PoE 3.21 Exploding Totems

Explode

Explode effects causes a monster or corpse, when killed or detonated, to release an area of effect explosion, dealing damage to nearby enemies. Most of these effects scale with the monster’s maximum life. Explosions are considered secondary damage. Exploded enemies do not leave a corpse on death.

Enemy monster explosions

Exploding enemy monsters on death will stop them from using on death effects that deal damage. Some examples include porcupines and cold damage over time from spiders in delve.

It is possible for an explosion to trigger another explosion if the conditions allow it, such as the Herald of Ice explosion that freezes another enemy and kills them, which procs the effect.

If multiple different sources of explosions trigger at once they will all do their damage simultaneously.

% Increased area of effect modifiers work on all explosions.

Explosions have a base critical strike chance of zero. Global modifiers to base critical strike chance affect the explosion damage.

Skill gems

Gem Str. Dex. Int. Lvl.
Cremation N/A 28
Detonate Dead N/A 4
Herald of Ice N/A 16
Vaal Detonate Dead N/A 4
Volatile Dead N/A 12
Bodyswap N/A 10
Voltaxic Burst N/A 12
Herald of Ash N/A 16
Infernal Blow N/A N/A 12
Infernal Cry N/A N/A 24

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Totem

Totems are a type of creature. Totems appear in the game as monsters, and also as allies created by certain skills. Like any other creature, totems have life, and they will be destroyed if their life drops to zero. Totems do not leave exploitable corpses. Totems cast by players use their skills according to the player’s stats, including modifiers from charges and buffs (like auras) affecting the player.

Totems as monsters

Totems appear in some areas, such as the Ancient Pyramid, and are just like any other monster, except that they usually cannot attack1 or move2. They are commonly found projecting auras that affect nearby monsters.

There are several unique totem monsters, for example Kuduku, the False God (who always appears in The Ledge), Puruna, The Challenger, the boss of Atoll Map and the totem bosses of Olmec’s Sanctum.

1 In map with Area contains many Totems modifier, some totems cast skills for example, the Ice Nova.
2 Except Lightning Warp totems.

Totems as allies

Certain skills allow the player to summon a totem ally. Depending on the skill, the totem will then attack, cast spells, or project an aura for the player. It will continue to cast until it is destroyed, its duration expires unless using an offensive spell (including minion summoning), in which case they will cast until there are no enemies in range (and start again if enemies enter their range), it runs out of skill charges, Souls, or resources, or it is overwritten due to the totem limit. These skills have the Totem gem tag.

Totems are also not considered party members. They are, however, considered allies. Totems allies are not considered to be minions, and are therefore not affected by minion-specific modifiers such as increased Minion Damage and Minion Instability.

The act of summoning a totem can be sped up by increased Totem Placement Speed modifiers. As of version 3.0.0, base totem placement time is 600 milliseconds., and base ballista totem placement time is 350 milliseconds

Any auras projected by the totem will affect all of the player’s allies, including minions and party members. Aura skills and aura-like effects can affect totems (this includes degeneration effects). Totems are only affected by auras that affect defensive properties (e.g. Armour, Evasion Rating, Energy Shield, damage reduction). Totems still use their summoner’s skills. For an offensive aura to have an effect, it must affect the summoner, not the totem. Action Speed benefits like Tailwind are the one main exception and affect the totem directly.

Active totem limit

By default, a player can have only one (1) active totem at any time. Summoning a totem with the maximum number of totems active will cause the oldest living totem to be destroyed. This is a global limit among all skills. For example, if the player has a Rejuvenation Totem active, and then casts Decoy Totem, the Rejuvenation Totem will be destroyed, and a Decoy Totem will be created.

Totems can have different maximum active totem limits. If a totem is summoned at the maximum limit of totems, it will destroy the oldest totem without breaking the totem limit.

The following grants additional global totem limit:

  • Ancestral Bond
  • Ascendant’s Hierophant passive skill
  • Hierophant’s Pursuit of Faith passive skill
  • Certain offhand items
    • Skirmish
    • Tukohama’s Fortress
    • Shaper shields with the +1 to maximum number of Summoned Totems affix
  • The Panopticon and Watchtowers Notable passive skills also grant +1 to maximum number of Summoned Ballista Totems specifically.

The following grants additional local totem limit:

  • Multiple Totems Support
  • Searing Bond has an innate +1 to maximum number of Summoned Totems, and can gain additional maximum with Phantasmal alternate quality.
  • All Ballista skills have an innate +2 to maximum number of Summoned Totems, scaling up to +4 at gem level 22+.
    • Ballista Totem Support has an innate +2 to maximum number of Summoned Totems.
  • Iron Commander
  • Replica Iron Commander

The Runebinder keystone applies -1 to maximum Summoned Totems.

This allows for a theoretical maximum limit of 9 Ballista totems or 4 non-Ballista totems plus one Searing Bond Totem, not including Unique items or local totem limit increases from Multiple Totems Support.

Legacy versions of Soul Mantle from before version 3.17.0 also grants an additional maximum summoned totem.

Totem range

Totems have an aggro range that determines how far they can “see” for the purposes of targeting enemies with attacks and spells. Totem range is not considered an area of effect and will not be altered by AoE modifiers. Divergent quality grants 1% increased Totem Range per 1% quality on Spell and Ballista Totem Supports and 2% increased Activation Range per 1% quality on the Ancestral Protector and Warchief skills.

Skills used by totems

  • Skills used by totems use the player’s stats (which includes player’s equipment, passives, buffs, and debuffs) as if the player used the skill. Any changes on the player that would affect a skill are immediately applied to the skill used by totems, both current and newly summoned.
  • Power Charges and Frenzy Charges on the player will apply their effects to skills used by totems. Totems have a maximum Power Charge and Frenzy Charge limit of zero. Power and Frenzy charges gained by totems are simply discarded and will not transfer back to the player.
  • Endurance Charges on the player do not provide their natural defensive effects to totems. Any effects from having Endurance Charges that would effect a skill (e.g. increased damage and AoE from Unyielding) used by a totem will be based on the player’s Endurance Charges. Endurance Charges gained by a totem will apply their defensive benefits to the totem itself, but not to the player or other totems.
  • Effects applied by the skill can be applied through totems, such as curse on hit modifiers from corrupted glove implicits, unique explicits (notably Temporal Chains on Asenath’s Gentle Touch), or influenced/delve rings. (tested and confirmed Dec. 2020 using Ballistas).
  • As it is the totem uses the player’s skill, any reflected damage and other reflected effects will be reflected to the totem, not the player.
  • Effects based on resources spent (e.g. Arcane Surge Support or Lifetap Support will only care about resources spent by the player; when the totem uses the skill, it costs nothing.
  • Totems will follow the skill’s cooldown and stored number of uses.
  • Kills made by totems grants the player the experience, but effects such as life gain on kill will not affect the player. Due to the limitations of calculating kill attribution, most damage over time kills from totems will be attributed to the player, which allows their summoner to benefit from on-kill effects such as explosions (e.g. caused by Haemophilia gloves or Gladiator’s bleed explosions).
  • Any Minions created by the totem are treated as if they had been cast by the player, and are subject to the same maximum minion limits, will get the benefits of Necromantic Aegis, and so on. Minions inherit the Less Damage and Less Attack/Cast Speed modifiers of the support, but will not be scaled by any totem modifiers.
  • Unlike attack speed and cast speed, Action speed modifiers on a player will not affect the speed at which their totems cast or attack. Individual Totems each have their own action speed modifiers and they can be altered by non-local modifiers to action speed, like Tailwind to Allies from Gathering Winds, chill, and freeze. This also means totem action speed would not be affected when the player is chilled or frozen.

Totem stats

While skills cast by the totem are affected by all modifiers affecting the player, the stats of the totem itself are not. The totem will not benefit from passive skills or gear that increase the player’s life or energy shield, will not be affected by Chaos Inoculation or increased resistances, the totem is not considered to be wearing the player’s armour, and so forth. Totems have a standard 40% elemental resistance and 20% chaos resistance, regardless of any resistance penalties applied on the player. Totem base life scales on the level of the Totem Skill, or in the case of skills turned into totems, the level of Ballista Totem Support or Spell Totem Support. Totems also take 80% less Damage from enemies, but take full damage from themselves (e.g. via Forbidden Rite).

Generic +% increased/decreased Skill Effect Duration modifiers will not affect the lifetime of totems. Only Totem Duration will scale this stat.

Totem buffs

Ancestor Totems are a specific type of melee totem that grant the player a buff while it is active (which recursively applies to the totem as well). Each of Ancestral Protector, Ancestral Warchief, Vaal Ancestral Warchief, and Earthbreaker Support grant non-stacking buffs. Multiple totems of the same type do not grant additional bonuses. Modifiers to the Effect of Buffs your Ancestor Totems grant while Active only apply to these stats. Other conditional stats, such as those found on Ironwood, are not affected.

Totem skills

When a Trap, Remote Mine, and Totem skill and support gems are all linked in combination, the result is a skill that lays a mine. When the mine is detonated, it lays a trap. When the trap is sprung, it places a totem, which then can cast the linked skill.

Therefore totems can never lay traps or mines. Totems can not be made to place other totems.

Totems do not work with trigger gems. They can not be summoned by them nor trigger any further effects.

Skill gems

Gem Str. Dex. Int. Lvl.
Artillery Ballista N/A N/A 28
Shrapnel Ballista N/A N/A 4
Siege Ballista N/A N/A 12
Ancestral Protector N/A N/A 4
Ancestral Warchief N/A N/A 28
Decoy Totem N/A N/A 4
Devouring Totem N/A N/A 4
Holy Flame Totem N/A 4
Rejuvenation Totem N/A N/A 4
Searing Bond N/A 12
Shockwave Totem N/A N/A 28
Vaal Ancestral Warchief N/A N/A 28
Vaal Rejuvenation Totem N/A N/A 4

Support gems

Gem Str. Dex. Int. Lvl.
Focused Ballista Support N/A N/A 31
Ballista Totem Support N/A 8
Earthbreaker Support N/A N/A 8
Multiple Totems Support N/A 38
Spell Totem Support N/A 8

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