A Cold Crit Witch Guide 2.0 (RE-DONE!) Check it out!

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LaXiTy wrote:

we talk about

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Blood Rage
...Adds a buff that deals Chaos Damage over time, while increasing Attack Speed and Life Leech. Killing an enemy while this buff is active refreshes the buff duration, and grants a Frenzy Charge.

noone is going to cast

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Frenzy
...Performs an attack that gives the character a frenzy charge if it hits. Frenzy charges increase your attack speed.

Frenzy (the skill) grants frenzy charges, but the skill also gets large bonuses from the frenzy charges that it builds. Frenzy is not the only skill that grants frenzy charges, but it is an excellent way to build them quickly.

A Frenzy attack may be performed with any weapon type, or with no weapon equipped.

If you are CI all you get from Blood rage is the physical life leech. Making it useless. If you are hybrid you get attack speed and life leech which you dont "attack" as a cold witch making it useless. Your only other option for frenzy charges is frenzy which is an attack, you wont have any attack speed or a decent weapon. So to generate charge you would have to stop nuking, attack to max charges and continue to nuke. Then you would have to juggel nuking and charge keeping. Inherently doing less damage. The point of this is to tell you that getting the second nullification node is a waste and getting any frenzy charge talent is worthless. There is nothing more to be said about this topic. If you are a cold withc don't do this.

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Lachis wrote:

If you are CI all you get from Blood rage is the physical life leech. Making it useless. If you are hybrid you get attack speed and life leech which you dont "attack" as a cold witch making it useless. Your only other option for frenzy charges is frenzy which is an attack, you wont have any attack speed or a decent weapon. So to generate charge you would have to stop nuking, attack to max charges and continue to nuke. Then you would have to juggel nuking and charge keeping. Inherently doing less damage. The point of this is to tell you that getting the second nullification node is a waste and getting any frenzy charge talent is worthless. There is nothing more to be said about this topic. If you are a cold withc don't do this.

You're using blood rage to get self stacking frenzy charges for no downside other than having to hit one button every 10 seconds or so if you fail to kill anything, hardly useless.
You seem to be confused on something, no one said anything about using frenzy.

ok dude, log on to your witch, open the character screen, go to charges and check the text for frenzy charges.
maybe that will help you

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Frenzy Charges 0/3
Attack Speed increase per Frenzy Charge 5%
Cast Speed increase per Frenzy Charge 5%

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Lachis wrote:

If you are CI all you get from Blood rage is the physical life leech. Making it useless. If you are hybrid you get attack speed and life leech which you dont "attack" as a cold witch making it useless. Your only other option for frenzy charges is frenzy which is an attack, you wont have any attack speed or a decent weapon. So to generate charge you would have to stop nuking, attack to max charges and continue to nuke. Then you would have to juggel nuking and charge keeping. Inherently doing less damage. The point of this is to tell you that getting the second nullification node is a waste and getting any frenzy charge talent is worthless. There is nothing more to be said about this topic. If you are a cold withc don't do this.

Wait what? this is completely wrong on so many levels...
Blood rage GENERATES frenzy charges AS you kill, not the other way around...so for each killed enemy, you add 1 frenzy charge...and the 10sec timer extends for each killed enemy..so nuke away.
It doesn't work as flicker strike where the charges are consumed
As for me, adding 5 frenzy charges is an effective speed increase of 25%! now, how many points is that in the skilltree? and how far is it to get all those?
I get the nullification nodes yes, and that gives me +10% evasion, 10% ES, +10% recovery AND +10 elemental res..and since i'm ci, i don't care about chaos. Now, tell me how that is a waste?
By taking that path, i'm getting +40 dex (wich i need for the GMP, LMP etc), +10/20 int depending on the path, 40% ES cooldown recovery(!!!), +86% ES (!!), and +86% evasion..
I really don't see the downside here..it's a total of 20 points..

edit: i'll add the planned skilltree at lvl 100.. http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAuMC_gVCBVsFtQdjB6UM8g5ID8QQexEvEVARlhHbFVAW8xdUHNwd2R8CIoEmPCsKLJwspiy_L50y0TY9NsU3RzdmOBs7fDvhQZZCw0NURUdJsk-_VkpXK1qmXcZd8mBta6xtGXBScNVzU3WKeLp-WX_GghCIQohri3qMNo48jmSTJ5UEmZqdo56hn3uiLqKjpcunCKcrr5u0xbUEtve2-riTuMq71r46wFTBAMHFwfPDbdQF2CTbGtzH3fPfhN-w4vfjhOQi5oHrY-wY8h31S_em_Ks=


How would you have done it? please, do edit the skilltree..i'm actually very interested (no irony)

Ok here is my modification of the build I am starting now in hardcore. I'll have a long while before I have to decide to keep these changes so no big.

By switching to body&soul area we lose 10 int and 40% mana regen, gain 4% es, 10% elemental resists, and 42% armor bonus (helpful with armor flask). Also took a 30 dex node so not relying on gear so for support gems. The 20 str by b&s help with str reqs on reduced mana and totems. Can swap 30dex for one of the 2 accessible 6% all resist nodes if you dont need it!



I also dropped 15% spelldmg and 10int for more 20% mana and 28% regen since I dropped the 40% regen by the 5x8 es nodes under witch start.

I just noticed how squishy I felt compared to my ellie bow ranger in normal, and I want to try hardcore.

How useful are the skills towards the middle of the tree? I"m a ice-spear totem witch and most of my passives have gone to the outer edge of the passive tree


Is it worth it for me to jump towards the middle?

If not, then I'm probably going to get Body and Soul, Nullification and eventually CI.

you already have most of what you need from the middle, just missing that one cold dmg node over there. After you finish your evasion/es skills then by all means move down to templar area

Hi there !

Great topic, very helpful ;)

Regarding support gems, you don't seem to mention pierce. Is there a specific reason for that ? I thought it would be a good combo with multiple projectile on ice spear ...

Hi guys I am building hardcore cold crit witch. Can you tell is there something wrong with my planned build? I am not sure will es be enough for end game or do I need more es nodes? Also I am not sure yet will I want ghost reaver but if I go with it, I will also take second nulification under ghost reaver. Can someone who is high level witch tell me is ghost reaver needed or not. Thanks for your help.


http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAv4FQgVbB2MMfQ5ID8QQaRB_ES0RLxFQEZYWvxdUF9gd2SKBKU8snCy_MJcy0TmKOtg7fDvhQZZCw0NUQ2NFR0bXTUFN2E-_VkpXK1j1Wmtapl3GXfJe-mBtZp5tGXBScNVxTXNTdYp8g3_GgW-CEIKbh9uIQot6i4yMNox2jjyOZI6-lQSZmprPnYCdo53EnjyeoaKjpyuus6-btQS297b6tzG4k7jKu9a8ecBRwcXB88Ntxp7N-tA51AXcx93z34TfsOFz4vfjhOQi5oHrY-wY7DjtIPId8-r3pvyr

and build with ghost reaver and second nulification

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAv4FQgVbB2MMfQ5IEHsQfxEtES8RUBGWFr8XVB3ZIoEpTysKLJwsvzLROtg74UGWQsNDVENjRUdG10cGTUFN2E-_VkpXK1j1Wmtdxl3yX2pgbWaebRlwUnDVcU11inyDf8aBb4IQgpuH24hCi3qLjIw2jHaOPI5kjr6P-pUEmZqaz52AnaOdxJ48oqOnK66zr5u0xbUEtve2-rcxuJO71rx5vjrAUcEAwcXB88Lsw23Gns361AXbGtvn3fPfhN-w4XPi9-OE5CLmgetj7BjsOO0g8h3z6vVL96b8qw==

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IkoRn wrote:

Hi guys I am building hardcore cold crit witch. Can you tell is there something wrong with my planned build? I am not sure will es be enough for end game or do I need more es nodes? Also I am not sure yet will I want ghost reaver but if I go with it, I will also take second nulification under ghost reaver. Can someone who is high level witch tell me is ghost reaver needed or not. Thanks for your help.

If you want to build a HC cold witch you might also look at this guide http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/67258

I wouldn't recommend Ghost reaver.
1) Looking for BGGR witchgear to link a life leech gem with FP (+ LMP + faster projectiles) is a pain in the ass. You probably end up with a non-ES ranger piece. Or you will have to find more expensive liveleech-gear.
2) If you use spell totem + summon skeletons you will have a decent meat shield to protect you. I barely take damage since i use it, making ghost reaver quite obsolet (it works really nice against those pesky flicker strike mobs).