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

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vleex wrote:

hi bada, one more question,
I looked at passive tree of both life based and CI, and I found that "add 8% cold damage" in witch and templar tree is not activated at the end of this build. Since it is cold-based build, why adding cold damage is not mandatory?

Elemental nodes and spell nodes apply as well to the damage of freezing pulse and as they usualy have a higher percentage (10%-16% instead of just 8%) one should pick them instead of a meager 8% cold damage.

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victory92 wrote:

Hi,I got a question. There is a DDoryani's Catalyst in my stash and I was curious if it would make a benefit for this build^^ Got to lvl a bit till 75 though
Oh Yeah,if its viable how about linking cold snap and CWDT to it?

Yes it would be a nice weapon for this build (or most other elemental spell builds). Not as op as void battery on a pcoc build, but the elemental leech is a nice mod.
I wouldn't use cold snap with CWDT but use trap - cold snap - cold penetration to spread freezing (if you can get the colours).

This is definitely one of the most useful resources out there. I'd love to read your analysis on Glacial Cascade (though it's not a pure cold spell).
It's really sad that cold builds are so weak these days. Even with 6 power charges / LMP / cold pen / Added cold and echo (dropping life leech for testing) my freezing pulse could not make short work of cold resistant mobs (zombies, golems) in a level 71 map.

Ice spear is nice but doesn't deal that much damage (Ice Spear (20%) / LMP / Added Light / PCoC / Echo / Cold Pen) . With Mjollnir / CoC discharge builds everywhere, you can barely lock mobs for half a second in a party. Solo, you have to pray not to get facejumped.

Cold Snap is great too but its base AoE sucks and it isn't good as a primary.

Life based Crit EK trumped all my cold attempts so far.

GGG plz patch. :3

I can't comment on glacial cascade as i never used that skill. The reason is that i'm not very fond of hybrid skills like GC or glacial hammer because their damage is more difficult to scale due to the 50%phys/50%elemental splitting.

Cold builds suffer with the emergence of high damage builds like coc that make the freezing support in parties a bit redundant because of the high kill speed. The introduction of some new uniques could change that a bit as one now has the opportunity to change the defensive secondary effect of cold spells into additional damage: get extra burning with the pyre ring or shock stacks if also using a three dragons with that ring (that should give freezing pulse that is supportred by spell echo a nice damage boost due to shock stacks).

This "unique stacking" reminds me of the EK build that goes for pure fire through Chernobog's Pillar and Hrimsorrow. Elaborate and well thought, but costing too much stats to achieve. Also, scaling the damage would mean using "Added cold damage" and "Fire penetration". Talk about a weird gem setup.

About the "split damage" thing, it's actually insane how strong the scaling is. The elemental part remains weak against resistances (and its still weak, even with cold/fire/light pen). However, the physical damage inflicted depends on the mob's armour. And because monsters have low armour, spells like EK and (to a smaller extent) Glacial Cascade deal half of their damage as "true" damage. Tried and tested.

hi bada, wondering how the passive set up are you going to use in v1.2, will u still go for templar? since GGG make a significant buff for shadows tree

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vleex wrote:

hi bada, wondering how the passive set up are you going to use in v1.2, will u still go for templar? since GGG make a significant buff for shadows tree

I don't know how the tree will look finally. Atm i lean towards ignoring the templar side (at least for a CI build; things might look different for a life build). Possible CI tree (not sure about the block nodes):

Updated guide for 1.2.

Thanks for the update!

I was curious as to the advantage of taking the 3 increased cast speed nodes (12% total) as opposed to the three 10% increased spell damage (30% total) at the start of the witches section?

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Barlin wrote:

Thanks for the update!

I was curious as to the advantage of taking the 3 increased cast speed nodes (12% total) as opposed to the three 10% increased spell damage (30% total) at the start of the witches section?

The mana cost went down with 1.2. A bit more cast speed than with the pre-1.2 tree should be sustainable. Cast speed is a MORE multiplier whereas increased spell damage is additiv. 12% cast speed should give you more damage than 30% increased spell damage.