[2.2 Whispering Ice, Lowlife, Pure Unique wearer 1900+ Int, updated]

Would it be better to get the int nodes at the witch start to travel to Deep Wisdom instead of the energy shield nodes?

got my witch to 92 and now the build truly shines with 2 izaro's turmoils (high rolls) :)

however i really don't like the glove choices. voidbringer has too high mana cost even with 24+ clarity aura and i don't like the low es and temp chains of asenath's touch. have not tried atziris gloves, too expensive for now, but it too basically just has int. i hope the next content patches bring some better item. personally i would rather use cast when stunned + enhance + ball lighting + enfeeble than the lvl 1 temp chains.

i think the biggest weakness of the build are stun issues. some bosses/monsters can be very dangerous:
titty bitches, the act4 worms with the rapid firing tails and the ice storm of mervail as well as the firestorm of Megaera. personally i would always run with arctic armour than herald of ice. the dmg from herald of ice is negligible as ice storm has 30% dmg effectiveness and the 15% inc. ice dmg is very litte compared to other inc. dmg sources. 14% less fire/phys dmg however is awesome.

for the rapid attack monsters a jade flask with stun recovery is quite good.

I consider myself a beginner even if I have played for a year or so. I bought almost all of the gear yesterday for this build (still missing one ring).

Now I need to actually start with the character. I have my first character level 70+ witch which I could respec but I prefer to start a new one and I hate the name i chose :) (I would also need to respec all the bandits). I have never played a low life or CI so I don't know how to do leveling.

I have read a few guides how to do the leveling (AFAIK I should play a hybrid until I can respec to low life), but the OP has a leveling tree with only ES nodes. Has anyone tried it and is it doable? Is there any unique gear that helps during leveling?

As far as I see, DPS won't be a problem during leveling since DPS scales with INT. But what about survivability?

Edit: We get a full respec in a week, so I could level to LVL60+ in a week and then do the respec

Edit#2: Found this one on page 9 (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1343007/page/9#p11253029) so ES should be pretty good with all the INT from tree.

@Kaz2ndChance, tesb and Klemeesi

All three of your questions revolve around defence. I'm sorry I didn't notice questions in the thread but I've been playing new leagues and didn't check the forums for a while.

@Kaz2ndChance
I responded to your PM with math. Both paths are of equal value but the Int route gives damage and the ES route gives defence. I feel defence is what the build needs more.

@tesb
Applying temp chains before getting hit and then dodging was my counter to chain stunning monsters as temp chains plus chill even after the nerf is pretty beastly. I understand the argument for having it apply on a curse when stunned setup but I like having to on my command and applying it before a stun could happen even if that puts more pressure on me, I recommend trying out a few things to see what works for you

@Klemeesi
The leveling build is all about ES and its assumed you already have the gear. By the time you can use the staff you can also use the amulet and rings. The Int from those along with random pieces of crappy unique gear gives enough damage to faceroll everything up until maps as its giving mapping levels of Int to a lowlevel character and the leveling guild going and grabs most of the ES pretty early.

I usually swap to lowlife as soon as I hit the level requirement for shavs, then its a balancing act of managing auras until all the gems are level 20 and in the right places.

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WaffleT wrote:

@Klemeesi
The leveling build is all about ES and its assumed you already have the gear. By the time you can use the staff you can also use the amulet and rings. The Int from those along with random pieces of crappy unique gear gives enough damage to faceroll everything up until maps as its giving mapping levels of Int to a lowlevel character and the leveling guild going and grabs most of the ES pretty early.

I usually swap to lowlife as soon as I hit the level requirement for shavs, then its a balancing act of managing auras until all the gems are level 20 and in the right places.

Thanks for the reply. I managed to level up to 52 by now and just starting with Act4 Cruel. No notable deaths. 1 time I got stun locked by some rare monster and 2 times I died from A4N unique totems in Kaom's place (off screen fireballs). Bosses have been easy after I got Whispering Ice.

I have been using recommended uniques as soon as possible (just to experiment). All armor slots are uniques except chest which I have been crafting now and then.

My resistances have been pretty low. I'm running Goldrim and Purity of Elements now (+ Clarity and Discipline) and resistances are about 50% in Cruel. If I get through act 4 I probably start to prepare with flasks and need to replace some of the uniques until I get to level 62.

Great build and guide!

Hmm i got some porblem with resistances aswell. Running all 4 purities at lvl 20 and my resistances are 62/62/78. My shavs res could be better so i miss only fire and cold resistances. Any ideas? Epower lvl 3 with vertex and i miss some enlighten lvl but it should not be any problem.

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Scoorczybyk wrote:

Hmm i got some porblem with resistances aswell. Running all 4 purities at lvl 20 and my resistances are 62/62/78. My shavs res could be better so i miss only fire and cold resistances. Any ideas? Epower lvl 3 with vertex and i miss some enlighten lvl but it should not be any problem.

Craft some jewels with resists in them.

Yah i know. Im just curious what im missing if the guide say that i only need 1 6% res jewel and thats all.

"

Scoorczybyk wrote:

Hmm i got some porblem with resistances aswell. Running all 4 purities at lvl 20 and my resistances are 62/62/78. My shavs res could be better so i miss only fire and cold resistances. Any ideas? Epower lvl 3 with vertex and i miss some enlighten lvl but it should not be any problem.

If your gems are level 20 and you have a level 3 empower then the most likely culprit is missing from the tree.

In order from largest resistance boost to lowest

Every aura effectiveness node > Fire and Frost walker from witch > Elementalist in Templar > 6% resistance jewel.

Faith and steel and nullification are also have some resistances on them if you need a temporary solution but I would rather run Rainbowstride boots then cut any points from somewhere else in the tree

I haven't checked the new skill tree yet. Are there any notable changes?

Finally got to 62+ level. Everything became so much easier when I don't have to use life flask for chaos damage.