[3.6] Lyxara's Winter Orb Elementalist non-crit Guide

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You could use an amulet to improve your build :) Furthermore i would use a wise oak. In my opinion one of the best damage flask in the game.

I think I failed to link the amulet lolz, would edit.

Also Using Wise Oak would be massive pain for me because Dying Sun boost my Fire res by around 62% , so I need at least 137% cold res to even get the cold penetration.

Bottled Faith is already op enough and it's convenient to use, with good sustain. No point going Wise Oak anymore for me. (Don't even have spot for that unless I go ES.)

Do you really need that "Cannot be frozen" on the boots? I don't even use a Flask of Heating because the only thing which can freeze you is a Strongbox? I like the "Non-Vaal Skills deal 51-60% increased damage during sould gain prevention". Since we use Vaal-RF and Vaal-Grace the damage buff is huge...

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Do you really need that "Cannot be frozen" on the boots? I don't even use a Flask of Heating because the only thing which can freeze you is a Strongbox? I like the "Non-Vaal Skills deal 51-60% increased damage during sould gain prevention". Since we use Vaal-RF and Vaal-Grace the damage buff is huge...

It's for that chance of being frozen when I open a chest, come with ice nova explosion/ whatever explosion right afterward while being frozen = death.
Happened way more often than you'd imagine. Also for Uber Elder too.

So yeah, immune to freeze is pretty much mandatory for any of my builds now because I aim for higher levels and don't want to die by any chance possible.
Alternatively you can use one of the new implicits to solve the problem. I already crafted mine so don't want to be bothered to craft again.

As for vaal skill prevention dps bonus, my dps is already off the roof so I don't feel like needing that extra dps. (Tried to get all the nearby life instead of all those dps nodes now, currently 6.5k life. To me life >>> damage for this build cuz this build dps is overkill in 99.9% of the contents. Only thing that feel like they have too much life is 70% more life Cortex which is absolute cancer)
That vaal skill dm one is only useful for bossing anyway. (The only time when I pop Vaal RF :P)

Yeah, sure i just use Vaal-RF for bossing only, too. For Strongboxes i cast my WO before I open it. Never died this way.

I have another question. I see that most people craft Chance to deal double damage and X% Cold Damage as extra Chaos Damage. Have you tested it with Path of Building? Both give you around +300-400 avg. Hitdamage. Increased Spell Damage and Add Cold to Spells give you around 1500-1800 each. So i think these two stats are the way to go. Or do i missunterstand something?

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Yeah, sure i just use Vaal-RF for bossing only, too. For Strongboxes i cast my WO before I open it. Never died this way.

I have another question. I see that most people craft Chance to deal double damage and X% Cold Damage as extra Chaos Damage. Have you tested it with Path of Building? Both give you around +300-400 avg. Hitdamage. Increased Spell Damage and Add Cold to Spells give you around 1500-1800 each. So i think these two stats are the way to go. Or do i missunterstand something?

Yes. I did the pob calculation/ combination before I do any multicraft (Don't want to waste lots of ex and got something wrong didn't I?), and this is the highest crafting option for my build. (May not be true for all the other builds, but at least it is for mine).

Spell damage 66% and 50% spell dm + 4% non chaos as chaos has nearly identical dps for my build too. I picked the latter because it has less varied roll = less divine needed to get acceptable rolls.

It is true that some mods gives identical dps boost, so when their damage comes close, I choose the one that gives more versatility. (For example double damage works on any spell damage while cold as chaos only works on cold damage, so I pick the premier)

On SSF so I can't take as much advantage of all the implicit crafting, but i'm waffling between some of the paths I can go with my ele worb. I'm basically just farming elder t16s and nexus right now, not focusing on bosses (have a vortex cold dot for that).

Decisions I'm considering right now:

1) QOL: Faster casting on my 6L (instead of conc effect, i guess?)
2) QOL: dropping pandemonious for solstice vigil (and then doing leech boot enchant / COH setup instead of warlord mark ring).
3) CONVERSION/TRIPLE HERALDS: I just swapped to controlled destruction instead of Cold to Fire (i had been hoping i'd find better shaper weapons to craft ele->chaos). Should i be dropping other heralds?
4) AURA: finding an aura I could fit in (esp if i drop a herald) while I wait for Jorgin/Einhar to hook me up with Spider Aura. Zealotry or Hatred, I guess?
5) HELM: I've been using devotos for the move speeds, not sure what else base would be worth doing except one with life/resists (to open up choices in other slots)
6) Weapon upgrades waiting on i85 shaper bases worth dropping my alts into
7) Vaal BV: considering dropping it now that my boss dps feelsgood. frees up a lot of gemslots.

Advice appreciated!

Gears:

just wondering will Shade of the solaris be good for this build.

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Jake1ill wrote:

just wondering will Shade of the solaris be good for this build.

Pretty solid until you want to craft your own.

New to the game, trying this build out and was hoping someone could answer a question for me. When I attempted to keep up the grace aura, and both hearld spells I have insufficient mana. Is this due to an issue with my gear or is the grace only intended to be used for its activate vaal half?

Sorry if the answer is something silly, still working my way into the game and the build.

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Lyxara wrote:

Intro
Hey guys!

Welcome to my write-up for the 3.6 Synthesis Winter Orb. A lot of people are posting in older threads (Site 70-80) that are not being updated so I thought why not give it a quick write up to help everybody to get their questions answered and find the information they need.

Changes in 3.6

Winter Orb got a slight nerf in the recent patch:

Spoiler

Now deals 25 to 31 Cold damage at gem level 1 (from 23 to 28) and 232 to 289 Cold damage at gem level 20 (from 258 to 322).
Now has an added damage effectiveness of 50% (from 60%).

Since we are a non-crit build, there is also another change that affects the Gem Setup we will use for Winter Orb, Controlled Destruction can still be used tho:

Spoiler

Removed the minimum and maximum Critical Strike Chance caps. Previously, characters had a 5% chance to deal a critical strike with attacks and spells, even when the spell specified a lower chance, and could reach a maximum of 95% chance to critically strike. In practice, that cap was ignored by effects which applied to enemies, such as Assassin's Mark. We have changed several of these 'external' critical strike sources, and have removed the cap as a result.

TLDR: we need a bit more crit to have a reliable uptime for Elemental Overload

My Gem Links

So we all want to know how the new setup looks like:

Spoiler

Main Skill Winter Orb:
Winter Orb - Infused Channeling Support - Concentrated Effect Support - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Cold Penetration - Hypothermia

Heralds (+ Aspect of the Spider on an item):

Herald of Thunder - Herald of Ice - Empower - Enhance

Movement & Utility
Phase Run - Increased Duration - Vaal Grace - Frostbomb

Flame Dash - Faster Casting - Arcane Surge

Cast When Damage Taken Setup:

CWDT (1) - Immortal Call (3) - Increased Duration - Vaal Righteous Fire

Because it is asked a lot: we have Vaal RF because we make use of the increased spelldmg it gives us, it is linkted to Increased duration to have a longer burst phase, and it won't get triggered from CWDT because our CWDT Gem is level 1 and only triggers spells/abilities up to level 38.

CWDT (1) - Bone Chill - Cold Snap (7)

Reminder: This is a suggestion, play how it fits you the best :)

My Passive Tree and PoB Link:

Spoiler

https://pastebin.com/EYunrm1J

Bandits, Ascendancy & Pantheon:

Spoiler

Bandits: Kill all!

Ascendancy Order

Major Pantheon

Minor Pantheon

Leveling tips & Tree progression:

Low level tips until level 28, then Winter orb is usable

Spoiler

My plan is to level with explosive trap from level 2 on (after Hillock, you can buy it from Nessa) until level 12.

From level 12 on I'll go with Storm Brand and Blade Vortex, for bosses. At 16 in Act 2 you get Brand Recall after you went into Chamber of Sins + 1 Herald of your choice, choose herald of ice.

Support Gems will be whatever you prefer to start out with, mostly added cold/lightning support, controlled destruction for BV.

That combo brings me to lvl 28 without any issues, and 28 on I switch to Winter orb right away.

Links: Winter orb, LMP = lesser multiple proj, + infused channeling support,
Mana Cost Worb is low, so it's possible to run 2 heralds already

31 is hypothermia and cold pen, lvl 38 switch out LMP to GMP

since storm barrier support is changed into infused channeling support, it should be available at level 4, atleast I can't find any other info on this.

I'll include the pathing I will be taking when leveling up, some decisions depend on if I need more life or not, have 1-2 Jewels I can already put in or not

Tree 1

Tree 2

Tree 3

Tree 4

And after that fill out the rest of the tree, beginning with "Exceptional Performance", our second Duration Cluster and then Jewel Slots.

Gearing & Stat Prio

Spoiler

Defensive Stats:
Cap resistances at 75%
Life

Offensive Stats:
Spell Damage
Cold Damage
Cold Damage as extra Chaos
Elemental Damage as extra Chaos Damage
Chance to deal double damage
Aspect of the Spider
increased Damage with hits against Chilled Enemies (Gloves, drop in the Incursion Temple)

Jewels:
Flat Life
Cold Damage
Spell Damage / Spell Damage while Dual Wielding / Spell Damage while holding a shield
Area Damage

Unique Recommendation:
Inpulsa Broken Heart
Mark of the Shaper paired with an Elder Ring in the other slot with "Curse Enemies with level X Warlord's Mark
Pandemonius Amulet

Flasks:
Seething/Bubbling Life Flask of Staunching (anti bleeding)
Experimenter's Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline (increased movement speed + duration)
utility Flask of Heat (anti freeze)
Atziri's promise Flask
Wise Oak Flask

Change Log

Spoiler

8.3 Included leveling trees & Gearing section
8.3 Included Ascendancy order & Pantheons
9.3 updated PoB pastebin
9.3 switched Efficacy with Conc Effect for 6L

Ending & Thanks

If you have further questions please post them here, it will be hard for me to keep up ingame - especially at the league start :)

Also a big thank you to the community, to work together to improve builds and share their work across the board!

Thanks to the original guide for 3.5 from Suck, his guide can be found here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2285097