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

Great guide, really informative. One thing I was wondering about, a number of CI guides maintain that Vaal Pact is necessary for CI on HC, do you think the build has enough survivability without it?

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Aueberon wrote:

Great guide, really informative. One thing I was wondering about, a number of CI guides maintain that Vaal Pact is necessary for CI on HC, do you think the build has enough survivability without it?

Who needs Vaal Pact?
a) Melee chars with a bad Life(or ES)/damage dealt ratio. If you run for example a CI based double crit dagger char you may need VP as you will constantly hit the 20% threshold. Because a melee is always risking taking a lot of hits this may result in damage taken per second > damage leeched per second. VP can reverse that (though now that VP has been moved it is hard to get the CI + VP combination as melee).
b) Spellcaster with huge AoE and therefore a lot of potential damage that run the risk of one-shooting themselves. In other words Dischargers.

Normal spellcasters don't need VP. Instead of settling with sloppy gameplay you should look out for reflect auras and then switch to an alternative attack (use traps for example or spell totem + ice spear or just snipe around the edges of the reflect crowd). Even when firing into a reflect mob, the damage of an FP witch is hardly enough to one shoot yourself. 15% reflect mitigated by 75% resistance: with 4000 ES you would need to deal more than 100k damage to one shoot yourself. That won’t happen with cold spells (especially as this build has a high crit chance but didn’t stack a ton of increased critical damage).
Let’s have a look from another perspective: With 4000 ES you can leech 800 ES per second. Once you do more than 800 / (0.15 * 0.25) = 21333 damage per second you will receive more damage than you will leech per second. Let’s assume 2 casts per second and 3 projectiles and you will take damage if a single FP deals more than 3500 damage. That can happen (as you crit and can hit more than one enemy with a single projectile). But we are a long way from the one-shot scenario. If you are not playing on auto pilot and blindly spam FP into every crowd you will have enough time to react when facing a reflect mob.

As for non-reflect scenarios: As a FP witch you are not supposed to stand like a tree and let the mobs hit you: instead you freeze, reposition, freeze.

One question, how does Life Leech help a CI build without taking Zealot's Oath or Ghost Reaver?

Neither of these are mentioned in the original post, but without them you'd be better off leeching mana (dang, another green socket).

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Qhorrin wrote:

One question, how does Life Leech help a CI build without taking Zealot's Oath or Ghost Reaver?

Neither of these are mentioned in the original post, but without them you'd be better off leeching mana (dang, another green socket).

Maybe you looked at the wrong tree (the life based tree maybe?)
Both the CI tree after transition (around lvl 60) and the final CI build have Ghost Reaver.

So, I am level 60 on my witch using this build and a point or two away from ghost reaver. I pretty much picked up all the defensive capability in the final build as possible before moving onto the extra dmg nodes/crit nodes. However, I was curious how much ES should I shoot for before I switch to CI? I have basically been saving all my currencies in the hopes to build a strong enough ES set, but it is proving challenging due to insane prices people ask for even mediocre ES gear.

I have all the skills this build calls for except for quality FP (which is proving impossible to find much less afford on a first char). I have been getting by playing safe with mediocre to just awful gear for someone in merc, but resists are max when running purity. Unfortunately I can't run purity, discipline, and clarity all at once yet, so kind of stuck on that.

Would love any suggestions you have or assistance you can provide! I have played FP witch since when I played back in closed beta, and I just love the play style of it. That pop and explosion when they get crit froze is the best sound ever.

When i played my frost witch i switched to CI with crappy gear and a bit less than 2000 ES. After that i died A LOT. Getting punctured with that low ES was lethal most of the times. In retrospect i would say 2500 ES is the absolut minimum for the switch unless you don't mind dying. Maybe better players can get away with less, i couldn't.
The problem with new leagues is always the high prices for moderate gear in the first few weeks. This + the fact that you usually neither have enough orbs nor have found decent gear by yourself is one of the reasons i recommend life builds for fresh leagues. It is much easier / cheaper to build a decent life pool with HP on gear than a corresponding ES pool, especially after the boost of the life nodes. If you want to go CI at least wait until the prices have settled down.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

When i played my frost witch i switched to CI with crappy gear and a bit less than 2000 ES. After that i died A LOT. Getting punctured with that low ES was lethal most of the times. In retrospect i would say 2500 ES is the absolut minimum for the switch unless you don't mind dying. Maybe better players can get away with less, i couldn't.
The problem with new leagues is always the high prices for moderate gear in the first few weeks. This + the fact that you usually neither have enough orbs nor have found decent gear by yourself is one of the reasons i recommend life builds for fresh leagues. It is much easier / cheaper to build a decent life pool with HP on gear than a corresponding ES pool, especially after the boost of the life nodes. If you want to go CI at least wait until the prices have settled down.

I am actually playing in hardcore atm and not nemesis :) :)

In case you don't know the side: you could use Path of Exile shops indexer to search for inexpensive gear (though most sellers still don't have a b/o price).

So far playing on Domination everything is outrageously priced. So at lvl 62 a decent 5l is still out of the question. Before reading this I didn't know about the usefulness of Faster Projectiles. However still finding a decent ES chest with GGBR for 4L or GGBBR for 5l really seems to skyrocket the price if you can even find one to begin with.

So for all purposes I will keep saving currency and attempting to reach a point that my skills are level 20, then quality everything I need for the build and start a new witch. Mind you I feel I have gone a subpar build and I would like to start over however I feel that since my skills are mostly level 17 that I would benefit another build more if I continue to grind out the 3 levels then quality everyone.

So far enjoying this build at lvl 48, but i have a few questions. How is the group synergy with this build and is there any way to modify the build for some extra support? I was thinking taking influence and aura effects/reduced mana reserve next to it or maybe going for Whispers of doom for an extra cure. I'm going CI since no one in my group plays ES builds.

EDIT: Also, how far should I level lmp, faster projectiles, cold pen, life leech?