Need help with my thematic paladin Scion

I am pretty new to the game, having played a summoner witch years ago. I rolled a Scion on harvest with the aim of creating a paladin type character. Currently I am on level 62 and I have heavily invested into STR and some totems. The idea here being that earthquake + holy flame totems makes a nice armageddon feel for my "paladin". However, many people tell me it will fail more and more the closer I get to "end game". This is because combining a str based attack like earthquake with a spell attack like holy flame totem is "bad".

Is my build screwed then? Does POE really penalise me so heavy for the alleged "freedom of skill choice" that it advertises?

What should I do to be able to do post level 70 content?

I guess there is no help for it. Wow, in a game where build diversity is supposed to be a thing, it should be easier than this. It looks like it will be quicker to reroll a new character and follow a cookie cutter build to end game rather than to try respec.

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boerewors wrote:

I guess there is no help for it. Wow, in a game where build diversity is supposed to be a thing, it should be easier than this. It looks like it will be quicker to reroll a new character and follow a cookie cutter build to end game rather than to try respec.

I've found quite a few of these "build help" posts on here and they usually see minimal results. But in your original post: that is exactly the case. You either want to be building for Attacks or Spells.

If you're really looking for a "paladin" looking attack, Consecrated Path is the way to go. You can support this attack with a spell totem casting Wave of Conviction with something like Combustion supported onto it. This means you aren't relying on your Wave of Conviction to do damage and means you can focus on scaling Attack/Elemental damage.

As for the penalty of respeccing, it's sort of an artifact from the olden days of POE where build diversity really was extremely varied but also not totally fleshed out. The idea is meant for you to experiment with new builds once you get to a point where your build can't continue doing content, forcing you to try something else and make it better than your previous build.

Thank you so much for your reply! It is much clearer now. I have since rolled a marauder totem build and focussed totally on totems and life defence and it is working well.

Thanks again!

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This is because combining a str based attack like earthquake with a spell attack like holy flame totem is "bad".

I don't think it's bad because it's strength-based. It's bad because ancestral bond is a huge damage boost to totems that you can't use.

You can sort of get around the attack vs spell problem with https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Iron_Will_Support

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Wow, in a game where build diversity is supposed to be a thing, it should be easier than this.

Unfortunately, it would be pretty weird for balance if you could get away with juicing 2 completely different skills to do damage. "Build diversity" for PoE mostly means that you can do damage in a crazy number of ways, but it doesn't mean you can do damage in more than one way at once.