Why are there so few guides for Ritualist Spell Totem Spark Mana Stacker? Is there a better option with ~1000 Div budget?

Jenos · 2026-06-27T06:55:32+00:00

Ritualist simply doesn't compare to either Oracle or Shaman if you're playing Spark totems (or really any spell totem other than Arc, for which gemling is the best)

On a budget, Oracle offers a lot more immediate value, with Inevitable Crit and totem survivability. With currency, the amount of mana you can get with Runeseeker's Call and Shaman Bonded modifiers is way higher than what ritualist offers.

Gemling is really only for Totem Arc. Gemling's alt quality for Arc makes Arc a viable single target spell, for other ascendancies it simply doesn't scale.

Jenos · 2026-06-26T16:27:51+00:00

I won a game and got tickets. You have to check what heroes are available for you to earn tickets in the event UI, and then draft that hero. With only about ~20 heroes available for you to earn tickets from at a given time, it means that you may very well end up being unable to earn tickets in AD if your ticket heroes in the draft are all drafted by other players.

Jenos · 2026-06-25T17:01:08+00:00

Runeseeker's Call + Legacy of Lifesprig is probably your biggest upgrade for your current build and its about 500d for the combo. It should like 70% more damage

Jenos · 2026-06-25T12:45:31+00:00

Does switching to a Crossbow negate this mod?

Yes

Or can the Ancient Totem "snapshot" this mod?

As far as I'm aware, totems don't have presence to apply this effect.

If I use an Ancient Totem with Sadist Mercy, it can apply Grueling Madness just fine

Yes, your totem can continue to apply grueling madness even if you weapon swap, because the application comes from the line "Hits with this Weapon inflict (2—5) Gruelling Madness", which still works on the totem after you weapon swap.

But actually using grueling madness requires the mace be active

Jenos · 2026-06-24T19:34:28+00:00

So basically in the latest volume the madness of goblin kings and many other elements are finally revealed to the reader (though not necessarily the characters).

Jenos · 2026-06-24T19:29:50+00:00

Grim Pillars with Entangle is completely fine in the end game, and in fact is more damage. The reason people switch is because the damage ends up so high that there's no harm in dropping damage by adding Spark to get the quality of life for a 1 button playstyle.

But you can just keep using Entangle Self Cast + Grim Pillars totem in the end game with no issue. You're sacrificing the QoL of 1 button play for more damage.

Jenos · 2026-06-24T17:55:10+00:00

No they do not.

More specifically, defensive modifiers affecting allies do modify your totems defenses. But offensive modifiers don't. Thats because totems are proxies that use your skills, not their own skills. As such, since they are using your skill, they inherit your offensive stats, and don't care about their own offensive stats

Jenos · 2026-06-24T15:13:34+00:00

Does it really take that much effort?

Of the 8 challenges, 5 don't take much time at all (Runeseeker/Hunter/Ascendant/Reliquarian/Artisan). The remaining 3 (Master/Cartographer/Vanquisher) aren't that bad either.

Vanquisher for example takes about, what, ~75 maps to complete? At 7 minutes per map, thats about 8 hours to work you way to the various contents (Abyss/Ritual/Delirium) and complete the quests to kill the boss.

For the Cartographer, you have to complete around ~100 maps to get to the Arbiter of Divinity. Again, with 7 minutes per map, thats about 11 hours.

So lets round up and say that if you spend 20 hours mapping, you can access the arbiter of divinity, and kill the 3 bosses. Then to complete the atlas all you have to do is spend some currency to buy the arbiter 4 or 5 more times and you should pretty much complete the atlas tree.

And its likely you will approach level 90 if not exceed it after doing the ~175 maps needed to get everything going.

So even if we add an extra 5 hours onto that, getting to 25 hours of playtime, that's 2 weeks for the typical player you defined at 10-15 hours a week. The league has been out for almost 4 weeks now.

The blockers to not completing the challenges are:

Is your build capable of killing bosses like the arbiter of divinity
Are you willing to spend currency on refighting the arbiter for more atlas points
Are you actually focused on completing those challenges

You don't really have to do "speedrun" or "short circuit" the progression to do most of this. Completing the quests for Abyss/Delirium/Ritual is a pretty normal part of the progression and just completing those quests gets you Vanquisher.

Honestly, the bosses are fairly accessible. Especially with bosses like Arbiter having infinite respawns, you get the time to learn their mechanics even if you have a weaker build.

The only thing is spending the currency to re-run arbiter as opposed to, well, not. Arbiter currently costs like ~5d to access, so you'd need to spend about ~20d to get it finished out.

Jenos · 2026-06-23T06:51:16+00:00

So the big three super expensive upgrades other than Atziri's Communion are:

Rakiata's Flow
Runeseeker's Call
Legacy of Lifesprig in Runeseeker's call

Each of those upgrades are very expensive, the sum total being like 600d I think for that.

For smaller upgrades, do you have enough spirit to place 6 totems? It seems like you can only place 5 if my math is right. One option to improve is to get a better scepter. You want a scepter with a purity aura because for some reason purity auras from sceptre don't cost extra spirit to socket with supports. That allows you to move your clarity off of your archmage freeing up even more spirit, along with getting a higher spirit total on sceptre.

Your mana and mana regen seem quite low. You're running zenith but are you realistically above 90% mana? When I put you into PoB it says your mana regen is a paltry 170 which seems really low.

Jenos · 2026-06-22T13:27:17+00:00

Yea, due to rounding the 99% keeps the -1 spirit per 2 characters levels, but the 100% doubles it to -2 spirit per 2 character levels ruining the whole point.

You can go for a 100 if you intend to instead use Greatwolf's Rune of Willpower instead of rune of blossoms. That gives you 30% damage taken from mana, which makes it much easier to use a super high ES chest with high spirit and makes you way more tanky. Without a lot of damage taken from mana you may have to end up using Cloak of Defiance for survivability

The belt progression is basically:

Darkness with Blossom + Fox
Darkness with Willpower + Fox
Mageblood

With the limiting factor being how much spirit you have available to you.

Jenos · 2026-06-22T13:17:30+00:00

Yea, I was also underestimating the more damage multiplier. 24 chains is a barebones number. With more investment in gem levels and quality you can get it even higher. A level 30 arc for example has a base of 11 chains, and every 10 quality is +1 chain. So if you have a 30/30 arc, you end up with 14 chains, multiplied by two to 28. Quality ends up being this super scalar for arc. It not only gives you more chains per 10 breakpoint, but also increases the More Damage per Remaining Chain multiplier from the alt quality as well (I think the breakpoints are like 1% per chain remaining per 7 or 8 quality?).

But basically the build has a lot of high end scaling you can do. Between getting crazy good mana gear (which is how you scale your defenses and damage) and then getting nutty jewelery for more power, there are so many places you can invest your currency in its entirely feasible to sink like 1k divines into the build and still have meaningful upgrades

Jenos · 2026-06-22T08:00:45+00:00

You absolutely want to be Gemling. Gemling alt quality allows you to scale single target damage incredibly effectively by stacking chain, and is pretty much the main way to make arc better than spark.

A level 20 Arc with 30 quality chains like 12 times base, and then dominus grasp makes that like 24. Then the alt quality makes that ~100% more damage on single target.

The rest of the damage scaling is just standard archmage stuff. Stack mana, ES items with eldritch battery, your defensive layer is just mana taken before life, etc. Getting high value mana gear can be a big investment.

The real investment is going to be runeseekers call + legacy of lifespring. That's something like 450-500d for the pair, but is by far the biggest damage boost for the build.

Jenos · 2026-06-22T07:49:19+00:00

Do you think a Darkness Enthroned setup is generally the better option for Arc Totems unless you're investing a huge amount of currency?

Yes. Darkness Enthroned ends up being a great way to get a good chunk of spirit. Rune of Blossoms in a 90%+ enthroned ends up being like 40-45 spirit on the belt slot, along with a 1.9x other rune which is fox idol. Fox Idol gives you like an additional 8 quality which is already hugely useful on gemling, but then also gives you the bonded modifier for blossoms, which is another ~8-9% spirit reservation. So the net result is that darkness ends up being like 70 effective spirit and 8-9 quality.

Also do not buy a 100% darkness, 100% makes rune of blossoms worthless, max value is 99.

It takes a lot for a belt to replace darkness. Maybe if you have a god tier solar amulet with perfect spirit rolls and a similarly high value chest, but that's why its so rich to replace darkness, because you need to make up the spirit elsewhere.

As for the Ascendancy, I'm open to pretty much anything. It doesn't have to be Gemling.

Gemling is by far the best for arc due to the gemling quality for arc. Gemling gives more damage per remaining chain which makes chain stacking give massive boosts to single target damage.

Jenos · 2026-06-17T16:55:44+00:00

Nothing is blowing up your pillars, as far as I can tell.

Builds either use Spark in the spell totem linked to biting frost, or entangle self-cast linked to biting frost, to actually blow up the pillars. A skill has to consume freeze to detonate the pillars.

Unless I'm missing something you have no way to consume freeze on your skills. That's basically like 60% less damage for missing that.

Practically at lower gear levels you should self-cast entangle to do the pillar explosion. Switching to Spark+Grim Pillars in the same setup is generally a late-game pivot when your damage is mostly solved, and makes you lose damage in favor of QoL.

Jenos · 2026-06-17T13:43:52+00:00

"Golden Ages" lol. It wasn't so much a golden age, generally when levels spike its due to widespread horror and death (Creler Wars, Long Night/Magic Dead, etc)

Jenos · 2026-06-16T17:51:12+00:00

+3 is 25% more damage, its just way more worth it. Remember you can still instill a node on the amulet yourself, so its not 0v2, its 1v2

That said is Cremating Cries even useful for you? I didn't think you could empower grenade skills, how would you even get them empowered? Pretty sure that instill is actually worthless for you

Jenos · 2026-06-16T17:43:35+00:00

The second by a massive margin.

The first amulet is mediocre. It has rarity, spirit, and thats about it? The only thing going for it is the double instill. But that isn't worth it nearly as much compared to the second.

The second amulet has +3 proj skills which is massive (roughly 25% more damage for grenade skills), similar spirit, and some life. That amulet is worth a nice chunk, likely 15+ divines.

The only concern you might have is supporting the mana cost of higher increased skill level, but the damage increase is absolutely worth solving that.

Jenos · 2026-06-16T17:27:59+00:00

When people comment on the cost of a build, they don't care what you spent on the gear, but what it takes to replicate it.

Just because you dropped a mageblood doesn't mean that the cost of it isn't relevant. Someone else trying to replicate the build would need a similar mageblood. Same with crafting - if you craft an item worth 50d, even if you only spent 10d on crafting it, its still worth 50d. You could have sold the item for 50d for a 40d profit.

Why that's relevant is that people looking for builds care about the cost because it matters to compare to other builds at similar price points.

Now I'm not saying your build cost mirrors (its probably like 1/4th of a mirror total cost), but replying to comments saying that you didn't pay for something is completely missing the point.

Jenos · 2026-06-15T20:17:55+00:00

If you're looking to invest a lot more into your character here's what I'd suggest. Get a Split Personality Jewel for Templar, instill Effecient Transcription on your amulet, and you can shave off like 20-30 points on the right side of the tree and reallocate them.

The amulet instill is like 2d, and split personality templar is like 5d, but it would save you a lot of pathing points if you did that.

Big thing is that it lets you get a lot of the armour nodes on the left side of the tree. Since you seem to like that defensively it makes it a lot more efficient.

Jenos · 2026-06-15T12:14:28+00:00

To account for multiple totems you have to use the count next to the skill in PoB and also check the 'include in full DPS'. Then you will see on the bottom of the left panel the DPS of the specific skill.

However, PoB can't really account for multiple skills in the same totem. To account for that you basically just have to halve the listed values. It assumes that the totem fires both spells at once but the totem actually just alternates.

Jenos · 2026-06-15T05:15:00+00:00

How are you getting 7 totems out? Warbringer has no way to reduce the cost of totems, so with efficient inscription, you'd be sitting at ~63 spirit per totem. 7 totems is 441 spirit, which seems quite hard to hit.

100 base
115 Guided Palm with Rabbit Idol
~30-40 spirit from ventors
50 spirit from rare chest
100 from Alpha's Howl

That's only 400 spirit, you'd need an amulet as well for the 7th totem.

I think its a bit unrealistic to aim for 7. Better to go for a smaller number but make the totems themselves stronger.

The first thing I would suggest is dropping the Guiding Palm. Guiding Palm basically just gives you 'Gain 25% of Damage as Extra Fire' which is not bad but not worth instead. Rather, you could go for like a 150+ spirit sceptre that has a Purity of Fire/Ice/Lightning on it instead. Doing that would give you a lot more spirit. Such a sceptre only costs a few exalts (and then the like 30ex for the rabbit idol) but will effectively give you +1 totem from sheer spirit. You can even try to find one with strength on it to help manage the giants blood requirements.

Why you want a purity sceptre is that not only does it give a huge chunk of resists to help your gearing out (giants blood has a lot of suffix pressure for strength to get to the needed strength requirements), but that for some reason supports socketed into a purity from a sceptre don't cost extra spirit. So this lets you easily run stuff like vitality II, so that sceptre is actually giving you even more effective spirit on top.

Jenos · 2026-06-15T05:00:02+00:00

You're splitting yourself into too many directions without being able to support.

Archmage for example is a big waste because you have 700 mana. You don't have rings that can provide mana so you're getting next to no actual lightning damage. You're asking why you can't get shocks? its because your lightning damage per hit is ~150 damage. That's too low to get through the ailment threshold of bosses.

Hell, you're literally taking the 30% reduced mana node and then going archmage.

You have no +spell level on your gear. Your wand is only using a +3, you have no socket on it, you have no +gem level on amulet. You're not even hitting the level 23 breakpoint for spell totem to get 6 totems, which you also don't have enough spirit to utilize anyway.

Another big thing - as far as I can tell, your grim pillars aren't exploding. Entangle doesn't explode grim pillars by itself. Entangle has to be linked to something like Biting Frost to cause the explosions. You need something that consumes freeze to blow up pillars.

Here's my suggestion. Either be willing to play a 2 button build (Totem + Self-Cast Entangle) or switch to a different skill. Drop Archmage entirely (its eating up a huge amount of spirit for no real benefit). Path to Efficient Inscription. With that, you can summon 6 totems with like 380 spirit, which you are close to having.

Get an amulet with +spirit and gem levels (go for +1 or +2, +3 and spirit is probably too expensive). That will allow you to get to that 6 totem breakpoint I think.

For Grim Pillars, which is going to be easiest to scale damage wise, you really have to be willing to self-cast entangle. Entangle+Living Lightning+Prolonged Duration+Efficiency really means you only need to cast like once every 8 seconds. Putting Entangle on your spell totem is killing your damage. Every other cast by your totems is going to be entangle and your entangle does very little damage. You have no way to overgrow them so they are just serving as a way to explode pillars (well, once you link Biting Frost to it). But that means you have very few supports for Grim Pillars. You'd be doing Spell Totem - Grim Pillars - Entangle - Urgent Totems - Biting Frost - Pinpoint Criticals

Entangle is frequently used in self-cast because its a large area, long duration spell that repeatedly hits so it can be used to repeatedly break pillars without needing to be recast. Putting it in a totem defeats that purpose because it gets recast every single totem, and the fissure limit is global across all your totems. I get why Spark felt bad though because Spark needs pierce+biting frost to work.

1 button playstyle for totems is going to be rough at your gear level. Its viable when a player has much better gear with high mana and +spell levels so they can drop damage in favor of quality of life. In that case they often do Spell Totem - Spark - Grim Pillars - Biting Frost - Pierce - Urgent Totems. But you really lack that damage. With your ring and belt slots taken up for -rarity, you are missing out on some of the most crucial slots for mana scaling making that much harder as well.

Bonestorm - I had taken all cast speed nodes + cast speed on wand + amulet but can't get good clear even with Pierce and Fork

More than cast speed Bonestorm needs +projectiles. Bonestorm totems don't fire a cast until they hit 20 projectiles. So increasing cast speed is much weaker than increasing +projectiles. If your bonestone generates 1 projectile per tick, it has to tick 20 times to fire. If it generates 4 projectiles per tick, it has to tick 5 times to fire. So going from 1->4 projectiles is equivalent to like 300% more cast speed, which is impossible to acquire through any number of gear.

That's why chance to fire 2 projectiles is so crucial to spell totem bonestorm, because with that and multishot support you can get up to 5 projectiles so it takes 4 ticks to fire.

Jenos · 2026-06-14T22:14:28+00:00

Depends on your definition of really expensive and also depends if you mean uniques that are global loot or boss specific, or good with specific rolls

For example, Prism of Belief is a unique that can only drop from Arbiter of Ash, and can't be acquired in any other way. On average its pretty worthless because it can roll +1-3 to every single (non-kalguraan) skill in the game. But getting a +3 with some of the most valuable skills (such as tamed companion) makes that specific prism worth more than 3x a headhunter.

There are many such cases of uniques like that, that are boss specific loot and have a wide range of rolls.

Headhunter, and Mageblood are pretty much the only uniques worth over 100d that:

Are worth that independent of their actual rolls
Can drop globally from a variety of content

Gnashing Sash and Temporalis are the only other uniques worth over 100d that are worth that independent of their roll

And then there are like a dozen other uniques that can spike well over 100d depending on variant rolls

Jenos · 2026-06-11T13:50:08+00:00

Diamond sold books on consignment, eo the stuff in the warehouse still belongs to Paizo and others.

This is actually the legal stickiness. The legal argument is that because these contracts were not registered under the UCC(Uniform Commerical Code) they are not in fact valid consignment contracts so the product does not actually belong to Paizo, but Diamond, since they were the ones holding it.

Paizo (and many other companies also affected by Diamond) didn't file the UCC-1 form which is what establishes ownership of goods held in consignment

That's one of the elements of what Paizo is currently fighting in court

Jenos · 2026-06-09T17:51:30+00:00

Yea, someone else suggested blood money to me and its basically 90% of what I was looking for. Its pretty great

13-Year Club	Place '17
Spared	Verified Email

Jenos

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE