Sunder Totem Titan Build Guide

Weapon-Swaps can make or break a build in Path of Exile 2. Use the information provided below to set up your skills correctly, otherwise this can result in the build doing significantly less damage or straight up not work. For more information, check out this guide and the Weapon-Swap section further below that goes into specifics about the build.

Skill Rotation

• Against packs of monsters, simply put down your aoe-setup of Sunder Totems and move while they deal damage. Make use of your range and don't forget you can place them at the edge of the screen. If you do this, most enemies are usually dead by the time you arrive.
• Against Bosses, first put down your Orb of Storms and stand in it to start gaining Rage. Then immediately place your single-target Sunder Totems and prepare for the boss to spawn. Once the boss spawned, Immediately start using Armour Breaker to break the enemy's Armour. The broken armour is then consumed to guarantee a critical hit on Sunder. If you can, try to stay in your Orb of Storms during this, but if the enemy goes into stun and gets knocked back, it's fine to move out or replace it.

Important Build Mechanics

Best Weapons for Totems

Totems do not use your weapons damage, since they have their own weapon, which is tied to the level of the Ancestral Warrior Totem. This means that any sort of base damage you see on your weapon is completely useless. However, global mods do work, including:

• + 7 to Melee Skill Levels (mandatory and not negotiable)
• + to Strength
• + to Stun Buildup/Duration

Another issue to sort out on your weapon is Attribute Requirements. You use Giant's Blood, which triples the Strength Requirement of your weapon. This means that while looking for your +7 weapon, you need to check for low strength requirements as well.

You can use Soul Core of Zantipi in your Rune Sockets to ease the attribute pain. This is an easy trick to get a cheaper weapon. In the endgame, use Stone Rune in your Rune Sockets though as it drastically increases the speed at which enemies get stunned.

Totem Basics

• They are are NOT minions.
• Totems are an extension of you and therefore inherit damage bonuses.
• Totem Placement Speed significantly decrease the time your totem travels to its destination, as well as the animation time it takes to summon it. This makes Placement Speed a premium stat that should be prioritized on the Passive Skill Tree and Jewels.
• Totems use their own weapon, so base damage on weapons doesn't work.
• They scale mainly with + to Levels, which is capped at Level 40.
• Totems scale with bonuses from the Passive Tree (increased damage, attack speed)
• Your Totems RARELY die, so there is no reason to scale them defensively.

When scaling Totem damage, you are mainly looking for the following, in order of importance:

• + to Melee Skill Levels (scales both Ancestral Warrior Totem and Sunder)
• + to Maximum number of totems with Ancestral Artifice and Watchtowers on the Passive Tree.
• increased Totem/Physical/Attack/Melee Damage from the Passive Tree and Jewels.
• increased Attack Speed from the Passive Tree (weapon Attack Speed does not work)

Getting a Level 40 Totem

The biggest damage increase for your Totems is through Skill Levels. For example, a Level 40 Setup does approximately 42x the damage of a Level 20. Every Level on its own is approximately 25% more damage. This means that if you had a +6 instead of a +7 Weapon, it'd be like having 4 support Gems instead of 5. Do not, under any circumstances, miss out on even a single level.

You can get + to Skill Levels from:

• Upgrading your Skill whenever you can. Level 20 can be used at Character Level 90.
• +14 to Melee Skills from dual-wielding 2x Two-Handed Maces using Giant's Blood
• +3 to Melee Skills from Amulet
• +2 to Melee Skills from Gloves

This puts both your Ancestral Warrior Totem and Sunder at Level 39. To get to Level Cap (40), you need one more. For this, you have 2 options:

• Corrupt all your Skill Gems into Lvl 21 (CURRENTLY BUGGED)
• Use a Prism of Belief for Ancestral Warrior Totem. This is worse because it costs a Jewel Socket and only increases the Level of one of your Melee Skills.

Weapon Swapping

In Path of Exile 2, you can allocate up to 24 points on your Passive Tree that change depending on your currently equipped weapon. These are not additional points, moreso points that you can split in half depending on the situation.

On Totem Builds, Weapon Swaps are absolutely insane and mandatory. This is because totems use the weapons assigned to them even if they are currently in your offhand. This means you can :

• Set up Weapon Swap 1 to 2x 2-Handers with Giant's Blood. Then set your totems only to Weapon Set 1. (remove tick on weapon set 2) Then you put all of the Totem Passives to this Weapon Swap 1 Setup.
• Set up our off-hand for a 1-hander + Shield that automatically swaps if using Shield Charge or Armour Breaker. Then you put all the totem points into block instead.

This results in us getting the best of both worlds, full damage on totems and a Shield + capped Block Chance whenever we need it.

The Maxroll Passive Tree Planner supports this feature, look out for different colours!

If you're unsure how to use this system in-game, check out this guide.

If you're still unsure, check out the weapon-swap section in the video guide on the bottom.

Fixing Mana & Life Cost

Since your Totems are scaling all the way up to Level 40, the Cost of placing one is outrageously high. At Level 40, a Totem costs 1168 Mana, which is obviously not sustainable. Here are all the things you do to compensate for this weakness:

• Convert 51% of Mana Cost to Life using Price of Freedom, Blood Rush and 3x Life Costs from the Passive Skill Tree
• Reduce the cost further using Deep Trance, which you aquire from annointing your Amulet with Distilled Fear + Distilled Ire + Distilled Despair (rightclick on any of these to begin the process, don't forget they need to be in exactly this order).
• Use Inspiration on your Main Clear Setup. This is because during mapping, you replace totems more frequently than on bosses, therefore reducing the cost here is more favourable.

To compensate for the Life Loss you use:

• % Life Regeneration Rate Corruption on a Atziri's Disdain. This is a huge deal and should be a priority to get.
• Time of Need.
• Vitality which is linked to Grim Feast.
• Multiple Life Regeneration Bonuses from your Passive Skill Tree like Relentless, Ancestral Mending. Life Regeneration or Life Regeneration.
• A solid Life Flask like this: Potent Ultimate Life Flask of the Sylvan
• Extra +to Maximum Life or Strength on Gear.

To compensate for the Mana Loss you use:

• + maximum Mana, which you should have on most if not all of your Gear.
• % increased Mana Regeneration Rate, which you should have on at least 2 pieces of Jewelry if not all 3.
• Since your Jewelry has both + to Maxmimum Mana and Mana Regeneration, use Neural Catalyst to enhance both mods.
• a solid Mana Flask like this: Concentrated Ultimate Mana Flask of the Sylvan or on a high budget use Melting Maelstrom.

Skill Leveling Priority

Make sure to constantly upgrade your gems whenever possible. This substantially increases the damage of some skills and the potency of others. Checking back to your gems after you acquire additional attributes to upgrade them should be second nature to you in no time!

When talking about Attributes in this section, this includes all of them: Dexterity/Strength/Intelligence.
This is because even if you might need Intelligence, by getting Dexterity, you can now undo the Dexterity nodes on your Passive Tree and turn them into Intelligence, having the same effect! Knowing this fact makes your gearing a lot easier.

2-Handed Maces

• Weapon Damage, whether physical or elemental do absolutely nothing for totems!
• Your 2-Handed Mace needs to first and foremost have +7 to Melee Skill Levels. +6 is acceptable for Leveling transitions but not for any Waystone higher than Tier 5. This stat is non-negotiable and can be the difference between you dealing 100k or 1million damage.
• A Mace with low attribute Requirements. This is important because your Strength Requirement is tripled from Giant's Blood, which can go into 400+ if not accounted for.
• To achieve low requirements you can either look for a "weak weapon basetype (advanced and not expert), have the modifier reduced attribute requirement on the weapon itself, or use Soul Core of Zantipi in your Rune Slots!

Everything other than the above is only for minmaxing, but here are some more upgrades:

• Increased Stun Buildup on either the weapons implicit or on the weapons suffix
• + to Strength
• Increased Stun Duration
• Increased Stun Buildup from Stone Rune. You can only use these if you can stomach the Attribute Requirements of the weapon without having to use Soul Core of Zantipi. Make sure you plan this in advance, since Runes can't be removed later!

No other stats on weapons work for physical totems.

Body Armour

• Whatever you get, make sure you can fullfill the Intelligence Requirements before buying (can be hard)!
• #% increased Energy Shield and + to maximum Energy Shield
• +# to Maximum Life
• +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
• + to Attributes if needed

Gloves

• +2 to Melee Skill Levels, this stat is more important than everything below combined.
• % increased Attack Speed
• +# to Maximum Life
• +# to Maximum Mana
• +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
• + to Attributes if needed
• #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)

Boots

• +#% to Movement Speed (30% if possible, extremely important to prioritize)
• +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
• +# to Maximum Life
• +# to Maximum Mana
• + to Attributes if needed
• #% increased Evasion and +# to Evasion
• #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)

Rings

• %# increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• +# to Maximum Life
• +# to Maximum Mana
• +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
• + to Attributes if needed
• #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
• Use Neural Catalysts up to 20% Quality

Amulet

• +3 to Melee Skill Levels (this stat is more important than all the below mods combined)
• %# increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• + to maximum Mana
• +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
• +# to Maximum Life
• + to Attributes if needed
• #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)

Belt

• + to Maximum Life
• + to Maximum Mana
• +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
• + to Attributes if needed

Jewels

This build allocates at least 7 Jewel sockets which provide an excellent way to further customize your build. Specifically look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:

• #% increased Totem Damage
• #% increased Totem Placement Speed
• #% increased Global Physical Damage
• #% increased Attack Damage
• #% increased Melee Damage
• #% increased Weapon Swap Speed
• #% increased Life Regeneration Rate

• While Mapping, focus on mechanics like Delirium and Expedition.
• Breach and Ritual are good for Currency but can be quit hard for the Build, especially if you have increased Movement or Attack Speed of enemies on your Map. This is because of the delay your Sunder has.
• Avoid Burning Ground & Less Recovery Maps at all costs!

I struggle with Mana/Life Recovery, what do I do?

Most of the time, not upgrading your Life/Mana Flask will be the first mistake, fix that. Other than that, it's mostly a mix of everything, check the writeup in the Build Information section and go through what you might've done wrong.

I struggle with my attributes, what should I do?

Attributes are the limiting factor on every build. Any stat on items is good, because you can shuffle around the attributes on your Passive Tree as needed.

Example: You need 30 Intelligence but your new Gloves have 30 Dexterity. That's fine, you just convert the 30 Dexterity you have on your Passive Tree to Intelligence and the problem is solved.

The main culprate of Attribute problems is your Weapon, which has to be factored in beforehand, check out the Info Section for more clues.

I keep dying! Is there any way to solve my defense?

Make sure to remember that you're a ranged character, use that to your advantage. You can place your Totems at the edge of the screen and they can take quite a few hits as well. If you're in a Breach or Ritual, after placing your Totems, frequently swap to your shield setup to make use of Block!

Even more important, make sure your Resistances are as close to capped (75%) as possible, use your Runes for this as well!

Also, avoid Burning Ground & less Life Recovery Rate on Maps at all costs!

My totem does little to no damage, what is happening?

You either didn't respect the warnings up top about + to Skill Levels on Gear, maybe even forgot to upgrade your Skills frequently using Uncut Skill Gems of the appropriate Level.

The other alternative is that you didn't set up your Weapon-Swap correctly. Check out the top section on how to do this!

• The Sunder Totem Titan Build is a great Warrior Allrounder, clearing packs of monsters with ease and destroying most Bosses in mere seconds.
• Weapon-Swap is used to circumvent build restrictions and obtain both damage and block chance.
• The Build uses Giant's Blood to dual-wield 2-handed weapons.

Credits

Written by: Palsteron
Content Reviewed by: Void241
Language Reviewed by: Tenkiei