Witch - [1.1.5] Kenzorz Crit Glacial Cascade Witch (updated for 1.3.0) - Forum

I DON'T PLAY THIS CHARACTER ANYMORE ON 2.0.0 AND THERE WERE WAY TOO MANY CHANGES TO THE TREE TO MAKE A TREE FOR THIS CHARACTER THAT WORKS AS WELL AS BEFORE I noticed the lack of Glacial Cascade builds when I'm partying and there are hardly any guides out there, I really enjoy playing this build so I decided to make a guide about it. I play on Ambush league so the guide will be catered towards softcore, but it could be possible to move around passives to achieve more life and less crit for hardcore leagues. My witch is a life based crit caster and currently Lvl 89. NOTE: This build is not intended to be an uber 10mil DPS build at all, it's aimed to be an affordable but good enough for the highest maps (not including Atziri, but might be able to beat her if you were skilled enough which I'm not) while still having a good amount of survivability. " Passive Tree at Lvl 84 for 1.3.0 patch (I'm Lvl 89 but I only used up 104 points after the respec, I don't know what to do with the rest lol, plenty of nearby Spell Damage and Mana/Mana regen nodes nearby. There's probably better Glacial Cascade trees out there since I'm just trying to make it as close as possible to my old tree because I won't be experimenting with this build any further as I'm rolling something else in the new league :) Also, Herald of Ice is really good with this build. Bandits: Normal: Help Oak Cruel: Kill all Merciless: Kill all Why not use Power Charges? I don't use power charges because: The DPS increase by putting PCoC on my main skill with 7 charges would be roughly close to the DPS increase with any other support like Added Lightning or Faster Casting so that would basically be spending a lot of points on power charges for a DPS increase that I can get without power charges anyway. If I were to put PCoC on a different skill to build up charges then while that is a good way to keep my tooltip DPS a big juicy number, that DPS isn't exactly accurate seeing as I need to spend time building/keeping up charges. Also I find that kind of playstyle pretty clunky and dislike it anyway. Pros and Cons Pros: You're ranged High chance to freeze most mobs High survivability Good AoE damage Good single target damage Mixed damage. Cold penetration is not a necessity as 1/3 of Glacial Cascade's damage is already physical Versatile build since the passives are useful for every spell so you can switch around skills if you prefer. Is able to shock stack most mobs Has some sockets to spare Unlike most caster builds, you benefit from Hatred, a lot. Not dependent on uniques (Carcass Jack is necessary but you can still work around that with Increased AoE gem) Cons: Fucking walls ruin your day Range is small without AoE modifiers, I try to aim for 20~30% Increased AoE total Elemental reflect does a lot of damage against huge packs if you're not careful. Comparison to other similar spells? Cold Spells* Freezing Pulse (copied from my reddit post) Freezing Pulse requires you stand at close range to shotgun. Also the damage reduces the further the projectile travels. Glacial Cascade is at maximum effectiveness at almost any range it can reach (except at point blank, because it usually only hits once at that range as opposed to twice) and it does not have damage falloff like FP. Also the cold damage per hit on Glacial Cascade is higher than Freezing Pulse's cold damage per projectile (if using LMP and GMP, keep in mind no one's ever going to use Freezing Pulse without one of those 2 support gems) meaning Glacial Cascade can freeze things better (look up freeze duration on wiki if you don't understand), and Glacial Cascade can scale its cold damage up even more with Hatred and Concentrated Effect. Also in general I think Glacial Cascade would actually work better than Freezing Pulse as a CI build since CI builds are in danger of being stunned when at close range if they're not using Eye of Chaluya (my first ever character was actually a CI Freezing Pulse Witch) whereas Glacial Cascade lets you put yourself at a distance so you don't necessarily have to take Eye of Chaluya then. Arctic Breath Glacial Cascade covers a larger area and has a higher crit chance making it better for freezing things. Arctic Breath is better built around its high base damage and free chilling effect but would require a lot more crit chance to be able to freeze things constantly. Fire spells Fireball Glacial Cascade can pierce enemies covering more area while Fireball only covers the area around the target it hits. Fireball deals more damage however Glacial Cascade has better defensive properties (Freezing and chilling), also Glacial Cascade deals physical damage which mobs lack resists for while Fireball needs Fire Penetration to work well. Flameblast While Flameblast deals a lot more damage the cast time makes you pretty vulnerable to hits as it requires you to stand still for a second or two to cast while Glacial Cascade can be casted on the move. Flameblast also has problems against fast enemies since the startup time for casting is on the slower side. Lightning spells Storm Call Storm Call deals high damage however this damage is quite random and you're also extremely vulnerable to reflect packs if you're not careful and don't have Vaal Pact (which is a lot of points to reach). Storm Call also suffers a similar problem to Flameblast in that it has a slow startup time before the damage happens and that you have to stand still casting for a few seconds. Arc The main thing here is that Arc can hit at most, 7 targets at once while Glacial Cascade can hit an infinite amount of targets in its AoE. Leveling up Honestly this spell is actually decent even in low levels but if you really want to speed through levels, level up using: I used this setup until I was high enough to equip a decent cheap crit caster weapon such as: (costed 3 chaos btw) Yes this dagger is a little high level but it's possible to get decent crit caster wands/daggers that are as low as level ~40. As soon as you have a decent crit caster weapon Glacial Cascade easily becomes better for leveling than Searing Bond. Rough outline for what your passive tree should look like, patch 1.2.0. Obviously you don't have to follow this 100%, reach out for the life nodes earlier on if you need them, take the +30 Strength/Dex Nodes if you need them etc. 21 Points 41 Points 59 Points 84 Points 98 Points " Gear: The gear I'm using Note: Refer to the "Gems" section for gems setup, the gems shown here are a bit outdated. Some cheap gear I used to use What to look for in gear Defensive stats (in order of priority): Life, elemental resists (enough to reach 77% in Merciless at least), 20% movement speed on boots. Offensive stats (in order of priority): Spell damage, global critical strike chance/critical strike chance for spells, cast speed, critical strike multiplier Miscellaneous stats (in order of priority): Dexterity (enough to use Carcass Jack and dex gems), Mana regen, mana, energy shield Flasks You mainly want enough life flasks to keep you safe, at least 1 or 2 Staunching flasks to remove bleed and it's helpful to have a Quicksilver flask to help you get around places faster. Why not x unique? I'm not going to over every unique, just the obvious choices. Weapon: Void Battery: I can't afford it lol. Divinarius: is a good investment but keep in mind the high spell damage ones are stupidly overpriced. Shield: Rathpith Globe: no crit chance is a no-no. Helmets: Rime Gaze: you could and it'll make the Glacial Cascade totem a 5L, but keep in mind you sacrifice a slot for life and resists. It gives decent ES though so you'll have a easier time keeping your mana/regen up with Eldritch Battery. The Three Dragons: losing the ability to freeze/chill reliably makes you lose quite a bit of survivability. If you really wanted to burn things you could just use Fireball with the exact same passive tree and get better burns. Body Armour: Cloak of Defiance: A crit build that can be reflected against 2 types of reflect makes things extremely difficult against either type of reflect since you'll be killing off both your life and mana (I've tried it, it was a horrible experience XD). Lightning Coil: I don't have enough mana to keep up Purity of Lightning with Clarity and Discipline sadly, Lightning Coil could work if you adjusted the build to allow for more auras I guess. Gloves: Maligaro's Virtuosity: is actually a good investment, but I just don't want to sacrifice life and some resists for a bit more damage. Voidbringer: skills cost way too much mana. Hrimsorrow: it could work and allow you to invest in cold damage nodes but then cold resist mobs become more of a problem than they should do. Boots: Windscream: it could work, but a lot of life, resists and movement speed is sacrificed for a second curse. Rings: Gifts from Above: legacy item qq I'm crying GGG. Romira's Banquet: it could be good but rings have a lot of necessary stats like mana regen, sadly. :( Actually the real reason I'm not using one is because I haven't looked at the price on this thing since Domination league so I thought it was still an overpriced piece of shit lolz. I think this unique is worth trying. Belt: Doryani's Invitation (cold variant): belts are a major source of life that I don't want to sacrifice for a bit of strictly cold damage, it doesn't help the other components of Glacial Cascade's damage at all. " Gems: My current gems setup Although it's not much different to my old setup, the changes are in bold. This setup relies on Lightning Warping into the middle of mob packs to instantly triple shock stack them with Elemental Proliferation and jumping around while throwing out Glacial Cascades. It's about as strong as my previous setup but more fun, however it encourages a pretty risky playstyle and I also have no room for Vaal Ice Nova Glacial Cascade + Life Leech + Concentrated Effect + Added Chaos Damage + Spell Echo Glacial Cascade + Spell Totem + Concentrated Effect + Elemental Proliferation Cast when Damage Taken + Enduring Cry + Immortal Call + Increased Duration Lightning Warp + Reduced Duration + Elemental Proliferation + Lightning Penetration Reduced Mana + Clarity + Discipline Arctic Armour Enfeeble Old gems setup Glacial Cascade + Life Leech + Concentrated Effect + Added Chaos Damage + Added Lightning Damage Glacial Cascade + Spell Totem + Concentrated Effect + Elemental Proliferation Cast when Damage Taken + Enduring Cry + Immortal Call + Increased Duration Vaal Ice Nova + Trap + Cold Penetration + Increased Area of Effect (Vaal Ice Nova is not necessary, I just had free sockets) Reduced Mana + Clarity + Discipline Arctic Armour, Lightning Warp + Faster Casting Enfeeble Gems discussion Main Skill: Glacial Cascade + Life Leech + Concentrated Effect + Spell Echo For the remaining sockets, you can use: Added Chaos Damage (safest option, most damage and doesn't get reflected), Added Lightning Damage (for shock stacking), Increased Area of Effect (if you do not have Carcass Jack or if you just prefer it), Faster Casting (if you can support the mana cost) Power Charge on Crit or Increased Critical Strikes are also an option. I do not recommend Increased Critical Damage because it makes it easier to kill yourself against reflect. Support Skill: Glacial Cascade + Spell Totem + Concentrated Effect + Elemental Proliferation This totem freezes things and proliferates the effect giving you some breathing space while also dealing substantial damage. Auras: Clarity, Discipline You can also run Haste and/or Hatred to boost your DPS if you have enough mana. Utility: Arctic Armour, Lightning Warp Arctic Armour helps mitigate physical and fire damage while Lightning Warp helps you move around places easier and faster if you lack movement speed boots. Defensive: Cast when Damage Taken + Enduring Cry + Immortal Call + Increased Duration This setup is necessary since not only does it protect you from some physical damage Glacial Cascade also deals physical damage which can be reflected. Curses:Enfeeble, Critical Weakness and Elemental Weakness are all options I stick to Enfeeble for higher maps just to make things safer. Why not x? Knockback: THIS support is a total noobtrap for this skill and is the main reason why there aren't many Glacial Cascade builds out there that work. People obsess over the multiple hits and build around getting those multiple hits while sacrificing a lot of stats that scale the skill even better than having 1 or 2 extra hits with much less investment, such as crit or cast speed. Knockback does not always proc, causes huge desync and only gives you more hits the smaller your Glacial Cascade AoE is meaning even if you are getting those multiple hits off, your Glacial Cascade AoE is probably so small you're probably clearing things one by one anyway. Added Fire Damage: the physical component of Glacial Cascade is too low to make this support worth it. Added Cold Damage: Added Lightning and Chaos are a lot more DPS and mix up your damage a bit so you aren't completely screwed over by cold resist. Cold Penetration: 1/3 of Glacial Cascade's damage is already non-cold, so it isn't really necessary, also Added Chaos Damage just synergises really well with this skill so the amount of non-cold damage you're now dealing is more than 1/3. Lesser/Greater Multiple Projectiles: Glacial Cascade isn't a projectile. Power Charge on Critical Strike: I found each of the other 3 support gems I'm using gives a bigger (or roughly equal) boost in DPS compared to 6 power charges, also I feel like I have enough crit chance already. Screenshots Keep in mind Glacial Cascade hits at least twice all the time. Normal DPS (Using a lvl 6 Spell Echo) I assume the DPS would be around 18k if I had a Lvl 20 one, since I get about +100 tooltip DPS per Spell Echo level from what I've observed anyway. For anyone who may come to look at my guide in the future wondering why my Spell Echo is low level, I posted this at the time the gem was just released. DPS when partied with someone with buffed auras (with Lvl 8 Spell Echo) For anyone who may come to look at my guide in the future wondering why my Spell Echo is low level, I posted this at the time the gem was just released. Normal DPS (Pre-1.1.5: No Spell Echo) DPS when partied with someone with buffed auras (Pre-1.1.5: No Spell Echo): Defense Life, Mana and Str/Int/Dex Videos Lvl 72 in a 68 map Lvl 89 in 77 Shrine map Trying my new gem setup @ Lvl 76 map "so you can see who has more PvPenis" - Chris Wilson "Everyone can at least be exposed to Leo's PvPenis" - Chris Wilson Last edited by Kenzorz on Jul 26, 2015, 11:54:46 AM	Posted by Kenzorz on Apr 29, 2014, 9:00:12 AM Quote this Post
Very impressive. Didn't know GC can reach THAT much DPS. Very interesting path, now that I look at it, too. I'm surprised the Aura nodes aren't needed for you to sustain mana. [3.22] 💀The Grim Reaper💀 - Hexblast Poison Mines Assassin https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3347191 [3.22] ❄️⚡CantripN's Hadoken! - Lightning Conduit / Crackling Lance / Arc Permafreeze⚡❄️ www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3229590 Last edited by CantripN on Apr 29, 2014, 11:15:28 AM	Posted by CantripN on Apr 29, 2014, 11:10:50 AM Quote this Post
" CantripN wrote: Very impressive. Didn't know GC can reach THAT much DPS. Very interesting path, now that I look at it, too. I'm surprised the Aura nodes aren't needed for you to sustain mana. Also, if it's really needed the aura nodes are very easy to access for my build. :) "so you can see who has more PvPenis" - Chris Wilson "Everyone can at least be exposed to Leo's PvPenis" - Chris Wilson Last edited by Kenzorz on Apr 29, 2014, 1:21:42 PM	Posted by Kenzorz on Apr 29, 2014, 1:21:27 PM Quote this Post
I'm planning something similar as a Templar, but I had taken the Frost Walker and Heart of Ice passives. Are those inefficient with Glacial Cascade's hybrid physical/cold damage?	Posted by wr11235 on Apr 30, 2014, 12:58:59 AM Quote this Post
" wr11235 wrote: I'm planning something similar as a Templar, but I had taken the Frost Walker and Heart of Ice passives. Are those inefficient with Glacial Cascade's hybrid physical/cold damage? Frost Walker isn't worth it, Heart of Ice still gives you some life and ES but usually you want to avoid pure cold damage passives since like you said, it doesn't benefit the hybrid damage. "so you can see who has more PvPenis" - Chris Wilson "Everyone can at least be exposed to Leo's PvPenis" - Chris Wilson	Posted by Kenzorz on Apr 30, 2014, 6:25:26 AM Quote this Post
Added a few new sections! "so you can see who has more PvPenis" - Chris Wilson "Everyone can at least be exposed to Leo's PvPenis" - Chris Wilson	Posted by Kenzorz on May 1, 2014, 8:22:37 PM Quote this Post
hey, Made similar build but CI version. I was wondering why you get the ele dmg nodes near the templar start. Shouldn't you just get the Increased Area of Affect of skills to get to the 40 % mana regen? Because ele dmg works just like cold dmg, heart of ice or frost walker, so why get those if you dont get the others? Thank you	Posted by danymange on May 1, 2014, 10:07:43 PM Quote this Post
Do increased critical strike chance nodes in the skill tree such as bloodthrister work with spells?	Posted by Tubbehhh on May 1, 2014, 11:54:07 PM Quote this Post
Hi How would you go about spec'ing a scion build? Skilltree wise. As I've been looking for a glacial cascade build for a scion, but can't find one and I've messed my tree up bigtime. So if I respec I don't want to waste any points unnecessarily. Thanks for your help in advance. To Die Is Not An Option, To Fight Until DIESync Is The Only Answer. ☺☻☺ Happy Hunting Exiles.	Posted by GrumpyBear5043 on May 2, 2014, 6:19:43 AM Quote this Post
Very nice build, I have a similar Witch at level 70, but I don't come close to you'r dps. A few things: Did you try faster casting? Was thinking about that. I'm running a spell totem + arc + blind to get some pre-shocked monsters for added lightning. Not shure if it's really worth, but for now it works good. I'm thinking about taking the 3 aura nodes at the shadow tree and run an additional purity of ice against reflect pacs in the future. Thanks alot for the Build. If I'm definitely going to try added chaos. edit: " How would you go about spec'ing a scion build? Skilltree wise. I think I would go through the right (Harrier) and up to the original tree, but you definitely will loose some points. I don't see anyhthing worth taking on the additional path, except the 4 scion spell damage nodes. Last edited by oggimog on May 2, 2014, 9:10:45 AM	Posted by oggimog on May 2, 2014, 9:04:40 AM Quote this Post