Totem Warbringer Leveling Guide For Path Of Exile 2

There are a huge variety of ways to set up a character in Path of Exile 2, even when it comes to characters of the same class. When it comes to Warriors, there are a few different ascendancy choices, one of which is Warbringer. This ascendancy is going to make a slight impact on your build the further it goes along.

Shockwave Totem Warbringers revolve largely around the Shockwave Totem ability, though that isn’t the only ability of importance in their repertoire. They are absolute masters of area-of-effect (AoE) damage, with their damage spreading over huge areas due to the multiple totems they can sustain at once.

The PoE 2 0.2.0 patch nerfed Totem damage significantly; this makes this build challenging in general, but particularly challenging in the harder content in the game. This is not a recommended build for a newer player, nor is it a recommended build for someone looking to tackle the hardest content.

Act One

It’s going to take a little bit to really get this build up and running; it relies on multiple different factors strengthening different aspects of your totems, and in particular, your Shockwave Totem. That’s not to say this build is impossible in the beginning, just that what you’re doing in Act One is going to look very different to what you do later on.

Early Equipment

As far as equipment goes, you can get away with using a one-handed or two-handed weapon, depending on your preference. A one-handed weapon will allow you to use a shield, though this totem build will ideally mean you don’t need to attack up-close with your weapon quite as much.

A two-handed weapon will mean you won’t be able to block, but it will mean a damage increase.

Later on, you’ll have access to the Giant’s Blood passive skill, allowing you to dual-wield two-handed weapons, and this is going to be a good option.

In regards to armor, stacking both armor and mana regeneration is going to be important. This is a very mana-hungry build, so getting that increased in whatever way you can is going to be important, especially as this build starts to struggle.

Skills In Act One

You won’t be using Totems for a short while – until you unlock them, at least. Before that, you’ll be using Rolling Slam and Boneshatter. In full, you’ll want to unlock the following skills in this Act:

• Rolling Slam

• Boneshatter

• Shockwave Totem

Support Gems

There is one support gem in particular that’s integral to this build that you’ll get in this act. Apart from that, some of these are optional:

Skill Rotation

Once you get the Shockwave Totem, you’ll want to get accustomed to making sure it’s out at all times. There will be some trial and error when it comes to learning where to place it; enemies will attack the totem, but it also needs to be near enemies to damage them.

For lower-health enemies, you can simply place the totem in the middle of them, and your skills combined with the totem will take care of them.

For bosses, you’ll want to try to keep the totem on the side opposite of the boss from you. This ensures that, whichever direction a boss is sending their attacks, they aren’t hitting both you and the totem.

Largely, you’ll want to go in the order of Shockwave Totem (twice) > Rolling Slam > Boneshatter. Continue putting out totems every time they disappear, and Rolling Slam > Boneshatter as often as you can, while the totems do their thing.

Act Two

Act Two isn’t going to develop our build too much in terms of new skills, but instead, it’s going to be time spent improving the skills that we’ve already got. Things are going to get a little tough here with the nerf to totems, but with a combination of different skills centered around the totems, you can make it work.

Skills In Act Two

The priority here is going to be to get the skills that we’ve already got as leveled as we can with the gems that we get. But, if you find you’re having trouble with single-target damage, you can grab Perfect Strike

, which is going to be a primarily single-target damage move.

If you’d like to further support your totems, pick up Earthquake

. This is going to create more Jagged Ground, which will erupt with extra damage when your totems deal damage. This essentially acts as a damage multiplier to the totems, provided the Earthquake is well-placed.

Support Gems

If you did happen to pick up Perfect Strike, Execute

and Window of Opportunity

are both perfect additions to the ability. Execute increases the damage to enemies below 35 percent health, while Window of Opportunity increases the damage if the move is released in the perfect window.

These two support gems on Perfect Strike are going to help you massively in single-target situations, but always make sure to pair them with the focus of this build, your Shockwave Totems.

You can use Fire Infusion

on Earthquake to give it a boost of fire damage, as well.

Act Three And Cruel

Act Three and Cruel are where you’re going to be adding another totem to your build, and really capitalizing more on the totem focus than before.

Skills In Act Three

Act Three is going to give us Sunder

; we’ll be getting our other totem later on, in the Cruel Acts. Sunder is going to deal quite a bit more area-of-effect (AoE) damage for us, on top of what we’ve already got.

We can also swap out Rolling Slam altogether or switch it out for Leap Slam. Sunder is going to fill a similar role, though it isn’t going to combo with Boneshatter as much as the others.

Pre-update, this build didn’t usually keep the Boneshatter mechanic around into the later stages because it wasn’t needed. Now, the totems do less damage, and while they’re still the focal point of the build, supporting it with some extra damage from things like Boneshatter and Perfect Strike can help keep the single-target damage from dropping quite so severely.

You’ll also need to pick up the Ancestral Warrior Totem

, which is the other totem we’ll be using. This totem can be equipped with certain abilities, Sunder being among them. You won’t get this until you’re into the Cruel Acts, but once you are, swap Sunder into the Ancestral Totem.

Support Gems

We’re going to be adding a few support gems here and possibly swapping them around, depending on what you’d like to do with them.

As mentioned in the opener, this build has been severely lessened in damage potential, and you will definitely want to ensure you are not relying 100 percent on your totems for damage. The totems are going to provide a solid and consistent damage baseline, and you can use your other abilities to amplify it.

Passive Skills And Ascendancy

You’ll unlock passive skills each time you level, and the passive skill tree can look overwhelming when you first take a look at it. But, our needs for this build are pretty simple.

Along with that, you’ll be unlocking Ascendancy toward the end of Act Two. This essentially acts as you choosing a specific tree of passive skill points that you’ll be locked into, like picking a class.

Passive Skills

We’ll be working towards a few different specific passives, mostly revolving around out totems.

• Carved Earth is going to increase the damage of our totems and increase our attack speed after summoning a totem. We’ll pretty much always be summoning totems, so this will be a nearly constant damage buff.
• Devastation will be important, increasing our AoE area and damage both. This will be big not just for our totems but for things like Earthquake and Boneshatter as well.
• Ancestral Artifice will increase our totem maximum again, while both Ancestral Mending and Ancestral Unity will be totem buffs, too.
• Watchtowers increase our totem capacity and also has the added bonus of occasionally spawning an extra totem for free.
• We’ll also absolutely want Supportive Ancestors, which is a damage increase for us while totems are out, and a totem buff that is increasingly powerful the more totems are out.
• Hardened Wood is going to allow our totems to live through more damage.

Ascendancy

We’ll be taking the Warbringer Ascendancy. This Ascendancy specifically has totem bonuses, such as Ancestral Spirits and Wooden Wall. Ancestral Spirits is going to essentially increase our damage, while Wooden Wall will increase our own survivability.