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

I didnt notice any advice on what jewelrly to use. Should you look for Critical Chance Increase ?

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Toartmock wrote:

To the Guide itself, I think the skill-tree linked as CI-Build lvl 82 could be optimized.

Souvereignty-Cluster:
It's 6 Points for 16% reduced Mana-Reservation and 12% increased effect. That may be okay for some builds, but since Cold Witches don't rely on stacking many Auras, we should fine with only two. Even with those nodes, Purity of Elements is just +30 Resi, that's not too good anymore. If in desperate need of Resistances, the Phalanx-Cluster gives 20 Resists while holding a shield.

Intense Zeal:
It's 4 Points for 60% Critchance and 10% Critmultiplier. When you put those points in Bloodthirst and one point into the Throatseeker-Cluster, you can free one point. That's not overwhelming, but 10 Life on Kill give nothing for a CI-Witch and stacking Crit-Multiplier should be the best choice for gaining dps.

Lord of the Dead:
I can understand, that while leveling more skellys may be good, but in my limited experience with them, they fall of quickly. The 3 Nodes after the 40% Increased Mana-Reg-Node are surpassed by 2 Deep Thoughts Nodes. I wouldn't take them. The Spell Damage and Critchance on the left side of the tree are "okay" and carrying two Mana-Pots with Dispel doesn't hurt.

Body and Soul:
I don't see a reason in not taking that wheel. It's all 6% ES (an average stand-alone-node) and 8% Armor as a bonus. Especially the Armor is really nice, it boosts Granite-Flasks, synergizes well with Armor-ES-Hybrid-Gear. The 8% All-Resi from the final node help also!

My suggestion for a basic build:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBGmwfAiycNsVEq0yzVa5XK20Zf8aPpp2uoqOnCMHz2CQtH35Z2t0nqcHF5CK1BF3G3fNgbZ2ARtcpT-w4OtjjhIhrO-Hi96criELyHU3YjHa29xEvLL-GrhXX14ZWY-wYRwZfaoKbmZqOZPemtvrrY1Aw217r5F8qwFFw1XBSXfKMNsNtnqGvm4V9Y0NCw9-EAv7C7PLhjjwXVCKBEZYOSJ2j_KsWQGaecU2az0NjtzFY9Z3E37CCEEGWBUKusw_E3Mc7fFqmuMqVBFZK

I concede that the final trees aren’t optimized. Why is that so? Well, this is a beginners guide, meaning you start on a first char without gear and currency and without a fixed decision whether you will go for CI or not in the future. That means the leveling trees for CI and life have to be identical until you hit the late 50s AND shouldn’t require more than 14 respec points in case you want to spec out of life in a2merc.
Starting with an optimized tree and then trying to backtrack it to leveling steps is to put the cart before the horse. Instead you have to plan for a playable leveling strategy that leads you to an endgame char; the tree will fall a bit short of being 100% optimized, but you will reach your goal (again: I’m talking about first chars here, that don’t have any specific leveling gear they can use to compensate for a more difficult leveling path).
To be specific:
Rule of thumb: Put up your defenses first and the basic layout of the tree before scaling dps.
That means you better start with the mana/manareg branch of the witch. It gives you life nodes and more important a sound basis for your core stat: mana. Starting on the left side of the tree will give you slightly better dps in the end (lvl80) but will encumber you while leveling. For a bit of dps upgrade in the beginning you are either forced to take deep thoughts next while you should be building up your HP pool or do the latter and suffer from a constant mana deficit. You won’t recognize the dps difference much in early gameplay, but being forced to spam mana bottles all the time (which might not be enough) can spoil your gaming experience.
Sovereignty-Cluster: Maybe it is needed, maybe not. It depends on the gear. Again I have to refer to this being a beginners guide: I can’t assume maxed resists through gear. To guide everyone to an endgame build I have to assume this not to be the case and offer a gear independent strategy for max resists. (As a consequence it means that intense zeal will require the same point investment than taking bloodthirst + 1 throatseeker). It also means I’m a few points shy of taking another ES circle.
That’s the reason my lvl80 trees look like they do.
Now once you’ve reached that point one could ask where to optimize the tree (maybe I should add an optimized tree to my “what to do past lvl80 remarks”). At that point one should have 4 respec points left plus a couple of regrets in the stash. I agree that speccing out of the 8%+12%mana, 20%manreg and LotD to shift the points to the left branch is a sound move if your mana pool can take it. The same goes for speccing out of Sovereignty once you have maxed resists IF you don’t want to run another aura. As for taking Body and Soul I have to disagree. You usually wear ES pieces, maybe an EVA/ES hybrid chest because of socket color considerations. I would rather go for Void Barrier and use jade flasks instead of granites in that case. Contrary to folk lore evasion is the better defense mechanism for chars that are hit only occasionally imho. That’s also a scenario where keeping Sovereignty and running Grace can make sense.

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RagnarokX wrote:

I didnt notice any advice on what jewelrly to use. Should you look for Critical Chance Increase ?

I can't give advice on jewelry other than use eye of chayula when playing CI. The stats you need depend on the rest of your gear.

Would you get me some suggest at the low life build w/ FP?
Now, I have 94 points

This build is based on yours,

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAuMC_gQHB2MRLxFQFkAXLxdUHRQfAiKBJ6kpTyycLR82xTrYO-FCw0SrRtdHBkmyTLNN2FAwVa5V1lcrXIpdxl3yXypfamBtY0Nk52aea9ttGXBScNVzU3vXfll_xoCkgW-Cm4V9iEKIa4t6jDaMdo48jmSPRo-mj_qZmp48nqGio6cIpyu1BLb3tvq71sBRwFTBxcHzwuzDbdgk2t3bXtvn3fPfhOL344TkIutj6-TsGOw48h3y4fem-tI=

Thanks

Where do you Cold Witches grind levels? I'm sick of Docks as I get no good loot there. Sure, I can grind the XP, but to what end? And every other lvl 66+ area in Act 3 is fiiled with mobs with Elemental Resistances / Resist Cold. It takes way too much time to kill those skeletal mages in Catacombs / Library.

@taiwandaisy
There is not much to suggest on an unspecific low-life build other than i hope you have a Shavronne's Wrappings, otherwise you will die a lot.


@_Elminister_
Try Piety runs. If Piety is still to hard to solo join public games. Running in a group really ups the clearing speed and gives better protection.

It's a bit unclear for me. I'm going life based build, for what type of armor should i look? pure ES? Hybrid es-armor, hybrid es-eva? Why?
Thanks!

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dpsk wrote:

It's a bit unclear for me. I'm going life based build, for what type of armor should i look? pure ES? Hybrid es-armor, hybrid es-eva? Why?

As long as you are leveling you need not look for a specific armor type. Instead focus on specific mods: Look out for gear with life on it; second priority is resistances. It actually doesn't matter if you wear an armor based chest as long as you have the sockets for your gems on other gear pieces. The only restrictions you have to take into account are the stats requirement (you may not have enough STR for example to wear higher armor chests) and the socket colors for your gems. As most of the gems you will be using are not red, your gear will focus on non-armor items due to the color requirements of the sockets.
Once you are lvl 65+ you may want to look out for a 5 link chest. Here, due to color considerations, the most likely candidates would be ES/eva hybrids. A pure EVA might have too high DEX requirements, a pure ES might not have enough green sockets (in case you run the non-quality FP setup that uses three green gems; otherwise pure ES is possible). STR based chests will not have the right socket colors.

Hello!

First I want to tell you thanks for the guide,very nicely done.

I am using it but with little modification and i have some questions.
I playing just for 5 days,so i am prety new in this game.I made it to lvl 71 now
and my dps is 1.5k wich is not enough i think.And i dont know how to rise up my dps.
Is it possible for this build reach 10k dps,because i know other characters can have 10k dps and even more.Can you tell me for what kind of gear i should aim for?

Here is my passive tree



and my gear

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zhoker wrote:

Hello!

First I want to tell you thanks for the guide,very nicely done.

I am using it but with little modification and i have some questions.
I playing just for 5 days,so i am prety new in this game.I made it to lvl 71 now
and my dps is 1.5k wich is not enough i think.And i dont know how to rise up my dps.
Is it possible for this build reach 10k dps,because i know other characters can have 10k dps and even more.Can you tell me for what kind of gear i should aim for?

The tooltip dps is very inaccurate as it neglects several damage sources. When people are talking about their dps they usually figure that stuff into their dps statement.
Now if your tooltip displays 1.5k it only counts one projectile, while you are firing three that can also shotgun a single target (hit it with all three for triple damage). That makes it 4.5k. The resistance of the monster is also not taken into account. With higher resistance your actual dps will drop of course, with negativ resistance it will rise. Tooltip dps just assumes 0% resistance thereby neglecting the role of your cold penetration gem that lowers resistance for higher damage. Your lvl17 cold penetration lowers resistances by 32% which is the same as 32 % MORE damage: 4.5k x 1.32 = 5.94k. Once your gems reach lvl 20 your FP will do 31.5% more damage, cold penetration is up to 34%. So with the same gear your dps would increase to 4.5k x 1.315 x 1.34 = 7.93k. It would be a bit more as the increased damage bonus of LMP also rises. Oh and the damage increase due to curses is also not considered here.
What are big damage boosters that you could get? If you can get a Freezing pulse with more than 15%quality (or have a wand with a big faster projectiles bonus that also has good increased spell damage and cast speed; hard to get though) you can drop faster projectiles and use faster casting/increased critical strike chance/increased critical damage instead.
On gear is to look for more cast speed. But it can very easy ruin your mana pool, so you gotta be careful here. Crit/spell damage modifiers might work better here as they don't affect the mana costs of your spell.
For the big dps boost in endgame you have to invest a lot of currency though. For example double wielding void batterys while using power charges really ups your damage but will probably ruin your finances.
I would therefore recommend to ignore this dps talk by other people. A good build imho is not one that features as much damage as possible but is well balanced in regard to damage and defense/survivability. Increasing your ES pool might be more important than a few extra dps when you want to level up (which you won't due to XP loss if you die too often).