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

I disagree with the stance on Body and Soul in this guide. I don't disagree that the armor granted by it is not very useful, but the merits of taking the Body and Soul cluster closer to the start of the templar area make it more attractive than taking one of the ES chains in the middle of the tree in my opinion. The one on the edge of the tree is still not worth it.

First, this only applies if your build gets Arcane Potency, which most CCW builds do. It should be noted that it does take seven passives (one int node, two str nodes, B&S, and the three Armor and Evasion nodes) to fill out the Body and Soul cluster, whereas the clusters in the middle of the tree only take six passives (one int node and the five ES nodes).

So for one extra passive point, you get an extra 20 strenth, 10% to all resistances, 44% armor for when you use a granite (not that big of a deal, but it is better than nothing)and 4% more energy shield. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

So ... all things said and considered ... amidoinitrite?

Edit: updated



My only concern with this is that it leaves only 12 points. And we all know that we're probably not ever going to get 99 points on the board. So I'm thinking I need to make some cuts somewhere.

I'm thinking that crit section on the northwest side of Templar, and maybe the cast speed cluster between Witch start and Bloodthirst. However, those cast speed nodes might be worth a lot more than their 10% because it'll scale with all other damage boosts as well.

Where should I cut?

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VideoGeemer wrote:

So ... all things said and considered ... amidoinitrite?

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAv4FWwdjES8RUBa_F1QigSlPLJwsvzrYO-FBlkLDRtdN2FZKVytdxl3yYG1tGXBScNVzU35Zf8aCEIKbh9uIQot6i4yMNox2jjyOZJUEmZqeoaKjpyuvm7b3tvq71sBRwFTBxcHzw23d89-E37Dhc-L35CLmgetj7BjsOO0g8h3z6vem_KsfAjbF2CSnCJ2uGmyePIFv2t0HpQLjSbIc3JMnN2YspqbrN4Pqup97eLqP-l762-dHBl9qLUdQQvF2STowlxBpOYp9U7aGL50W8yY8c7PwaxXn1U_edw==

My only concern with this is that it leaves only 10 points. And we all know that we're probably not going to get 101 points on the board. So I'm thinking I need to make some cuts somewhere.

I'm thinking that crit section on the northwest side of Templar, and maybe the cast speed cluster between Witch start and Bloodthirst. However, those cast speed nodes might be worth a lot more than their 10% because it'll scale with all other damage boosts as well.

Where should I cut?

You took CI, you can get the point from Chaos Resistance.

Besides that, it depends on items. Maybe you can surrender some mana regen or max mana points. ES points don't think you could do without.

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VideoGeemer wrote:

But ... then why take damage nodes at all? Because we want to kill things faster, right?

Casting speed, I just found out, is a LOT BETTER than the 3% the nodes say, because it's (3 + all damage passives + all gear damage and bonuses) percent. So the best way to boost damage is to take the strong damage nodes and then apply faster casting.

Each frenzy charge gives 5% more casting speed. That's a pretty huge damage increase, if you have a lot of damage passives and bonii on your gear.

I was talking about the bandit rewards. My point still stands: You don't take the frenzy reward. Never. Why?
First this is a beginners guide, meaning you start a cold crit witch without a shitload of gear you farmed with another char. That means, you don't know if your late game gear can support your excessive mana needs. It probably won't. And you will have trouble running blood rage all the way from cruel to merciless. And once you find out, you can't respec that decision. You're stuck with it.
Second: What's the core idea of a cold crit witch? You survive and kill by freezing things, making CC (and probably ES) your most important stat. Cast speed via blood rage is just the icing on the cake. If you drag some ranger philosophy(attack speed! attack speed!) over to a witch build, you should switch to a lightning witch. There max dps/sec is much more important.
If you still want to play a max fast caster, go ahead do it. People annoy us in real life about the correct way to speak, think and live all the time. At least when playing you should have the freedom to do what you like and don't give a shit about me being the Correct-Build-Police:)


About your build you posted:
I found Ghost Reaver of very limited use for me. Actually i died more often using it, because i felt compelled to stand in front of a mob and spam fp. Result: incoming damage > life leeched => killed because of carelesness (stupidity actually). It's a very individual thing whether GR fits your playstile. I'm better of running and/or casting skel totem (and using the points saved to get to the templar tree via inner force).
Oh, and wasting 2 points on chaos resi while taking CI really is a bad idea.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

I was talking about the bandit rewards. My point still stands: You don't take the frenzy reward. Never. Why?
First this is a beginners guide, meaning you start a cold crit witch without a shitload of gear you farmed with another char. That means, you don't know if your late game gear can support your excessive mana needs. It probably won't. And you will have trouble running blood rage all the way from cruel to merciless. And once you find out, you can't respec that decision. You're stuck with it.
Second: What's the core idea of a cold crit witch? You survive and kill by freezing things, making CC (and probably ES) your most important stat. Cast speed via blood rage is just the icing on the cake. If you drag some ranger philosophy(attack speed! attack speed!) over to a witch build, you should switch to a lightning witch. There max dps/sec is much more important.
If you still want to play a max fast caster, go ahead do it. People annoy us in real life about the correct way to speak, think and live all the time. At least when playing you should have the freedom to do what you like and don't give a shit about me being the Correct-Build-Police:)

People tend not to take the frenzy charge as the passive point allows more flexibility. If you take the frenzy charge, your stuck with the charge. However, if you take the passive you CAN take the frenzy charge passive, which IS a little out of the way, but is still possible.
As you said, this page is for beginners, with that in mind I need to keep gear and knowledge in mind. Most people starting out will
a) Not have the gear to support fast cast rate
b) Don't have the knowledge of the game yet to be able to theory craft/plan a build that would benefit more from the frenzy charge then the passive.

That all being said, some people starting out will have more luck then others and get decent gear, some will get nothing. This guide is NOT carved in stone. Things WILL change depending on your passives, your items and your playstyle.

This game is about choices, your OWN opinion.

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Edit: crit chance and crit dmg are the lowest of the support gems in terms of dmg added. I don't ever recommend using them.

Is this correct?

Is it better to use Cold Pen then Crit Chance on FP ??

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saked_ wrote:

"

Edit: crit chance and crit dmg are the lowest of the support gems in terms of dmg added. I don't ever recommend using them.

Is this correct?

Is it better to use Cold Pen then Crit Chance on FP ??

hi haha :D and it depends if your target has cold resistance already then the cold pen would probably give you more damage, if your target has no resistance then it will give bonus to your damage (not sure how much).
Theres crit chance and crit multiplier, the multiplier should make you hit higher but chance will make this more often.
It really depends on how want to play, who your opponent is, your passives and the base stats of the spell your using.

in my opinion i would take cold penetration/crit multiplier/crit chance, in that order but thats my opinion. I know this wasn't a very clear answer but i hope it helps with your decisiomn.
(one more thought, when you crit with cold spells you get a freeze so maybe crit chance would be better if you want more frozen targets)

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Mechita wrote:

You took CI, you can get the point from Chaos Resistance.

Besides that, it depends on items. Maybe you can surrender some mana regen or max mana points. ES points don't think you could do without.

Yeah, I herped a derp there with the resistances, hehe. Thanks for the catch. :)

I'm looking at possibly cutting some mana, though it seems that we'd need a lot ... or even some crit nodes. I know we need a lot of crit chance, but at some point I wonder to what extent it's worth going after more when that means fewer points to place elsewhere.

The ES ... I'm trying to get all I can as efficiently as possible. With this build, though, I don't know how often I'll be hit. But I'd like to survive whenever it does inevitably happen. This isn't for a HC character, but I don't like dying, LOL.

Bada_Bing had a point about Reaver too, though I don't expect I'd be as compelled to spam pulse any more than normal. I guess I never know though, hehe.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

I was talking about the bandit rewards. My point still stands: You don't take the frenzy reward. Never.

Especially after posting the build (updated now without the wasted resistances; I don't know why I put them there in the first place) and seeing how many points I'd need to even try to complete it.

It seems to make more sense to use the passive point, and grab the cast speed nodes on the tree, because at least I can respec out of them later if I don;'t like them.

"

Why?
First this is a beginners guide, meaning you start a cold crit witch without a shitload of gear you farmed with another char. That means, you don't know if your late game gear can support your excessive mana needs. It probably won't.

I didn't know that a beginner's guide was intended to mean that we were assumed not to have any advanced gear. I suppose it's better not to assume we did.

"

What's the core idea of a cold crit witch? You survive and kill by freezing things, making CC (and probably ES) your most important stat. Cast speed via blood rage is just the icing on the cake. If you drag some ranger philosophy(attack speed! attack speed!) over to a witch build, you should switch to a lightning witch. There max dps/sec is much more important.

I'm trying to be efficient with damage nodes, that's all. I didn't take the 5% nodes in my proposed tree just because I felt they're not as efficient as 6% nodes, or the 3% cast speed (because those nodes add up to more than 3% when scaled with all the other damage bonii).

As for that point, if we're going to try for some DPS in there as well, what would you think is the most efficient way of achieving that?

I also ignored 15% crit chance unless it led to something better, since, well, only so many points to spend. But if it's better to get those and ignore some of the cold damage nodes, please, do tell, so that I can consider that as well.

Thanks for your input so far. :)

"

shibloble wrote:

As you said, this page is for beginners, with that in mind I need to keep gear and knowledge in mind. Most people starting out will
a) Not have the gear to support fast cast rate

Wouldn't it just be mana and regen gear? Especially the regen I'd think would be very important, which is why I placed a priority on those nodes.

In another forum, someone said that mana regen nodes were a "kaizo trap" because you needed to have a lot of mana in the first place to make the regen really effective. But ... I'm thinking, for three points, 60% regen is still 60% faster, as opposed to 24% mana being more to start but with, but still only 24% regenerating mana per second. Right?

And thanks to you as well, for all you're doing for us glacially-inclined types. :)

"

VideoGeemer wrote:

As for that point, if we're going to try for some DPS in there as well, what would you think is the most efficient way of achieving that?

The only thing i calculated is the difference between cc and crit.mult. The first is usually a 15% node, the latter a 10% node. Given a base damage of 100, 15%cc give you 10,35 extra damage 10% crit.dam only 9,9. Therefor its more efficient to take cc over c.m. (IF the same amount of passiv points are invested to reach 1 node).
When it comes to cast speed, things get complicated. Why? You can take the effect of a damage node (for example 6% extra spell damage) at face value. You can't do that with cast speed, because it can have some hidden costs. More cast speed means higher mana consumption, which means that maybe you need to take extra mana and/or manareg nodes. It depends on your gear (and the level of your clarity skill) if you have enough manareg to support higher cast speed and therefor if the dps per passiv point spent is better with a cast speed node or a damage node. There is no gear independent right answer here.
For the game mechanics on manareg you might have a look here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/82110/page/1