Holy Flame Totem

Is intended that flame totem just don't survive for more than some hits in maps (Even with all PST life nodes for totems) and if you choose ancestral bound your game just over when you end act 3 merciless because of low life, bad damage and low elemental resistance of this skill (Without mentioning the excessive use of mana that makes you need blood magic to use 5 linked support gems on it)?

Would be nice to tone the skill down a bit, with the recent update its waaay too loud with dual totems, and in parties there is so much lag due to the flame totems that ppl always complain about me :(

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Amaraethus wrote:

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Vipermagi wrote:

Of note; Auras do not affect Totems. However, they use Skills with your stats, and since you cast faster with Haste, so do they. This is a pretty great thing, because it means you don't have to be anywhere close to your Totem to have it benefit from the Aura :)

I see this stated everywhere, yet the wiki contradicts this. I'm assuming the wiki is out of date then? Can anyone confirm/deny?

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Since the totem is an ally, it will be affected by any auras projected by the player or by allies of the player, including auras from dominated or converted enemies. Similarly, any auras projected by the totem will affect all of the player's allies, including minions and party members.

http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Totem

That's not out of date, it's just wrong. Totems are not, and never have been, affected by auras. This is because many auras would make no sense on totems, as they don't use their own stats to back skills.

So FT is not benefit by a Haste Aura ? Shouldn't it fasten the projectile attacking speed as 'Faster Projectiles' do so ?

GGG, please fix GMP flame totem as you did with lightning arrow (reduce the flashiness and make it see-through-ish). I love this build but I can't see anything! It's becoming especially dangerous in merciless hardcore because I can't quite see what is happening underneath the GMP dual flame totems, not to mention the lag. I can't tell what enemies my totems are attacking and where to throw my fire traps because of this. Right now I'm just guessing and throwing traps in the vicinity of the flames. It's also pretty chaotic in parties. I would understand if it was a very strong skill that it needs this kind of downside, but it doesn't deserve this big of a disadvantage.

Soul Mantle was added and nothing changes! The totems now deals a little more dmg with 1 more totem but die even faster (if you don't ignore that shameless lvl 14 Spell totem), and with lvl 20 curses on you, you die faster too. Flame totem builds is still not viable, and that armor is just pure suicide (Using something with that low ES and no resists is not dangerous enough? You need to put lvl 20 curses on it everytime that totems die or the duration ends?).

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BrecMadak wrote:

So FT is not benefit by a Haste Aura ? Shouldn't it fasten the projectile attacking speed as 'Faster Projectiles' do so ?

Haste works on Flame Totem because enchants YOUR cast speed. Totems are not affected directly by auras.

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TehMang wrote:

GGG, please fix GMP flame totem as you did with lightning arrow (reduce the flashiness and make it see-through-ish). I love this build but I can't see anything! It's becoming especially dangerous in merciless hardcore because I can't quite see what is happening underneath the GMP dual flame totems, not to mention the lag. I can't tell what enemies my totems are attacking and where to throw my fire traps because of this. Right now I'm just guessing and throwing traps in the vicinity of the flames. It's also pretty chaotic in parties. I would understand if it was a very strong skill that it needs this kind of downside, but it doesn't deserve this big of a disadvantage.

Yes, I'd love this change. In fact I'd love it so much I'd buy a microtransaction that made my flames "seethrough", that is how annoyingly bad this animation is with LMP or GMP.

Here is my issue with totems. I post here because I did not find a general Totems thread.

When I summon a totem on a wrong place, the totem does not appear.
When I summon a totem on a valid place and no free spot is found, the totem does not appear.

This is EXTREMELY annoying because nothing tells me the totem could not be summoned.
It would be really better if you add a sound effect when a totem could not have been summoned.

Do not use this skill with added lightning-cold or static blows it has %10 dmg effectiveness it means u gonna lose %90 of dmg from those gems and it wont stack shocks cause it deals too little dmg but casts more than 10 times in second so dmg comes from that.

Best way to scale this up going with pure dmg and cast speed crit chance does nothing aswell since it has %4 chance to crit and crits insanely w/o any crit nodes but dmg is not significant maybe if u have %600 crit multiplyer it does some good.

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Ceykey wrote:

Do not use this skill with added lightning-cold or static blows it has %10 dmg effectiveness it means u gonna lose %90 of dmg from those gems and it wont stack shocks cause it deals too little dmg but casts more than 10 times in second so dmg comes from that.

Best way to scale this up going with pure dmg and cast speed crit chance does nothing aswell since it has %4 chance to crit and crits insanely w/o any crit nodes but dmg is not significant maybe if u have %600 crit multiplyer it does some good.

This is true for any skill used on a non-crit focused character, not just Flame Totem.

For me, linking it with Increased Crit Damage raises the total damage for about 15-20%, and I don't even have hat mmany crit nodes yet, crit mult without skill is around 350%.

On a Fire-focused build this skill does insane damage - it can destroy magic enemies, which are double-cursed, in seconds in a full party.

It has the following advantages over Incinerate totem:
- takes 1 socket instead of 2
- damage does not get reduced by 40%
- alway deals full damage, does not require continuous focus on enemy to get real dmage like Incinerate
- damage does not drop almost to zero when current target dies or goes out of reach

Currently using the following setup:
Flame Totem + GMP + Faster Projectiles + Fire Pen
Faster Proj can be replaced by faster cast
Fire Penetration will probably yield more damage in pretty much all cases.