit the criteria. Until I level up again the point will go into life. I thought about putting it into a point toward Acuity, but I'd rather have the 100+ life from a 5% small passive.

Updated PoB with your suggestion:
https://pastebin.com/C2jpkMBe

I took your earlier advice Vei.



Still need to recraft life, but should be already good :)

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bartpio wrote:

I took your earlier advice Vei.

Still need to recraft life, but should be already good :)

That's a juicy one exile! :D

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Brutalextremez wrote:

Excellent suggestion, thank you! I made the swap after finding a cluster for 2ex that fit the criteria. Until I level up again the point will go into life. I thought about putting it into a point toward Acuity, but I'd rather have the 100+ life from a 5% small passive.

Updated PoB with your suggestion:
https://pastebin.com/C2jpkMBe

Awesome! :)

Just to answer the poster why I originally replaced Fallacy with a regular amulet with +1 gems, it has about the same dps as Fallacy, without Diamond Flask, mind you! Fallacy has almost 10% more damage with Diamond up though. However the one I had had life and resistances, which made it easier to swap wholesale into this build with more or less endgame items. Made it easier to let me feel out how much life I really needed.

I intend to increment it over time, but I just needed stuff to get going fast, since right after Act10 Kitava I ran into high tier red maps immediately. I already made OK currency with my previous league starter. :)

However, I am preparing these items and crafting along the way, hoping to replace the spell damage on the gloves in a grove soon:

Theory crafting question.

Is cooked alive working on totems ?

Passive states : Enemies ignited by you have -10 fire resistance.

"You" is very incosistant in POE. Sometimes it works on totems and sometimes it does not.

Another question: Can we ignite from frenzy ? We cant deal any damage ...

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bartpio wrote:

Theory crafting question.

Is cooked alive working on totems ?

Passive states : Enemies ignited by you have -10 fire resistance.

"You" is very incosistant in POE. Sometimes it works on totems and sometimes it does not.

Another question: Can we ignite from frenzy ? We cant deal any damage ...

I'd check out Vei's thoughts on the cluster notables on the page before this one. I'm not sure that it works or not, I didn't see any "Vulnerable to Fire" mention on bosses ignited by my totems when I tested it, but I'm not totally sure that I tested it properly. Either way Vei's suggestion on the topic is ideal.

I don't believe we can ignite since we deal 0 damage but not totally sure.