Shockwave Totem

edit: another removal due to being corrected.

after calming down from my confusion, and when i finally gotten back into path from real life distractions =p, AoE radius boosts work fine on shockwave totem. was extremely hard to test because remaking a totem puts the new one in a different location nearby the spot clicked. was trying to place in same spot as original that would've been removed due to trying to make a new one).

anyways... there was still a bug, not really important though. shockwave totem is making critical strikes, noticed via screen shake, blood burst, and sound effect changes in hit playback.

So... if I have this correctly, shockwave totems DPS benefits from only the following linked support gems:
- Added fire damage (+% physical)
- Faster Cast

- ...and the Hatred aura.

This is because the totem is technically casting a spell that doesn't do "spell" damage - therefore, the only things affecting it from the passive tree are also +cast rate and +area?

...wow, here I thought I could make a shockwave build work, but it looks like it will only be KB support (which could be damn powerful against melee... but it's at the mercy of ranged mobs).

Will need to test shockwave+faster cast+blind+increased area as a fast-caster to see how that works.

EDIT: Tested the above 4-gem combination... I'm sorry this is just weak. I'm doing this with level 14 totems and level 14 faster cast (120 mana per summon). The KB effect does work. However... flame totem will blind more efficiently, decoy totem will tank better overall, than this can do KB (perhaps only the KB-nodes near the marauder will help), and I can also place a more damaging totem-combination in there such as a fire-storm totem slotted with KB and blind to give an analogous effect.

Any of the above will do it better for less mana. I *think* it becomes a valid niche support for a full area templar/witch, but I'm not sure if firestorm, ice nova or flame totem will still beat it at that game. It's nice to play keep-away with monkeys, but that's not *quite* enough unless spell damage/iron will directly boosts this totem's damage output.

GGG, this nerfed version just doesn't make sense to me right now. We can't boost its damage much, or does it also benefit from Pain Attunement and Redbeak? ;P

How are we supposed to use it, and how are the alpha testers looking at it?

= = =
Personally I would consider re-envisioning it to be something of long KB, large range, and very slow cast rate. This way you're guaranteed an alpha strike if the totem was well-placed to survive until the first cast. Thanks. - P.

atm, AoE boosts DO work however the effective trigger range bottlecaps it. flamethrower totem works more effectively, except using projectile based boosts instead of AoE.

Can this totem even crit ?



No mention of crit% on the gem or on the skill screen (C).

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

Shockwave totem has no base critical strike chance. As a result, it cannot (under normal circumstances) crit.

Wait. What? My Templar has a 5L Shockwave Totem with added lightning damage. I'm regularly critting with it and causing shock -- I have no chance to shock on hit passives (character is Socrates).

So, does shockwave totem get + damage from points in spell damage?

What about radius from + radius passives?

I leveled 'Amplify' in my templar and the range on the Shockwave Totem skill tooltip remained 100.

Can you clarify which support gems work with it and which passives enhance it?

Thanks!