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

Hi,

i was wondering what type of armour you recommend with the life built.

I'm lvl 81 and pretty much running the set up you describe in your guide, with ice spear and life specced.

I would like to know if it makes sense to wear ES only gear (e.g. vaal regalia or sorcerer boots) or if it is more benificial to go with hybrid stuff, since the mana pool is already pretty big.

What would you suggest? rather go armour/ES or evasion/ES?

Another question concerns aura. Currently i m running clarity, ele res aura, HoI, HoT and arctic armour. I feel like i could run a third aura at some point in time. Which one would you suggest? It seems that Haste is the only aura left thatwould make sense for the cold/life built.

Thanks and keep up the great work

"

spartakussis wrote:

Hi,

i was wondering what type of armour you recommend with the life built.

I'm lvl 81 and pretty much running the set up you describe in your guide, with ice spear and life specced.

I would like to know if it makes sense to wear ES only gear (e.g. vaal regalia or sorcerer boots) or if it is more benificial to go with hybrid stuff, since the mana pool is already pretty big.

What would you suggest? rather go armour/ES or evasion/ES?

As one isn't going to get much protection from a bit rudimentary evasion or armour on gear the main focus when getting gear should be: Life mod, links, resistances and socket colour.
When looking for a chest for example you should try to get a high life roll on a 5L or 6L. As one needs several blue and two green sockets it is best to look for pure ES or eva/ES hybrid chest. Other gear makes it difficult to get the right socket colours (and the ES feeds the mana pool when taking EB)

"

spartakussis wrote:

Another question concerns aura. Currently i m running clarity, ele res aura, HoI, HoT and arctic armour. I feel like i could run a third aura at some point in time. Which one would you suggest? It seems that Haste is the only aura left thatwould make sense for the cold/life built.

Thanks and keep up the great work

To run haste (or another 60% aura) you would have to invest in reserved mana reduction nodes. Imo it ain't worth the investment as the high dex requirement makes it unlikely to max the gem. One might as well invest the points in the tree to take nimbleness instead for the same effect.

Before 1.3 i ran tempest shield beside clarity/HoI/HoT/one purity aura and AA. If you really have a big enough mana pool and nothing else to run you might use that. It is 4% damage reduction on attacks after all.

Taking a fast look at the Freezing Pulse and Ice Spear builds in this forum, I noticed that the people who do Ice Spear usually take the nodes that increase freeze duration, while the ones who do Freezing Pulse don't. Is there a reason for that, or is it just coincidence?

I've just started one such build, and I've been planning on using both spells. It seems to me like once you've got enough +crit%, you will be freezing enemies so often it doesn't really matter how long the freezing lasts. The enemy will be defrost just to be frozen again immediately. Does that make any sense?

I wasn't planning on picking up the freezing duration nodes, just going crazy on the crit nodes, but now I have this doubt. Will LMP + Echo + tons-of-crit-chance be enough to perma freeze enemies?

Edit - What is the Alacrity node necessary for? I was planning on going to the Ranger tree through the uper road.

"

Monsieur_Madeline wrote:

Taking a fast look at the Freezing Pulse and Ice Spear builds in this forum, I noticed that the people who do Ice Spear usually take the nodes that increase freeze duration, while the ones who do Freezing Pulse don't. Is there a reason for that, or is it just coincidence?

I've just started one such build, and I've been planning on using both spells. It seems to me like once you've got enough +crit%, you will be freezing enemies so often it doesn't really matter how long the freezing lasts. The enemy will be defrost just to be frozen again immediately. Does that make any sense?

I wasn't planning on picking up the freezing duration nodes, just going crazy on the crit nodes, but now I have this doubt. Will LMP + Echo + tons-of-crit-chance be enough to perma freeze enemies?

Edit - What is the Alacrity node necessary for? I was planning on going to the Ranger tree through the uper road.

Taking freeze duration isn't specific to FP or Ice Spear.

The reason for taking it is that you have to get past a 300ms freeze duration threshold to freeze. If you don't the freeze ain't applied to the target. Freeze duration depends on the ratio between your damage and the target's life. The important point is that increased duration is used when calculating if one gets past that threshold. If you have 40% increased frezing duration that means you can freeze bosses that have 40% more life.

For example when i played the last temp league i tested it on Residence (lvl74) Dominus (was lvl 80ish). With the 40% increased freeze duration from the Breath of Rime cluster i could permafreeze him. When dropping those nodes i couldn't freeze him at all as i no longer could make it past the 300ms threshold.

So while being useless against white and blue mobs, increased freezing makes a difference when facing bosses in higher map levels.

Personally i don't think it is worth the investment, but it depends on what game content you intend on farming (and if you are solo or in a group).

The 30Dex node is usually necessary as lvl20 LMP/GMP and Cold Penetration need 109 Dex. It is difficult to get that with gear only.

Thank you very much for the clarification. Since the freeze duration nodes are easily respecable, guess I'll be trying things around for a while.

I figure my build willbe somewhat like this once I reach te 60's:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAv4EBwVCBx4I9A5IEQ8RlhSwFm8WvxdUHRQkqiaVLJw26TeBOlhBlkLDRKtJUUwtTLNVS1WuVcZXK13yYeJknWaeakNtGXBScNWCEIIeg9uIQonTjDaOZI9Gj6aP-pUum6GfAayYrrO2-rzqvYLAGsBUwcXQ9dsL34Tfit-w42rk6-kC6_XsGPDV8h33pvfX-tL-sw==

Does it suck too much?

Just a couple more questions:

Is Ice Spear's DPS a bit underwhelming in the late game? How important is the freezing ailment when you are playing with Freezing Pulse? Do mobs get frozen or just die too fast? Can Freezing Pulse reliably freeze bosses?

Edit- oh, and I'm guessing you are saying the increased freeze duration nodes are better for group rather than solo.

"

Monsieur_Madeline wrote:

Thank you very much for the clarification. Since the freeze duration nodes are easily respecable, guess I'll be trying things around for a while.

I figure my build willbe somewhat like this once I reach te 60's:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAv4EBwVCBx4I9A5IEQ8RlhSwFm8WvxdUHRQkqiaVLJw26TeBOlhBlkLDRKtJUUwtTLNVS1WuVcZXK13yYeJknWaeakNtGXBScNWCEIIeg9uIQonTjDaOZI9Gj6aP-pUum6GfAayYrrO2-rzqvYLAGsBUwcXQ9dsL34Tfit-w42rk6-kC6_XsGPDV8h33pvfX-tL-sw==

Does it suck too much?

Just a couple more questions:

Is Ice Spear's DPS a bit underwhelming in the late game? How important is the freezing ailment when you are playing with Freezing Pulse? Do mobs get frozen or just die too fast? Can Freezing Pulse reliably freeze bosses?

Edit- oh, and I'm guessing you are saying the increased freeze duration nodes are better for group rather than solo.

I wouldn't take the duration nodes while leveling. Other nodes are more beneficial for the build (life/crit chance/damage nodes) while progressing.

I would take them in endgame if you are running in a group and your job is to freeze the bosses.

I don't think ice spear's dps is underwhelming. I can do any map + Atziri.
As for the importance of freezing: It is the main feature of the build and your main defensive mechanism. With "ok" gear (meaning stuff you don't pay more than 5-10c a piece) you should be able to permafreeze any boss up to lvl 73 maps with ~lvl80.
The only bosses my lvl91 ice spear toon has any trouble with are the atziri trio and death and taxes (well and Whakawairua Tuahu but that is an annoying troll map for most builds).

This passive tree seems to work just as well with Arc as it does with the Cold Spells. But maybe that's just because I didn't get to the hardest parts of the game yet.

First of all, thank you for this build !
I managed to get level 74 with it, the tree is awesome as the mana and the survivability was never a problem even when hardly spamming FP.
This build is really become powerful when I get Spell Echo (around level 68, merciless Library). Maybe buy it earlier would have saved me from dying as much.
I permanently run 2 aura (clarity + ele resist) and 2 heralds (thunder and ice) ; It is leave me with 209 mana points which is enough to spam FP.

Anyway, thanks you for this very effective FP build !

Not sure if it's been discussed, but what uniques would compliment the FP build? Are there some good ones for CI/Life or some that are good for both?

"

wutisthisIdonteven wrote:

Not sure if it's been discussed, but what uniques would compliment the FP build? Are there some good ones for CI/Life or some that are good for both?

While leveling and if you don't have quality on your FP:
Karui Ward


Must have for CI:
Eye of Chayula
Dream Fragments


Good uniques:
Despite the block nerf a rathpith globe + rainbowstride give a good base protection versus attacks AND spells.
Rathpith Globe
Rainbowstride

Cold version of doryani's invitation
Doryanis Invitation

Except for void battery you can find better rare weapons. Actually i consider void batterys the only unique that i would build my char around ( IF i have two of them. Very expensive stuff.) In that case get all power charges from the tree + help Alria in mercyless.
Divinarius budget unique; you can find better rare daggers.
Doryanis Catalyst very good due to the life leech. Still not bis imo.
Void Battery bis for a power charge build.