POE1 3.29 Vaal Ice Nova of Frostbolts Occultist League Start Guide

NOTE: All of the rare gear in this build is just an example. You do NOT need to get gear exactly like mine, These are example stats of what you want. Most armour gear will want some combination of life, resistances, str/int, and armour/ES From the lab after Act 3 onward try to get ice nova of frostbolts and/or frostblink of wintry blast. Or if you get another good gem that you can sell and trade for ice nova of frostbolts, do that. It will help your single target damage immensely. CAMPAIGN: ACT 1: Use frostbolt or freezing pulse as your main damage skill. I usually link volley + arcane surge. Can also do added cold + arcane surge. You can link frostblink to added cold damage for clearing on the go also set up shield charge + faster attacks + momentum (if you muled a ranger) basic skill rotation is frost bomb > holy flame totem > frostbolt/freezing pulse You get ice nova after the cavern of wrath waypoint. You can swap to this immediately if you want, but I usually level it in an offhand and swap to it later Gems to obtain: Frostbolt Frost Bomb Volley Arcane Surge Shield Charge Faster Attacks Momentum (if you muled a ranger) Ice Nova Frostblink Clarity holy flame totem ACT 2: Use the corruption altar on cold snap. If you get Vaal cold snap, you can either use it throughout the campaign, or sell it to get ice nova of frostbolts. I generally use cold snap as my main damage skill here along with frostbolt. You can also use ice nova if you wish, but it's pretty bad early. Freezing pulse is another potentially good option. For bosses, hit them with cold snap and then spam another damage skill until the cooldown is back on cold snap. I also drop holy flame totem here. Gems to obtain: Herald of Ice Cold Snap Increased Critical Damage Controlled Destruction Power Charge on Critical Faster Casting Tempest Shield (If you're going to use a wand/shield combo) Mana reservation for act 2: Clarity Herald of Ice ACT 3: Grab Zealotry and start leveling it. Don't turn it on until you have some mana reservation either from the mana mastery or the mana reservation nodes Level discipline, automation, and ele weakness in offhand Gems to obtain: Zealotry Discipline Frostbite Elemental Weakness Automation ACT 4: Try to get ice nova of frostbolts if at all possible before malachai. It makes the fight a lot easier. But it's not required by any means. If you're low on sockets/links, you can drop returning proj and faster casting in frostbolt, as well as momentum on shield charge. You can also drop cruelty and controlled destruction on cold snap Ideal Ice Nova of Frostbolt links are arcane surge + spell echo + power charge on crit Also set up arcanist brand here. Should be linked to Frostbite + Frost Bomb + Elemental Weakness (after getting Whispers of Doom notable on the passive tree) Sometime during this act is when you'll get the charge mastery for increased duration. Big QoL for keeping your power and frenzy charges. Gems to obtain: Bonechill Spell Echo Arcanist Brand Returning Proj PSA: Don't link support gems to herald of ice ACT 5: Try to get your resistances ready for the -30% you get from Kitava. Nothing else new this act. ACT 6: Level these in offhand: determination molten shell automation discipline Inspiration (this will be your 6th link) Increased Critical Damage Start working on gem links and aura set ups over the next few acts: Ice Nova of Frostbolts > Spell Echo > Power Charge on Crit > Arcane Surge > Increased Critical Damage Frost Bolt > Volley > Returning Proj (or slower proj) > Faster Casting Molten Shell > Automation Shield Charge > Faster Attacks > Momentum Arcanist Brand > Frostbite > Frost Bomb > Elemental Weakness Vaal Cold Snap > Bonechill Herald of Ice Zealotry Clarity Frostblink /CAMPAIGN EARLY MAPS Early maps staff: Patch notes say that lower tiers of + to spells will be much more common, and that high cast speed weighting is the same as low cast speed. So crafting this should be much easier to do now. We'll need some kingsmarch dust for recombinating. I like to turn on the option for my filters in Filterblade to show all dust uniques and then dust those. Or you can buy some high dust uniques. Then we need a bunch of staff bases. We'll either need a loot filter to show all eclipse and/or imperial staves, or just buy a bunch of bases Then we alt spam for + to cold spells and + to all spells. Augment, and then regal, and then craft a random suffix on each staff Then use the unpredictable recombinator to slam em together. It may take a few attempts, but it should give us our staff. Then we just craft cast speed or spell damage on it and go crazy. Or if you're feeling extra saucy, you can lock the prefixes with the crafting bench, and then reforge caster at the harvest bench to try and hit high cast speed And even better, if there is an open suffix, you can use the league mechanic to hit it with a shaper exalt and try to hit +1 power charges OR You can just buy a Taryn's Shiver. This should be almost as good as whatever scuffed staff we recombine in early maps. But we'll still want to build up our staff supply and recomb dust for the endgame staff. Try to get exposure on hit on your gloves and a mark of submission ASAP so you can drop the arcanist brand setup You may need to swap inspiration in as your 5th link if you don't have enough mana regen to sustain your ice nova of frostbolts. Try and craft mana efficiency on rings and get it elsewhere, otherwise swap in inspiration. Or you can use a mana flask. But I hate mana flasks LATE MAPS/ENDGAME I'm expecting power charge ralakesh boots to be 20+ div for the first week or more, since so many people are starting winter orb. And so many people fail to recognize just how much power you can get out of a staff now. It's way better than the power charge stacking unique wands and shield, in my opinion. And if you remove things that eat your charges from the equation, then you either don't need the boots, or you can use Inner Conviction alongside frenzy charge stacking to really juice your damage. I'm including MISC NOTES: the level of greater multiple proj and returning proj don't really matter, since we don't care much about frostbolt damage. It's just a delivery vehicle for our novas. So if you don't have enough Dex for em, don't level em Bonechill helps your single target quite a lot early on, which is why we try and link it to both cold snap and frostblink. And if there is an extra link, unbound ailments pushes the damage just a lil further. But we're pretty socket starved, so that's probably not happening SOLVING MANA PROBLEMS First thing should be the 2 mana masteries we grab on the passive tree Next is Clarity. Level it up as much as you can while still having enough mana to cast Next up is -mana on rings or mana efficiency We can also do mana reservation efficiency with an essence craft on either our helmet or chest, if we're not using a unique helm or a giga sacred chainmail yet. mana flask is also an appropriate answer. Get one where the effect isn't removed when your mana is full Mana regen tattoos Aura effect