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

I checked the other guide you linked: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1034714
He/she is using pcog instead of cold pen and frostbite instead of assassin's mark.

It's a bit smoother gameplay with pcog instead of cold pen. Always on 7 charges which is nice but the downside is that cold resistant monsters take longer to kill.

I can't decide what is better even after trying out both.

Spell totem + ice spears + gmp + ele prolif is very helpful when opening boxes that freeze you.

Hi, I want to know what is the ideal weapon for this Build. I am think about getting a Divinarius or maybe a good rare Platinum Kris. What weapon can get the most of this build? By the way, right know I am at level 62 with a life build but in the future I want to go CI.

Thanks.

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APepper wrote:

Hi, I want to know what is the ideal weapon for this Build. I am think about getting a Divinarius or maybe a good rare Platinum Kris. What weapon can get the most of this build? By the way, right know I am at level 62 with a life build but in the future I want to go CI.

Thanks.

I personally prefer daggers as i felt that additional crit is more important for that build than cast speed (which can show up on wands). Besides crit was always less expensive to buy than cast speed (when looking for certain mods on the weapon). Divinarius is a good choice. I use that on crit builds:


With the crafting options of the masters one can now craft oneself nice daggers. It would be enough to buy a dagger with spell damage and either crit chance for spells or global crit.strike multiplier and craft the missing mod (crit chance for spells from Catarina, global crit.strike multiplier from Vagan)

I use a wand because i like the projectile speed on those. Think i bought this for 1 alch or 2.

Recorded a short 2 min video gameplay of my cold witch i made following this guide. Forgot to turn off web radio music before recording. Sorry about that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LaHi8sm69s

Reached lvl 80 today. Yay.

Pretty strong and sturdy with only 1 alch/1 chaos items. Been clearing maps up to lvl 71 so far with no problems while building up a map pool for the higer ones.

I discarded the idea of going for phase acrobatics when i found out the effects of eb get halved with acrobatics.

Instead saving up for a 5l cloak of defiance. Seems like the perfect chest for this build.

Rest of my items:


If anyone has ideas of what could be upgraded or changed for better dps/survivability let me know. Thanks.

Edit: My passive tree



Got 6 points saved up. Not sure where to put them. I think putting them into block is overkill. If i am using arctic armour + cloak of defiance that should be well enough to survive. Maybe start working that crit multiplier? Need ideas again :)

Bump. Now got 9 points saved up. Where to put them?

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kompaniet wrote:

Bump. Now got 9 points saved up. Where to put them?

Block if you plan on doing atziri in the future with that char.

Great build, very informative, thank you!

Just wondering, how come you don't get the big Cold Damage cluster above the Witch starting area? Would you recommend this for Standard, where you wouldn't need as many defensive nodes?

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Bada_Bing wrote:

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kompaniet wrote:

Bump. Now got 9 points saved up. Where to put them?

Block if you plan on doing atziri in the future with that char.

I am using cloak of defiance + arctic armour. I think i don't need block or more defence. But maybe i don't need more damage either?

Still 'only' doing 72 maps. Haven't tried higher yet. No i don't plan to do aziri at all.

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Nimbility wrote:

Great build, very informative, thank you!

Just wondering, how come you don't get the big Cold Damage cluster above the Witch starting area? Would you recommend this for Standard, where you wouldn't need as many defensive nodes?

They equal about 10 damage per skill point. Meh. It's not like there are many better options but if you have skill points over for that i don't see why not take them.

Or shadow start. The 5 passives with spell dmg/ele dmg are better damage/point i think.

This is my dilema. Go for those spell/ele damage passives? Get crit multiplier passives? Get faster casting passives? Maybe get those block passives after all. But my shield has rather low block (24%)

What is best? I am guessing crit multiplier makes the most sense in a crit build. BUT reflect damage might become a bit more problematic. Or maybe not. I haven't got a clue.

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Nimbility wrote:

Great build, very informative, thank you!

Just wondering, how come you don't get the big Cold Damage cluster above the Witch starting area? Would you recommend this for Standard, where you wouldn't need as many defensive nodes?

There are more important things while leveling up, for example get a decent crit rate as this build focuses on freezing your attackers (imo that's the whole point of a cold witch build, some pyre builds notwithstanding).
Imo it is an option for lvl80+ if you want to go for more damage instead of better defense.

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kompaniet wrote:

This is my dilema. Go for those spell/ele damage passives? Get crit multiplier passives? Get faster casting passives? Maybe get those block passives after all. But my shield has rather low block (24%)

What is best? I am guessing crit multiplier makes the most sense in a crit build. BUT reflect damage might become a bit more problematic. Or maybe not. I haven't got a clue.

There is no "best" (although i'ld rather take Throatseeker or damage nodes than Nimbleness). It really depends on your preferred playstyle. Some people don't bother dying and don't care if they can't progress much beyond lvl80. If you favour clearspeed damage nodes (or inreased crit. multiplier if you crit chance is higher than 30%) are to be preferred especially if you have a dedicated group you can play with.
Reflect will be an issue though. I'm currently playing with an ice spear setup and ~7k tooltip per projectile. Reflect maps with -max resists are not playable. It ain't an issue if you can reroll map mods but a bit annoying if you have to skip a Zana mission because of that (though it doesn't happen often).
If you play solo the occasional reflect rare can be handled. You just have to pay some attention to not spam fp/ice spear into a bigger reflect group and use cold snap trap to take out the group.

If you have an exalt to spend you can try using
to find out whether a higher block suits your playstyle.

A sidenote on higher damage:
One can try to craft a 1% cold leech mod on a dagger (available from Catarina lvl 6) and use a Doranyi's Invitation belt with cold leech so one can replace life leech with increased critical damage.