s10 Shaman - Flame Totem

Season 10ShamanLive Updates

A build guide by Sphiralis

01 Overview #

The fire totem shaman in season 10 is looking to be a comfortable season starter for any fans of the totem playstyle. Levelling is super smooth and that continues all the way into the endgame. This build has one of the easiest times gearing out of any class in the game, the elemental tag on totems allowing us to use any form of elemental skill levels or damage. Due to this it's especially good for beginners that may not know all the items in the game. Late game the flame totem shaman shines at both bossing and farming, the playstyle allowing players to focus on dodging boss mechanics while the totems do all the work.

IMPORTANT

While the skill has received updated from PAS the multiplying flame nodes is still not working the same as in season 9 and will do nothing but cause lag while reducing your damage. For this reason it was completely removed from the guide and it will no be added back.

The Good

  • Ability to level with totems from level 1
  • Easy and versatile gearing thanks to elemental tag on totems
  • Smooth playstyle with auto targeting totems
  • Needs minimal fcr and no skill haste in endgame

The Bad

  • No mobility skill
  • Totem play style may not be for everyone
  • Massive amount of fireballs is known to cause lag
  • Sentry attack speed stat only found on a few pieces of gear

02 Season Changes #

Fire totem got a direct buff to damage per point and int scaling meaning we are stronger than in season 9. The changes to scattering flames don't effect us as our sub tree remains the same just with scattering flames in a different spot and we hit so often that extra proc chance makes no reasonable difference.

03 Loot Filters #

04 Stats, Sockets & Stars #

Attributes

400 spent 0 / 400 left
  • Strength 0
  • Dexterity 0
  • Intelligence 200
  • Energy 0
  • Armor 0
  • Vitality 200
  • %magic skill damageThis scales all of our damage
  • + all skillsIncredibly valuable since it levels up passives that do not have an elemental tag
  • +Fire/Arcane/lightning/poison/cold skill levels.All of these directly increase the levels of flame totem due to the elemental tag
  • %Fire/Arcane/lightning/poison/cold skill damage.All of these increase our damage thanks to the elemental tag. Fire and arcane % have priority due to the total% fire and arcane nodes on the incarnation tree
  • Life and life%Great for survivability. You do no dps if you're dead.
We can use any type of gem thanks to the elemental tag.
Use for endgame items you aren't likely to replace

Star levels

When you start getting multiples of your S-tier Satanics, it might be time to attempt some star leveling. Star leveling S-tier Satanics requires Destiny Shards — used at the crafting bench, each shard has a chance to:
62%Upgrade by 1 star
26%Downgrade
12%Corrupt — all stars removed
Each star increases the stats of an item, including orange-text abilities and bonuses. It can also increase +Skill rolls that are NOT +All Skills — so +Elemental or +Physical skills can be scaled this way.

This can be done to SS-tier items too, but it requires higher-tier materials — not suggested until you have established yourself.

05 Leveling 1–100 #

One option we can use before flame totem is to start levelling with tectonic boulder all the way until level 24. It's nice and simple has a big aoe and does good damage. Mana can be an issue however so if you are finding it a problem put more points into a synergy skill rather than tectonic boulder itself, additionally you can also place points into the subskill - Stoned mined for mana cost reduction.

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06 Level 100+ Skill Trees #

The level 100 skill tree doesn't differ much from our levelling tree just with the addition of passives from the left side of the skill tree. Nature's prophet and earth's grace are both fantastic passives for us giving increased life and mana% and arcane skill damage% respectively. The choice of which passives to put the remaining points into depends entirely on if you feel you need more damage or more survivability.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Despite the changes multiplying fire is still not worth using. The first change made it semi-decent for clear however the most recent change makes it completely useless even for that. We stick with Paralyzing napalm as it's our best option at this point.

IMPORTANT CHANGE
The sub tree has changed to a version that, somehow, causes less lag

We utilise paralyzing napalm large node to increase our damage. This is until the multiplying flame node is bug fixed and testing will be done afterwards to make sure the guide stays updated.

The single point into earth's grace is so that our all skills on gear scales our life and mana. If you find yourself being squishier early than you would like you can take points out of chaos totem and add them here at the expense of some lower damage

For those struggling with single target due to a lower gear level we have earth totem as supplemental damage. We summon multiple totems at once so it's just a few clicks to add some extra damage. This will probably be quite laggy but on harder fights can make the difference.

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07 Incarnation Tree #

Our first priority is to head straight towards mechanical engineering for the huge boost to damage it gives. We won't be dealing any damage ourselves so the downside doesn't matter at all.

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08 Gear #

While levelling you just want to get as much additive spell damage, % spell damage and skill levels as possible while also being on the lookout for life and resistances. Once you hit level 100 however your gearing opens up a little bit more and you can start looking for some good satanics to equip. All the gear here is to show some basic examples you can use since we benefit from many kinds of %damage and +to levels.

You do not need to get the exact gear shown hear in the guide. It's just an example. We want to focus on getting damage mixed with some survivability. -fire res is very important for us and our aim is to get as much as possible while still getting a good mix of offensive and defensive stats.

While looking for satanic charms you should keep an eye out for charms with life, life%, life on kill, mana on kill, resistances. These will help fill out some defensive gaps in your build.

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09 Mercenary #

Mercenaries are for auras and magic find.

This mercenary focuses on early game mf items for getting your mercenary up and running

Ist runes should go in every socket

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