Templário - [3.21] Self-Cast/Place Totem Explode Cold Conversion Hierophant - Fórum - Path of Exile (2023)

First time poster here, unsure if this was done already but wanted to showcase it.

PoB: https://pobb.in/x2sn5zJXAGo7
Enemy corpse life in configuration should be set to 2x your totem life!

I wanted to abuse the Crucible totem explode mod, but I didn't want to play a poison build or a trap build. I already had a level 100 Heirophant and wanted to respec it so I came up with this.

Key Mechanics:

Cold conversion - We can get 100% (or 99% in my case because I didn't want to divine the prefix / Orb of Conflict the implicit) with the 40% Phys to Cold mastery, and gloves like these:

Totem Explosions - I could be wrong about this, but from what it seems, you can either use 1 2H weapon with the Totem Explode with 600% of totem life, or 2 1H weapons with Totems Explode with 300% of totem life.

Totem Placement Speed - This is a self-place / self-cast build so we heavily prioritize totem placement speed, as it is the equivalent of cast speed for us. Because of this we do NOT want the Crucible node for chance to place 2 totems, since this node comes with reduced totem placement speed. Instead, we use a 23% quality Multiple Totem Support for some extra placement speed.

Totem Life - The explosion scales off the totem life, so we want to max this out. We can stack totem life in 3 ways:
1. Gem Level of the totem.
2. Totem life nodes on tree
3. Totem life modifiers on jewels and the Ancestral Might cluster jewel notable

Scaling Damage - Nothing special here. This is a cold conversion build, so we can use Hatred, stack more global phys, Herald of Purity / Ash, phys. as extra, and the list goes on. The mechanic of choice here I am choosing is to stack Hatred effect.

Freeze - I chose to use Heatshiver and the new "damage per second of freeze" Cold Mastery. However, explosions have no natural base crit chance, and therefore we cannot freeze via crits. In order to get 100% Freeze chance, you can get 15% from tree (the small node next to Divine Judgement), at least 25% from Frostbite, and a Mageblood flask with chance to freeze:

Mana costs - I'm a Heirophant, so it's fairly easy to go Eldritch Battery + Mind over Matter. With the Divine Guidance ascendancy node, we have a perfect 50/50 damage split between life and mana, so I tried to aim for around equal ES and Life.

Items:

Ascendancy:
1. Divine Guidance - This is an EB+MoM build, so this node works pretty well with it. Also Transfiguration of Mind makes all the % inc mana stats on the Heirophant ascendancy actually do something.
2. Sanctuary of Thought - This gives us a LOT of reservation efficiency and a lot of ES.
3. Pursuit of Faith - 100% increased totem placement speed
4. Ritual of Awakening - Our maximum totem count is 4, so this gives us 20% more damage (unless that line is multiplicative per totem, which would be dumb) and some OK life regen

Sustaining EB+MoM
The totem explosion is secondary damage, and doesn't count as an attack or spell. Because of this, we can't rely on the usual "ES leech from spells" nodes like the Light Eater wheel.

You have to choose to regen life and leech ES, or the other way around. I chose to leech life and regen ES by using Zealot's Oath. This is because of the interaction Rejuvenation Totem has with cast speed. PoB will say you have a lot of regen, but in actually, it won't be up while you are placing the totems down.

Once the totem is summoned, it must then wait for its cast time before the aura is actually active. However, at our placement speed (6 placements per second), the cast will never go off before the totem is replaced.
In order to do this, you would need to get your cast time to under 2x your placement time (it takes 2 placements to replace the oldest totems).
The trap version of the build solves this easily by naturally scaling cast speed since they use Slavedriver's Hand, and don't scale placement speed at all.
According to my PoB, I would need ~70% increased cast speed to get this to work.

IMO since when bossing you aren't getting hit much since you are running around, ES recharge and various flat and % regen mods should be enough to keep your ES mostly up without the Rejuvenation Totem Aura, so I stuck ES to regen and life to leech.

Some fun numbers
Totem life -

Ailment Thresholds and Freeze / Chill Durations - A big part of this build's damage is freeze and chill. With all freeze- and chill-related config options unchecked, against Uber Pinnacle bosses, the minimum freeze ailment threshold is 55,511,221. For context, Uber Sirus has an ailment threshold of 7,412,940, so yes, you will end up stacking 10 seconds of freeze and chill duration quite fast.

DPS calculation -

Thoughts on the build
I'm not sure if this is better than the pathfinder poison version that's gotten popular. I'm definitely not sure that this better than the trap version of the build. Throwing 5 (up to 8 with swift assembly) traps per throw, 4x a second would be something like 20-32 summons per second, compared to the 6 per second in this build. You also can't pre-stack with the build like you can with the trap version.
This build does have a lot more totem life, based off the numbers for a level 29 Rejuvenation Totem. I can't say for certain how much damage the trap version has, since I haven't played it or looked into it, but I wanted to play a cold convert version without needing an aurabot, and reuse an old character.
This character did pretty well and has done every Uber Pinnacle boss.