[2.6] Freezing Spark Tri-Elementalist - fast & easy - rush the Atlas! Video Guide!

Spark, crit, shock, freeze and burn everthing in our way!


For 3.0 check out the my Freezing Spark Inquisitor guide... it is already updated for 3.0 and more or less the same!
Hi there, this is my witch version of my Freezing Spark Inquisitor build.

The concept:
Offense is the best defense... the synergy between high crits and sparks everywhere results in freezing mobs all over the map. We create a shield of freezing sparks around us which is healing us with every hit. We can perma-freeze / facetank most bosses up to tier 15 without losing much clearing speed! We freeze nearly everything before it even hit us... that makes this build extremly safe, easy, fast and fun to play!

Videos:
Video Build Guide
Preview & 14 Volcano Run
Leveling from 1 -70 with dual flameblast totems

Gear


Gear

Most important is the balance between offense and defense. It makes no sense to put all eggs in one basket. Allways max. your resistance!

Rare gear - look for following stats:
Helmet: high es & resistance and enchantment 3 additional spark projectiles / 40% more spark damage (I am not sure if the 40% damage is better because we need high hits to freeze)
Shield: high es & resistance and critical strike chance for spells
Chest: high es & resistance, at least 5link
Belt: high es & resistance
Ring: missing stats... high resistance! / Alternativly "The taming" is great when you still can max your resistance.

Mandatory uniques:
Call of the brotherhood: makes the build possible with 40% lightning to cold damage
Voidwalker: for 100% projectile piercing

Recommended uniques:
Doryani's catalyst:In my opinion doryani catalyst has many advantages like:
- our two heralds profit from elemental damage! (Heralds do not scale with spell damage)
- faster attack and cast speed! (playin feels a lot smoother...)
- elemental leech for survivability. (0,2% sounds like a little but it helps)
- cheap!
Choir of the storm: great boost for our dps
Wind of change/Maligaro's Virtuosity: damage boost (the best version is one with elemental weakness / temporal chains on hit but not mandatory!! If you find good rare with high ES, res and curse on hit take them)

Flask's
Vessel of Vinktar: is necessary to kill elemental reflecting mobs, also very usefull for bossfight... it is like an emergency button. I guess the best version is the one with added lightning damage to spells for us.
Atziri's promise: For budget version use this instead of vinktar other wise maybe as additions. It is really good and cheap.
Surgeon Quartz Flask of Ground: we get phasing for bossfight because our voidwalkers can't proc.


Gearing on a budget

This should help you a bit gearing on low budget. You have to adjust it to your needs:
1)Call of the brotherhood: 1Chaos
2)Voidwalkers: 1Chaos
3)Doryani's Catalyst: 8Chaos
4)Winds of Change: 2Chaos / Maligaro's Virtuosity: 1Chaos
5)Body armour 5link with +570ES: 8Chaos
6)Helmet 250Es with 40% spark damage: 28Chaos
7Shield with 300ES, critical strike chance for spells and res: 1Chaos
8)Belt: 1Chaos
9)Ring with total elemental res +140: 5Chaos
10)Choir of the storm: 55Chaos
11)Vessel of Vinktar: 80 Chaos / Atziri's promise: 1Chaos

Try to always max your resistance!

Without Choir of the Storm and Atziri's promise instead of Vessel of Vinktar budget gear costs about 60-80 chaos. I always wrote the minimum prices per 10.04.2017.


Skilltree, Skill gems & Ascendancy

Skill tree

Skill gems

Main Damage:
Spark + Faster Projectiles + Controlled Destruction + Spell Echo + Increased Critical Strikes (+ Increased Crit Damage)
I tried many different setups and I think this is the best overall for damage and survivability. The increased duration helps us to create a shield of freezing sparks around us. This shield constantly freezing and slowing enemies and healing us with each hit. Theoretically every single spark can hit three times because of the increased duration from passive tree.

Support damage setup:
Herald of Ice + Curse on Hit + Assasin's Mark + Warlord's Mark
We create our power and endurance charges and our main sustain comes from warlord's mark spreading when we shatter enemies. This setup is really important makes this build work... of course also a big damage boost for us.

Alternativly with a curse temporal chains / elemental weakness on hit gloves use:
Herald of Ice + Curse on Hit + Assasin's Mark + Ice Bite
With this setup we create our power and frenzy charges, addtionally assasins mark give us mana & life per kill and higher crit chance & damage. Obviously HoI & Ice Bite gives us a lot more damage and also chance to freeze.

Support:
Discipline + Herald of Thunder + Enlighten
We use enlighten to reduce our mana reservation.

Defensive:
CWDT + Warlord's Mark + Immortal Call + Temporal chains / Enfeeble (low level)
This setup helps us to avoid getting oneshotted and in boss fight it necessary for sustain and temporal chains helps a lot to survive!

CWDT + Molten Shell + Summon Ice + Lightning Golem (high level)
Gives us additional survivability against physical damage. I am just a bit lazy and forget to cast my golems. We use ice and lightning golem.

Movement:
Shield Charge + Faster Attacks + Fortify
For fast clearing speed and also additional defense.

Vaal Skills:
Haste
Discipline
Mainly we need the vaal skills for bossfights, with the flask setup we can get really good damage boost.


Ascendancy Elementalist

1) Liege of the Primordial
2) Paragon of Calamity
3) Shaper of Desolation
4) Pendulum of Destruction (Alternativly Beacon of Ruin)


Bandits
Kill - Kill - Power Charge


Additional Information

Theory

Freeze
Only cold damage has the chance to cause the status ailment freeze. If any enemy will be frozen is dependend of the freeze duration (freeze duration must be < 300ms). For every 1% of the target's maximum life the base freeze duration is 60ms. That means without any modifiers the damage per hit has to be more than 5% of the target maximum life. A frozen enemy will always also be chilled - that means a slow effect of 30% will be applied.

We use 5 Jewels with each a least 15% increased freeze duration (total ~75%). So freeze duration per 1% target's maximum life will be increased to 105ms. To freeze an enemy we no longer have to deal at least 5% of TML - we reduced it to under 3%.

Shatter
When a "non-unique" enemy is killed while frozen - the enemy will shatter into pieces. This effect we use in our heralds setup to spread our curses.
(http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Freeze)

Spark
Increased Skill Duration: determines the duration a spark will exist. Every single spark cast can hit an enemy once per second. When we increase the duration every spark cast can hit multiple more times.
Projectile speed: determintes the distance a spark will travel.
(http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Spark)

Mana management
With good gear and higher level our herald curse (warlord's and assasins's mark) spreading setup will sustain our mana. Our sparks have a long life time and travel far. Most sparks will hit multiple targets and we will nearly shatter every single of them that makes this setup so effective. We also have a few passive nodes in tree to support our mana sustain. Normally we also have 1 or 2 flask's which will give you mana if we run out. Additionally in 2.6 I picked the passive "Shaper" for 40% increased mana reg.

For lower levels just use clarity or link basphemy with warlord's mark.

Damage reflection
Is not a big problem because we have "Paragon of Calamity" which reduces the reflected damage by 50%. We still do not like elemental reflection!


Leveling

Alternativly level with dual Flameblast totem:

NEW!
Leveling Guide 1-70 for Templer & Witch with dual flameblast totems

I would recommend leveling with dual flameblast totem build.

Link in following order:
1&2) Flameblast + Spell Totem
3) Faster Casting
4) Increased Area of Effect.
5) Increased critical strikes / Fire Penetration support
6) Controlled destruction


We want to use as much movement speed as possible and use two Quicksilver flask to constantly sprint from mob group to the next and just cast our two totems.

Level 21 - 25pts


Jewels

Look for following:
Freeze duration on enemies
Critical strike chance & multi
Elemental Damage (lightning)
Spell damage
Projectile damage
Resistances
Attack / Cast speed

Missing stats...


Fire Burst

I also tested with fire burst setup with following dagger:

For this setup I used "Beacon of Ruin" to spread the high fire burst ignite damage to surrounding mobs... fire burst can proc every 0,5sec because of internal cooldown. I had to drop some gems of my low lvl CWDT setup. This setup is gread for speed rungs but a bit squishy.


Have fun!
[3.2] Bashtart's Spark Inquisitor: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1838569
[3.2] Oni-Goroshi Frost Blades Trickster: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2077486
Last edited by bashtart on Aug 7, 2017, 1:03:38 AM
Last bumped on Aug 6, 2017, 8:19:42 AM
Reserved...
[3.2] Bashtart's Spark Inquisitor: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1838569
[3.2] Oni-Goroshi Frost Blades Trickster: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2077486
Hey Mate :)
I always wanted to do a Spark build. In the last days I vaaled a 21/20 Spark and thought "now or never". I didn't want to start a new char and had no high level Templar, so I searched for a Witch (still had the reset on my witch from last patch) Spark build. Nothing good there until I found yours. After some shopping and crafting I managed to build this:



Tree:
Spoiler
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMCAAMeA-4FQgdjDXwPqw_EEFgRLREvEVATNRVQFdcWvxekGGoZihqPGyUc3B0UHYMdvh8YH0EfxyL0JIso-ioLKjgrCit4LJwsvy2LMFszhzW5OVI7fEGWSVFLrkyzUEJR-1M1VEdWY1fJWAdca13yX2pknWt6bAttGW1scFJwu3YRfIN_xoLHhEiExYauidOMNo5kjxqPRo_6kyeboZu1oS-io6a-pwinK6yXrrO1SLb6uJO4yr6KwcXDOsNtyL_NFtAf0NDQ9dQH2Vvcjd-K6QLrY-vu6_XsGO_r8NXyHfba96b31_no-wk=?accountName=Schmalli&characterName=Asurianna


I know I haven't reached high lvl on my gems yet, but it seems like it doesn't even matter on maps :D.

My question is if it is better to use The Taming or the Topaz Ring I linked. I've capped resis with both, but the tooltip is better with the Topaz Ring. I'm not quite sure how The Taming works. Do I get damage increases from all monsters I hit or is there a maximum increase?

Thanks again for the awesome build!!
"
Schmalli wrote:
Hey Mate :)
I always wanted to do a Spark build. In the last days I vaaled a 21/20 Spark and thought "now or never". I didn't want to start a new char and had no high level Templar, so I searched for a Witch (still had the reset on my witch from last patch) Spark build. Nothing good there until I found yours. After some shopping and crafting I managed to build this:



Tree:
Spoiler
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMCAAMeA-4FQgdjDXwPqw_EEFgRLREvEVATNRVQFdcWvxekGGoZihqPGyUc3B0UHYMdvh8YH0EfxyL0JIso-ioLKjgrCit4LJwsvy2LMFszhzW5OVI7fEGWSVFLrkyzUEJR-1M1VEdWY1fJWAdca13yX2pknWt6bAttGW1scFJwu3YRfIN_xoLHhEiExYauidOMNo5kjxqPRo_6kyeboZu1oS-io6a-pwinK6yXrrO1SLb6uJO4yr6KwcXDOsNtyL_NFtAf0NDQ9dQH2Vvcjd-K6QLrY-vu6_XsGO_r8NXyHfba96b31_no-wk=?accountName=Schmalli&characterName=Asurianna


I know I haven't reached high lvl on my gems yet, but it seems like it doesn't even matter on maps :D.

My question is if it is better to use The Taming or the Topaz Ring I linked. I've capped resis with both, but the tooltip is better with the Topaz Ring. I'm not quite sure how The Taming works. Do I get damage increases from all monsters I hit or is there a maximum increase?

Thanks again for the awesome build!!


Yeah that is why I made a witch version of this build... you will have a lot fun with this build. I leveled my Elementalist to lvl 92 and it was quite a breeze... only T16+ can get rough. Obviously "The Taming" is the better choice when you still can cap your resistance because it is a lot more damage :)
[3.2] Bashtart's Spark Inquisitor: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1838569
[3.2] Oni-Goroshi Frost Blades Trickster: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2077486
I have read through your inquisitor version of this and am planning on trying one of these builds. However it seems like the elementalist would lack a lot in damage compared to inquisitor. Have you done testing with both and if so what was the damage difference like?
"
Runal wrote:
I have read through your inquisitor version of this and am planning on trying one of these builds. However it seems like the elementalist would lack a lot in damage compared to inquisitor. Have you done testing with both and if so what was the damage difference like?


Your guessing is correct inquisitor damage is sligthly higher... the difference is not that big. The damage bonus for "Liege of the Primordial" for two golems should not be underestimated, also additional ignites and as witch you safe like 8 skillpoints which can be invest into damage.

In normal mapping you won't feel a difference most of the time. The main difference is that inquisitor sets enemies resistance to 0 which becomes important in bossfights... also map mode +elemental resistance suck much more.

The biggest advantage of elementalist is that I never died randomly to a reflecting mob (high life reflection mobs are a pain in the a... for inquisitor). The clearing speed is more or less the same... elementalist is a bit more tanky and inquisitor has damage advantages in bossfights.
[3.2] Bashtart's Spark Inquisitor: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1838569
[3.2] Oni-Goroshi Frost Blades Trickster: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2077486
Last edited by bashtart on May 6, 2017, 2:39:25 PM
Nice build ^^
Last edited by perling on May 18, 2017, 2:25:33 PM
So I stumbled onto your Inquisitor spark build, leveled it up to 73 and hit a wall due to deaths. I'm sure its the reflect mixed with not having full defenses yet. Though I have played for a long time I have always struggled with making currency.

This witch version is interesting. I saw your comments about it being tankier at the expense of a small amount of DPS and I recall your comments in the inquisitor build about struggling with bosses. So the question is, is it possible to switch into a different spell to deal with the bosses or are both builds (inquisitor and witch) relegated to map clearing?

-----------------------

Could you comment on a couple of things I would consider altering for my personal play style.

1. Instead of whirling blades for movement, would there be a simple conversion for higher movement speed perhaps?

2. Thoughts on Voltaxic Rift and why it wouldnt work (or might) in a shatter spark setup.
"I See!" said the blind man to the deaf man.
Last edited by qthegamer on May 21, 2017, 6:43:24 PM
"
qthegamer wrote:
So I stumbled onto your Inquisitor spark build, leveled it up to 73 and hit a wall due to deaths. I'm sure its the reflect mixed with not having full defenses yet. Though I have played for a long time I have always struggled with making currency.

This witch version is interesting. I saw your comments about it being tankier at the expense of a small amount of DPS and I recall your comments in the inquisitor build about struggling with bosses. So the question is, is it possible to switch into a different spell to deal with the bosses or are both builds (inquisitor and witch) relegated to map clearing?

-----------------------

Could you comment on a couple of things I would consider altering for my personal play style.

1. Instead of whirling blades for movement, would there be a simple conversion for higher movement speed perhaps?

2. Thoughts on Voltaxic Rift and why it wouldnt work (or might) in a shatter spark setup.


I guess when you are willing to swap gems before boss fights there are a lot of options... I would try ball lightning and slower projectiles first. Also instead of 3 additional spark projectile you could take 40% spark damage enchant which would be better for bossfights. In my expierence when you invest more into bossfights you will always lose automatically clearing speed. So I guess you have to find the right balance or just have to chars... one for map clearing and one bosskiller :)

1. We use shield charge because we also use doryani's catalyst. Sure you also could just use some quicksilver flasks for movement or something similiar but I think we will not be faster.

2. I tried to make this build work with voltaxic but I did not have to much success... it always feelt weak compared to the ele damage version. Also our shield is one of the most important items for flat ES... it is hard to get the ES we would miss from other sources.
[3.2] Bashtart's Spark Inquisitor: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1838569
[3.2] Oni-Goroshi Frost Blades Trickster: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2077486
Last edited by bashtart on May 22, 2017, 11:51:34 AM
"
bashtart wrote:
I guess when you are willing to swap gems before boss fights there are a lot of options... I would try ball lightning and slower projectiles first. Also instead of 3 additional spark projectile you could take 40% spark damage enchant which would be better for bossfights. In my expierence when you invest more into bossfights you will always lose automatically clearing speed. So I guess you have to find the right balance or just have to chars... one for map clearing and one bosskiller :)

1. We use shield charge because we also use doryani's catalyst. Sure you also could just use some quicksilver flasks for movement or something similiar but I think we will not be faster.

2. I tried to make this build work with voltaxic but I did not have to much success... it always feelt weak compared to the ele damage version. Also our shield is one of the most important items for flat ES... it is hard to get the ES we would miss from other sources.


Ive tinkered with Ball lightning already. Ive also been thinking about Storm Call but I havent tested it yet. Between the three spells I feel like the potential is there for a well rounded character. I should point out that my Storm Call theory is for fights like Lab where you might want to dps him down but not kill whatever effects are in the room (for the extra keys). As I said I haven't tested it yet. It could still be too much aoe, bad dps, or too hard to hit him due to all of his movement. Ill leave feedback if I get this build far enough to test that out.

1. Ive never been into super fast clears. Im sure its nice but I spend too much time trying to figure out what to pick up still (even with Neversink Loot Filters). I just dont like the stop and go motion of whirling blades and shield charge. I like a nice fast smooth run and the occassional leap or warp to get over obstacles.

2. Maybe with 3.0 changes to ES, it will be more viable to do this in a life or evasion build and then reinvestigate the voltaxic spark shatter concept.

Thanks for your time and input.
"I See!" said the blind man to the deaf man.

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