Holy Flame Totem

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Qarl wrote:

It damages each "cast", but it also has a damage effectiveness of 10%, so its damage (and of supports) is reduced heavily for each of those rapid casts.

Does damage effectiveness apply to burning or would burn damage be calculated from the initial value before it is reduced to 10%?

It seems that if any spell should be used to ignite stuff this is it.

yeah, firestorm is better for burning than this... and then fireball or firetrap is the best for burning. we are talking about crit or support gem assisted burn chance here right? lol

Just to clarify: 0.08 second cast time is the rate at which it tics damage, correct?

Essentially, it deals damage 12.5 times per second, at 10% damage effectiveness.. so it's base damage will then be 1.25 * listed, per second.. correct?

How does level 15 Faster Casting's 34% increased cast speed.. does this mean 0.08 second cast time * (1 - 0.34) or 12.5 casts per second * 1.34? Giving it a whopping 18.93 casts per second or 16.75? Either way.. that's a freakin lot..

Forgetting DPS for a moment, it seems this would be an amazing area denial skill with:
Flame Totem + Faster Projectiles + Faster Casting + Greater Mulriple Projectiles + Knockback

.. Da nana na.. Can't touch this.

except "denial" would have added knockback or blind =p... nit picking over vocab sorry XD

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soul4hdwn wrote:

except "denial" would have added knockback or blind =p... nit picking over vocab sorry XD

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CanHasPants wrote:

Forgetting DPS for a moment, it seems this would be an amazing area denial skill with:
Flame Totem + Faster Projectiles + Faster Casting + Greater Mulriple Projectiles + Knockback

.. Da nana na.. Can't touch this.

Just sayin' ;P

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CanHasPants wrote:

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soul4hdwn wrote:

oops

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CanHasPants wrote:

yeah

Just sayin' ;P

well add blind then! XD

Greater Multiple Projectiles would make it such an expensive spell that you'd really have to build to either having the mana cost or ways to get the mana back (in either passives or gear), or ways to keep the totem alive long enough to do its job. It's very expensive even without supports - this is probably a good thing as if one could freely slap what one wanted on it...

Right now since I'm not investing in Totems, I'm just using Enduring Cry to draw it off me. With double Totem passive one could use it plus a Decoy Totem to create a derp magnet.

Flame Totem is very good at applying Blind to targets. Support the skill with both Multiple Projectile gems for 6 additional projectiles, with the shotgun effect of the spell, and with even 20% cast speed two totems can each shoot at least 100 projectiles in a cone per second. With a 10% blind chance per projectile enemies are easily blinded, which is well worth the high mana cost (88 base at lvl10, 264 with supports).

Using Knockback can be trickier, as it is annoying pushing enemies (especially bosses) through walls and being unable to kill them. Placing totems on either side of an enemy does help to keep them in place.

If a big 5L supported Flame Totem is too mana intensive for your build (I use BM and can easily afford it, if only I had the available sockets) then Added Cold Damage should still provide viable crowd control, with a better DPS. Though added cold wont deal much, the constant damage tics should keep enemies chilled (unless.. Is chill duration also ignored if below a certain threshold, based on damage dealt / monster health? I don't remember...)