Path of Exile Gems PoE Builds, PoE Currency guide and other guides
Intro & build description
Hands down the best new skill released with 3.5 expansion so far. Winter Orb is so much fun to play, I can’t even express how satisfying it is to charge through map and let Winter Orb explode screen full of mobs for you. If you are looking for build to play, look no further, Winter Orb is meta this league.
Build Pros
- FUN to play
- Very fast clearspeed
- High damage
- Low maintenance build
- Scales exceptionally well with currency invested
- High life pool
- High mobility
Build Cons
- Not as tanky as Juggernaut
Passive tree(s) and Path of Building
[3.8] Full BuildBandits
| Bandits Quest Choice |
| Kill all bandits |
Ascendancy skill points
| Labyrinths | Skill point choice |
|---|---|
| Labyrinth 1 | Righteous Providence |
| Labyrinth 2 | Inevitable Judgement |
| Labyrinth 3 | Instruments of Virtue |
| Endgame Labyrinth | Augury of Penitence |
Skill gem setup
Helm
Flame Dash
Vaal Righteous Fire
Increased Duration Support
Faster Casting Support
Body Armor
Winter Orb
Controlled Destruction Support
Greater Multiple Projectiles Support
Increased Critical Strikes Support
Hypothermia Support
Added Cold Damage Support
Gloves
Herald of Thunder
Curse on Hit Support
Assassin's Mark
Frost Bomb
Boots
Cast When Damage Taken Support
Immortal Call
Enfeeble
Increased Duration Support
2h Weapon
None
1h Weapon
Shield Charge
Faster Attack Support
Fortify Support
Offhand weapon / shield
Herald of Ice
Ice Bite Support
Portal
Build uniques / Example rare gear
Tip: Click on the item to view it on PoE Wiki or to view similar rare items in poe.tradeHelmet
Rare HelmetRare helmet with at least 80+ life and decent amount of total elemental resistances.
Body Armour
LoreweaveTabula Rasa, Inpulsa’s Broken Heart or rare chest works great in this build. Pick whichever you can afford/want to use.
Gloves
Rare GlovesGeneric rare gloves with life and elemental resistances. If you have spare currency, you can craft gloves with Essence of Insanity (16% more attack speed) for smoother Shield Charging.
Amulet
Rare AmuletRare amulet with life, global critical strike multiplier and % mana regeneration rate.
Belt
Stygian ViseRare Stygian vise with high life, elemental resistances. Anything else is just a bonus.
1Hand Weapon
Rare SceptreLook for sceptre with spell damage, cast speed,cold damage, critical strike chance for spells or flat elemental damage to spells.
Note: spell damage doesn’t increase damage of heralds. Elemental damage, lightning damage or cold damage does, however.
Offhand
Rare ShieldRare shield with high life, at least 80+, high critical strike chance for spells and elemental resistances.
Jewel
Rare Jewels- % increased maximum life
- % increased area damage
- % increased projectile damage
- % critical strike multiplier
- % cold damage
Jewel
Abyss Jewels- Maximum life
- Global critical strike multiplier
- Flat elemental damage to spells
- Flat elemental damage to spells while holding a shield
Flask
Flask Setup- Seething Divine Life Flask of Staunching
- Chemist’s Silver Flask of Warding
- Experimenter’s Diamond Flask of Heat
- Dying Sun
- Alchemist’s Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline
For the skill gems the level is not listed, does this just mean we pick which to level up? Or the goal is to max them all??
What to use as you level up to lvl 28 before you can use winter orb?
Pretty much any spell you want.
Is it possible for you to write what lvl different gem should be? Shouldnt CWDT be at lvl 1? Thats pretty much all i know tho :/
It’s personal preference.
Why would you take the minion nodes on the left in the tree?
I cant get Increased Critical Strikes Support as a templar??
use poe.trade for gems.
All gems are available as soon as you do Lily’s quest in Act 6.
Why do we get points in crit change for spells and stuff if we just remove the crit from winter orb?
100% reduced critical strike chance from Controlled Destruction doesn’t mean you cannot crit.
hi why in the passive skill tree you place points in minion damage is there any need for that?
Yes, it gives the build damage.
Umm, Portal on shield? Nothing else useful to put there? :/
why do you skill minion damage? Which spell profits from it?
Its global damage increase because all minion damage increases now apply to you.
Hello, thanks for putting a build like this together. I am having a lot of fun with it so far. I am wondering if you have a recommended path for the passives on your full skill tree? Any major points I should shoot for first? (such as Spiritual Aid?) Thanks!
Hi thank you for the guid buy why u go into the minion dmg on the left side ?
Is it possible to have lorewave with 3 blues and 3 greens? ( new to the game) the most I have been able to get is 4 blues and greens
Yes, it’s possible.
Sorry discard it I got them, however does the orders of the colors matter or as long as they are linked it’s fine?
Order doesn’t matter, only links matter in the end.
What about pantheon?
Whatever you need at the moment.
What does the Immortal Call do? I dont see a way this build generates endurance charges or am I missing something?
It works even without endurance charges.
Going for Spiritual Aid nets you 69% increased damage for 6 points. You would probably be better off spending 5 points to get Ash, Frost and Storm and then getting Frost Walker for the 66% increased damage, 15% cold resist, and 10% reduced reflect damage instead and the put the extra point somewhere else like the cold damage node above Frost Walker (12% damage). You could also drop two of the health nodes by Constitution (10% health) and then grab the health nodes at Cruel preparation for 15% health and 5% elemental resistances.
TLDR you could get an extra 9% damage, +15% cold resist, -10% reflect damage or -3% damage, +5% health, and 5% elemental resistances by moving a couple of points around. Personally I think both of these options are more effective than Spiritual Aid.
Also, what are you using Vaal RF for exactly? You aren’t scaling health/ES very much and the crit doesn’t effect RF so its not going to be scaling well with the rest of the build. So I’m uncertain what the purpose is for slotting it.
Vaal RF grants more spell damage for its duration.
If you are only going from the passive tree damage sure, but there are items that fit into the spiritual aid node, like a rare bone helm that gives 40% minion damage which you would receive also.
Hi.
Im having problem with righteous fire, i have problems sustaining my hp and often die.
Any tips on how to optimize righteous fire ?
Regular RF is not meant to be used, use Vaal Righteous fire only. It’s good vs tougher opponents when you need that extra spell damage boost.
hi,
It seems that the tree links, aren’t working, whenever the build chosen. It stops at 99% loading.
Or is it me ?
Just checked, works for me. Try clearing browser cache.
it works fine for me
Any reason why you choose Templar over Witch for Elementalist?
Inquisitor is extremely powerful for crit elemental builds – we can get really high total crit and basically ignore monsters’ elemental resistances.
Is this build only/good for end game or can it be used while leveling?
You could level with it as well – pretty much any skill works for leveling if you have at least 4-link.
I am new to poe and i wanna try this build im currently working on getting all the gems i need . do you still have to channel the winter orb with this build , and that is our main dmg right? or is there a video of this build?
Yes, you have to channel occasionally. For gameplay, it really doesn’t differ that much from any Winter Orb build – it plays similar to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkfffHocIlE
What about skill tree?
No clue, that’s not our build, it just plays similarly to that one.
what could we change to make it dual wand ? can we make more damage of it ?
That’s a bad idea – not only will you lose defense, you will also lose the ability to use Shield Charge.
k thanks for that… im following this guide to the beat. should i get winds of change ?
i also have a solstice amulet with 100% temp and 21% dmg increase, should i use that? what should i change to use the chains? (im two weeks in the game and so so overwhelmed)
pd. the colours i need to get in weap and shield are incredibly hard to do…
cant we use orb of storms instead of portal ? im using you as a wiki, but i really need guidance :p
Solstice Vigil is really nice ammy for the build, so I think you should use it. You could drop Enfeeble and Increased duration support from your Cast when damage taken setup and put Blasphemy and Temporal Chains in there. You could drop Portal and put Enfeeble in there for emergencies.
Winds of Change is a decent damage option, but it has mediocre life and reduced movement speed – personally, I wouldn’t use them.
Coloring weapons and shields are usually the easiest pieces to do – try using chromatic calculator for most efficient method of getting desired colors – https://siveran.github.io/calc.html
could you do add more advanced guide for gearing? i mean… more endgamish items we should aim for..
Top end items go for tens of exalts and most players cannot afford them. Get Headhunter if you have more currency.
well i didnt mean THAT high end haha, more like what uniques apart from loreweave we can aim to use… like the winds of change but for other slot
what about gloves with increased % damage against chilled enemies ¿? winds of change vs gloves with that ?
Not a fan of Winds of Change due to reduced movement speed. % against chilled enemies is a great option, but decent gloves with that mod go for 1 EX minimum. Before you look for upgrades like that, make sure all your jewels are good as well, a lot of the time upgrading jewels is better value than upgrades elsewhere for the same amount of currency.
What gem can we take out minimizing dps loss of the 6L chest chain? I just need to run increased duration because I hate recasting WO so much.
What’s the reasoning for not helping Alira here? Build was too point heavy? Also Would it be worth picking up extra power charges or even the projectile damage nodes in shadow or snowforged nodes between witch and shadow instead of getting the extra damage from the minion nodes, seems like several of those nodes would be more point efficient damage than going to the minion nodes.
Hey, do you think you could make a couple leveling trees? As a new player I always find those super helpful!
I’m curious how this build handles the inevitable DEX requirements of the green gems?
I’ve just started this build a few days ago and I’m already having issues with DEX on my green gems.
Is there something I’m missing? Otherwise, LOVE this build and just got Winter Orb.
Easiest way to deal with attribute requirements usually are through jewelry – rings, amulet and jewels. Since this build uses a lot of rare items, it shouldn’t be much of an issue. If you absolutely cannot get dex on gear (which is unlikely), you should grab a +30 dex node on the tree.
Gotcha. That was the only way I could think to do it but I didnt see any explicit “grab dex enhance gear” mentions. Cool. Thanks for the reply and loving the build so far at lvl 40!
Hi I would like to know if for endgame it would be a good set up to have mark of the shaper ring + elder ring and pendemonious amulet?
Hi, I was asking if having mark of the shaper /elder ring is a good set up , but it seems my question was deleted any reason for that?
Hey. The question wasn’t deleted, I just hadn’t had a chance to answer it yet. But yes, I think it’s a great ring setup damage-wise. For amulet, i’d probably go for Solstice Vigil or a well-rolled rare amulet instead, since on Pandemonius the cold penetration is a wasted stat due to the Inquisitor ascendancy.
Hello, i am new to PoE and I chose to play this build. Im only level 30 for now, and trying to apply the build as best as I can. Thing is, do I have to cast all the time? Cause I feel like I waste a lot of time channeling, is it meant to be so? Thank you very much.
Yes, you have to cast the spell and some channeling time is to be expected.
For now, I use Ice Nova to nuke everything and have Winter Orb set up on a totem cast gem. The totem pulls enemies and casts winter orb for now, until I can get the right gear and gems to set up closer to the full build. Add in Enfeeble and the purity minions with an animate guardian gem and I usually have plenty of damage going out and being absorbed by my minions to get to the end game.
Question about another possibility of a gear set up.
What if you got a shaped ring with Cast X rank of Assassin’s Mark on hit? How would you then set up the 4-Link with new abilities!
Btw thanks for the guide. I’m currently level 88 with it, the only thing I don’t like is you’re a squishy and can get 1 shotted.
IGN: Mmason – Betrayal League
If I got a ring like that, I’d probably get an amulet with +1 curse corruption and run a defensive curse in place of Assassin’s mark, such as Enfeeble, Temporal Chains or even Warlord’s Mark for leech and endurance charge generation.
For the tankiness you should try to get gear not only with high life, but some energy shield on top of that, really helps with boosting effective hp pool.
I just made the build 3 days ago and am really enjoying it on maps tier 8-10 at lvl 82.
Quick question though, the bosses seem to be quite a bit of a challenge sometimes, is only winter orb used for bosses as well or am i missing something to boost single dps?
I easily sweep through all the mobs.
Thanks in advance
Yea, it can be a bit slow for the bosses, but once you stack up more crit multiplier it should be fine. Also, “Gain % of non-chaos damage as extra chaos damage” Elder mod in combination with crit multiplier mod on amulet would boost your damage quite a bit, so consider that.
I know you previously mentioned this, but I was just curious. What exactly does the minion support do for the build?
Hi There !
Thanks for your build. Not sure if you still come here from time to time, it has been a while since you released it,but I have just started it.
My question is : why use added cold damage instead of conc effect ? With the tree, we have plenty area of damage, so it is not an issue and conc effect increased the damage by a lot. Or ma I missing a point ?
Thanks and have a great day !
Oillah
Hey. If it works for you, I don’t see why you shouldn’t use Concentrated effect. 🙂
What is another good Chest armor piece because those two uniques are quite expensive?
Tabula is a good option to use until you can afford 6-linked Lorweave or Inpulsa’s.
Can I import this Tree Skill to “Path of Building” program ?
Best Regards / Henric
Yep!
so, wich gods are you choosing?
Nice build
Just a heads up for 3.6, since this build uses Nullification:
The Sniper and Nullification cluster (near the Shadow) has been replaced. The new cluster contains two notables:
Lethal Assault grants 18% increased Damage, 10% increased Projectile Speed, and 10% increased Area of Effect. The small passives above and below it grants 8% increased Damage, 5% increased Projectile Speed and 5% increased Area of Effect each.
Resourcefulness grants 15% increased Evasion Rating, 10% increased maximum Energy Shield, 5% increased maximum Life, 0.5% of Life Regenerated per second. The small passives above and below it grant 12% increased Evasion Rating, +12 to maximum Energy Shield, +12 to maximum Life, and +4% to all Elemental Resistances.
Otherwise, fun build. 😉
Hello sir, this build is Legion (3.7) viable right? Would really like to give it a try:)
Hey! Sure it is, however, keep in mind that Winter Orb has been hit with a nerf.