Some Important Reasons Affect the Totem – Path of Exile

Playing my first SSF character and trying for the first time to build a character without looking at any builds but a lot of the game mechanics are not very clear so I’ve come here for help. Was very lucky to get a decent Facebreaker and Skirmish quiver early so I figured I was destined to make a totem build.

path of exile

Now onto the question(s)…

1. If I get a passive that says “5% increased melee attack speed”, will my totems gain the 5% attack speed or will they only get the bonus if the passive says something like “Attacks used by totems have 5% increased attack speed”? I’m using the Ancestral Warchief skill

2. Same again for crit chance/multiplier passives/life leech

3. There’s a Unique shield which increases the number of totems I can have as well as gives me increased totem damage. This seems like the obvious choice for me, but until then should I continue to use the Skirmish, should I find a shield/quiver which gives stats or go down the road mentioned in the next question if it’s still around?

4. After googling I’ve seen people do tricks to just have a weapon in their offhand and not the mainhand. When I tried it I had less physical damage on the totems than I did with the Skirmish quiver which doesn’t have much in the way of offensive stats. Was this trick patched? I have the Ancestral Bond passive which gives me an extra totem but I cannot attack things myself. Would I be better off removing that and adding an attack skill for myself? I heard Infernal Blow was getting reworked in 3.3 and I’m fairly sure that can be used with Facebreaker.

5. Should I have said ‘affect’ or ‘effect’ in the title? The in-game currency is available at the professional online gaming house. The interested gamers can buy poe exalted orbs from those professional online gaming houses in the most affordable cost.