(Retired Thread) Wallach's Hierophant Freezing Pulse Totems

@TxE4GL3k, happy to help!

@drohrer, very newby friendly. The build in general is good for new players and the guide Wallach has put together here is super detailed and easy to follow.

I can't decide between Freezing Pulse Totems and Elemental Hit Totems.
Last league killed uber elder with ele hit totems and mediocore gear..
I want to try something new, but not sure if this will be as good.
Ele hit has really good boss dmg, but feezing pulse seems to have better aoe for maps.

Well, Soul of Steel and Constitution are the 2 rarest/most expensive nodes to enchant amulets with. Even +1 curse is slightly below them.

One of the +30% crit multi it is then, they are middle of the pack. Or Flash Freeze, it's even slightly cheaper.

Heart of Ice is one of the most expensive ones, and as it's prett ymuch the same as +30% crit multi for this build, it's absolutely not worth it.

im dumb but still wont selfcast frostbites

Lvl 24 arcane surge is to simulate arcane surge effect from the new mana node.

Where do you get the info that there is no more frost bomb in the game? There is nothing in the patch notes, balance manifesto nor mine gem changes.

Well we are gonna use selfast curse in 2019 cos this is a totem build, so you don't do anything but run around after placing totems. So you have a ton of time to cast a stronger curse that grants high level arcane surge on targets that actually needs to be cursed.

Curse on hit doesn't work with totems and heralds dont work with totems so you can't curse with them either. The only way to easy curse would be ele weakness corruption on gloves.

Well, i think we are ready to go guys!

Now we just need to MTX apply on chest(spell totem one cause fuck i really like books smashing shiet!!!), and this is one of best build so far
Gl for tonight mates!

Excellent guide and build!

In your latest video, you mentioned tweaks. Here are mine, from some late Blight testing on PS4:

* The one flat-out ERROR in the guide is to support Steelskin with Increased Duration. Steelskin blocks a limited amount of damage and doesn't recover cooldown until duration expires; keeping a weakened Steelskin buff around longer actually makes you more vulnerable to damage, because it's increasing the delay before going back to full buff effect. Indeed, one might consider a Less Duration support, to more quickly dismiss a lingering buff and sooner return it to full strength.

Furthermore, you're deliberately underleveling ypur Steelskin setup to "combo" with Vaal RF, even though they should share zero supports; instead, delink from Vaal RF and IncDur and level Steelskin to max.

* The "Trigger a Socketed Spell when you use a Skill" crafted suffix for weapon should be at least mentioned as a play-preference option, and I would consider a hard requirement on console (where you are limited to 8 active skills and need to hold down "Shift" to access half of those). Frost Bomb and Purifying Flame (Consecrated Ground 100% inc crit chance generator) can both be automated this way for maximum single-target DPS, as can Cold Snap, which is particularly nice for random Frenzy charge generation and maintenance while clearing (because you don't have time for hard Snap casts).

* I've been trying out Siphoning Trap with Bonechill, Hypothermia and Advanced Traps (eventually planning on a Shaped helmet to 5L Hypothermia and a level 4 Enhance). This allows for a Bonechill bonus above 10% (ground effects don't benefit from increased chill effect), up to 23% guaranteed chill with that 5L alone and scalable to the full 30% with boot/amulet/ring crafted suffixes and Flash Freeze via oils. It's utter trash for clearing, but great against the highest health targets, particularly those who start with a lengthy immobile invulnerable animation at the start of the fight (e.g. Izaro, map bosses based of Act bosses, Shaper). The big drawback was missed triggers due to boss mobility, but this will improve in Blight due to the huge cooldown recovery buff to Advanced Traps, making "whiffs" less punishing.

* I think it's worth it to flat-out travel to Whispers of Doom (4 point path — an extra passive point and -15% curse speed isn't worth it for -2% cold resist and +2% freeze duration vs Shaper) for a 4L Bane setup with Enhance support. Although TBH I've just been using Windscreams as a relatively cheap boots DPS option — I'm not sure whether it's better to use Blight oils to get Whispers or just plain travel there.

* Arcane Surge is fine on Flame Surge edit:Dash with Increased Duration (7 second Surge) and Faster Casting support, using the 51 mana breakpoint to trigger on a single cast. In a pair of Shaped gloves, Arcane Surge can share links with Vaal RF. I feel like you're working a little too hard for at best the equivalent of a single Frenzy charge, which is what 8 gemlevels of Arcane Surge is, especially since cursing is usually inefficient whereas clearing while Dashing at least once every 7 seconds should be automatic regardless of content.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

* The one flat-out ERROR in the guide is to support Steelskin with Increased Duration. Indeed, one might consider a Less Duration support, to more quickly dismiss a lingering buff and sooner return it to full strength.

IDK dude, I would say it's the other way around. Steelskin is used to create a buffer when you take a huge hit and need to recover/reposition. I would rather have 2.2s for it than 0.7s. Even if the buffer is not at full, it's still some mitigation for 1.5s compared to nothing with less duration. And you shouldn't be getting fatal hits every 5s especially with totem build that freezes everything...

One good thing about totem build that can freeze is that extra crowd control.
I used to play arc totem hierophant in delve league (before arc was nerfed). Damage and aoe was great, in deep delves dodging those corpse explosions got pretty annoying, one bad move and you got one shot.

I remember another thing that did annoy me, but this one probably affects all totems builds including this one: I did run underground sea t16 with all sextants, prophecies and stuff, fully juiced. And sometimes there was so many extra enemies, that boss room was completely filled with hard hitting monsters. There was no time to cast totem, you entered room got instantly melee hit by enemies that surrounded you as soon you entered. Delay between dealing aoe damage after entering that boss room was too long to reliably survive it.

I really want to try out Frostbolt with this build. Would you change anything else besides just the skill?