1. levels are your friend for sure
2. work on a wand upgrade, theres some recomb guides out there
2. quality your skill gems
3. get corrupted blood immunity on a jewel, drop life flask
4. get ailment immunity, either thru shock avoid boots + stormshroud, or swap purity of elements for wrath.
“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.”
Last edited by Piousqd#0073 on Feb 11, 2025, 7:50:47 AM
1. levels are your friend for sure
2. work on a wand upgrade, theres some recomb guides out there
2. quality your skill gems
3. get corrupted blood immunity on a jewel, drop life flask
4. get ailment immunity, either thru shock avoid boots + stormshroud, or swap purity of elements for wrath.
Great, thanks for that.
2. Is a recomb wand guide I am looking for specifically for this build, or find a general guide and them bridge the gap for the stats this build wants?
2a. I thought all my skill gems that required it were at +20% quality from the build guide?
3. Is this finding an existing version of a gem I already have that in addition has corrupted blood immunity? And what do I drop the life flask for?
Hi. Loved your guide. Any ideas on new Ascendancy classes in the Legacy of Phrecia Event? What to get for the Ice Nova and is it viable at all?
Was thinking about the Polytheist:
Devout of Ralakesh - gives 3 Endurance, Power, Frenzy charges. And Devout of Lunaris - Nova spells cast on target. Not sure how it will gonna work with Frostbolts and is there a point even?
There's also a Whisperer:
don't panic yet - 100% phis damage taken from mana
we know all - added lightning damage from 4% from mana (which is not a lot)
But there is mandatory node "an infinite persuit" which removes mana buff from Int and gives mana from Dexterity, but we don't have a lot of dex from gear and the tree. How to negate that?
there is more - another useful node, gives 4 frenzy and power charges.
And finally, Surfcaster:
Ghost of the deep - 30% flat MS, CS.
Stormy seas - 100% lightning damage converted to cold + shock
Glacal wave - less damage from enemies, more damage to them
Sea legs - Some crits and evasion on overcapped defences could be useful.
Sadly, I don't see anything as powerful as Divine guidance and Sanctuary of thought as it is in Heirophant.
What do you guys think? Lets keep the convo going before the new "league".
1. The ascendancy node "we know all" does nothing but give you higher mana costs without giving you something back. The added damage is just for attacks and archmage scales with unreserved maximum mana only, not with mana costs. You can replace this with the blind node (good if you're going evasion), the mana pots node or 2 small nodes.
2. "don't panic yet" is good, but is physical damage only. You're not counting with your mana for elemental/chaos damage anymore so your ehp for those types of damage will be lower by a lot. I don't really know if it will be safe/enough to drop MoM. It is 100% phys from mana too, so you lose the defensive aspect of having life, ES and mana regen at the same time. Another observation: I don't really know if it works like that, but if you take that node and normal MoM, you will have 140% phys received to life as mana so you may be receiving 40% more physical damage.
Thank you for such an impressive explanation on how to scale further with this build. I am on the same level were I did all 4 voidstones and can do most content relatively easy. Only getting ripped on T17's. havent finished even one.
So naturally your post excited me and have been walking through the pages of your post and all the comments so I see there is a nice progression into a more and better build with more shadow res and more immunity.
I got out and bought nice upgrades and working towards a much better build. not there yet.
However I have a few things i do not understand.
1. I don't understand how the arcanist brand works. Do I need to spam it and how does it help spreading the curses like punishment and/or conductivity if I put them in my wand.
2. t17 map clear is good. I dont die anymore but the boss still is a league apart. Need to work on res, mana and life I guess. Or do you have any other tips.
I know i am a bit late to the party as I started only a few weeks ago but still like the build and play alot.
If you have any other tips on the build I am more then happy to get tips.
https://pobb.in/XqEN6Qw9D60Y
thanks in advance
Last edited by Hondekop#1807 on Apr 1, 2025, 3:38:13 AM
Hi all!
After a looong time not playing PoE I decided to league start Settlers with an old love of mine: the Ice Nova + Frostbolt combo.
I love the interaction a lot (I even made an Inquisitor build guide back in the days), but a lot changed (first of all we have to use Ice Nova of Frostbolts now), so instead of starting from scratch, I've followed the Ziz/Goratha Archmage build.
Everything went smooth and later I transitioned into crit, boosting my DPS a lot, but problems started to arise when I started juicing maps and doing the post pinnacle bosses endgame: I was dying a lot.
The solution could've been raising my dps again or being super tanky, but either was super exensive (gg wands for dps or Mageblood for ehp)…
But then Svalinn came…
Pros and Cons: + Can achieve stupid levels of DPS + Good layers of defense with MoM, Leech and block + 1 button build + Most of our offensive buffs give also defense layers - The mapping pace is mid - It's an endgame build so it's expensive (around 6divs for the block transition alone)
NOTE:
From now onwards I'll just use "Ice Nova" to refer to "Ice Nova of Frostbolts"
The Lazy Nova
90% of the build is automated.
When you cast Ice Nova you automatically trigger the spells socketed inside Kitava's Thirst, when you block you trigger the ones inside Svalinn.
The Arcane Cloak setup with Arcane Surge is automatically casted on cooldown by the Automation support gem.
You just need to cast Frostblink to move around and put an Arcanist Brand on bosses.
Why Svalinn?
Svalinn makes your block chance Lucky.
What Lucky means is that every "roll" is doubled and only the best result is kept.
For example, if you normally have 50% chance to block, the double roll of Lucky bumps it to 75%.
I will try to explain the math behind it.
Let's assume that our block chance is 50%
Normally when something try to hit us block chance is rolled and we can expect just 2 outcomes:
"
A-50% Roll: Success
B-50%
Roll: Fail
We only 1 favorable result out of 2 (which is correct, since we have 50% block chance)
With Svalinn every attempt is rolled twice, so the possible outcomes become 4:
"
A-25% Roll1: Success Roll2: Success
B-25% Roll1: Success
Roll2: Fail
C-25%
Roll1: Fail Roll2: Success
D-25%
Roll1: Fail
Roll2: Fail
Just the best result from the 2 rolls is kept, so now we have 3 favourable outcome out of 4 (75% block chance)
Damage
We use different skills/support that adds flat Lightning damage based on our mana.
The Archmage support adds flat lightning damage to the supported skill based on the caster's unreserved maximum mana (19% at lvl20).
The buff Arcane Cloak at lvl20 costs 64% of our current unspent mana and then gives us 14% of this spent mana as flat Lightning damage.
If we have 5000 mana, a lvl 20 Archmage adds 950 (5000*0,19) flat Lightning dmg to the supported skill and Arcane Cloak adds 448 Lightning dmg.
Those are summed (1398) and then scaled by the Damage Effectivness of the skill we are using (130% in the case of Ice Nova) to a grand total of 1817 of Lightning dmg.
To put things in perspective, a lvl 20 Ice Nova does 590 to 885 cold damage.
This means that we can ignore the base cold damage of Ice Nova and scale just lightning dmg (for example, 90% of the damage that my character does is Lightning).
This is why we use things like Conductivity, Wrath, Lightning Leech and Lightning penetration.
Basically we are just using the Ice Nova+Frostbolt as a vector to dish out absurd amount of Lightning damage.
The downside of the Archmage support is that the spell supported became super expensive to cast, but with Kitava's Thirst we turn this in an upside.
Since our ascendacy Conviction of Power gives us an headstart of +1 max power charge, it seems natural to get a little more of those to crit with our spells.
also, Anathema fits perfectly in this plan, making us able to use a lot of offensive curse debuffs.
We also runs a plethora of other minor buffs.
We can also abuse of one of the strongest jewel interaction on the passive tree (Unnatural Instinct+The Light of Meaning)
Defense
Given that we are stacking mana for dps, going Mind Over Matter is free.
The non-Svalinn versions of the build we take MoM on the tree, but we cannot path like that (more on that later), so we have to use Cloak of Defiance to get it.
Svalinn makes going block super cheap.
I spent something like 6divs to switch from non block to block and the difference is astronomical.
I'm talking about getting exploded in wave 9 in simulacrum and by white mobs in T17 versus clearing both with basically no effort.
Some of our curses are defensive (Enfeeble) or both offensive and defensive (Punishment)
Most of our buffs offer also defensive layers.
WTF are you talking about?
If any of this is confusing is probably because I'm taking for granted something.
You can refer to the Ziz build guide for the basics, but feel free to write in the comments if you want me to elaborate on something.
If you prefer a PoB link, you can find it below in the dedicated Path of Building section
Bandits and Pantheon
Kill all Bandits for the passive point.
Major God: Soul of the Brine King - stun/freeze avoidance
Minor God: Soul of Abberath - taking no damage from burning ground is super nice
Gear
Weapon
you want something with mana, spell damage, crit, crit multi and possibly mana regen.
(please, ignore the Adds 12 to 177 Lightning Damage to Spells mod on the wand, is not needed in the build)
Settlers of Kalguur introduced in the game the ability to enchant weapons.
The most powerful enchant by far is Haunted by Tormented Spirits which grants:
35% Increased Movement Speed
35% Increased Cast Speed
35% Increased Damage
The problem is that a wand with this enchant starts from 60 divine, so I'm using #% chance to Curse Enemies with Elemental Weakness on Hit instead as a replacement.
Shield
Svalinn give us a lot of block thanks to its Chance to Block is Lucky (Lucky means that the chance to roll is rolled twice and only the best result is kept)
the mod Trigger a Socketed Elemental Spell on Block can automate our buffs so we don't have to think about casting them
Chest
gives the Mind Over Matter keystone and a lot of mana regen.
without having to take MoM on the tree we can path for block chance.
Helmet
everything in this helmet will be automatically casted (if we are spending 100+ mana for our Ice Nova)
the +1 to Maximum Power Charges gives a ton of dmg, but it's not mandatory
Gloves
life, mana, res
the #% of Lightning Damage Leeched as LifeEater of Worlds mod si mandatory
Boots
life, mana, res, mov speed
The Searing Exarch mod #% increased Acion Speed scales every action (running, casting, being stunned, blocking a hit), so it helps a lot in feeling less "clunky"
Belt
A Stygian Vise Rare Belt with Life, Mana and Elemental Resistances.
Try to squeeze some Chaos Resistance here.
Rings
Anathema has the mod Your Curse Limit is equal to your maximum Power Charges.
we have a lot of power charges, so we get to curse a lot.
the other ring is a rare with life, mana and res.
you can try to squeeze some cast speed here, and also the hybrid crafted mod +# to maximum Mana / #% reduced Mana Cost of Skills
Amulet
i was not using it when it was 6div in the beginning of the league, but for a couple of chaos is an amazing piece.
a rare amulet will give overall better stats, but Atziri's Foible is unmatched for mana/mana regen
Anointment: Infused:
+1 to Maximum Power Charges
Flasks
Bottled Faith is simply broken. Rumi helps us blovking more hits.
Jewels
This is the only mandatory one, since it boosts a ton our block chance.
In the section below "Jewel Interaction" I explain how to use it more in depth.
This combo gives a lot of damage.
In the section below "Jewel Interaction" I explain why.
Timeless Jewels change is some way the portion of your passive tree included in their radii.
They also change the Keystones in radius by changing it in a completely new Keystone (not obtainable normally).
It seems random at first, but it's not, for example every Militant Faith Timeless Jewel with the mod Carved to glorify # new faithful converted by High Templar Dominus will change keystone in radius to Inner Conviction.
Inner Conviction
3% more Spell Damage per Power Charge
Gain Power Charges instead of Frenzy Charges
we dont' care about the Frenzy Charges part since we don't use them, but we care a lot about the Power Charges part since we stack them (8 charges = 24% MORE spell damage!)
Keep in mind that timeless jewels can change also Notable Nodes in radius, so before buying one check in PoB that it will not change one of the Notable that we take.
Militant Faith will also add a new stat to every nodes it affects, Devotion, and will spawn with mods that give you benefits based on how much Devotion you have.
I think that the best mods for the build are: 1% reduced Mana Cost of Skills per 10 Devotion, Regenerate 0.6 Mana per Second per 10 Devotion, 4% increased Elemental Damage per 10 Devotion and 4% increased Area Damage per 10 Devotion
Those drops granting bonuses depending on your active auras, so you should check for the one that gives bonuses when you are affected by Wrath.
Note that the bonuses when you are affected by Zealotry are super juicy, so if you find a very good Zealotry one you can start using it instead of Wrath.
A note on attribute requirements
The biggest DEX requirement of the build comes from Cloak of Defiance.
You need to have at least 76 DEX to equip it.
However this is reduced to 57 by the mod Items and Gems have 25% reduced Attribute Requirements present on Atziri's Foible.
Templars starts with 14 DEX and our pathing on the tree brings us to 24 (we take just 1 little dex node).
This means that we need to have at least 33 DEX somewhere to be able to wear Cloak of Defiance.
STR and INT aren't a problem, we have more than we need just by pathing on the tree.
Jewel Interaction
The Red Nightmare
This jewels takes 50% of the fire res in radius and add it as block chance.
We can tattoo some of our passive tree near this jewel socket with Tattoo of the Ngamahu Firewalker (which gives +6% to Fire Resistance) in order to get a whopping +25% to block chance
Unnatural Instict & The Light of Meaning
The Light of Meaning says that every passive in radius (not just the allocated one) also grant x (in my case is 6% increased Lightning Damage).
Unnatural Instinct says that it grants the bonus of all unallocated small passive in radius.
if you combine them you get the bonus of The Light of Meaning for every small passive located in the overlaps from the two radii
Gem Links
Chest (6L) Ice Nova of Frostbolts + Archmage + Inspiration + Spell Echo + Intensify + Increased Critical Damage
Kitava setup (2L+1S+1S) Frostbolt + GMP Assassin's Mark Enfeeble
Svalinn setup (1S+1S+1S) Sigil of Power Frost Shield Wave of Conviction
Other stuff (2L+2L) Wrath + Eternal Blessing Frostblink of Wintry Blast + Spell Echo
Alternatives
If you want to play a little bit more safely you can swap Punishment and Assassin's Mark, in order to trigger Punishment with Kitava's Thirst.
This, however, means that we'll have to generate our Power Charges in some other way.
The easiest solution is to use Power Charge on Crit in our 6-Link in place of Intesify or Increased Critical Damage.
I'm not using Faster Casting but Spell Echo with Frostblink because it gives MORE cast speed.
You can cancel the repetition by moving, but that can feel clunky.
If this is your case feel free to use Faster Casting.
Gem Quality
There are a lot gems that are not worth getting to 20q, here's a list.
Frostblink of Wintry Blast, Wave of Conviction, Arcane Surge, Frostbolt and GMP give damage, but not to our main skill, so we don't care about it.
Enfeeble augment its duration, but we constantly apply it, so it's pretty useless.
Arcanist Brand makes its activation more frequent, but we want to just to curse once with it.
Frost Shield augmet its chilling effects. Not totally useless, but not too exciting.
Wrath increases its AoE. Useful if you play in groups, useless if you mostly play solo.
All the other gems have qualities that helps our dps/ehp, so try to get them.
In particular Assassin's Mark at 20% quality has Cursed Enemies have a 5% chance to grant a Power Charge when Hit that is how we generate Power Charges, so get it asap.
Leveling Guide
This build is an "evolution" of the Goratha/Ziz build and, in fact, levels and plays in the exact same way for a long time.
It's just in the late endgame (lvl90+) that we switch to crit and block.
I've written a brief leveling guide below, but you can watch the Ziz's Video Guide if you prefer.
In the section Passive Tree there's a PoB with the tree progression to follow.
How to Level
you can proceed through the game with the super classic Rolling Magma + Combustion + Elemental Proliferation link in tandem with an Holy Flame Totem (you can buff it with things like the Added Lighnting Damage support gem).
Use Flame Dash as a movement skill. At this stage of the game you can use Herald of thunder and Herald of Fire to pump your damage.
After level 31 you can start to use Archmage (Siosa will sell it after the Fixture of Faith quest in the Library of Act 3).
Your main link should be something like: Firestorm + Archmage + Inspiration + Unleash
If you don't like Firestorm, Ball Lightning is another great choice.
Link Wrath or Grace to Eternal Blessing to have a free (no reservation) aura.
At this time you can also start to use Arcane Cloak linked with Arcane Surge and More Duration.
You can try to add Automation if you have a 4-link, but probably at this stage it will be problematic to sustain it constantly.
Speaking of mana regen, keep in mind that you'll need a mana flask for a very long time (there's no rule saying when you can drop it, but having at least a mana regen in the 900/1000 range is a good starting point). You can also link Clarity to Arrogance if you feel the need of it.
After level 38 you can pick up Arcanist Brand in Act 4 and link it with Sigil of Power and curse of your choice (i was using Punishment) to automate some of your buffs.
From there feel free to switch to Ice Nova of Frostbolts as soon as you have the currency to buy the gem itself and a Kitava's Thirst (you can play without it, but automated Frostbolts are sooooo much nicer).
The links I used from that point onward were something like this:
Leveling Gem Links
Chest (6L) (in order of importance) Ice Nova of Frostbolts + Archmage + Inspiration + Spell Echo + Intensify + Lightning Penetration
Kitava setup (2L+1S+1S) Frostbolt + GMP Wave of Conviction Punishment
Movement (3L) Flamedash/Frostblink of Wintry Blast + Faster Casting + Archmage
(Archmage is there because if your travel skill costs more than 100 mana it will trigger your Kitava's Thirst setup, which is very nice in the beginning)
Buffs (3L)
If you want to automate them: Arcanist Brand + Sigil of Power + Frost Shield
If you don't mind casting them yourself: More Duration + Sigil of Power + Frost Shield
Then is just a matter of leveling a little bit more and get some currency, then you can transition into this version.
In the meanwhile you can start to incorporate in the build some of the Unique gear that is good no matter what. Those are Anathema, Atziri's Foible, Unnatural Instinct and The Light of Meaning.
When you are ready to switch, if you can, it's probably better to pass directly from non-crit/non-block to crit/block, but that requires a lot of currency, so in the PoB mentioned at the start of this guide I've added a "stepping stone" tree if you want to begin transitioning into crit alone.
I've chosen crit as a stepping stone because you basically just need a good crit wand, Assassin's Mark and a Diamon Flask to do it.
This is because a lot of things that we are already using (Power Charges, Frost Shield, Inspiration), happens to also buffs our crit chance. We were simply ignoring the crit aspect of them before.
The transition into block requires at least Cloak of Defiance, Svalin and The Red Nightmare, so it will cost at least 6divs.
/JEWELS ~13div
unnatural instinct - 1.3div
the light of meaning (+ lightning damage) - 6.4div
the red nightmare - 2.6div
militant faith (reduced cost/mana regen) - 2div
abyssal - 1div
/RUNES - 1div 64c
44 sun - 20c
44 bound - 44c
44 river - 1div
/OILS - 60c
1 crimson - 2c
2 silver - 58c
/TATTOOS - 120c
5 tattoo of ngamahu firewalker - 50c
1 tattoo of the valako shieldbreaker - 70c
/TOTAL ~45div
Keep in mind that:
1) a lot of things can be cheaper. for example non corrupted kitava costs around 3c, if you remove chaos res the gloves became basically free etc. you don't need every mod right away.
2) you don't even need every item right away. the light of meaning and bottled faith give a lot of damage, but aren't required to make the build work
2.Cluster Jewel Version
If you really like the build and you have a bunch of currency this version attempts to bring it a step further.
We start by cutting some node on the tree to be able to allocate a Large Cluster Jewel with Doryani's Lesson, a notbale that grants us life leech.
In this way we can change the Eater of Worlds implicit in our gloves from #% of Lightning Damage Leeched as Life to Inflict Lightning Exposure on Hit, applying -#% to Lightning Resistance.
Given the fact that now we apply exposure with our gloves, we no longer need Wave of Conviction in the Svalinn.
In its place we can put the Conductivity gem that used to be in our Arcanist Brand.
We can now start to use a proper lvl20 Elemental Weakness in the Arcanist Brand.
This makes the #% chance to Curse Enemies with Elemental Weakness on Hit mod on our wand obsolete, so we can now remove it to use the much more stronger Haunted by Tormented Spirits.
We got so much cast speed that now the caster mastery 6% increased Cast Speed for each different Non-Instant Spell you've Cast Recently can be dropped and replaced with Spells which can gain Intensity have +1 to maximum Intensity.
In the process we gained 2 jewel socket (from the Large Cluster Jewel), so we can use jewels that give us +#% Chance to Block Spell Damage while holding a Shield to reach the cap of 88% spell block chance.
On those we can also have the corrupted implicit Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you and a bunch of other mods that give us damage (increased mana, cast speed, crit multi).
It's a big step forward both in term of dps gain and ehp gain.
you got a mageblood and now what?
there are maaaaaaaaaany things that you could do with a mageblood, but if you can't decide (or if you are broke now that you bought the belt) you can just change your flasks to get some immunities while you contiune your grind.
flasks like these will make you immune to stun, curses and ailments (in combo with stormshroud), so they will be a significant boost in ehp.
you should also change your major pantheon in solaris/lunaris now that brine king is obsolete.
Hi, the build is very nice. I have a Templar on standard that I might switch to it, after I manage to do all the content with the current build, though Svalin is very expensive in Standard.
I noticed the energy shield regenerates very fast ... what do you use for replenishing it ?
For my Hierophant, that has been an inquisitor and guardian as well in the past, I am using Zealot's Oath + energy leech + immunity to poison + 30% chaos doesn't bypass ES from tree + life leech from the Illuminated Devotion that I have from the jewel Forbidden Flesh and Flame.
I am going through a lot of trouble to keep that energy shield and life regenerating, and with all these I finally am not using potions any more in rare T16 ... but you seem to lack Zealot's Oath and still regenerate it nicely. Granted I have ~4.5k life and ~5k ES, that I have to regenerate, and you rely a lot on mana to stay alive.
Also, regarding the damage. Is it properly calculated ? I was imagining that 140+ million dps would mean instant death for lowly monsters on the map, but in the T16 you recorded it doesn't seem like that.
I am sort of new to the game and have been trying to make my own build, so bare with me. Btw this guide was very helpful, a lot of interesting information, like the automation gem that I now employ in my build with Steelskin. Sadly I cannot use Kitava's Helm because I only use 20 mana to cast my spell. Is there any replacement so I am able to auto-cast curses ?
