Volcanic Fissure Totem Chiaftain | League start to endgame

I decided to risk it and league start with Volcanic Fissure Totem Chieftain. The early levels were a bit rough, but as soon as I managed to pick up a Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler in act 4, it was smooth sailing to act 10. Died a couple of times, but that’s on me. I decided to write this guide because I had a great time with the skill, and I want to share what I’ve learned with those who are thinking about giving it a shot. I’ll include and starter, mid-game and current setup in the PoB.

PoB: https://pastebin.com/TrnWZZ3i

Levelling:

You can pick up Earthbreaker Support at lvl 8 and Volcanic Fissure at lvl 12, until then pick whatever skill you prefer that are available from the start. You can already start using VF totems at that point, however, I decided to stick to “self cast” with more supports until I got to Ancestral Bond for the extra totem. You can get there by lvl 15 if you go straight for it, but that’s gonna be a rough experience. After that go down towards the Strength attribute cluster. After you got that, go for the rest of the life/reservation/damage nodes based on the PoB.

Gearing:

Get Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler as soon as you can, it’s a huge damage boost. Until then use the best melee weapon you can find, can be either 2H, DW or 1h+Shield. If not league starting, I’m sure there are some nice low lvl uniques to use.

Focus on getting as much str as you can, with some resistances next to it. Life is also nice, but you’ll get a bunch from strength as well.

When you reach maps, it’s time to get the uniques that really make the build go. Details below. The rest of the gear should be upgraded to rares with T1 STR rolls, resistances to get you capped and life. You can buy these for a few C each or try to roll them with essences.

Crown of Eyes

Dirt cheap unique, pick one up as soon as you can. The enchanted versions can be quite pricy, but there are a few decent options for it.

Astramentis

Quite expensive early on, but it should be your first big investment. It gives a ton of Strength and fixes all your attribute issues.

Alberon’s Warpath

% Strength, Movement speed, Chaos res, what else could you dream of?

The Iron Fortress

6L is quite expensive, you could buy a 5L or even socket/link one for yourself for 5L.

You could also use a rare 6L body with Str, Life and resistances until you can afford one.

Timeless jewel

Try to get one with at least 2 %str rolls, use the pob tool or a 3rd party app to find what you need. Don’t scam yourself by searching for +str jewels and lose 2 div like I did.

Cluser Jewels:

A lot of good options out there, Ancestral Guidance on a medium cluster is the only one I’d call a requirement, the rest is up to you and your budget.

Regular jewels:

Early on get jewells with %life and as much strength as possible. Attack speed, other attributes, resistances, inc damage, crit nodes are all nice extras. Once you have the budget for it, swap them out for crit multi jewels.

Other notes:

Accuracy can be a bit of an issue for the build, make sure you have 100% hit chance!

Attack speed is a very useful mod!

Lifetap Support

Very good for a very long time, you might even want to keep it for your endgame setup, but eventually I dropped it for more support gems.

Multiple totems vs damage support gem

Everyone on Poe Ninja goes for another support gem, however, I found the build much more comfortable with Multiple totems support, despite the fact that you lose out not only another support gem with 30-40% more damage, but it also reduces your damage in itself. 4 damaging totems + a Protector (also dealing decent damage with no support) cover a bigger area and summoning 2 totems with 1 click is a big QoL in my opinion.

Split Personality

Can be a good stepping stone before going for crit jewels, as they give a boatload of strength. I included a skill tree with a path for it.

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Still a lot of room for improvements, but I managed to clear the whole atlas, kill all non-uber bosses and do all invitations (including feared) on a ~15 div setup, roughly the current gear without the synth items. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.