Critique my planned Cold Snap Build :)

I'll be starting my 3rd character for the level 82 achievement soon, and I'm planning on playing a witch using this gear I've found:


Preliminary passive tree plan:


I'm planning on using RT + Romira's to do a non crit cold snapper. (Non crit grants power charge, bypass cooldown, etc).

I'm thinking about running two 5L cold snap setups at a basic level. One for AoE, and one for single target.

AoE: Cold Snap + Spell Echo + Prolif + Hypothermia + Inc AoE (other potential supports include Ice Bite, Iron Will, Cold Pen, Added Cold)
Single Target: Cold Snap + Spell Echo + Conc Effect + Hypothermia + Cold Pen (Iron Will, Ice Bite, Added Cold, Inc AoE)

I'd like to run Herald of Ice + Ice Bite + Inc AoE to generate frenzy charges, but I may put Ice Bite on a cold snap.

Other Auras would be Clarity and Arctic Armour.
CWDT + Arctic Breath + GMP is a highly possible setup.

With gems, I would have 78% chance to freeze before curses. This might let me run only one cold snap setup (no need for prolif).

Thoughts? I'm excited to play this character and looking forwards to some input.

-Savage

Assuming you haven't started, consider going Templar over witch (also assuming you don't already have a Templar).

Celestial judgement with the 2% pen is worth more then storm weaver for the same points.

Elemental damage > spell damage because it works with herald of ice (hence Templar > witch, and because of more life)

Don't forget to pick up the jewel slots, they are worth more then any other 2 passives

(just an example, can get better 4 stat ones for cheap as)

You have 21 points invested in the right hand side of the tree for a little bit of QoL and minor surv, when you could get much more from the left hand side of the tree. You will rely lots on potions, as life leech with cold damage is nearly non existent, so you need profane chemistry (increases potion effect).

The main thing for a cold snap build is getting huge x-x damage so you actually freeze things, and the way cold snap works hypothermia is NOT a good gem. Until you reach the critical mass of being able to freeze everything including bosses, spell echo may increase your dps but it will decrease your ability to freeze mobs, so faster casting becomes better then spell echo.

Aoe = Cold snap - inc aoe - ele prolif - cold pen - added cold

This gives 2 effective more multipliers (added cold + cold pen), a less (ele prolif) and bigger coverage so the more you hit the more chance one of them gets frozen) You get a huge amount of increased damage from the tree so more multi's are king.

Single target = Cold snap - conc eff - cold pen - added cold - faster casting

If you have enough str (ie you have str on items) then you can use iron will but the more increased spell/cold damage you have the less useful it will be.

This would roughly be my variation of the tree...

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwMBBLMI9BEPFm8XVBo4HNwigSSqJy8snDbpOlg8BT1fRKtFnUwtTLNSU1NSU9RVrlXGVkpZ82aeaPJqQ20ZcYVyD3KpfNmCEIKbjYKOPI-mkFWXlZf0mjua4J6hnwGf36IArJisqrFCtz7AVMBm0eTYvd-w42rr7u988B_zEfcy-tL-CvfXm6GPRsT2r6cczitQDc3-VMauPC2DzINfHRSvbAthOw3v61H7zRYfGOoYdqzPfq2NNZK18m6qSsg_JypNR-Ii4qQ5fEuWdIhaXsAreB_HLYunCI8a0B85ijCXRtc=

Haven't put it into poebuilder so don't know exactly how different it is, plus it doesn't show what you get from jewels

Unless you run MoM you don't need as much mana as you have taken. With reduced cost Jewels and a -cost ring/ammy if you can get one then you don't even need clarity, can mix stuff up depending on what you want.



OR, using a corrupted romira's with damage taken goes to mana, and 2 other corrupt ring/ammy, you can quite comfortably use MoM for some actual mitigation.

"

Guioki wrote:

The main thing for a cold snap build is getting huge x-x damage so you actually freeze things, and the way cold snap works hypothermia is NOT a good gem.

From the wiki:

"

When a target is frozen, it is also chilled for the entire freeze duration, plus an additional 300 ms.

Hence Hypothermia IS good with Cold Snap since it will amplify permafreeze damage, and assist in freezing chilled targets.

"

Guioki wrote:

Don't forget to pick up the jewel slots, they are worth more then any other 2 passives

I'll equip jewels if I get any that are good. I don't usually plan jewel slots in the passive tree because I won't always use them.

Revised Skill Tree Plan:


Reconfigured a little of the right side. Put a point into MoM cause I forgot, lol (hence the mana and regen).

As for using spell echo, we'll see. I'd like to have high enough cast speed to be able to react, and I'm OK with shorter freezes, as long as I can chain them together.

As for templar vs witch, witch has a little more damage and better linking to those right side areas, and I like her animations and stuff better.

Thanks for the feedback so far!

-Savage