Disclaimer - I’ve tested the synergies of the build, and they work well with crappy gear going a few nodes into the monolith. I cannot confirm very endgame viability.
Summary and Synergies
Storm totem has nice base cast speed, so it doesn’t need much poison chance to ramp up decent poison damage. Shaman mastery has excellent resistance buffs, and attunement, so we can be tanky and spam spells. The attunement buffs totem damage, but also increases the frenzy effect of fenzy totem, which we cast right next to the storm totem to give it poison chance and a nice cast speed increase. The frenzy totem also gives great buffs to the thorn totems, so we drop them nearby as well. Thorn totems have delightfully long lasting poison, and AOE clears, so enemy poison resistance gets low fast and stays low. We can send our scorpion into the mix and have it drop a poison pool that gives even more poison chance and cast speed to totems. Then we join the party and drop entangling roots for extra damage, slows and healing for all.
The result is 5 button presses to create a circle of poison procs that clears the screen while you kite damage, look at items or run to the next group. It’s active, in that you must choose where to place totems, poison pools and entangling roots. It’s relaxing, in that you don’t need OP gear to get decently tanky, and decent clear speeds. You don’t have to aim anything, which is great. There is solid AOE from thorn and storm totems, as well as excellent single target DPS, while maneuvering around even the most obnoxious boss skills. Other benefits include:
- We get lots of movespeed from passives and storm totem shocks (movespeed is the most important thing in this game)
- We get lots of minion stun chance from shocks and tree (but… this has no noticable effect)
- We get lots of mana via attunement, which makes play so much more enjoyable than builds that constantly run out of mana.
- We get decent flat damage reduction from tree and passives, plus Shaman is possibly the easiest mastery to cap resists.
- We get excellent healing, and a pretty safe area of the screen with lots of totems to hide behind
Skills
Thorn totem > poison chance, poison duration, max totems, all summoned at once
Frenzy totem > frenzy effect, poison chance for allies, duration, area
Summon scorpion > brood invigoration, then poison damage of your choice, via attacks or nova spell. (easier to get poison nova nodes, and we have the mana to spam this.)
Storm Totem > Cast speed, shock chance, movement speed for us on shock, slow for enemies, stun chance, lightning resists for allies
Entangling roots > increased area, ally damage, increased duration, healing, mana, healing nova
you can swap entangling roots or scorpion for the spriggan. The attunement gives her amazing healing for you and totems, so this is great if you like being tanky. However she hangs a long way back from the action, so she’s less reliable positioning-wise.
Passives
Primalist > Gift of the wilderness, Ancient Call, Natural Attunement (for health, minion health and attunement)
Beastmaster > Defences of your choice (ursine strength and boar heart), and minion attack/cast/movespeed, plus artors loyalty for single companion scorpion buff. We need to get these passives first to get the scorpion and the frenzy totem)
Druid > Soul’s attendand (for attunement and to get entangling roots), then it’s nice to get vitality and poison resist.
Shaman > Attunement and ancestral speed for attunement and totem cast speed. (minion stun and stun avoidance seem to do nothing)
Items
Anything will do, just aim for minion damage, minion damage over time, and defences of your choice. The easiest defence to stack is life regen, life, vitality, and healing effectiveness. With capped resists, these provide more value.
Since minions hit a lot, ‘doublet of onos tul’ is a nice cheap chest unique that gives a lot of easy damage.
Idols
minion poison chance
minion poison damage
minion damage over time
defences of your choice
minion bleed chance if you cannot find anything better
