Home / Build / [PoE 3.14 Build] Vortex & Cold Snap Witch (Occultist)

[PoE 3.14 Build] Vortex & Cold Snap Witch (Occultist)

Intro & build description

If you love freezing stuff, safe playstyle with decent clear and great boss killing ability, this build is for you. The finished build has ~3 Million damage per second for the Vortex, making it awesome if you want to farm bosses. While the finished build will require around 10 EX or a bit more, the build can still easily go for 1 million+ DPS with way cheaper gear, making it perfect as a league starter.

Build Pros

  • Cheap to start, scales really well with currency invested
  • Fairly tanky, can easily go to 7k-10k Energy shield
  • Build has several curses to significantly weaken monsters around you
  • Good clear with explosions from Profane Bloom
  • Good boss killing ability

Build Cons

  • Low-Life build which requires certain items before you can transition into it

Passive tree(s) and Path of Building

[3.14] Skill Tree
Path of Building

Bandits

Bandits Quest Choice
Kill all bandits

Ascendancy skill points

LabyrinthsSkill point choice
Labyrinth 1Profane Bloom
Labyrinth 2Malediction
Labyrinth 3Void Beacon
Endgame LabyrinthFrigid Wake

Skill gem setup

Helm


Vaal Cold Snap

Hypothermia Support

Bonechill Support

Awakened Elemental Focus Support


Body Armor


Vortex

Awakened Swift Affliction Support

Hypothermia Support

Efficacy Support

Awakened Elemental Focus Support

Awakened Controlled Destruction Support


Gloves


Vaal Discipline (Use regular Discipline as well)

Temporal Chains

Awakened Blasphemy Support

Enfeeble


Boots


Tempest Shield (LVL 20) - Unlinked

Arcane Surge Support (LVL 6)

Flame Dash (LVL 20)

Faster Casting Support (LVL 20)


2h Weapon


None


1h Weapon


Orb of Storms

Frost Bomb

Storm Brand (Cast it to proc Elemental Equilibrium)


Offhand weapon / shield


Hatred

Malevolence

Zealotry



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

Rime Gaze

Perfect helmet for our build, which is also a 1 chaos item.

40% increased vortex damage would be great Labyrinth enchantment.


Body Armour

Shavronne's Wrappings

Shavronne’s Wrapping is a priority item you should be aiming to get.

When you get Shavronne’s Wrappings and Prism Guardian, allocate all the reduced reserved mana nodes in the tree, you can transition into low life and allocate Pain Attunement.

Until then, use Vaal regalia with high life and high energy shield.


Gloves

Rare Fingerless Silk Gloves with Shaper Influence

Look for Fingerless silk gloves with Shaper influence and an item level of 80 as a minimum. Crafting these gloves will be way cheaper than buying them.

Use Dense, Frigid and Aetheric fossils in 3 socket resonator to craft the gloves.

Mods that we are looking for:

Main mod: 13-16% to Cold Damage over Time Multiplier and some energy shield. Any resists on top of that would be ideal.


Boots

Sin Trek

Great, cheap boots with high movement speed and energy shield. Look for ones with energy shield as close to 180 as possible.


Left Ring

Rare Opal Ring

Look for rare rings (Ideally Opal Rings) with following mods:

at least 40 to strength, 40 to maximum energy shield and as high resistances as possible.


Right Ring

Opal Ring

Same mods as previously mentioned ring.


Amulet

Presence of Chayula

Presence of Chayula is a great endgame amulet for tankiness.

Until you can afford to get it, use rare amulet with %increased energy shield and +to maximum energy shield.


Belt

Crystal Belt

Look for rare Crystal Belt with Shaper Influence and at least 80 item level. Base belt like that will probably go for 1EX+, so it’s an endgame upgrade.

Craft the belt using Dense fossils and look for following mods:
x% increased Energy Shield from Body Armour and at least 40 energy shield. The %increased maximum energy shield mod would be awesome as well, but probably really rare together with 2 previously mentioned mods.

Until you can afford a belt like that, use regular Crystal Belt with high energy shield and resistances. You can also craft reduced cooldown recovery speed or increased damage on it.


1Hand Weapon

Rare Wand

Build uses rare wand to scale spell damage. Really great mods are +1 to level of all spell / cold spell skill gems. Ideal endgame wand would have both of these mods, but that’s really expensive.
So get wand with 1 of these mods, at least 60% increased spell damage and craft cold damage over time multiplier on it for a solid weapon.

Trigger Socketed Skills when you cast a spell is also extremely useful mod for auto casting your wand spells.


Offhand

Prism Guardian

A must have item to transition into low life. Get it when you start using Shavronne’s Wrappings.


Jewel

Unique Jewels

Build uses several unique jewels.

1.) Thread of Hope – socket it near Devotion node and allocate Divine Judgement.

2.) Energy from Within – socket it near Melding.

3.) Watcher’s Eye with 20% to damage over time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence mod. This is an expensive endgame jewel, only buy it if you really can afford it.


Helmet

Rare Jewels

Build also uses cluster jewels.

We need 2 small cluster jewels with Energy from naught.

We need 1 Large Cluster jewel with 2 Jewel sockets, Cold-Blooded Killer and Deep Chill.

We need 2 Medium Cluster jewels with 1 jewel socket Deep Chill and Vile Reinvigoration.

You can see cluster jewel setup in Path of Building.



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

About gems

Always tries to keep up with the game, its ever-changing mechanisms and explain them in understandable manner.

4 comments

  1. What are you thoughts on Creeping Frost?

    • A good skill after the buffs, but this build wasn’t made with it in mind, since we don’t have free gem sockets to put it.

      • Hello, Do you use trigger a socketed spell on wand mod? i don’t see how the build is playable without , there is no way you cast storm brand + frost bomb + orb of storm ?

        • Yeah, the trigger mod is a huge QoL improvement for the build. Since the clear is good, you would only need to cast those spells on bosses if you don’t have the trigger mod, which is not that bad.

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