[2.2] Loate's Thousand Arrow Totem Build

End of a Canyon run with dual boss https://youtu.be/aDyv6hN2bQ8

Underground River with vuln, 30% phys reduction, chain, and 30% more boss life https://youtu.be/Z0MXyGddRGA

Merciless Lab Clear https://youtu.be/6bGC7rgeiTQ

Elreon Mission in Underground River with minus max and other stuff https://youtu.be/cxs39hbOxKQ

The core of the build revolves around the unique bow Chin Sol, and the unique gauntlets Empire's Grasp. Together, they allow you to turn the humble ranged attack totem into an endless arrow belching black hole vacuum of spiky death, that obliterates anything it lays eyes on. AND YOU GET TWO OF THEM. TWO OF THESE GLORIOUS MURDERMACHINES.



You'll also want two Volley Fire jewels as well. Because that's where this gets funny.

Did you not watch the video? Arrows! Arrows everywhere! EVERYWHERE!! THAT PULL MOBS TOWARDS THEM!!! It's amazing.

Well, to be honest, it's a hot mess. You're going to make the skillgrimage of all skillgrimages to enable this build, because you need to pick up Point Blank, Ancestral Power, the second dex jewel cluster over by the Ranger frenzy charge, AND the totem cluster by Blood Magic which then meanders on into Unwavering Stance. Technically, you could start at Ranger, but that's a horrible idea because the Scion ascendancies of Deadeye/Assassin are what really gives the build that extra oomph you want. Here's what my current skill tree looks like at level 86.



Note that I have multiple life notables left to grab, so if you want to play this Hardcore (hahahaha, good luck), grab all the life notables before you start worrying about damage.

It's actually not too bad. To start, you mainly want to build out the branches of your skill tree abomination, focusing on some bow nodes first, along with the Volley Fire slots. Grab a Stormcloud and an Elreon ring, and level yourself up to a Doomfletch. Here's 36 points in.



Next you want to focus on building out the strength side to position yourself for Ancestral power at level 62, when you unlock Chin Sol, as well as the big notables of Iron Reflexes and Unwavering Stance for some defense (hardcore, feel free to take these earlier if necessary, along with life). Here's the tree at 65 points.



After that, as you can see in my link to my build in section 4, I grab totem nodes, bow damage nodes, and life nodes. I also went for aura nodes as well, in order to run Alpha's Howl with a Lightning Coil, giving me Determination, Hatred, Purity of Lightning, and a level 1 Clarity with just enough mana left to drop two totems. If you choose not to run that, you can instead put those points into more life nodes, or, use an Essence Worm to run Hatred and go Blood Magic for ALL the life. Here's a sample Blood Magic version at level 86 (110 points).



As you might notice, that one's a lot heavier on the life, but you'll probably forego using a Lightning Coil since getting the resists necessary will be tough without exalt level gear. However, you get more defenses from your chest and head, so it's probably a wash either way.

Grab Deadeye first, then Assassin. The pierce chance from Deadeye is far more important than the crit from Assassin, especially earlier on when you need all those arrows to wipe out packs quickly. The crit is more of a luxury/none of the other ascendancies really fit well with the build.

Good news, everyone! The Thousand Arrow Totem build is cheap cheap CHEAP. You can generally find a Chin Sol for 1c, if not less, and 5 linking it isn't horribly pricey. Plus, a decent 5l chestpiece isn't hard to find either, should you not want to/can't afford to link the Chin Sol yet.

Empire's Grasp can be a bit more expensive if you want a high armor one, but it won't break the bank. A low rolled one can usually be picked up for a couple chaos, a high rolled one might set you back 20-30. Easy peasy.

As far as the rest of your gear, the only other unique I would consider a necessity to the build is a Doedre's Damning so you can apply the dual curses of Projectile Weakness and Assassin's Mark to make your totems even killier. I mean, sure, you could do Enfeeble and Temporal Chains if you wanted to survive, but we're all about the deeps train here.

Well, you gotta do something while your totems are ventilating every last moving object in sight, and it would be a shame to waste the 13 arrows you get to fire with your own Barrages. Projectile Weakness will (obviously) make your totem's projectiles hit much harder, and the 50% Pierce chance brings your own Pierce chance to 100% without linking a Pierce gem - fantastic for making sure curses get applied through an entire pack of enemies. Assassin's Mark is good to make sure your totems crit, because when your totems crit, they drag mobs towards them, and that means MOAR DAMAGE.

A lot of math, but basically, you have a "more" modifier from Chin Sol's point blank ability, you have a "more" modifier from the actual Point Blank keystone, you have a "more" modifier from the Pierce gem you have socketed into your Ranged Attack Totem/Faster Attacks/Increased Crit Chance/Barrage links, and, oh, you fire a metric f***ton of arrows every second. As your totems drag the enemies into their inevitable doom, each arrow starts doing more and more damage, until eventually they rip a hole in the fabric of spacetime and implode the universe. It's pretty sweet.

Of course they can! In an ideal world, you have a six link chestpiece with Slower Projectiles or Added Projectile Physical Damage linked in to your totems, a +1 curse amulet to allow you to apply Vulnerability in your six linked Chin Sol, added flat phys on your rings and amulet, and attack speed and weapon ele damage on everything that can take it. Also, somehow, your resists are maxed and your life rolls are off the charts because at this point you're spending exalts for your gear and it doesn't even matter. Congrats on being rich.

By using a bow, you have two six link opportunities - the bow itself and your chest (though realistically a 5l is much more likely to shoot for, and you should do that). The totem goes in one, your curse on hit in the other, and make sure you link Life Gain on Hit into your Curse on Hit setup. You're firing a machine gun. Make it count. Here's what that looks like.



For other links, I happen to like Cast on Damage Taken level 1 with Frost Wall level 10, and then Increased Duration (as high as it will go) and Vaal Haste (as high as it will go) in the same links. You can manually cast the Vaal Haste because it's higher level than the Cast on Damage Taken, and the Increased Duration affects both it and the Frost Wall. The Frost Wall is there so that whenever something hits you, it doesn't hit you again, but since your totems have 100% Pierce chance, they go right on shooting. Beware, though, they can, and WILL drag enemies through the Frost Wall, so if you see one go up, don't hang around in the area.



I usually use my gloves for leveling random gems, since I don't really need any utility from the knockback, though you could probably put an Orb of Storms or something in there linked to Cast on Damage Taken to create another black hole to protect you, which, yeah, I'm probably going to do that now that I just thought of it. You should do it too.

Edit - Sadly, the Orb of Death does not work with Cast on Damage Taken. A shame. I have put my Frost Wall CWDT setup in there instead. Here's what I have in my boots. Basically the ice golem and some random leveling gems.



For my helm I'm using an Alpha's Howl to go for more of an aura variant, and as such, have my aura gems in there. Feel free to use a Rat's Nest or even a good rare depending on your own personal needs. Ideally you want a 10% increased Barrage Attack Speed enchant on your helm to fire all the arrows even faster.



And that does it for links. For your quiver, you can go with a Drillneck to take advantage of the 100% pierce for additional damage, or just a good rare. +1 arrow corruption isn't necessary, but it'll help your dps a tiny bit, so you might as well get it if you can afford it.

Well, if you watched the first video, you might have noticed that things got REAL choppy when the totems engaged both bosses along with the Perandus chest pack ALONG with ice effects on the ground ALONG WITH the million other arrows still littering the rest of the level from engaging other packs. I'm using an Alienware mx18 so I'm not exactly on a potato either. Hopefully GGG's optimization efforts continue to make things better on the graphics forefront, but you will definitely notice jagging/slowdown as you get further into each map/level, and that's because there are literally arrows sticking out of everything, and for some reason, your computer tends not to like that.

Oh, also, your life pool is going to be a little low compared to more traditional builds. Fortunately, there's an easy solution to that. Don't get hit. That's what your totems are there for.

This is going to get into totem and mob behavior mechanics, so if that bores you, thanks for sticking it out this far!

One of the things to remember about the mobs in PoE is that they will trigger off the first thing that engages them, generally about a screen's distance away when they get the command to "wake up" (which is what prevents you from killing things more then several screens away/causing rhoa lootsplosions). What this means for you, is that your totems should always be ahead of you if you're playing defensively.

In practice, this means casting a totem at max range, running up to it, and then casting another one at max range in a sort of leapfrog maneuver. What this does is ensure that enemies will always trigger off a totem first (handy for flickerstrike mobs), and the totem behind will immediately start supporting the totem in front. This gives you precious seconds to assess the situation. Do I bring my back totem up to support the front one to kill a rare? Do I need to fall back and start kiting with my totems because they're getting overwhelmed? Do I know where my pants are?

These are all questions having a totem in front of you will give you time to answer, and thus, keep your character alive.

Alternatively, you can do what I do, and just yolo run forward as fast as you can and then panic spam totems at your feet when you run into a pack of devourers. It's cool, they just want to give you a hug.

In addition, totems will always fire at the closest mob, so don't be afraid to reposition one if you need to focus on an invulnerable rare or totem near the back (though your dragging piercing murderarrows will generally take care of that for you on their own). This also allows you to focus fire on a boss by putting the totems directly next to each other, ping pong mobs between them by setting them further apart, or cover two different directions at once by splitting them out wide (handy for Elreon missions). Also, when I say "direction," it's really more "this quarter of the screen," as the Barrage spread gets pretty wide when you fire infinity arrows a second.

Also! Totems can shoot around corners for you. See a bunch of mobs inside a room that look pretty dangerous? Hang out to the side and throw your totems in the doorway. Laugh hysterically at the carnage. Repeat at the next room.

One thing to note, though, is that while your totems are sturdy, they're not indestructible, and they'll die pretty quick to giant clusters of blue mobs or bosses that hit super hard. That's fine. Summon another one. They live to serve.

Well, the build is really designed for solo play more than parties, but you can still make it work if you want to shower your friends with the glorious gift of arrows. Just be aware that you have far less control over how mobs are going to aggro, and that you're fairly squishy, so I wouldn't recommend leading the charge in that minus max increased ele damage vulnerability Core map. Other than that, have fun!

I do too. Thanks for reading, everyone!