[1.3]Cold Witch guide for beginners (Lvl 1 to Atziri)

The LAST thing i would take is aura reduction nodes. I assume that you are running the necessary auras (clarity, discipline and maybe purity if the resistance on gear ain't enough yet). So the question is, is it worth investing 4 points for haste or grace?
Grace gives a nice boost to eva but is valuable for chars that run iron reflexes as it gives a big armour boost. You also need 153DEX to level it up (which you probably won't have). So you will get only a moderate amount of additional evasion out of it that is probably less efficient than better block chance.
Haste also needs 148 DEX to level. My guess is the you will get about 12% cast speed out of it (106-115 DEX required). For that you will have to invest 4 points. If you take nimbleness instead you get 12% cs for only 3 points. There is also a risk that the additional cast speed screws up your mana pool. You have to calculate if you can sustain it.

That leaves the choice between faster clearing speed (more crit or more cast speed with nimbleness) or better defense (shield nodes, especially Phalanx). That completely depends on your personal game experience. You feel that you take too much damage, die even every now and then? Take the shield nodes. Does the clearing speed bothers you more? Go for offense nodes.
My own personal bias favours defense over offense as i hate dying. Other people (most i guess) favour high clearspeed.

Thanks mate. I am going to go for block chance.

Cast speed is not an issue as I use Mana Leech. But that was a very good point I did not catch myself about the dex requirements for those gems.

I just run purity and Discipline. At the moment I am sitting at 2k tooltip dps on my GMP freezing pulse and 5k on my ice spear+increased crit damage_item rarity boss finisher with my power charges up, that is plenty for my current gear level. Piety runs are insanely easy atm I just breeze through.

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Toartmock wrote:

@ Kuromahou
Where to go next depends mostly on your gear and planned Gem-Setup. I'd suggest the "southern" route to Prestidigitation and Celestrial Walker (10% Ele-Resistance is always nice) next to Arcane Potency, some pretty good nodes. Other alternatives would be the Nodes at the Shadow-Start, Deep Thoughts, Nimbleness or even the Void-Barrier-Wheel for more ES. But in the end, that is primarily a personal preference - but more dps is almost always good.

On another node, have you thought about keeping up the Power-Charges with a 4L Ice-Spear? That would free a Gem-Slot for i.e. Crit-Multiplier.

Frankly I would find it extremely annoying to have to keep switching to lance to keep the power charges up. Currently with a lvl17 fp I am doing 10k dps point blank at 0 resist, and as gear progresses into more crit chance and perhaps cast speed/cold damage on rings, a 6L chest, and getting FP to level 20, I estimate 20k dps point blank to be easily attainable. A similar build with dual void batteries has absolutely incredible dps, not that I intend to use a vb unless it happened to drop for me.

The sixth slot on fp will be increased critical damage, no question. At current levels (480% crit multi atm without the gem) dropping a lvl17 increased critical damage gives 400 tooltip dps, so 2000dps overall increase. The only thing I sacrifice for the PCoC gem is cold pen in the end, and while it is indeed nice, a quality elemental weakness does the same thing.

Hi Bada_Bing

Thanks for the guide.

Can you explain why you chose increase cast speed nodes instead of increase critical strike chance right after the witch tree start ?

Thank you in advance.

This was very helpfull , thanks. I was doing a cold witch on Nemesis and actually i am doing all of this, but know i know im on the right track.My only serious doubt was about the CI but now i know i have to wait to act 2 merciless at least.

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Funadept wrote:

Hi Bada_Bing

Thanks for the guide.

Can you explain why you chose increase cast speed nodes instead of increase critical strike chance right after the witch tree start ?

Thank you in advance.

It is just the most effective way to get out of the starting tree.
BTW the crit nodes right at the start are pretty mediocre (especially the two 15%). There are better ways to spend your passive points (even when considering just other crit nodes).

Hey Bada,

The last few days I've been making threads and replying to other, trying to create a dedicated Witch Conduit build for full-time party play. Initially I wanted it to be a bow build too, but there doesn't seem to be much support for that (see: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/775416)

So, I wondered whether you think your build could be rerouted for Conduit?



In the example above I've sacrificed a fair bit of damage, mainly in the form specific Cold Damage node, but apart from taking the Conduit, it should be a fair bit tankier too.

Please tell me what you think,

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Brazilski wrote:

Hey Bada,

The last few days I've been making threads and replying to other, trying to create a dedicated Witch Conduit build for full-time party play. Initially I wanted it to be a bow build too, but there doesn't seem to be much support for that (see: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/775416)

So, I wondered whether you think your build could be rerouted for Conduit?

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAB2MMfRB7EH8RLxFQFdcWQBpsHNwkiyj6KU8rCiymLL8tHzQKN2Y3gzrYO-FDY0bXRwZMs03YUDBWY1crWPVb9F3GXfJe-l8qX2pgbWNDZk9mnm0ZcFJw1XFNfLt9U3_GgUmCm4LHhX2GrohCiGuMdo5kj0aP-pDWkyeZmprPna6dxKKjpuunCKcrsji0DLTFtQS2hrb3tvq3MbiTu9a-OsBRwQDBxcHzwuzDbcae14bbGtte2-fd8-L344TkIuaB6rrrY-vk6-7sGOw48h3y4fVL96b3wfno_Ks=

In the example above I've sacrificed a fair bit of damage, mainly in the form specific Cold Damage node, but apart from taking the Conduit, it should be a fair bit tankier too.

Please tell me what you think,

Actually i don't see the problem to tweak a witch build to include Conduit. It is only 4 points down from the main travelling route to the shadow tree. Not much need for big rebuilds here.

If you want to use a bow, all the answers already were given in Baker's split arrow thread. Wear Lochtonials or as second best alternative drop 4 crit nodes to take Conduit instead.

BTW Zealoths Oath ain't worth spending much points. You won't need it with ghost reaver.

I just wanted to update on how block went with my cold build... it went GREAT with it.

Currently over 40% block/spellblock with rainbowstrides and rathpith globe. As soon as I cap my resists I will be dropping purity and replacing it with tempest shield.

High ES+granites with extended time via perandus belt+block makes us extremely tanky. Adding in block upped my survivability dramatically.

Hey master of witches :-), i was wondering if someone ignore the crit mechanics but just maximize spell damaga(not sure why) would make sense something like this? going trough scion stuff?


roughly
+110% SD +56% ED +80% CD = +246 damage
critical multiplier * damage bonuses on your build is pretty much the double...

just some toughts :-)

"

nerkyos wrote:

Hey master of witches :-), i was wondering if someone ignore the crit mechanics but just maximize spell damaga(not sure why) would make sense something like this? going trough scion stuff?

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBB2MabB8CLJw2xUSrVa5XK20Zf8aPpp2uoqOnCMHz2CQtH35Zc1PAVCepwcXkIrUEXcbd82BtnYBG1ylP7Dg62Dvhu9YRUOL3pyuLek3YjHaePIFvLL-GrhXX14ZWY-wYj_rb50cGX2qCm4w2w22eoa-bQsPfhAL-wuwC40myjjwXVCKB37CCEAeltMUrCsEA2xoQe_VLvjrtIOFzi4wc3C1HUEKTJ7QMRnGDCTQKN2YspuUZtDj79dVP3neQ1qbrsZAtqNtZt9Y3g5UEVko=

roughly
+110% SD +56% ED +80% CD = +246 damage
critical multiplier * damage bonuses on your build is pretty much the double...

just some toughts :-)

I do not recommend ignoring crits for a freezing pulse build:
1) You certainly will do less damage
2) Your defense also suffers as you will freeze much less.

You can skip crits on fire builds because of a low base crit (incinerate), low single hit damage (incinerate, firestorm) or because you can use chance to ignite to trigger burning. Same holds for lightning spells as taking static blows can trigger shocks without critting.
As there is no support gem nor a passive with that high freeze chance as static blows has a shock chance, freezing pulse would be robbed of its secondary freezing effect.
It might work with ice spear as primary attack, but keeping the distance so that ice spear can transform before hitting is tricky (maybe impossible vs fast moving mobs).
So discarding crits on a freezing pulser is like cutting off one of your legs before running a 100m race. You might finish the race on one leg, but you certainly ain't gonna win it.