[3.11] Physical Shockwave Totem build - 7.2M sDPS, 9.3k ES, deathless A8 Sirus

Update: 3.11 didn't change anything for us aside from some minor loss of crit multi from passives, which affected pretty much every crit build. The nominal sDPS even went up because PoB now correctly calculates Overwhelm.

Hello, this is my take on this old and underused skill: Shockwave totem. I decided to see how far I could take it, since I figured the buff to totem HP from 3.10 and the Astral Projector ring could make this skill actually decent now.

The full title of the build should be: "Pure physical crit Astral Projector Shockwave totems LL Hierophant", but that would be a bit too much xD

Now some considerations:
1) This is not a great league starter or new player friendly build. It uses a lot of different mechanics like low-life, mana stacking, aura stacking, high end crafted gear, high end uniques, expensive gems.
2) That being said, it's also not an absurdly expensive build, since it uses a pretty off-meta skill.
3) Is it the best use for your currency? No, absolutely not. Every league will have some stupid overpowered mechanic, if you want the best value look for that (my suggestion for 3.11 would be Spellslinger VD).

Videos:
Before we start, here are some videos showcasing the build:
Sirus A8 deathless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjkeSzIT6eQ
Crusader A8 map + boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSZgevu8bXg

The build fundamentals:
1) This build relies on auras for most of the damage scaling, and uses a low-life setup to allow for more aura reservation as well as the Pain Attunement bonus.
2) We are pure physical to scale Pride, War banner and Flesh and Stone, which combined with Zealotry make up for a huge portion of the damage.
3) Astral Projector ring is mandatory for quality of life, as it allows for a much higher coverage when mapping. The totems target enemies really far away, you can just place 2 totems and sprint forward to clear everything nearby.
4) Hierophant is the obvious choice because of totem scaling, mana reservation and mana to ES.


Skill tree and PoB link:
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PoB link (requires the community fork): https://pastebin.com/MunV5pbF
Passive tree (doesn't show cluster jewels):



Note that we use 1 large and 2 medium cluster jewels. The most important one is the Aura medium jewel, it adds a lot a value as even the small nodes are worth taking. Other possible choices instead of the totem medium jewel are Crit or AoE. There are lots of good nodes out there, feel free to tweak them to your liking.
Also note that the DPS displayed in PoB is for just one totem, so since we run 4 totems you should multiply it by 4. This DPS is constant, no temporary buffs like flasks.


Items:
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I'll start with the mandatory items:

Astral Projector
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This is mandatory for fast mapping, as it turns the awkward totems into killing machines. They'll target enemies even outside of your screen, there's no need to worry about clear speed.


Shavronne's Wrappings and Presence of Chayula
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The usual low-life combo. Allows us to reserve all our life and not get destroyed by chaos damage. The amulet has good synergy with this build, adding loads of ES, granting stun immunity and loads of chaos resist.
The amulet anointment we use is Prodigal Perfection, as it provides a good deal of DPS and ES. Another option is Influence, see for yourself which works better in your setup. Both are pretty cheap though.


Now the other items. Here there's more flexibilty:

General goals:
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As with any other build, we are aiming for at least 75% fire, cold and lightning resistances. Chaos resistance is taken care of with Chayula's amulet, don't worry about that.
We need at least 159 strength to use a level 21 Shockwave totem, and at least 95 dexterity to use a Cold Iron Point. Try to get the stats from items, but if you can't it's ok to get the +30 strength or dexterity passives.
Energy shield, Mana and Intelligence all contribute to the total ES pool. As a general rule, on items you can consider that 1 ES = 1 Int = 3 Mana. So for example some boots with 130 ES are the same as boots with 80 ES and 50 int, but the latter may be much cheaper so keep an eye for it.


Weapon:
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or

Cold iron point is the recomended choice. Only go for a rare weapon if you find a really good deal, and even then it's hard to beat a Cold Iron Point.


Shield:
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My advice here is to try and craft one. We're looking for +1 totems and reduced mana reservation, which are prefix and suffix, so alt crafting shouldn't be too hard. After hitting those, multi-mod for ES. If you can't get reduced mana reservation, you can just drop an aura (skitterbots or Flesh and Stone).


Helmet:
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Crown of the Inward Eye is a good choice, as it synergises well with both Hierophant's mana to ES as well as Chayula's amulet life to ES. Alternatively a high ES helmet could be fine. You can try to get an Elder helm with +phys damage to spells too.
There are many good enchant options, like auras, flame dash cooldown and Shockwave totem damage or cast speed. Shockwave enchants are really cheap though, since not many people play it.


Belt:
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Bated breath is a good choice, since we only rely on regeneration and recharge for ES sustain. Try to get a well rolled one and use tempering catalysts. Alternatively if you need more resists you can go for a crystal belt or Stygian vise.


Gloves:
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ES gloves with Vulnerability on hit and some stats/resists. Shouldn't be too expensive, but if you can't find a good deal you could alternatively go for an Assassin's mark on hit ring and basic gloves.


Second ring:
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Just basic ES + stats/resist ring. Keep in mind that Inteligence is huge for us, as it scales both mana and ES. 1 point of int is equivalent to 1 point of ES on items for us. Minimum frenzy charges is a good craft, as we don't get them any other way.


Boots:
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ES and movement speed boots. Again, intelligence is a good bonus here.
Useful enchants are: increased Critical Strike Chance if you haven't Crit Recently, Chance to Dodge Attack Hits if you've taken a Critical Strike Recently, Regenerate % of Life per second if you were Hit Recently, increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently, chance to Dodge Spell Hits if you've taken Spell Damage Recently.


Flasks:
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Nothing special here. Just damage, utility, defenses and ailment/curse removal for smooth mapping.
Diamond, Silver and Quicksilver are mandatory. Curse, bleed and freeze immunity are also mandatory.
If you want you can go for a Bottled Faith for that extra burst single target damage.


Jewels:
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Look for 2 of those stats for the Watcher's eye (in order of importance): Chance for double damage with pride, % mana as maximum ES with Clarity, Consecrated ground causes enemies to take inc damage with Zealotry, Inc crit chance on consecrated ground with Zealotry, inc cast speed with zealotry, Faster start of ES recharge with Discipline, ES regen with Discipline, inc ES recovery rate with Discipline.
In the rare jewels we're looking for crit multi, cast speed and % ES. Also keep an eye for totem resists, spell damage, area damage, crit chance, increased AoE, inteligence, resists, strength.


Skills and links

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Shockwave totem
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Here I have 3 suggestions, depending on what you have (in order of preference):

If you have a level 4 Empower:
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Single target: Shockwave totem - Brutality - Controlled Destruction - Conc effect - Inc crit strikes - Empower lvl 4
Mapping/clearing: Replace conc effect for Inc AoE.


If you have at least 1 white socket in chest:
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Single target: Shockwave totem - Brutality - Controlled Destruction - Conc effect - Inc crit strikes - Hypothermia (in white socket)
Mapping/clearing: Replace conc effect for Inc AoE and Hypothermia for Crit multi


If you have neither:
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Single target: Shockwave totem - Brutality - Controlled Destruction - Conc effect - Inc crit strikes - Crit multi
Mapping/clearing: Replace conc effect for Inc AoE


Try to get a lvl 21 with 20 quality Shockwave Totem, it's not expensive. Your first choice of awakened gem should be Controlled Destruction, for the 10% cast speed from quality.


Auras:
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In weapon: Pride - War Banner - Blood Magic
In shield: Zealotry - Discipline - Enlighten lvl 4
In 4-link: Skitterbots - Flesh and Stone - Maim - Enlighten lvl 3

Pride is a huge bonus to DPS, alongside Zealotry, War Banner and Flesh and Stone + maim.
Discipline is needed for the extra ES.
Skitterbots is a nice addition considering this is a pure phys build, so the chill and shock it grants are very useful.

If you lack the reduced reservation, be it because you can't get a lvl 4 enlighten or a reduced reservation shield, the aura to be dropped is Skitterbots.
Since 3.11, Herald of Purity is now an option too. If you need to, consider using it instead of the Flesh and Stone - Maim combo or instead of Skitterbots depending on your mana reservation situation.


Movement skill:
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In 4-link: Flame Dash - Arcane surge (lvl 4) - Second Wind - Faster Casting
I chose Flame Dash to be able to trigger Arcane Surge, but if you can get it elsewhere I suppose a shield charge with Fortify setup could work too, I haven't tested.


Guard Skill:
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In 4 socket 2-link: Cast when damage taken - Steelskin
Because of the large ES pool, I went with both level 20 gems, but you could go for a lower level if your ES isn't that high.


Power charge generation:
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In 4 socket 2-link: Storm brand - Power charge on crit
Storm brand is being used to generate power charges and lay consecrated ground from Zealotry at the same time, since totem hits don't count for that.


Bandits and Pantheon
Spoiler
Alira is the best choice for most crit builds, providing more value than you can usually get with 2 passive points.
For the Pantheon, Lunaris is important to be able to do nasty chain maps, since everything will chain off your totems and hit you multiple times otherwise. The minor god Aberath is good because burning ground and Ignite both prevent your ES from recharging.


Playstyle:
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This is a very relaxed playstyle, especially if you enjoy totems. For mapping, just run around and place some totems ahead of you. By the time you leave their activation range, everything is dead and you can replace them forward. Use Sand stance to be extra safe.
For regular map bosses you can just melt them with the mapping setup, no need to swap gems.
Against Guardians, Conquerors, Shaper, Elder or Sirus, swap the gems for the single target setup, and use Blood stance. Just place totems and run around dodging their mechanics, trying to keep in range of blood stance for maximum DPS. Also remember to refresh Arcane surge and always keep a Storm Brand active.


Alternative (High end and League start) Versions:
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Update: my final stupidly expensive min-maxed build (15M sDPS with flasks, 10k ES, 10M sDPS no flasks)
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PoB link (requires the community Fork) https://pastebin.com/nAw1Ybuq
Main changes: +2 level of AoE gems corrupted Shavronne's Wrappings, Awakened Brutality, 3 properties Watcher's Eye, Bottled Faith, upgraded boots, level 97 with some small changes to the passive tree, lvl 21 Zealotry, lvl 21 Vaal Discipline, a second lvl 4 Enlighten.


Yagamai's version in 3.11 with harvest crafted gear (16 mill sirus dps with 10k es, 75% block, 74% spell block, 5% ES gained on block, 12% regen):
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"
Yagamai wrote:
Here's my 3.11 version: https://pastebin.com/Yb0euckp

16 mill sirus dps with 10k es, 75% block, 74% spell block, 5% ES gained on block, 12% regen

Made this wand and shield:



3.11 Harvest League starter version
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As I said, this isn't a great league starter, since it requires items that can only be realistically acquired a week or so into the league, such as Astral Projector, Presence of Chayula and Chavronne's Wrapping. However, it can be done using a poor man's Chaos Inoculation (CI) version for the first weeks until the endgame uniques are affordable enough.

The main problem is the lack of an Astral Projector, which will make the totems slower for clearing. This is somewhat attenuated by the fact that for the start of a league you're not going to necessarily be speeding trough maps, so I guess it can work.

The goal of this version is to only use items that are easily available in the first few days of the league, leaving as much space as possible for rares to fill out attribute and resist requirements. This version also doesn't use cluster jewels.

PoB link (requires the Community Fork): https://pastebin.com/tchgrReB

Skill tree:
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https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.11.0/AAAABAUCABzcL9qXLR0Ug_MksAFv73y8qtrdEVCLeuq68NXVucMJpwhsCxcvtvqOZKcrFe3AZnFigKSxNjbFUEK5k6PyN0fR_biT74heXfIdL29cQKeUoS_i91fJtzgqE8MTdSo9X_ndSU8FQow2rhI8BSy_lotJsUlRZOe0DMrTKyY6FgRR2CTsGL6K6_UW89fPf8ZmnmuscLtUvQOa42KX9Ix2-tJV1g18XGtOrhEtJjz-szLRbRmPRonTcFLZE2ha0PUvnYaCw223MY_698H5N0GWhEhqG8HFIvRaK0VHUlP3pij6UzUsnHyD9fqPGuvukyc=





I hope you liked it, feel free to give your suggestions and ask questions.
Last edited by Magritte#0870 on Jul 16, 2020, 12:05:48 PM
Last bumped on Jul 28, 2021, 5:46:34 PM
https://pastebin.com/CkUcavzQ

You can check to help me see if anything is missing because I'm only 1/3 of your dps, but I did biuld according to what you instructed, my energy regen is very slow and easily dies.
Nice build. Thank you!
"
BlackLionXIII wrote:
https://pastebin.com/CkUcavzQ

You can check to help me see if anything is missing because I'm only 1/3 of your dps, but I did biuld according to what you instructed, my energy regen is very slow and easily dies.

activate your flasks, change 2 passive points to Alira, check "power charges" and "enemy shocked" in configuration tab and change inc aoe gem for conc effect. Now you have 1.5m shaper dps per totem.
Last edited by rawrstn#7210 on Apr 14, 2020, 11:54:17 PM
too squishy
Trust your mind and strengthen your abilities!
thank bro,If possible, can you upgrade to a higher dps?
sorry for my ignorance but i didn't understand why the frenzy charge on the ring
"
PrimalCloud wrote:
sorry for my ignorance but i didn't understand why the frenzy charge on the ring


frenzy charge it will increase attack speed and cast speed
"
rawr1488 wrote:
Nice build. Thank you!
"
BlackLionXIII wrote:
https://pastebin.com/CkUcavzQ

You can check to help me see if anything is missing because I'm only 1/3 of your dps, but I did biuld according to what you instructed, my energy regen is very slow and easily dies.

activate your flasks, change 2 passive points to Alira, check "power charges" and "enemy shocked" in configuration tab and change inc aoe gem for conc effect. Now you have 1.5m shaper dps per totem.


No flasks active in my PoB tho, and remember to only use 17% shock effect, which is what skitterbots apply
Last edited by Magritte#0870 on Apr 16, 2020, 1:44:04 PM
"
BlackLionXIII wrote:
https://pastebin.com/CkUcavzQ

You can check to help me see if anything is missing because I'm only 1/3 of your dps, but I did biuld according to what you instructed, my energy regen is very slow and easily dies.


Also go to pride and select maximum effect instead of initial effect and select "enemy on consecrated ground"
Last edited by Magritte#0870 on Apr 16, 2020, 1:48:22 PM
https://pastebin.com/5ZuVF6xg

I did as you did, but my dps still didn't make it like yours but I don't know why?

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