Hardcore Frost Witch Guide (Last Updated May 8th)

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lumino6 wrote:

Question, how come you dropped the 2nd set of Evasion & Energy Shield nodes in your last tree?

You have it at the end of Merciless, but it's not in your final end-game build, any reason why?

Whoops. Leaving that in the Merciless section was a mistake, but yeah I can explain this. I just updated the end-game section with my current skill tree:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAW8C4wdjB6UMfRB7EH8RUBzcHRQd2R8CJIsn7SsKLJwspiy_NAo2xTdmN4M74TyOPQ9DVENjRwZJskw1TdhPv1ZKVytXyVj1WfNfamaebRlxTXy7fll_xoIQhEiFxYt6jHaPRo_6kyeVBJrPncSePJ6hoqOm66cIpyusqq-btMW3MbiTu9a-OsAawQDBxcHzwuzDbcT2xp7YJNrd2xrb596w37Di9-OC5nzmgecL6XPquuvu7Bjz3fVL98H60g==

That energy shield cluster in the shadow area isn't as valuable as the others in end-game because it doesn't provide as much energy shield, and the energy shield cooldown recovery nodes rapidly decrease in value as you get more of them. For example, the first 10% cooldown recovery node you get reduces the energy shield cooldown from 6 seconds to 5.45 seconds, for a 0.55 second reduction. If you already have 75% cooldown recovery, a 10% node will reduce the cooldown from 3.43 seconds to 3.24 seconds, for a 0.19 second reduction. So there's a point where these nodes just aren't very worth-while. And I think I'm at (or beyond) that point. Very, very rarely does my shield go the full cooldown without being topped off. In fact, I'm considering dropping one or two more of those nodes up by Chaos Inoculation. So, instead of the shadow cluster I've gotten the second templar Body and Soul cluster. The strength I get on the way allowed me to drop the +30 nodes I had gotten, and I'll soon be able to gain another 1% energy shield regeneration, which for me right now is 82 passive regen so it's pretty nice.

I'm not sure if I'll be making my way over to that shadow cluster as I progress. I think I really want to work on my offense some first.

Got an Eye of Chayula because I think my most likely death scenario is getting stun-locked by scrabblers or gravel eaters.



Yay for eliminating weakness! The energy shield and resistance loss isn't too bad (lost 200 energy shield and I'm a little less over capped now). Biggest loss is probably the spell damage but survival comes first and I'll gain that back later.

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rz2yoj wrote:

Got an Eye of Chayula because I think my most likely death scenario is getting stun-locked by scrabblers or gravel eaters.

Yay for eliminating weakness! The energy shield and resistance loss isn't too bad (lost 200 energy shield and I'm a little less over capped now). Biggest loss is probably the spell damage but survival comes first and I'll gain that back later.

I was thinking of getting that unique too, Stun locks are really horrible for CI builds ...

Also, not a question but an improvement on your build, you got a 8% increased mana near the ES nodes under the starting point, you could simply get the 12% node right here


And finally, dropping the 3 ES cooldown nodes near CI might be a good idea, with your regen and life leech, I believe they're a little bit useless (Though I am planning to go towards Vaal Pact in my case)

I was tinkering with the skill tree and I found I was close to some armour skills, should I go for it or would it just be a wast of time?

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lumino6 wrote:

Also, not a question but an improvement on your build, you got a 8% increased mana near the ES nodes under the starting point, you could simply get the 12% node right here

That was a misclick I made somewhere along the line. :P I'm not actually using any mana skills other than the ones required to get to the energy shield nodes from the start. I think I fixed all of the links that had that error.

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lumino6 wrote:

And finally, dropping the 3 ES cooldown nodes near CI might be a good idea, with your regen and life leech, I believe they're a little bit useless (Though I am planning to go towards Vaal Pact in my case)

Yep. I'll probably be doing that.

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PurpleKush75 wrote:

I was tinkering with the skill tree and I found I was close to some armour skills, should I go for it or would it just be a wast of time?

Which armour skills? Body and Soul? Or did you manage to get near some of the other ones? If they're pure armour nodes, no, they aren't worth it because we don't really use armour.

Yay, buffs coming!

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rz2yoj wrote:

Yay, buffs coming!

Still would like to some re-calculations when it comes to stuns based off of HP numbers.

Hi, could you help me out in regards to your build and and its lack of crit ?
If you see the build below It has almost every crit possible while yours has none.
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/214705/page/1

I like your build because it focuses on energy shield and living. what according to you is the point of critical attacks for a witch ?


I Intend to make a Witch as a Second Character and i have some gems with me in this regard.



I have been using Ice Nova for mob control as my reflexes aren't that fast enough to quickly evade mobs that run towards you very quickly.hence my inclination towards aoe/ increase skills for this AoE mob control skill. Is Ice spear (GMP) a better effective skill in terms of AOE where mobs surround you at a very fast pace ?.


is there any harm in having some fire/ lightning skill gems (fireball,arc, shock wave) for places where cold does not work ? or is cold still effective regardless due to sheer dps?

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Zinja wrote:

Hi, could you help me out in regards to your build and its difference with a similar build?

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/67258/page/1
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/214705/page/1

I my main aim is not dying. what is the point of critical attacks for a witch ?

how exactly do you get a 0.25 sec freezing pulse. i.e minimum combination of skills / gems.

I Intend to make a Witch as a Second Character and i have some gems with me in this regard.

The main difference is that a Crit witch will freeze the enemies more often, making them less dangerous (due to doing nothing), if so, your main skills are going to be Ice Spear and Cold Snap, rather then Freezing Pulse

As for the 0.25s Freezing Pulse, I currently have 9% cast speed from Passive Tree and lvl 6-7 Faster Casting support gem, and my Freezing Pulse is 0.41s
So I believe raising my Faster Casting to 20, and getting a wand/ammy with some Increased Cast Speed will bring me to 0.25s very easily

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Zinja wrote:

I have been using Ice Nova for mob control as my reflexes aren't that fast enough to quickly evade mobs that run towards you very quickly.hence my inclination towards aoe/ increase skills for this AoE mob control skill. Is Ice spear (GMP) a better effective skill in terms of AOE where mobs surround you at a very fast pace ?.


is there any harm in having some fire/ lightning skill gems (fireball,arc, shock wave) for places where cold does not work ? or is cold still effective regardless due to sheer dps?

Ice Nova w/ Elemental Proliferation ant Frostbite curse can be quite good (10% chance to freeze on hit, plus if 1 monster is hit, all the others will too
Same goes with Cold Snap, but the 4s delay can be a pain
Ice Spear is always great, but more dps and less freeze chance

I've never had a problem up to now even with cold resist mobs, if you really want to go dual elements though, maybe a spark/arc totem, to shock monsters and boost the damage of your main cold spell