[3.5] Occultist Vortex/Cold Snap ES/CI - Deathless and Safe Uber Elder and T16's

just to correct, trickster is shadow. but the main upside is the ES recovery and survivability - because you make full use of EV and ES as part of your defensive mechanisms. as what roselan said, if your only interest is in vortex, then trickster is superior. otherwise, no point levelling a trickster unless you intend to play another build. for myself, I really liked vortex, so I played occultist first before moving onto trickster vortex. in terms of time, I think you can get to lvl 85 in about 2-3 days. so it just depends on what you want. no right and wrong :)

Good morning. thank uvm too.

i am a little bit sad about the fact, i dont see those mistakes but me its like a racecar driver who can not repair the engine, like Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder ^^
i dont have the time and pation to dive deep into that stuff.
once more, thanks to all the player who help to improve our builds !
and clear the Fog of inexperience.

i understand:
- stay occultist
- make more use of witchfire brew
- change gem setup to F&S
- invest more cash ^^

yes, i am testing and going step by step.
helps me to understand better.

287 mana left
running Lab now to get good enchant, with Malevolance and Discipline.

changed all possible suffixes to get better mana management.

I'm done with the build, I'll keep farming delve/boss with it but won't make more upgrade anytime soon. Only missing easy upgrade would be Hillock 28% on armors/shield.
16.3k es / 1 million+ shaper dps post nerf.



and a clarity/malevolence watcher eye.

Maybe I'll try a LL variant someday. And a perma vaal cold snap variant too!

RDS1964, since you are playing in standard, you should watch for legacy ES mods, you can find very good deals (I bought my shield 12 ex for instance, kind of a steal for this ES range, but the same would apply at a lower budget)

Hey :)
Thx for the tip.
cant effort 12ex atm.

put too much curr into Ranger Build, what i regret.
Farming in Delve atm and make boooring Lab runs for the enchant, that will not come -.-

Current setup


Will be using this one once I reach required level

Better rings, such as opal rings, will be used once I can afford proper ones.

CI, level 75, about 8.5k ES at the moment, can get quite a bit more, with levels and better gear.
Opted for Vortex cooldown recovery, just because I often find myself in need to wait split second to use it, especially when I rush through maps.
Opted to not use minion damage and minion nodes and to not go into templar area, opted for using arcane expanse and lethal assault for my aoe instead, also using utmost intellect, for that % int.
Not using Malevolence, because I cannot afford Aul's amulet nor proper Watcher's Eye, and I cannot squeeze it into the build at the moment.
Ignore the Steelskin on CWDT, I lack the STR to level it up at the moment, as character is still in leveling and gearing progress.
I know that I need to incorporate fortify as well.
Using Profane Bloom just for extra clear from explosions and to be able to apply curses to hexproof.
Using vaal lightning trap for shocked ground.

Current skill tree: http://poeurl.com/cwYe

Resourcefulness is taken only because I aim to use Inspired Learning jewel in the socket in shadow area.
Build itself is still strong as ever, even after the nerfs to both cold dots and occultist itself, damage is absurd.

Well.. done with this build for 3.7. Here's the final gear. 12k ES and over 1M DPS. The build is far from dead, but took a pretty big beating. I didn't take the stun immunity ascendancy... and have come to regret it greatly, thought the thought the having malediction was just too tempting to overcome.

I'm going to serious miss the Legion jewels in 3.8 if they don't make it in. The one I found solved the dex problem completely and added a fair amount of damage and utility. All of the gear was self-found/crafted. (+5% blind chance / +5% move speed / +20% elemental dmg on lord of the dead / blast radius / alchemist)

https://pastebin.com/ZGdK1pBE



Next league, going to try the Trickster variant of this build. Gave ED/Contagion a try this league and was completely surprised by the suitability of the trickster.

Impressive Gear setup.

WIll there ever be a body armour guide update?

Hey so I remember playing this build back in 3.5 and I recently made a return to the character in standard, but it looks like quite a lot has changed since then, and I was wondering if someone here could help me out with some questions. First, it's my character Livenia that all these questsions are for, you can see her gear and tree here https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/darklord22/characters .

Currently after playing her a bit and making some changes and upgrades I'm sitting at 10.7K shield. I guess my first question would be do you see anything immedatly wrong with my build, any sort of horrendous mistakes? The next major question I was having is over new wicked ward, which I just discovered they added back in, albiet in nerfed capacity. Is it still worth it? I have a lot of energy shield regen (zelot's oath and what the build recommends in addition to watcher's eye and of course Vile bastion). I allocated it for now because every build I looked at takes it but is it really worth in my case? And if it is, is zealot's oath still worth it?

My other main question is are the minion nodes still worth it? It seems like a lot of people have moved away from them. Are there other places in the tree where you can get more damage now? I know my staff is pretty bad and on my replace soonish list anyways, so I don't consider that a main factor keeping me attached to the minon nodes, but idk what I should get instead if I decide not to or how to go about doing that. And in a similar vein what gear changes would you recommend first? I know I have some really good peices mixed in with some real trash, but I don't want to sell the good stuff to buy more even gear I'd rather just farm until I have enough to upgrade.

Sorry for rambling but I've been thinking about this build a lot recently. It was really fun and I'd like to try to get my character back up on her feet after the nerfs. Feel free to answer any of my questions that you may feel comfortable answering. Specific stuff for my build might be hard, but I'm more interested in the tree and what's still good.
(edit, don't bother to reply to most that, I figured the jist of it out myself. I just had to in vest a looot more currency in everything basically. The only thing I'm still unsure of is if zealot's oath still fits into this build, if any of you have any thoughts on that it would be welcome).