Home / Build / [3.8] Winter Orb Templar (Inquisitor)

[3.8] Winter Orb Templar (Inquisitor)

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 Build

Bandits

Bandits Quest Choice
Kill all bandits

Ascendancy skill points

LabyrinthsSkill point choice
Labyrinth 1Righteous Providence
Labyrinth 2Inevitable Judgement
Labyrinth 3Instruments of Virtue
Endgame LabyrinthAugury 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.trade

Helmet

Rare Helmet

Rare helmet with at least 80+ life and decent amount of total elemental resistances.


Body Armour

Loreweave

Tabula Rasa, Inpulsa’s Broken Heart or rare chest works great in this build. Pick whichever you can afford/want to use.


Gloves

Rare Gloves

Generic 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.


Boots

Rare Boots

Rare boots with at least 25% movement speed, high life and elemental resistances.


Left Ring

Rare Ring

Rare rings with life, mana, elemental resistances and mana regeneration.


Right Ring

Rare Ring

Rare rings with life, mana, elemental resistances and mana regeneration.


Amulet

Rare Amulet

Rare amulet with life, global critical strike multiplier and % mana regeneration rate.


Belt

Stygian Vise

Rare Stygian vise with high life, elemental resistances. Anything else is just a bonus.


1Hand Weapon

Rare Sceptre

Look 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 Shield

Rare shield with high life, at least 80+, high critical strike chance for spells and elemental resistances.


Jewel

Rare Jewels

  1. % increased maximum life
  2. % increased area damage
  3. % increased projectile damage
  4. % critical strike multiplier
  5. % cold damage

 


Jewel

Abyss Jewels

  1. Maximum life
  2. Global critical strike multiplier
  3. Flat elemental damage to spells
  4. Flat elemental damage to spells while holding a shield

Flask

Flask Setup

  1. Seething Divine Life Flask of Staunching
  2. Chemist’s Silver Flask of Warding
  3. Experimenter’s Diamond Flask of Heat
  4. Dying Sun
  5. Alchemist’s Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline


Feel free to share your thoughts/experiences/tips about the build in comments section below.

About prime

Prime is knowledgeable in everything builds related. Mostly focuses on writing build guides and tutorials on how to play with certain skills.

82 comments

  1. 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??

  2. What to use as you level up to lvl 28 before you can use winter orb?

  3. 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 :/

  4. Why would you take the minion nodes on the left in the tree?

  5. I cant get Increased Critical Strikes Support as a templar??

  6. Why do we get points in crit change for spells and stuff if we just remove the crit from winter orb?

  7. hi why in the passive skill tree you place points in minion damage is there any need for that?

  8. Umm, Portal on shield? Nothing else useful to put there? :/

  9. why do you skill minion damage? Which spell profits from it?

  10. 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!

  11. Hi thank you for the guid buy why u go into the minion dmg on the left side ?

  12. 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

  13. Sorry discard it I got them, however does the orders of the colors matter or as long as they are linked it’s fine?

  14. What about pantheon?

  15. What does the Immortal Call do? I dont see a way this build generates endurance charges or am I missing something?

  16. 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.

    • 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.

  17. 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.

  18. hi,

    It seems that the tree links, aren’t working, whenever the build chosen. It stops at 99% loading.
    Or is it me ?

  19. 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.

  20. Is this build only/good for end game or can it be used while leveling?

  21. 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?

  22. 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…

        • 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.

  23. 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.

  24. 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.

  25. Hey, do you think you could make a couple leveling trees? As a new player I always find those super helpful!

  26. 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!

  27. 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?

  28. 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.

  29. 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.

  30. 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.

  31. 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.

  32. 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.

  33. I know you previously mentioned this, but I was just curious. What exactly does the minion support do for the build?

  34. 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

  35. What is another good Chest armor piece because those two uniques are quite expensive?

  36. Can I import this Tree Skill to “Path of Building” program ?

    Best Regards / Henric

  37. so, wich gods are you choosing?

  38. Nice build

  39. 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. 😉

  40. Hello sir, this build is Legion (3.7) viable right? Would really like to give it a try:)

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