Cold-crit CI witch build

Look at wytchfinder shadow build. High phys crit will be very tough to counter come PvP.

I gotta say this build was tough to use early on. I absolutely couldn't solo brutus or mervil, and was about // close from scrapping it. This build REALLY needs a totem to break up the aggro, once I started using frost nova + spell totem, and freezing pulse + lesser multiple projectiles + added chaos it really improved its performance substantially. But up until that point you have to bear with it. And even doing that my marauder using a voll's baptism still vastly outperformed this cold witch DPS wise. But I guess its decent for ranged, and will gradually get better, whereas marauder starts off wrecking faces and never stops.

Early on you definitely want to get a decoy totem, I didn't use one and I struggled hard. And even then its throw a decoy totem, and you got enough time to get 2 freezing pulse off before you have to proceed to running in circles and repeating that over and over just to solo brutus and mervil, and the later will be a VERY long fight. Better pack a lunch. Vaal was soloable only because of better gems/skills, I'd imagine cruel brutus and mervil will be far easier than they were on normal.

This definitely isn't a noob friendly build. Because I'm a noob and I had problems early on with it.

Cold crit is a cruel -> endgame build. It's terrible early on.

But I do not personally play for early game.

Also, fire trap and spell totem early on helps a lot. Ditch em later when everything dies from FP anyways.

yeah, my first play through on this build was a bit rough especially as one of the squishiest classes in the game. That char is 65 now and I have gotten used to the game and the mechanics and I am doing a 2nd play through on hardcore, and it is a little rough due to heavy cold resist mobs early on, but if you focus on defensive nodes early on to help you survive, then move towards offensive nodes it will help you substantially.

Freezing pulse is still one of the best early game spells, and when you learn to use ice spear from long distances it destroys bosses and tough mobs from long distances. Freezing pulse really isn't top tier spell until you get LMP and start to 1-2 shot whole packs of mobs.

I noticed SL4Y3R said he uses 4 diamond flasks plus granite flask. I'm a little confused b/c I thought chaos innoculation gives you all ES, so why would you need armor bonus from granite flask? Does armor somehow factor into the ES equation?

When you become stun locked from archers or rhoas, and are in a sticky situation. Hitting a granite can help mitigate some of the incoming damage.

Or, let's say I'm killing some monsters to the right, and a rhoa charges me from the left. If I hit a granite before he hits me, the odds of me being stun locked are much lower, as is the odds of me taking a massive hit to my ES.

On cruel I 3hko'd brutus using some diamond flasks, and made quick work of Mervil also. Most yellow mobs get 1hko'd if I land a crit, unless they got something dumb like added health + cold resist + resist aura, but those bitches still get froze till they're dead.

Spell damage daggers seem to be the best bet for this build. I found 2 spell damage daggers with 80% global and about 40% spell damage, and replacing a wand + shield with 2 spell damage daggers made my DPS nearly DOUBLE. So early to mid game you definitely want to use 80% global daggers with 30%+ spell damage. Those are also cheap upgrades and they get you a HUGE bang for your buck DPS wise. Here is an example of one I'm using:



That was a cheap upgrade, paid an alchemy for it.

I'm about to finish cruel and I still haven't grabbed CI yet. I don't really get hit that much, and use frost nova totem to break up the aggro. Areas with flicker mobs, pirates, spiders, etc, I just constantly plant totems at the edge of the screen as I'm moving forward so they gank the totem and not me. Groups of archers, or ranged, ill just run around and avoid them and plant a totem right in their face.

Daggers can't get cast speed.

If you're using 4 perpetual diamond flasks, cast speed is more important.

Early game, if I found an amazing dagger, yes I would use it. Late game. No.

what are you folks using as your gem set ups with the cold crit builds