build planing(some help needed)

What i am planing for the next league is a cold to fire ice nova build.
I have a few questions.

1. is it even worth doing cold to fire, or is pure cold ice nova stronger?
2. Would the passive "Avatar of fire" be an damage upgrade or downgrade?(would it take precedent over cold to fire, stoping cold to fire from even working?)
3.how soon should i go icenova?
4. what class do you guys think (shadow/witch/Templar)would be strongest? I'm thinking witch would have the best start, but Templar has a bit more for tankynes/aoe closer, and shadow i could get more crit.)


My main skill and support gems are planned to be:
Ice Nova > Cold to Fire > increased area of effect/concentrated effect > Ice Bite/Hypothermia or cold and fire pen.

Any ideas/tips are appreciated.


Edit: Added link to 100 points each class tree.

Converted damage is a stat that works additively. With the 50% cold to fire conversion on AoF and the conversion of the Cold to Fire support, the total will be 100%, meaning none of the cold damage is wasted.

In fact, it means the component of your damage that was originally cold will benefit from both your increases in cold damage and your increases in fire damage (this is why Snowforged is a good notable passive)

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Cold_to_Fire says cold damage is also added as fire thats whaere i was thinking it would waste damage
x% of Cold Damage Added As Fire Damage

added my planed trees for other classes, please let me know if you think i should look at changeing

After checking your tree and general geming plan I must say.... you really lack defenses.

Having over 500% dmg increase looks nice but with ice nova you put yourself in the middle of the fight. One of the things which compensate it is that you can freeze enemies with cold dmg, but since you convert it with avatar and conversion gem, you totally omit that mechanic - even if you get ice bite and additional freezing chance from the tree/gear, freeze duration is still based on cold dmg, and since yours is zero, its duration also will be zero. Also, your health increase is below 100 % and you only get 60% additional armour.... not much in the world of PoE. You cannot never have enough defenses in PoE, that's the rule xD

So... what I would do in your place ? To be honest I never made any armour based spell-caster, as I think that evasion suit caster a bit bettter. So don't take these suggestions as something bullet-proof.

Possibility number 1.


Normal ice nova caster with nice survivability.

After optimizing your tree I got something like that:

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgUA-d2LjMCaCarZ_MBmPAXvfJ_fmjuCm7aG7SB8S5Z0aPKiAPAfxq4LYa9sU6UcpwxfGNdyD5RvZlSFe-w4cYVG11cpMJc5iuvuLJwRLXyDEFivmx_HK3htGS2LlQQyNB8CBAeD21XGOlismBEPTC0XVJf0UlM9XwSzOtgnL5BVGjg7De_rXyp0VVPUjYLR5J8Bjxoc3FNSRZ2a4EVHMtGnKzW5EVBLrhsl2Vv7qgY5PQ98u_MGUWDvDlBH5FFnm64-Xz8UIHk5fuIaPunVsUI=

You get just around 400% dmg increase and not 500% but with tree and your intellifence points and two anatomical knowledge jewels you will get around 100 % ES increase and 150 % life increase and higher chance to freeze mobs. Additionaly you get 11% more block and still some additional armour (remember good kids that block lets you totally ignore dmg, so it's really good defense). Thanks to that you should be able to go for life-ES hybrid and be hoping to survive first strikes before you freeze everyone.

With gearing just go for nice ES or ES-armour stuff (especially shield) and some wand giving you more cast speed. Remember that you already get plenty of dmg increases so cast speed is more helpful, as it works like "more" dmg multipler. Since you are going for a bit of an armour, you might think about using Aegis shield (check below) for ES regeneration.

Gems should look like you proposed, but add spell echo to ice nova chain and you might think about some elemental penetration gem. Also use Tempest shield for more block.

Btw, For items, search this page:

http://poe.trade/search/hinitokarotara


For auras something like that would be nice (check which curse would work better for you):

https://poe.mikelat.com/#EoHX/DbfBOkph

Anatomical knowledge jewels in the witch area, should give you something around 49% life, if you are wondering.

Spell Echo


http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Spell_Echo

Tempest Shield

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Tempest_Shield

Anatomical Knowledge

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Anatomical_Knowledge

Aegis Aurora

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Aegis_Aurora


Possibility number 2.


Put it under the totem

Yea... so put you ice nova spell with spell totem in chain. I think it still would be lacking defenses so you might think about changing your tree so it will be more defensive (even just a few nodes to ES would be nice....), but even the fact alone that your novas will be cast by totems and not you, put you away from monsters, and you can happily run around while totems kills all of them. Not much fun but at least give you some chance to not die with first shot from mob.

Ancestral Bond would work nicely with that too and it is close to your tree.


http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Ancestral_Bond


http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Spell_Totem

Possibility number 3.


Follow some other working build xD

There a plenty of viable builds which use ice nova and have both nice dmg and good survivability. Even if you dont plan on following them, it is good to compare your plans with other build to see what parts of your build is better, which is worse, what you should improve etc etc... For example this build which is using Ice novas as main dmg source is really nice:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1376001

It is based on CoC gem so the mechanic is different but it offers much more survivability and dmg than what you proposed :)