Poison Ancestral Protector Totems Scion - a non strength-stacking melee totems build

Intro: I saw the video below while I was building poison shockwave totems and stopped what I was doing to pivot quickly for a check. I actually had so much of the core gear this build needed from other things, that I only had to buy a few items to get an Uber caliber build going. I swapped to Scion, changed a few core uniques, and shifted the defenses a bit and ended up with something cool for cheap. A lot more could be done here I think though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3zWtVEjmuY – credits to this guy for some of the original ideas, watch his video, sub his channel, his build(s) around this are arguably better than what I have here. Thanks dude, you are cool and good at totems.

I haven’t done much with this yet, because my initial tests were so good that I will probably expand upon this next league rather than play it a ton now. I cashed in all the items after like 48 hours to stick in the bank for later. I think there are probably SSF viable versions of this possible, particularly if you drop a Wilma’s Requital (ive gotten 2 this league but I don’t know its actual tier of rarity, seems possible to chance or swap to this if you get one). Dawnstrider, Balance of Terror and Covenant are nice but replaceable.

The Build – Wilma’s Requital and Dawnstrider are two new uniques that really benefit Ancestral Protector. Both of them solve major problems with this build (long distance to ancestral bond solved by Wilma’s and lack of benefit from Warchief for poisons solved by Dawnstrider which buffs the hell out of AP). Rather than do the strength stacking version of melee totems that’s been around forever, this build uses poisons and takes advantage of these two new uniques along with The Covenant to be pretty damn good. It also uses Balance of Terror which really helps poison totems this league.

PoB: https://pastebin.com/BPJ6BUt2 - important note - I have a +2 strike skills relic which is a massive boost and would have to be accounted for through other means in future leagues. Budget/suggestions in NOTES.

Mapping (60 deli mesa): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTiyA9fOKLI

Bossing (Uber Shaper Last Phase): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwMo_I2OBcQ

Is this better than strength stacking melee totems: Uhhh – situationally maybe? Str stack totems remains one of the cheapest ways to generate very high DPS. This generates DoT cap DPS for very little in a trade league setting (current prices), and has a very different set of defenses. If I can make it substantially better it could be better than str stacking but it also is always going to have drawbacks (ramp time, need for additional targets, etc).

Random build notes:

1. Raider ascendancy for Scion allows for frenzy generation through Blood Rage with totems. Pretty cool. Sleepless Sentries isn’t really needed because of this, outside of bossing. You can generate frenzies while bossing with something like storm brand or spectral throw although I found I had too many buttons to hit. The build is DoT capped on normal content with or without it.

2. The build is over DoT cap because I was trying some Uber bosses with it. If you aren’t interested in Ubers you could put 10-15 more points to defenses. Being over DoT cap in regular content isn’t the end of the world as you will ramp to max dps faster. For absolute clarity, I didn’t clear Uber Sirus on my only attempt (lost all 6 portals in final phase), although I played super duper shitty. It needs a bit more to clear the harder Uber bosses and I am moving on for now. Sirus in particular seems pretty bad for poison builds due to his constantly porting around invincible in the final phase so you might just go full tilt glass cannon on him.

3. I am not sure that Scion is the way to go here and may try this as Champ or Raider in the future. Champ fortify is nice, and raider spell suppression/onslaught is nice. You just have to swap neck anoint to whispers of doom and move some points around.

4. Swapping to dendrobate and withering touch would probably allow for SSF versions which I may try in the future in events and things like that. Losing leech from FF jewels would hurt, but there is so much regen from life on kill that I think you can live without it.

5. Splash damage via Awakened melee splash seems to work and is a huge buff to mapping. I used it while mapping. It’s very cheap. You can probably use Awakened Ancestral Call and Tribal fury instead for a minor loss of tree points.