[3.16] Dark Pact Totems | The smoothest spell totem skill around, now post-nerf updated

Wanted to give this build a try. But on PS4, astral projector is 4ex minimum. Ouch!

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Smmogs wrote:

Wanted to give this build a try. But on PS4, astral projector is 4ex minimum. Ouch!

How much does that one div card cost? Haunting Shadows. Might be worth to buy a set of 4 and see if you can gamble the Astral Projector.

It’s about 20-25 c each.

I will check the prices for the other results of that div card and if I am unlucky, maybe I can get my money back that way. If they sell.

But as a starter for next leagues it’s out of the question. If it was more like 40-50c (like in the case of essence worm) it is manageable as a league starter, since I don’t play too much, so I could get it.

The prices are way too high on PS4, which makes me always try and find cheap builds. Some stuff that is 5c on trade pc is 10-20 times more for me. :)

Planning to start leveling this build today, has been a while since I did a totem build and looking forward to it. Well, except levels 1-40. But I guess twink gear will help.

Very interesting to see those two other variants, but gonna have to wait and see how the baseline version feels before deciding if one of them is the better choice for me. Especially the Elegant Hubris variant looks great tho. Not much DPS lost while defense seems boosted nicely.

One thing I noticed that might be worth adding to the gearing section is the Apep's Rage wand. It is a 1c item that when well rolled comes within 1% of the DPS that the wand in the level 100 PoB gives you. Considering that a wand like that can easily cost 10ex+ when made or bought, that sounds like a budget option worth mentioning. Especially as there is currently not even a wand on the market at all that can beat Apep's Rage for DPS.

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Mecielle wrote:

Planning to start leveling this build today, has been a while since I did a totem build and looking forward to it. Well, except levels 1-40. But I guess twink gear will help.

Very interesting to see those two other variants, but gonna have to wait and see how the baseline version feels before deciding if one of them is the better choice for me. Especially the Elegant Hubris variant looks great tho. Not much DPS lost while defense seems boosted nicely.

One thing I noticed that might be worth adding to the gearing section is the Apep's Rage wand. It is a 1c item that when well rolled comes within 1% of the DPS that the wand in the level 100 PoB gives you. Considering that a wand like that can easily cost 10ex+ when made or bought, that sounds like a budget option worth mentioning. Especially as there is currently not even a wand on the market at all that can beat Apep's Rage for DPS.

Yes I will add Apep's Rage to budget recommendations, since I've seen that item pop up before on Ninja and the DPS has been compelling. Especially if you get a max roll Apep's.

I didn't use it in 3.12 because the Trigger craft was so strong, so that was an easy choice then. In 3.14, that craft is nerfed, so choosing a budget unique like Apep's is a strong choice. If Dark Pact scaled as strongly with gem levels as other spells do, then there is no way that Apep's could compete. But that's not the case :(

The main downside is the global mana cost increase. This effects every totem you summon, every flame dash, every spell casted. Just means you're dropping your EHP a little bit more than needed, every time you do something. This is felt more strongly now since in 3.13, the Ascendancy was changed and we no longer take the node with the mana cost discount. For example, my totem summon cost in 3.12 was 47. In 3.14, it is higher at 127, and Apep's would push it to 167.

Best of luck with your leveling and your grind! I have absolute confidence in your success <3

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BlueeGreg wrote:

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Mecielle wrote:

Planning to start leveling this build today, has been a while since I did a totem build and looking forward to it. Well, except levels 1-40. But I guess twink gear will help.

Very interesting to see those two other variants, but gonna have to wait and see how the baseline version feels before deciding if one of them is the better choice for me. Especially the Elegant Hubris variant looks great tho. Not much DPS lost while defense seems boosted nicely.

One thing I noticed that might be worth adding to the gearing section is the Apep's Rage wand. It is a 1c item that when well rolled comes within 1% of the DPS that the wand in the level 100 PoB gives you. Considering that a wand like that can easily cost 10ex+ when made or bought, that sounds like a budget option worth mentioning. Especially as there is currently not even a wand on the market at all that can beat Apep's Rage for DPS.

Yes I will add Apep's Rage to budget recommendations, since I've seen that item pop up before on Ninja and the DPS has been compelling. Especially if you get a max roll Apep's.

I didn't use it in 3.12 because the Trigger craft was so strong, so that was an easy choice then. In 3.14, that craft is nerfed, so choosing a budget unique like Apep's is a strong choice. If Dark Pact scaled as strongly with gem levels as other spells do, then there is no way that Apep's could compete. But that's not the case :(

The main downside is the global mana cost increase. This effects every totem you summon, every flame dash, every spell casted. Just means you're dropping your EHP a little bit more than needed, every time you do something. This is felt more strongly now since in 3.13, the Ascendancy was changed and we no longer take the node with the mana cost discount. For example, my totem summon cost in 3.12 was 47. In 3.14, it is higher at 127, and Apep's would push it to 167.

Best of luck with your leveling and your grind! I have absolute confidence in your success <3

Thanks, already started :D

On the mana issue, I think with 550-600 mana regen per second a 40 mana increase to every skill is pretty negligible. I mean, I guess you will notice it during the boss prep phase where you spam totems to get curses, but in normal play there should be no noticeable difference in EHP really.

I still plan to craft a rare wand since I come in with 150ex from previous builds, so I am confident I can make something better than Apep's Rage. But if I were to do this build with "only" 10-20ex budget I would 100% spend that currency on other gear and roll with Apep's.

Question about the large cluster: I know "Touch of Cruelty" is additive with our Wither so seems like a mediocre choice. But even at max Wither stacks it gives more DPS than "Unwaveringly Evil". That difference gets obviously bigger the fewer Wither stacks the enemy has.

So as far as I can see there is no situation where "Unwaveringly Evil" is better than "Touch of Cruelty", right? Or maybe I am missing something as I haven't reached maps yet?

@Mecielle,

The correct answer is get whichever Large Cluster Jewel is cheapest or rolls first for you :) Just need two serviceable Prefixes, and the "Unholy Grace" Suffix. These were a little pricey at the beginning of the league, so I didn't focus too much on true min-max.

I haven't personally used or tested "Touch of Cruelty", and I have a possibly irrational suspicion that it doesn't work with skills cast by totems. And I see that the initial Hinder proc is only 10% chance, which will lower that uptime when you aren't also casting Wither. But no matter what, it's a perfectly fine Prefix to have on a Large Cluster. I'll check my guide and make that less confusing.

I'm still sad that the duration on "Wicked Pall" got nerfed in 3.14. I liked to use that for the slightly longer Wither duration. You still get that, just less now. So that's another Prefix to consider.

That makes sense. Now all versions of the large cluster are very cheap and cost the same at 30-50c. I just went with Touch of Cruelty since PoB says it works and ever since the community took over developing it and is using datamined information I am 99.9% certain PoB is correct. The 10% proc rate is more than enough too, with 25 casts per second its always gonna be up.

And yea, pre-nerf Wicked Pall helping with Wither uptime would probably have been even better when looking at boss DPS. But as you said, 5% seems a bit small now.

Did my first craft for the build today, turned out near perfect I would say:



(The life regen makes them look bad, but it is actually a prefix that comes with 60 mana)

Crafting process for whoever might be interested:

Overall very lucky craft. Getting T1 ailment avoid with two high resists is very, very easy with just a few Metallic fossils spammed. Then I got lucky the first time and hit 35% MS with an influence mod after only 3 "reforge, keep suffixes" crafts.

Now I could have crafted life and called it a day with very good boots. I decided to take a gamble tho and go for the elevated ailment avoidance so I don't need the glove suffix craft to reach 100% ailment immunity. Lucky again, I won the 50-50 Maven's Orb.

Now I had 2 open prefixes. Aisling time. Looking at the possible unveils I had a 50-50 chance to get the best mod, "60 mana + 33 life regen per second". I won the 50-50 again and finished it up with crafted life.

I'm extremely happy about the result, I honestly don't think they could have turned out much better for this build, except the obvious things like T1 natural life or a 2nd T1 resist.

Now with so many resists from the boots coupled with no need for ailment craft on gloves it really helps to open some nice crafts possible.

Culling Strike is a nobrainer of course, but I'm gonna awaken orb it with another suffix. Choices are:

"14% increased Cast Speed + Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Faster Casting" then socket Wither setup in gloves.

or

"15% Global chance to Blind Enemies on hit", which would result in everything being blinded since it applies to the totems aka 50% chance to evade attacks for me.

Not sure yet if the offensive or defensive choice is better.

@Mecielle,

I like the Blind option, but both are solid choices. You should be at the point where overall DPS feels more than enough, so then defensive options become more appealing.

You can try crafting super gloves now, and put the Cast Speed suffix and Culling Strike suffix on those. Congrats on the boot craft though! Definitely worthy of being worn :)