Storm Totem Conduit of Wild Whispers Affixes

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
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The conduits are one of the most interesting gear items in the game, allowing us to fit various skills into playstyles or damage types they would otherwise not function in. While their usefulness ranges from gamebreakingly strong to “that comes in acid? Funny.”, some affixes are held back primarily by their competition in the amulet gear slot.

Two particular offenders in this regard are the Storm Totem modifiers on the Conduit of Wild Whispers, converting ST either to Aether or Fire, respectively. The problem here is not the affixes themselves, but that they block us from using Celestial Stone of Halakor and its +1 to both summon burst and summon limit, which is virtually a must use for almost any build using ST as a substantial part of its damaging arsenal.

I have compiled a list of builds from the last two years via grimtools, which all have hard-capped or almost hard-capped Storm Totems to illustrate my point. Here are the builds using Stone of Halakor in no particular order:

ST/Mortar-Elementalist

ST/Wendigo Totem Vindicator

ST/Wendigo Totem Archon

ST/Wendigo Totem Ritualist

Top 20 Nightbringer Archon

Former Top 20 Ludrigan Druid

ST/Doom Bolt Conjurer

On the other hand, only two builds came up that didn’t use Stone of Halakor:

ST/Bone Harvest Ritualist

Valguur Ritualist

Although the last one has a new iteration from 1.3 testing and it is - surprise - using Stone of Halakor now too:

To summarize, builds using Storm Totem are pretty much required to use the amulet slot on something other than the conduits, leaving these two very interesting options without any chance to shine. So here is my question: Could you just add the +1 to summon limit and summon burst modifier to them as well to give them a chance to compete with Stone of Halakor?

There is very little equipment supporting fire ST outside the conduit, it would most likely stay a very niche option; aether ST has Light’s Guardian set, but even in the best case scenario, this would probably just be a side-grade to lightning ST. It’s a small change, would just give the players more options to meme around with and the gorgeous VFX on the fire totems wouldn’t totally go to waste.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I think Stone of Halakor is in a really good place right now. Please don’t touch it.

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It’s a fair point, but I predict you will get the opposite solution :slight_smile:

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That would be the chaotic evil option for sure

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The Fire Storm Totem in particular is one of the rare sources of global “Lightning Damage converted to Fire.” It could lead to a decent build if better supporting equipment is there, but sometimes, the gear simply isn’t there to support it.

If we knew which builds would appreciate a Fire Storm Totem, then we could put the +1 summon burst option on something like the weapon slot in a way that a Lightning / Vitality ST build can’t also abuse it.

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I would love to see the conduit do something completely different, other than conversion. It doesn’t have to compete with stone if conduit will change the totem’s functionality altogether. Adding massive Total Damage multiplier, increasing AoE and limiting totem to 1 would be an interesting approach.

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Sure, but I was also just thinking in terms of practicality. Reworking the functionality would require much more thoughtful balancing compared to simply copying the modifiers from Stone of Halakor. I don’t want to ask for some massive additional workload for the devs, just a few lines of code.

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Pyran Elementalist comes to my mind, but I don’t remember if I ever try such build or not. But if I did the main things to take on Shaman would be ST and Maelstorm.

Perhaps Cyclone Elementalist would do too, but all Cyclone I’ve tried always become a lighning caster due to Wyrmbone glove and lightning bwc conduit

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I found this build by them from 1.1.9.4: [1.1.9.4] Rainfall of Blessings and Fire: Pyran's Mortars + Storm Totem Elementalist [SR80 Complete]
Don’t think it is particularly good anymore, but a buff to the conduit would at least make it a little better.

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I think if there is a change, specific to Fire Totem I prefer more burn damage

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main benefit of +1 summon is stacking dots right?, which aether doesn’t really get to do anyway :thinking:
So for aether atleast that part might fit with Arctic’s suggestion, just plop down one giant “Monster Totem” with humongous aether dmg :smile:

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I mean more totems should still equal more damage, even though the dot doesn’t get converted. Could also make room for an aether/lightning build similar to Allagast I guess? Admittedly a giant totem sounds pretty funny

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sure, +1 i still +1, but it’s “static” unlike dot which keeps being added/scaled on each new summon even after the old one is cleared
so in theory that basic dmg addition/“+1” could just be handled via tdm/regular dmg boosting on the existing, and would then cut down on necessary cast vs summon amount per cast too (unless it just threw out all at once ofc)
And then why Arctic’s idea sounded kinda funny/“fitting” that 1 big totem instead (also because relatively easy change to just change skill table textures/“substitute aetherial monster totem”)

For fire/since fire has the burn, more pets is probably nicer, or as someone else mentioned, extra fat flat burn mod in terms of their bonus/scaling

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Yeah, I got that, I don’t discount the idea, if Crate feels like doing this I would be more than happy to see it. My point here was more that the conduits in their current state have very little reason to be run over Stone of Halakor and even a small buff would go a long way. Of course, a big change could achieve the same thing, the important part is just to change something, otherwise neither of those conduits is ever getting used. More burn instead of fire damage as a flat bonus would also be really good, yes.