Minion and Totem build

I realize re-specing your character can be expensive so i wanted to plan out my build a bit before i get too far and "waste points" so I'm hoping for a little advice.

I'm looking at creating a witch that utilizes cold damage to freeze enemies and is mostly drop and run style, so i am looking at running summoning totems and casting some cold damage. I wanted some advice as to your thoughts on this passive tree layout and what type of abilities i should be focusing on getting/ using.

This is my build so far:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMA37CCEAelAuNr230Y7IpJsiycVkqVBK-bnqEfAuZ8hcUEB0yzLR9tGY48F1QigcHzoqN_xsHFiELyHSy_7BiP-sNt2-dHBl9qNsXYJKcIj0bQ0JuhSOf31x0U-tJmnsAaWfNaKyyno_IWQIV9KU-Cm-w4OthN2Ix2HNyTJ7-XyT3yHrQMEQ-wdy1HUEKMNgL-34RCw13y2QsqmPqAzLyFYKrEEJdEBE25na4abKasiECQM0ZxlSCCx9P7qH1akWqsQYd6uK6Tbqo_J9QVJa9cDPfBcU2az0NjtzFY9Z3E

you should rarely ever go minion + cold damage.

the reason being is that both zombies and specters require a corpse in order to raise them. when an enemy is frozen and killed, the body is shattered and thus no corpse is left. even when they are chilled they'll have a chance to shatter as well.

so really theres no real synergy between the 2 especially if your getting the minion instability. you'll want corpses to replace any minions that blow themselves up.

if your dead set on going a build where you have summons and you want to do damage yourself, I would suggest going lighting since if you shock the enemies then you'll do more damage to them, and thus increase the damage your minions can do to them as well.

you could also go fire, but remember that any points placed in your passive does not apply to your minions unless its minions specific, so increased fire/burn damage will not apply to your minion instability suicide damage. though (correct me if im wrong) it might increase your anger damage and thus you can give your minions more fire damage that way.

so if i swap all the cold spec talents for shock, does the build work?

Also, I was planning on doing totems so i could drop extra dps, what if i did a spell totem that drops decoy totems so that the enemies have to attack the decoy and not my summons? Does that even work? If it does, does it count towards my totem limit since i didnt cast the second totem? Can i then do a second totem that is summon skeletons or something so its all totem based?

If i were to drop the cold damage (and not pick up another element) what would you recommended i use those points for to help my minions/ totems?

dont forget that ancestral bonds doesnt allow you to cast damage spells yourself, you'll have to have totems cast the spells for you.

also I donno how crit chance works in this game, but you have about 130% crit chance for spells at the moment, at least what I can see. donno if the extra crit chance does anything or if something can reduce your crit chance, but if not, then you just have wasted node points there.

also zealot oath and ghost reaver isnt going to help you much if you dont have life leech or regen, and in your build you have neither, thus all coming from your gear choice. and even then since you cant cast spells yourself, cuz of ancestral bonds, you wont get any benefits from life leech, (life leech on summons only gives them health, not you if thats what you were planning on doing)

you'll really need to reassess your goals and what you want out of this build. theres many conflicting things going on here and you'll have to choose one or the other.

Sound advice, but I would beg to differ on the cold dmg part.

While it is generally true, that shattering monsters is not all that beneficial, I doubt that you would encounter problematic situations because of it. You sometimes run out of corpses (especially in boss fights) where the shattering effect wouldn't have made a difference.

In standard situations I doubt you would ever run short on corpses. You won't always shatter unless you get an insane amount of crit chance. In addition, the chill and freeze effects would help you out a quite great deal in protecting your minions AND allowing them to deal more dmg. Since slowed (i.e. chilled) mobs are less likely to run out of range in the middle of a zombie/skeleton attack.

In the end I believe, that a cold summoner is absolutely viable.

Hmmm... I took zealot oath so that my pots would regen energy shield. Will this not work?

as far as ghost reaver, I had thought it would stack from minion damage, but i guess if i dont have any life steal on the minions it doesnt matter?

Im glad you pointed out that i cant do damage myself, that actually makes it easier for me to decide to completely rely on minions and totems. I do still wonder if i can do a spell totem that casts decoy totem that way i "always keep a decoy up" and dont have to recast it.


Does anyone know if there is a limit to crit chance?

EDIT: What i really need to know is if there is a difference between critical strike chance on spells and critical strike chance. If i am using totems and minions do the minions take my spell critical or my regular critical chance (If i want zombie punches to crit)

EDIT 2: I think mental acuity(30% increased crit strike chance), spell power (increase crit damage i believe) and doom cast (60% crit chance on spells) are all i have for crit (unless i missed something. Spell power to increase effectiveness of it, doom cast so my freeze spell totem crits, and mental acuity so my zombies crit. Does that make sense/ work the way im intending?

this is my new build with changes reflected: (thanks for the input so far btw)

after I posted what I said, I did some more digging and research into critical strikes, turns out all critical strike values are modifiers and thus multiply the base crit chance each attack has (which seems odd cuz not ever weapon has a base crit chance from what the wiki says)

also you can not have less than 5% crit (unless this also means that every attack has a 5% crit chance by nature, and certain weapons/abilities just have a higher base) and you can not have more than 95% crit chance, thus to make it so you cant have a pure always crit. so I applogize for giving wrong info before about that part.

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DarkenDragon wrote:

after I posted what I said, I did some more digging and research into critical strikes, turns out all critical strike values are modifiers and thus multiply the base crit chance each attack has (which seems odd cuz not ever weapon has a base crit chance from what the wiki says)

also you can not have less than 5% crit (unless this also means that every attack has a 5% crit chance by nature, and certain weapons/abilities just have a higher base) and you can not have more than 95% crit chance, thus to make it so you cant have a pure always crit. so I applogize for giving wrong info before about that part.

I guess i dont understand then, does that mean it is good to stack more crit or does it get wasted since there is a 95% cap?

basically you can not reduce crit chance below 5% (I think maurader's passive area has 2 nodes that reduce crit by 15% each) so you always have at least 5% crit chance (not sure about the weapons that dont have a base crit chance)

so more crit chance from passives and gears means you get more crit.

so if you want your ability to have 50% crit chance, and it has a base of 5%. you'll need 1000% increase crit chance. (a lot I know) but if you get too much crit chance, like if you had 2000% which would normally give you 100%, you really only get 95% cuz 95% crit chance is the highest you can get