Melee Totem Skills have been removed. We decided on this solution rather than simply removing their passive buffs in order to make sure that melee builds are not oriented around set & forget gameplay, and to allow dealing damage yourself with melee skills to be buffed to appropriately rewarding levels.
To compensate, we have buffed the damage on almost every single Melee Skill. As the majority of this damage growth comes from gem levels, we have also made them cost more mana as they level, but it’s still nothing like the mana cost on spells. Please see the Skill Gem Changes section for the full list of these changes.
The following Gems have been removed and are no longer offered as quest rewards: Ancestral Protector, Ancestral Warchief, Vaal Ancestral Warchief, and Earthbreaker Support.
Players who have purchased the Iron Maiden or Void Ancestral Warchief microtransaction skill effects will have these removed shortly after the launch of 3.25.0, and the points spent on these microtransactions will be returned to your account.
Existing versions of the Forbidden Shako and Replica Dragonfang’s Flight Unique Items with any of these removed Gems will now provide another Gem.
The Dawnstrider Unique Boots no longer provides "100% increased Effect of Buffs your Ancestor Totems grant while active", "Buffs from Active Ancestor Totems Linger for 4 seconds", or "Maximum 1 Buff from an Active Ancestor Totem at a time". It now has "Socketed Slam Gems are Supported by Level 25 Earthbreaker", and provides Ancestral Bond. These changes affect existing versions of this item. It now also has "3-5% of Damage from hits is taken from your nearest Totem’s Life before you", though this change does not affect existing versions of this item. This Unique is now the only source of Earthbreaker.
The "Buffs from Active Ancestor Totems Linger for 3 seconds" Totem Passive Skill Mastery has been removed.
The large wheel of Totem Passive Skills south of the Duelist’s starting location has been removed. The Panopticon Notable Passive Skill has been removed, while the Ironwood Notable has been moved to be a second Notable in the Shamanistic Fury Totem cluster.
Ironwood no longer provides +150 Armour per Summoned Totem or "Totems gain +30% to all Elemental Resistances". It now provides 40% increased Totem Life (previously 30%), and "Totems have 40% additional Physical Damage Reduction". The small entrance Passive Skill in this cluster now provides 10% increased Totem Life, instead of 5% increased Totem Placement Speed, and a new small Passive Skill providing 15% increased Totem Life and "Totems gain +16% to all Elemental Resistances" has been added.
The Surveillance Notable Passive Skill now has its own cluster to the south-east of the Duelist’s starting location, with 3 small Passive Skills which each provide "Attacks used by Totems have 6% increased Attack Speed".
Some clusters along the bottom of the Passive Skill Tree have been shifted slightly to account for these changes.
The Ancestral Guidance Cluster Jewel Passive Skill no longer provides "30% increased Effect of Buffs your Ancestor Totems grant while Active". It instead now provides "Totems Regenerate 2% of Life per second".
The small Totem Life and Physical Damage Reduction Passive Skills in the Primal Manifestation cluster now provides "Totems gain +16% to all Elemental Resistances" instead of "Totems have 10% additional Physical Damage Reduction".
The two small Totem Attack and Placement Speed Passive Skills in the Watchtowers cluster now provide 15% increased Totem Damage instead of "Attacks used by Totems have 5% increased Attack Speed".