Totem Zone is one of the late game zones that players unlock when their Onmyoji and Totems level both reached 40. Inside the zone, players can the Dark Totems, which are counterparts of the players’ Totems.
To upgrade Onmyoji is simple: the Onmyoji gets Exp when he/she participates in the battle just like Shikigamis. Exp is universal across all four Onmyojis so you don’t need to level each one up one by one. Their stats are also exactly the same. Note: The test of whether you are starting this game efficiently is that by level 40, you should be able to clear Dark Seimei in the story and unlock chapter 18, even if you are F2P.
Contents
Totems
Totems are a bit different. It acts like Soul in some ways. Each Onmyoji has his/her own Totem (Guardian Beast) which lends power to the Onmyoji. Seimei has Shinryu (Dragon), Kagura has Hakuzosu (Fox), Hiromasa has Panther, and Yao Bikuni has Peacock.
The Totems look different but they give the exact same stats just like the Onmyojis have the same stats. As oppose to Onmyojis, each Totem has to upgrade differently.
Which one to upgrade is, of course, the player’s choice. The general consensus is Seimei and Kagura are prioritized since they are more useful in many situations than the other two.
Either way, when your Onmyoji and one of the Totems reached level 40, you will be able to enter Totem Zone (with that specific Totem) in Exploration.
Dark Totems
Each day of the week you can fight a different Dark Totem with Weekends are free for all.
Tuesday – Dark Shinryu
Wednesday – Dark Hakuzosu
Thursday – Dark Panther
Friday – Dark Peacock
Weekend – All four
Dark Shinryu
Dark Shinryu corresponds to Seimei’s Shinryu. A notable skill is that its counter can inflict Daze, which is the most problematic to players.
| Skill | Orbs | Description |
| Flame Ball | 0 | ST 100% ATK damage |
| Lightning Bolts | 2 | AOE 85% ATK damage |
| Rain of Stone | 0 | 13% to AOE counter when receiving an attack (multi-hit attacks only trigger once). In the counter, there is 15% chance to Daze the target for 1 turn |
| Frozen Realm | 0 | Enraged by paper dolls every 2 turns. Increase ATK by 10% permanently and this is stackable up to 10 times. |
| Berserk: Shinryu | 0 | At 30% HP mark, Dark Shinryu goes Berserk and increases its ATK by 50% and gains 2 orbs at the beginning of every turn. Therefore, it’s able to spam its AOE Lightning Bolt |
| Samisen | 0 | Soul Effect. Increase SPD by 30 when under control effect. Only first level, second and three level bosses are immune to controls. |
Dark Hakuzosu
Dark Hakuzosu corresponds to that of Kagura’s. Its counter can inflict Poison on the player’s Shikigamis. This effect has minimal impact in the face of a potent healer.
| Skill | Orbs | Description |
| Tail Strike | 0 | ST 100% ATK damage |
| Fury Blow | 2 | AOE 85% ATK damage |
| Thunder Strike | 0 | 13% to AOE counter when receiving an attack (multi-hit attacks only trigger once). In the counter, there is a 40% chance to Poison the target for 3 turns, dealing 10% ATK damage. |
| Eyes of Punishment | 0 | Enraged by paper dolls every 2 turns. Increase ATK by 10% permanently and this is stackable up to 10 times. |
| Berserk: Hakuzosu | 0 | At 30% HP mark, Dark Hakuzosu goes Berserk and increases its ATK by 50% and gains 2 orbs at the beginning of every turn. Therefore, it’s able to spam its AOE Fury Blow |
| Samisen | 0 | Soul Effect. Increase SPD by 30 when under control effect. Only first level, second and three level bosses are immune to controls. |
Dark Panther
Dark Panther is a counterpart to Hiromasa’s Panther. Its counter can lower DEF by 40% which is very dangerous to units with insufficient Max HP. In which case, these units are prone to one hit KO.
| Skill | Orbs | Description |
| Hunt | 0 | ST 100% ATK damage |
| Myriad Strikes | 2 | AOE 85% ATK damage |
| Sky Wings | 0 | 13% to AOE counter when receiving an attack (multi-hit attacks only trigger once). In the counter, there is a 40% chance to lower targets’ DEF by 40% for 2 turns. |
| Roar | 0 | Enraged by paper dolls every 2 turns. Increase ATK by 10% permanently and this is stackable up to 10 times. |
| Berserk: Panther | 0 | At 30% HP mark, Dark Panther goes Berserk and increases its ATK by 50% and gains 2 orbs at the beginning of every turn. Therefore, it’s able to spam its AOE Myriad Strikes |
| Samisen | 0 | Soul Effect. Increase SPD by 30 when under control effect. Only first level, second and three level bosses are immune to controls. |
Dark Peacock
A dark version of Yao Bikuni’s Peacock. Its counter can seal the targets’ Soul and Passive. This is the same skill as the unreleased Hannya. Sealing Soul and Passive is annoying but shouldn’t pose too much of a threat to a decent team. Note that only the Soul effects (2-piece and 4 piece effect) are sealed, but not the stats added by Souls.
| Skill | Orbs | Description |
| Flutter | 0 | ST 100% ATK damage |
| Stellar Blast | 2 | AOE 85% ATK damage |
| Cyan Wings | 0 | 13% to AOE counter when receiving an attack (multi-hit attacks only trigger once). In the counter, there is a 30% chance to seal the targets’ soul effects and passive skills for 1 turn. |
| Tail Display | 0 | Enraged by paper dolls every 2 turns. Increase ATK by 10% permanently and this is stackable up to 10 times. |
| Berserk: Peacock | 0 | At 30% HP mark, Dark Peacock goes Berserk and increases its ATK by 50% and gains 2 orbs at the beginning of every turn. Therefore, it’s able to spam its AOE Stellar Blast. |
| Samisen | 0 | Soul Effect. Increase SPD by 30 when under control effect. Only first level, second and three level bosses are immune to controls. |
Strategy
Totem Zone is pretty hard. I would say this is the hardest PVE stage released so far; even more difficult than Soul 10 (which you can borrow an OP unit from a whale friend).
The strategy for Totem Zone is different than what we have faced so far. So far, players can get through everything by maxing out DPS. That strategy is not going to work in Totem Zone. It’s more along the lines of Sougenbi, which the fight is going to last long. Of course, it’s much harder than Sougenbi, so the focus of the strategy is to increase survivability.
Level 1
Level 1 is not too hard because the Bosses have a weakness: they can be controlled. With a good controlling unit, ideally the Bosses won’t get a chance to act.
Now the Bosses are equipped with Samisen, so they will be much faster once under control in an attempt to shake off the status. Therefore, your accelerator needs to take this into consideration. I would say SPD above 170 should be enough.
Another consideration is the Bosses’ counters. Not only can they inflict damage, but also status effects; specifically Dark Shinryu can inflict Daze. The counters can turn the tide if luck isn’t on your side. Therefore, immobilizing effects such as Freeze, Daze, etc. are better since counters are also disabled under these.
Consider using manual if you are worried about Yamausagi’s Ring Toss and Kamaitachi’s United triggering counters.
Overall, the key to an easy Level 1 win is a good control unit with control Souls. You may want to max out Soul Position 4 Effect HIT even if that Soul is just G3/G4.
Level 2/3
Level 2/3 is a completely different story. The biggest change is that the Bosses are immune to controls. The bosses having more HP and higher ATK also doesn’t help. We can expect an even longer fight than Level 1 so the strategy is to focus on survivability.
Supporting units are the keys here especially healers. Totem bosses will do a lot of AOE damage. It is impossible to survive without good healers.
There are quite a few healers to choose from right now. The popular ones are Ebisu, Momo, and Kusa. Another less popular healer that I like is Doujo. Though, not many people are comfortable with the idea of her sacrificing her own HP to heal the team.
Ebisu – Top of the line healer if you are able to max his Carp Banner. Carp Banner only costs 2 orbs while healing a significant amount of HP. The only drawback is that the heal is not instant. That would open up the possibility of losing units from consecutive attacks/counters from the bosses. The same goes for Sakura but she heals less than Ebisu.
Momo – She’s another top healer alongside Ebisu. She’s one of the only two units that can revive right now (the other one being Oguna). She’s also one of the two healers being able to perform AOE heal (the other one being Kusa). Having her on the team significantly reduces the risk of losing units during battle. The drawback is that she has high soul requirement. Momo needs close to 100% Crit to perform AOE heal consistently. In the early game, most players would not have good enough souls to keep her HP high enough to heal effectively while having high Crit %.
Kusa – another good healer for the early/mid game before Momo is ready to use. She’s not at the level of Ebisu or Momo, but she does pack a low-cost AoE heal as well as regen. Building Kusa is also interesting in that she actually requires high ATK to heal effectively. This means that she can almost act as a secondary DPS but at the same time, she has low survivability due to lack of HP.
Shuzu – Many players love her ability to keep the team alive but her ability to heal 5% of her max HP is nothing to joke about. Shuzu is a solid choice for these types of hard contents. Her healing ability is just icing on the cake.
Team Strategy
As with everything else, there are numerous teams that could work. Below is one that would work on auto mode.
Shuzu is an obvious choice.
Accelerators like Yamausagi are not as useful here. While one can argue they can help finish the fight faster, I would say having one more healer would increase survivability
Ebisu also has a role in providing orbs since we are not bringing Zashiki. While orbs maybe scarce in the beginning, Ebisu should provide enough once the fight picks up.
Kusa can act as secondary DPS if she’s equipped with Scarlet. If that’s the case, you may want to use Ubume instead of Hakuro since counters can trigger Ubume’s passive. Though, frequent attacks will trigger Bosses’ counters easily.
Hitotsume is here purely for reflecting attacks. The reflected damage is not bad but the most important thing is that this does not cost Orbs and does not trigger Boss counters. Without Zashiki, I am doubtful that we can support another pure DPS. Shuten Doji is another choice to attack without using orbs but not everyone has him and he can trigger counters.
With so much HP, Seductress would be the ideal choice for DPS. Puppeteer would deal more damage with her multi-hit, others such as Futakuchi or Youko are also good choices. Of course, our favourite Ubume would be a popular choice since most players would get her to Grade 6 first. With good enough Supports to withstand counters, Seductress would finish the fight much faster..
Seimei is the best Onmyoji for these types of contents. Not only can he put up a shield, his normal attack already decrease boss ATK by 40%. In fact, it’s possible to have Seimei just do normal attacks so the bosses are consistently debuffed.
In terms of levels, DPSs should be at G6 and supports should be G4/G5 with high-level souls. Again, Totem is not a place for under-leveled players.
The fight
Level 1 is more straightforward. The key is having a high Effect HIT CC. As long as the boss is under control, there is not much concern. I would still bring a healer just in case there is a gap in between CC.
Level 2/3 is a bit tricky. The fight would start slowly without Zashiki and Yamausagi/Kamaitachi. Bosses’ speed is around 160 so as long as Shuzu is fast we should be ok.
With Water Circuit and Carp Banner, there should be no problem getting the Boss’ HP to <30%. This is when the real fight begins.
The Boss will start spamming its AOE as well as countering. You need high HP to survive. Ebisu would have no trouble acting as Orb provider because he’ll get hit a lot. Hitotsume would also reflect decent damage to help the fight. The healer would be most tested during this time. Momo would be the ideal candidate for her revival, but Kusa would have to step up if Momo is not available. Ubume will just have to keep hacking and slashing while keeping an eye on orb usage. If there is a risk of running out orbs, Shuzu and healers should have the priority.
Seimei could just use normal attacks to suppress enemy ATK or if you are in manual mode, cast Shield when appropriate. Now, with Seimei’s ATK debuff, Hitotsume would reflect less damage but the team is easier to survival.
Kagura is also a good choice is you are confident in your healers. Her counter would cast damage-over-time on the Boss. The damage is base of a % of current HP so is quite significant.
Final Words
The suggested team is intended for players without top tier DPS. The fight would take a few minutes but then again, Totem bosses are not meant for speed runs.
Having more healing would mean the team can beat the bosses more consistently. In fact, only Dark Shiryu should be a problem due to its Daze counter. The other three should be easy provided your support has high HP.
Realistically, I would say G6 DPS is a must with G5 supports with high-level souls.
Jizo Statue is not as useful here than in Duel. The bosses use one-hit skills and not necessarily critical so it is difficult to trigger Jizo. I consider Mirror Lady for additional damage.
There are better defensive Shikigami to come that would make this fight easier but for now, having two good healers with Shuzu should do the trick.