[3.22] Vennto's Cold Dot Trickster - Top Tier Leaguestarter

To understand better where this build is coming from and what it is made for, I have to first give a little introduction about myself. I’m Vennto, I play PoE since late Metamorph and I consider myself a solid Softcore Trade Player that excels at making currency fast. I normally average around 1-3 mirrors per league, which I get in round about 3-4 weeks of actively playing and progressing the league. I sometimes take a few days off, but especially with some private responsibilities this is not always possible, meaning oftentimes I have to play under certain time restraints like anyone following a job. While I always prefer to play off-meta stuff, I tend to grab setups that get me far, fast and cheap in a leaguestart-scenario to get ahead of the economy-curve and to finance the build I am actually going for.

Since I haven´t played the new Trickster version I already set myself the target to play a Trickster in 3.23, and while I have my eyes on two more off-meta setups that I am not going to reveal, I realized both of them need early investment and are not powerful enough for my tastes as leaguestarters. Looking up data on this league I saw most Tricksters starting Spark, Frost Blades or Explosive Trap, none of which I consider especially good or fun to play and so I ended up on Cold Dot Trickster. Seeing that only 2 % of all Tricksters chose this path and only 3 % of overall Starters by Day 3 went for it, I decided to further investigate and came up with what I found to be actually one of the strongest starters I have ever played.

So as a last point before we go into further detail this should set the benchmark what this build is designed for: It is solely a Leaguestarter, getting you to t16-maps in around 12-13 h playtime, being able to kill your pinnacle bosses with minimal investment reaching around 4 mio dps. I did not check for further options to scale the build, as its only purpose is to unlock the entire atlas and to farm initial currency for other builds.

+ Very cheap – can farm T16-Maps with nothing but a 6-link chestpiece, a 5c-Helmet and fitting rares

+ Tanky – During my first SSF-testrun I died only once progressing from T1-Maps to T11-Maps (then I migrated and pushed the gear, so any further comparison would not be valid, but trust me on it: The build runs T16-Maps with the aforementioned limited gear without any problem.)

+ Fast – The function of our most damaging ability, Vortex, enables us to clear maps without stopping in 80% of the cases. Incorporate Shield Charge into that and you have a fast-paced gameplay with lots of movement speed both from the passive-tree and the Trickster Ascendancy.

- Button-heavy playstyle – For maximum damage you need 3 active damage-over-time-effects (DoTs), Arcanist Brand for double curses, Frost Bomb for cold exposure and a 4th, situational Vaal compontent. Therefore, u need to be quick on your fingers to utilize the build efficiently.

- Limited Ceiling (?) While I haven´t tried to push the build further, it certainly suffers typical DoT-based-limitations, as for example no access to scaling via crit. I am sure there are ways to push this build past those, but as far as easy access to damage goes, it peaks pretty early.

- No real farming-speciality – For many economy-based people their starter is supposed to excel at farming a specific league-mechanic. Unfortunately, this char does not do that. It has not enough single target dps for Essences and Bossing, It is fast but not as fast as some Raider-setup for Heist, It does have AoE but not nearly enough to efficiently clear breaches/legions. It is simply a very well-rounded build. Therefore, you need to know how to utilize its advantages, which is tankyness, relative high speed and an overall comfortable way to clear everything on minimal investment to your advantage. More on league-start plans in regard to currency in the section further below.

305 % increased damage
47% dot multi, another 50 dot multi from Rime Gaze
25 % increased duration
33 % more damage due to Polymath
30% increased Area of Effect

190% increased Evasion
96 % increased Energy shield
126 % increased Life
88 % Spell Suppression

further conditional defenses and recovery:
11 % life, mana and ES on Kill
Further increased Evasion Rating if ES-Charge started recently, which is triggered nearly always due to Spellbreaker-Ascendancy

1. Mainhand (Wand, Sceptre)
- useful mods in order of importance
- to level of all spell skill gems / cold spell skill gems
- damage over time multiplier / cold damage over time multiplier
- increased spell damage / cold damage

something like this will do the trick:
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ancestor/mPlQ4JBH6

2. Off-hand (shield)
- to level of all cold spell skill gems
- increased spell damage
- life
- Energy Shield
- Resistances
something like this will do the trick:
https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ancestor/yr8QD8BFR

3. Helmet
- Rime Gaze, Best in slot


4. Body Armour
- Carcass Jack (Life, All-Res, Good Levels of Energy Shield and Evasion, increased Area-Damage which works as a simple added damage, area of effect is very nice QoL. If you can get it with a favourable corruption even better.
- Any 6-link chest with high Evasion, Life and Resistances will do

5. Gloves
- High Evasion/Es
- Life
- Resistances
- favourable eldritch implicits (cold exposure on hit, cold dot multi, cold dot multi while Pinnacle Atlas Boss is present

6. Boots
- Movementspeed
- Life
- Attributes / Resistances

7. Amulet
- +1 to level of all cold skill gems
- Attributes, Life, ES, Resistances

8. Rings
- Life
- Resistances

9. Belt
- Life
- Mana
- ES / Amour
- Attributes
- Resistances
- Flask Mods