Cold Witch questions before OB

I've been playing around with the witch lately and I have a few questions in terms of survivability with the witch.

I plan on using freezing pulse as my main skill and linked with various gems to support single or AOE dps.
I'm not sure wether or not to be picking up Elemental damage nodes or physical damage nodes for wands (as that will be
my choice of weapon).

Second I know CI will be getting nerfed soon, and was wondering what was the most viable way for defense.

Would appreciate some answers thank you!

Get elemental damage nodes since Freezing pulse does not do physical damage, it does cold damage.

CI is getting re-worked so that it's more balanced, it's a beta, there's no such thing as a "nerf" here ^.^ That being said, I think even the changed form will be viable if you adjust accordingly for it (i.e. picking up a few more ES nodes)

Personally, on my witch, I work over to the Templar tree and pick up the Armour/ES passives and wear Armour/ES hybrid armour (I like having enough armour to mitigate a bunch of small hits and at least part of a bigger one) I also stack HP and ES instead of going CI, though if I wanted I could pretty easily respec my heath nodes for ES ones and go CI with little problem.

If you have a specific passive tree in mind and want to link it, I'm sure we'll all be willing to give it a look and help you tweak it ^.^

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAuMFQgdjB6UI9A_EEVAR2xdUHNwfAiKBJ6ksnDGIM3Y2xTgbO3w74UGWSbJWSlcrWqZmT20Zc1N4znkDfll_xoFJghCLeo48j0aRz5I4lQSeoaKjpwius6-bsji4k7vWvJ_AVMHzw23IzNMb1BnYJNsC3MffsOL345_kEeaB748=

Alright here's what a general idea of what my skill tree would look like (very open to suggestions)

Another question I have is in terms of itemization what would be the priority.

And I'm planning to go wand + shield

Using 3 more points and optimizing your general outline a bit, this is what I came up with.
(some of the things you did kinda baffled me, like getting the whole ES/HP cluster at the start of the Witch tree and *not* getting Arcane Focus (18% ES), not getting Throatseeker when you're only 1 point away, stuff like that)

I took away the Resistance nodes because with a good kite shield you can easily cap your resists (if you have a bit on other gear too, and especially if you run Purity).

For gear, a high Spell Damage + Cold Damage wand will help you tremendously, a kite shield (for the all resist) is a must, in my opinion; other than that, getting 4-L Helm, Boots, and Gloves will be very helpful for Auras/Spells, the really good 5L/6L chest isn't as much a priority (and they're pretty rare, so don't build around needing one).

I would stack as much HP and ES on your gear as possible while keeping your resists high, then focus on damage-increasing stats (cast speed, elemental damage). I play Hardcore, so I always advise having a ton of survivability first, damage second.

Edit: Inner Force increases the potency of your Auras, so I think it's a good investment since you pass right by it anyway. (example: if Discipline gives you 100 ES, with Inner Force it gives you 130)

Thanks a lot! This clears up a lot of questions.

No problem, I just hope I didn't really mess any of the information up ^.^
(if I did, please, someone correct me)