In Path of Exile 2, Shockwave Totem is a powerful melee skill that allows players to summon totems that slam the ground, dealing physical or elemental damage to nearby enemies. As with other totem-based builds, Shockwave Totem requires careful planning and an understanding of how various modifiers interact with the skill.
While the totem scales differently than typical character abilities, it offers massive potential damage output when optimized. This guide will provide an in-depth breakdown of Shockwave Totem, covering gearing, passive skill trees, and the best support gems to maximize their potential.
Path of Exile 2: Shockwave Totem Build – Gear, Passives, and Support Gems

How Shockwave Totem Works
Shockwave Totem functions by summoning a totem that performs a ground slam, causing physical or elemental damage to enemies within its area of effect. Unlike other skills, totems use their stats and have their unique scaling, meaning the weapon or gear your character uses will not directly affect the totem’s damage.
Instead, the key to scaling Shockwave Totem effectively lies in totem-specific passives, global damage modifiers, and melee skill level bonuses. The totem’s attack speed, accuracy, and level of the skill itself all contribute to how effective it is, but the weapon’s own damage and attack speed do not factor in.
To scale Shockwave Totem’s effectiveness, it is crucial to focus on totem passives that enhance the totem’s damage, attack speed, or life. Moreover, global damage modifiers like increased melee damage and physical damage, as well as global skill level increases, will significantly improve the totem’s performance.
It’s important to note that the totem does not benefit from the attack speed or accuracy provided by your weapon. Instead, these must be sourced from gear or passives. Additionally, accuracy can be increased via non-weapon sources such as passive nodes or gear, ensuring your totem hits reliably.
What Enhances Shockwave Totem
When building a Shockwave Totem character, focusing on specific modifiers and gear is key to boosting its damage output. Totem passives are the most straightforward way to improve your totem’s damage, and these should be prioritized in your passive skill tree. Look for nodes that specifically mention Totem Damage or related terms. Additionally, Melee Skill Level bonuses are essential.
These can be obtained from various gear pieces, including weapons, amulets, and gloves. For example, one-handed weapons can roll up to +5 to Melee Skill Levels, while two-handed weapons can roll up to +7. You can also obtain +3 to Melee Skills from amulets and +2 from gloves. This can provide a significant boost to your totem’s damage, making +19 to Shockwave Totem possible from gear alone.
Another important factor is flat damage bonuses, particularly those that add physical damage. Items that increase melee damage or physical damage will directly boost your totem’s damage. These modifiers should be prioritized over others, as they scale Shockwave Totem more effectively. Since your weapon does not contribute to your totem’s damage, other sources of attack speed, such as gloves or passive nodes, should also be sought out. Attack Speed is important because it improves how quickly your totem can slam the ground and deal damage.
Accuracy, too, is a crucial stat for ensuring that your totem hits enemies reliably. Since Shockwave Totem doesn’t benefit from your weapon’s accuracy, you’ll need to look for sources of accuracy on gear or in the passive skill tree. If you want to ensure your totem never misses, consider taking the Resolute Technique, which guarantees that your totem’s attacks will always hit their target.
Lastly, you can enhance your build further by slotting two separate Shockwave Totem gems, each with different support gems. This allows you to maximize the damage output and area of effect, especially when fighting multiple enemies. Having multiple totems active can significantly boost your overall DPS.

What Doesn’t Work with Shockwave Totem
Some certain mechanics and modifiers do not benefit Shockwave Totem. For example, weapon local modifiers such as % Increased Weapon Physical Damage, attack speed, and accuracy do not apply to your totem. Since the totem uses its scaling, your weapon’s stats won’t enhance its performance. Additionally, on-weapon effects like Life on Hit or Mana on Kill do not transfer to the totem, so any leech or regeneration effects linked to your weapon are irrelevant to totem performance.
It’s also important to note that the direct weapon DPS doesn’t contribute to the totem’s damage output. While your weapon may be crucial for your character’s performance, the totem only scales off of global stats like +skill levels and totem-specific passives.
There are a few unconfirmed interactions that remain uncertain, such as whether weapon swapping affects the +skill levels of your totem after you change weapons, or if global crit damage modifiers on weapons affect the totem. Similarly, whether non-weapon “Gain Life/Mana on Hit” modifiers work with totems is still up for debate.
Optimizing Your Weapon & Gear Setup
When optimizing your gear for Shockwave Totem, the most important modifier to seek out is + to Melee Skill Levels. This can be found on 1H and 2H weapons, amulets, and gloves, and should be prioritized above all else. For weapons, 1H weapons can roll up to +5 and 2H weapons up to +7, while amulets can roll up to +3 and gloves up to +2. In total, you can potentially gain +19 to Shockwave Totem from gear alone, making it an essential component of your build.
In addition to skill level bonuses, flat physical damage on gear should also be a priority. Items that add physical damage will increase the raw damage of your totem, helping to push its DPS higher. If possible, try to find attack speed modifiers on gloves, as these will speed up the totem’s slam frequency, increasing the damage per second (DPS) without relying on weapon-based attack speed.

Keystone & Class Synergies
When it comes to ascendancies and keystones, several options can complement a Shockwave Totem build. The Gemling Legionnaire ascendancy is one of the best choices for Shockwave Totem builds due to its ability to convert all gem requirements to your highest attribute (usually Strength) and increase your gem-quality by +14%, which provides significant scaling for Shockwave Totem. Additionally, the 30% reduced skill cost is crucial for managing high-level totem mana costs, and the Strength-based life bonus is doubled, which synergizes well with Blood Magic.
Another viable ascendancy is Titan, which grants a 50% increased effect of small passives. This ascendancy excels in late-game builds when your passive skill tree has expanded significantly. Warbringer is also an option, providing straightforward mana sustain for totems, although it is typically overshadowed by Titan and Gemling Legionnaire unless you’re running a Warcry synergy.
Support Gems for Shockwave Totem
When selecting support gems, prioritize those that enhance your totem’s damage. Brutality is a must-have for physical builds, as it boosts physical damage but disables elemental damage. Concentrated Effect increases your totem’s damage but reduces the area of effect, which is perfect for focused damage on bosses or single targets. Heavy Swing and Heft are other excellent support gems for scaling your totem’s damage output.
For utility, Inspiration is a great support gem to reduce mana costs, which becomes increasingly important at higher gem levels. If you want to summon additional totems, Overabundance can be slotted, but it reduces the duration of your totems. Alternatively, Armor Breaker is a useful support for boss fights, as it shreds enemy armor, especially if you lack Warchief for armor reduction.

Managing Mana
As Shockwave Totem scales, its mana cost per use increases, which can be challenging without proper mana management. The Gemling Legionnaire ascendancy reduces the skill cost by 30%, which is very helpful for maintaining totem uptime. Additionally, using Blood Magic can be a viable solution if you’re building around Strength, turning your life into a source of mana. For non-Gemling builds, Inspiration can be invaluable for reducing the mana cost of your totems, allowing you to keep summoning them without running out of resources.
Conclusion
To build a powerful Shockwave Totem character in Path of Exile 2, you need to focus on the right combination of gear, passive nodes, and support gems. The most important factors for scaling your totem are + to Melee Skill Levels, damage modifiers, and totem-specific passives.
With the right ascendancy (such as Gemling Legionnaire or Titan) and support gems like Brutality and Concentrated Effect, you can maximize the effectiveness of your Shockwave Totem build. Additionally, managing your mana and using Blood Magic or Inspiration is essential at higher levels. By following these guidelines, you’ll be able to dominate your enemies with unstoppable Shockwave Totems. Happy hunting in Path of Exile 2!
Last Updated on January 3, 2025

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