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

Many thanks for your answers.

Would you mind to share your thoughts about pratical application node, as well as the block nodes (sanctuary and deflection)? Are they worth to be considered?

"

Alwyle wrote:

So here I am, lvl 69 on my first char with a nice stack of ex to spend in order to improve my actual gear. That's why I wanted to ask you to have a look to my actual stuff and tell me what I should change in priority (quality on gems ? which ones ? buying another chest ? weapon ? going for spell block ?)

For lvl 69 this looks like decent gear. Nice weapon.
If your resistances are maxed you may want to browse poe.xyz every now and then to check for gear pieces with higher life rolls than your current ones. I think for 2-5 chaos per piece there should be enough choices with 70+ life.
Right now you should change the following:
1) replace the hallowed life flasks with divine life flasks. Two seething should be enough.
2) Carry a granite flask of iron skin (gives extra armour) with you. If you feel like spending 1-2 exalts you could instead use
Another good choice would be . It refills quick due to the high crit rate of FP and you will have freeze immunity during the effect.
3) If you really want to use an amethyst flask buy . Costs only 1 alch.
4) It would be important to have a freezing pulse with 15+ quality. That way you could drop the faster projectiles support and either replace it with increased critical damage for more dps or replace the tabula with a 5L chest with a high life roll (90+) In the long run i would aim for a white or magic ES or ES-eva-hybrid 6L and then roll a high life mod with alteration orbs on it. Rare 6L chests with good mods are too expensive.

Other gems with 20% quality (not necessary unless you want to minmax your char for endgame/atziri):
Herald of Ice. The 15% increased cold damage applies to freezing pulse/ice spear as well!
LMP. 10% cast speed.
Cold penetration. 10% increased cold damage.
Spell echo. 10% spell damage.
Increased critical damage. another 10% icd.

Quality on lightning warp gives a nice faster casting bonus for that spell. Linked with a 20 quality on your faster casting gem (and reduced duration) the teleportation is now almost instant.
BTW Once you have your faster casting at lvl20, use the vendor recipe to get a lvl 1/qual 20 gem. Once you level it up to lvl 10 i guess, you will have a higher casting rate than with a lvl 20/qual 0 gem.

Spell block: necessary once you want to try atziri. Spec into mind barrier, use Saffell's frame shield, rainbow stride boots and stone of lazhwar amulet.
For normal mapping i no longer use any block nodes. Gear on my witch would be rathpith globe + rainbow strides and using rumi's concoction flask. That gives ~20% (35-40 with flask) spell block. But for the most part one should be ok without any spell block. I wouldn't make it #1 prority when starting with maps.

"

spartakussis wrote:

Many thanks for your answers.

Would you mind to share your thoughts about pratical application node, as well as the block nodes (sanctuary and deflection)? Are they worth to be considered?

I don't think practical application is neccessary for a life cold witch. Freezing/chilling with a high crit rate makes stun a rare occurence.
If on the other you have specced into Alacrity/Physique and could afford loosing 10 dex/str then of course taking practical application instead would be a better choice.

The block nodes are just too far away now. Sanctuary requires too many extra nodes to get to and Deflection is only within reach for a CI build. In case one has a shield with high ES the 80% increased defences might be worth to pick it up (it would be 200+ additional base ES). One would have to calculate the individual case whether that would get one a bigger ES boost than investing those 4 points into increased ES nodes.

Hey, just wanted to leave a message here.

thanks a lot for the guide, it's a very simple but great build that finally helped me to play mapworks (my 2 other non-specific builds are gimped due to gear checks).

I'm only lv 65 atm, but i can run lv 66 maps fine (though still hit hard if they hit me).
I've got 3122 hp, 700 ES, 3.3k dps and max res (+28% chaos). I play on the TW server, so unfortunately trading for gear is really difficult. However, what i currently have seems to pull me through the game quite fine.

While i followed your build relatively to the point, i chose Vaal Cold Snap + increased duration (huge AoE, Always Freezes + 15s Chilled ground) for defense and Vaal Haste + increased duration for offense (bosses etc; +33% cast speed, +20% movement speed, 15s). While these require souls, i found that your build allows for very fast mob wiping, which usually grants my the souls by the time i need them (strongboxes, bosses, ...)

Updated the Atziri section a bit.

Hey there!
I just found this guide yesterday and it seems to be well-written and makes me want to play a FP char ;)
Since the 1M race starts very soon, I want to know if this build is suitable as a first character in this league? I never participated in one of those races, therefore my knowledge about gaining wealth is rather small. Is this build viable as semi-selffound in such a new economy?

Thanks a lot for your response!

"

Cairen wrote:

Hey there!
I just found this guide yesterday and it seems to be well-written and makes me want to play a FP char ;)
Since the 1M race starts very soon, I want to know if this build is suitable as a first character in this league? I never participated in one of those races, therefore my knowledge about gaining wealth is rather small. Is this build viable as semi-selffound in such a new economy?

Thanks a lot for your response!

I can recommend FP and/or ice spear as a 1st char build. Just like some other spells (fireball, incinerate, flameblast, ethereal knives, lightning tendrils ...) you can pretty much use them from the beginning (no need to use some special leveling skill) and you aren't dependent on buying/crafting/finding weapon upgrades for dps improvement like melee or bow builds.

The only requirement is to get some projectile speed for FP. Best choice would be to have 15+% quality on your FP gem (difficult on your first char) or use a Karui Ward amulet (you'll probably have to buy that too) or just link faster projectiles.

I would pick ice spear as reward from the "breaking some eggs" quest and level it. If you think you need more dps later on (no need for faster projectiles; you can use something else instead) you can switch to an ice spear build without problems. The tree and (most) support gems are identical in the two builds. Leveling with FP is easier though due to the better aoe and lower mana cost.

"

Bada_Bing wrote:

I can recommend FP and/or ice spear as a 1st char build. Just like some other spells (fireball, incinerate, flameblast, ethereal knives, lightning tendrils ...) you can pretty much use them from the beginning (no need to use some special leveling skill) and you aren't dependent on buying/crafting/finding weapon upgrades for dps improvement like melee or bow builds.

The only requirement is to get some projectile speed for FP. Best choice would be to have 15+% quality on your FP gem (difficult on your first char) or use a Karui Ward amulet (you'll probably have to buy that too) or just link faster projectiles.

I would pick ice spear as reward from the "breaking some eggs" quest and level it. If you think you need more dps later on (no need for faster projectiles; you can use something else instead) you can switch to an ice spear build without problems. The tree and (most) support gems are identical in the two builds. Leveling with FP is easier though due to the better aoe and lower mana cost.

Thank you so much for your detailed and fast answer! I'm really looking forward to try this build for the next few days! :)

Hi,
I am trying out this build in the 1 month league as well and was wondering - Is CI worth it? Why?

"

mite134 wrote:

Hi,
I am trying out this build in the 1 month league as well and was wondering - Is CI worth it? Why?

I wouldn't recommend CI on a first char (and in a race). It will be tough to get the right gear for higher levels as the gear pool to choose from is much more restricted than for a life build.

You also will have to drop either an aura or a herald a life build might run because you have to use the discipline aura as CI which leaves you with less dps (when dropping a herald) or defense (less max resist of one element when dropping a purity aura). With the current tree and meta a life build is more efficient.

Plus: not being able to pick Eldritch Battery is always a bit of a problem if you want to run a high level arctic armour.