[Harvest] PoE 3.11 Witch Vortex Cold Snap Occultist Starter Build (PC,PS4,Xbox,Mobile)

This PoE 3.11 Witch Vortex Cold Snap Occultist Starter Build is a beginner and low budget friendly build, we slows enemies down and utilizes a massive eHP pool to be as tanky as possible and 100% immune chaos damage!!

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Skill Tree

Ascendancy

As this build is a CI build and an Occultist is it important to always start with Vile Bastion. When this node picked up you're able to reach comfortable energy shield numbers for your CI switch explained in the lvling trees below.

The other 2 ascendancy nodes you're gonna want to take are pure damage increasers in the form of: Void Beacon then Frigid Wake!

Lastly you'll pick up Forbidden Power for some extra damage.

Pantheon 

Major God - Soul of Lunaris

Basically just helps with avoiding some projectile damage

Minor God - Soul of Abberath

Since the builds defensive design requires you to not take damage for about 1 second to start your energy shield recharge, this allows you to be immune to burning ground effects. 

Bandit: Kill All 

Passive Tree & PoB

Path of Building Link: https://pastebin.com/rbPvyfbT

 

 

 

 

Gems Setup

Vortex, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, Efficacy, Hypothermia, Swift Affliction

Vaal Cold Snap, Hypothermia, Bonechill, Efficacy

Note: This setup is designed to increase cold damage taken by bosses and to use the Vaal version to speed up the map clearing speed.

3L TRIGGER weapon

Storm Brand, Frost Bomb, Orb of Storms

Note: It is VERY important that they are linked in the order described above, the craft "Trigger socketed spell when you use a skill" puts the ability on a 4 second CD and will be cast in the order of the links. This is used to provide cold resistance exposure (-25% cold res) debuff on enemies via Frost Bomb whilst the Storm Brand & Orb of Storms are consistently hitting enemies with Lightning damage making sure the enemies have lower Cold resistances via Elemental Equilibrium this makes it very important that you do NOT, EVER, get any sort of FLAT added cold damage on your tree or gear (%increased is fine, just not # added cold) as that will ruin this setup.

Cast When Damage Taken, Immortal Call

Note: The lvl of CWDT is suppose to be low, this comes down to a matter of taste, I prefer to keep it at lvl 3 with the Immortal Call at lvl 5, if it's higher it won't work. It also does not require Endurance Charges to function though the duration will be rather low without which is still enough to keep you from getting instantly killed by Porcupine packs that dies!

Mobility

- Flame Dash

- Phase Run, Increased Duration, Efficacy

Auras

- Malevolence, Discipline

Extra

If you play a high budget version you can run Blasphemy + Temporal Chains if you have a Solstice Vigil equipped!

 

Gear Setup

What items to use:

Low Budget

Before we talk about items it is VERY important to repeat what was stated in the gem section:

The craft "Trigger socketed spell when you use a skill" puts the ability on a 4 second CD and will be cast in the order of the links. This is used to provide cold resistance exposure (-25% cold res) debuff on enemies via Frost Bomb whilst the Storm Brand & Orb of Storms are consistently hitting enemies with Lightning damage making sure the enemies have lower Cold resistances via Elemental Equilibrium this makes it very important that you do NOT, EVER, get any sort of FLAT added cold damage on your tree or gear (%increased is fine, just not # added cold) as that will ruin this setup. 

The build can use the Fenumus unique set items or simply use rare items in all slots. It has a tonne of possibilities allowing you to approach the build in an extremely cheap manner.

I would strongly suggest to use the Aegis Aurora shield due to the defensive layers it applies vs the harder end-game bosses such as deeper delve lvl Aul as well as Shaper & Uber Elder.

Besides this it is important to note that the build doesn't need more than ~300-350k Shaper DPS to handle Uber Elder smoothly which makes the weapon the only real important piece which will allow for Elemental Equilibrium to be used which significantly increases your damage output. With that "threshold" reached you only need to focus on getting as tanky as your budget allows which can be anything from a couple of chaos to hundreds of exalted orbs. There really is no direct roof to what you can do with this build!

Higher Budget Examples

The use of Solstice Vigil allows you to use a Blasphemy + Temporal Chains setup!

Other styles of higher budget would include the bestiary Spider craft allowing that to be used which will require mana reservation tricks from the tree and/or specific items crafted or unique or even higher lvl Enlighten to allow for that approach, this not only increases the defensive layers a bit but also increases your damage dealt significantly.

Stat Priority

Recommended Unique Items

Incadescent Heart, Solstice Vigil, Aegis Aurora

Recommended Leveling Uniques

Tabula Rasa, Wanderlust, Lifesprig, Goldrim, Heartbreaker

 

Leveling Tips

1. Use w/e floats your boat I strongly recommend lvling with Ball Lightning as mines using Blastchain mines, Minefield support & Slower Projectiles and simply level vortex gems in your off-slot weapons to change when you change into CI around level 70+ Do keep in mind that from Act 2 you are able to utilize both Herald of Thunder as well as Herald of Ice for extra damage as you are leveling through the acts! 

2. Items such as Wanderlust, Lifesprig, Goldrim helps a lot to speed up the leveling process.

3. Farm Blood A. in Act 9 for the Humility cards to get an early Tabula