[3.5] Occultist Vortex/Cold Snap ES/CI - Deathless and Safe Uber Elder and T16's

I invested about 90C into this char before league ended (50c of that was a Aspect of the Spider ring) and i did my first Uber Elder kill with 12.5k ES on a 5-link

The only thing that killed me was hydra, because my Fire Res wasn't high enough over cap.

Personally i'm impressed with how tanky this char is. And as a league starter, it can work with very low investment (even for high tier maps with rippy mods)

I'd also like to add that i've made it work with 18% Ele Reflect by using the Pantheon and a Sybil's Lament. The initial hit is the only dmg that reflects, so if you drop a DOT outside a pack and let them move across it you can tank the initial hit(slow, but you can make it work if you roll Reflect on a corrupt or something).

The only mod i have troubles with is no regen because of the mana. I found the best way to handle it is to drop Spider to avoid having to constantly spam a mana flask (even for move skill), but maybe a Lv4 enlighten would be enough (mine is lv3).

Hey Idarroc!

Any chance you'll be updating this? I used it last league and loved it - going to use it again now that the new ES leech mechanics look like they'll make this even better.

Thanks!

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aqrunnr a écrit :

Hey Idarroc!

Any chance you'll be updating this? I used it last league and loved it - going to use it again now that the new ES leech mechanics look like they'll make this even better.

Thanks!

ES Leech doesn't work with DoT. Also, Enfeeble was nerfed (as well as a slight damage nerf to Vortex [2ish%] and changes to Cold Snap and Vaal Cold Snap), so I imagine the build needs tweaked.

There is also the new +damage over time aura, and hatred buffs? Thoughts?

Maybe a LL variant?

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Wigriff a écrit :

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aqrunnr a écrit :

Hey Idarroc!

Any chance you'll be updating this? I used it last league and loved it - going to use it again now that the new ES leech mechanics look like they'll make this even better.

Thanks!

ES Leech doesn't work with DoT. Also, Enfeeble was nerfed (as well as a slight damage nerf to Vortex [2ish%] and changes to Cold Snap and Vaal Cold Snap), so I imagine the build needs tweaked.

Didn't actually know this aha, thanks!

Regardless of the small tweaks though, I imagine the new supprts/auras and other node changes will still benefit this build? I still see it being pretty good.

I fell in love with this build last league. I love the simplicity and how inexpensive it is, AND it gave me my first Uber Elder kill without too much effort. I was planning on using it as my league starter for Synthesis, and after reviewing the patch notes posted today it looks like the build has remained mostly unscathed.

Of course, the big news here is the slight nerf to Vortex's damage. All other things being equal, this is roughly a 2.6% damage decrease for both the hit and the dot. Doing some quick math using my Betrayal character's Path of Building calculations, it brought her dot damage down from 354,430.3 to 345,251.4. While this is probably a mostly insignificant difference, it is a nerf nonetheless.

Cold Snap and Enfeeble also suffered some nerfing, though the Cold Snap dot damage reduction at level 20 is seems very minor. Using my Betrayal character again, and all other things being equal, it only reduced the dot damage by 400 dps. The Enfeeble nerf is somewhat concerning though, with rare and unique monsters now only doing 15% less damage at level 20 instead of 30%.

Not much else in the notes seemed particularly noteworthy regarding this build. There are quite a few changes going on with the passive skill tree, but without seeing the new tree it is difficult for me to tell just how much any of them will impact us. One change of note though is that the Nullification passive is going away. It looks like it is being replaced with something similar, though with the notable absence of Nullification's 8% elemental resist.

The new aura gem Malevolence could be a beneficial damage increase for our build, but without any numbers it is difficult to say. The same for the new Energy Leech Support gem. Of course, the leech only applies to our ancillary damage sources that hit, but it could possibly be a 6th support gem for Vortex if the increased damage was in line with Efficacy.

And, while we're on the subject of leeching, it looks like Heart of Ice will now grant 0.2% energy shield leech for cold damage. I'm not going to pretend I understand leech math, but given how much damage our spell hits do (the hits from Vortex, Cold Snap, and Frost Bomb) I don't think this alone will provide us with anything substantial. I have no idea if investing more into energy shield leech would be a good idea, though my gut tells me that it wouldn't be. Going to have to wait on a Path of Building update to determine that.

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ILjXYZ a écrit :

I fell in love with this build last league. I love the simplicity and how inexpensive it is, AND it gave me my first Uber Elder kill without too much effort. I was planning on using it as my league starter for Synthesis, and after reviewing the patch notes posted today it looks like the build has remained mostly unscathed.

Spoiler

Of course, the big news here is the slight nerf to Vortex's damage. All other things being equal, this is roughly a 2.6% damage decrease for both the hit and the dot. Doing some quick math using my Betrayal character's Path of Building calculations, it brought her dot damage down from 354,430.3 to 345,251.4. While this is probably a mostly insignificant difference, it is a nerf nonetheless.

Cold Snap and Enfeeble also suffered some nerfing, though the Cold Snap dot damage reduction at level 20 is seems very minor. Using my Betrayal character again, and all other things being equal, it only reduced the dot damage by 400 dps. The Enfeeble nerf is somewhat concerning though, with rare and unique monsters now only doing 15% less damage at level 20 instead of 30%.

Not much else in the notes seemed particularly noteworthy regarding this build. There are quite a few changes going on with the passive skill tree, but without seeing the new tree it is difficult for me to tell just how much any of them will impact us. One change of note though is that the Nullification passive is going away. It looks like it is being replaced with something similar, though with the notable absence of Nullification's 8% elemental resist.

The new aura gem Malevolence could be a beneficial damage increase for our build, but without any numbers it is difficult to say. The same for the new Energy Leech Support gem. Of course, the leech only applies to our ancillary damage sources that hit, but it could possibly be a 6th support gem for Vortex if the increased damage was in line with Efficacy.

And, while we're on the subject of leeching, it looks like Heart of Ice will now grant 0.2% energy shield leech for cold damage. I'm not going to pretend I understand leech math, but given how much damage our spell hits do (the hits from Vortex, Cold Snap, and Frost Bomb) I don't think this alone will provide us with anything substantial. I have no idea if investing more into energy shield leech would be a good idea, though my gut tells me that it wouldn't be. Going to have to wait on a Path of Building update to determine that.

Same for me, mate!
I hope we'll get this build updated by thread starter soon.

Here are some thoughts that I'm planning to do to improve build in next league:
It's all started with my investigation of current meta on poe ninja.
First of all I've found that the Vortex skill and Occultist class are very popular amongth the top players in the leaderboard.
So, I was investigating what kind of gear top players are using and found some genious unique items used with this build as well as the tree improvements, which I want to share:

Here is the link:
https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/fortebx95/Forte_ColdSnap?i=40&search=class%3DAscendant%2COccultist
I like the synergie of Coward's Legacy / Atziri's Reflection and Sin Trek
Wanna try it.

thanks for the great guide! Lets hope for an update before the next league starts :)

Question: it is possible to farm uberlab safe on day 3-4 of the new league? I mean not dodging everythng from uber izaro and sometimes failing on traps.

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Helmsman527 a écrit :

Here are some thoughts that I'm planning to do to improve build in next league:
It's all started with my investigation of current meta on poe ninja.
First of all I've found that the Vortex skill and Occultist class are very popular amongth the top players in the leaderboard.
So, I was investigating what kind of gear top players are using and found some genious unique items used with this build as well as the tree improvements, which I want to share:

Here is the link:
https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/fortebx95/Forte_ColdSnap?i=40&search=class%3DAscendant%2COccultist
I like the synergie of Coward's Legacy / Atziri's Reflection and Sin Trek
Wanna try it.

cowards legacy + shield is a big dps boost... if you can afford them and chose to sacrifice some defenses.

Sin trek has always been a good baseline item to get before you start crafting your own boots. Similar or better than this for example.

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ILjXYZ a écrit :

Not much else in the notes seemed particularly noteworthy regarding this build. There are quite a few changes going on with the passive skill tree, but without seeing the new tree it is difficult for me to tell just how much any of them will impact us. One change of note though is that the Nullification passive is going away. It looks like it is being replaced with something similar, though with the notable absence of Nullification's 8% elemental resist.

With notes out I don't see any major changes that would affect us. 2% less dmg is nothing. I'm more interested in the changes to the tree, not many new nodes that helps us as you said though..

http://poeskilltree.com/compare/3.6.0/

The resist you were talking about is still there, we went from 20%es+8res to 10%es+24flates+8res+0.5%regen from those 3nodes.

As for the rest of the changes, not much impact us at all really.
Ash, Frost and Storm near scion is a good alternative if you lack resists.
Some of the new shield nodes is usable if you want more dmg but slightly less es.


Leech nodes and changes does not help our dots nor should we aim for it. Our regen/recharge is more than enough, we could tank Minotaur already for example.
Dual weild nodes does not help us since it's mainly castspeed focused.
Channeling nodes does not help us.
Staff nodes could help us, but 1h+shield feels wastly superior still. Would not recommend. If you want to be a mega dps beast you could do lowlife with staff to 6link vortex + 6l cold snap... but dropping a ton of other gems somehow. Still not feeling it.

Auras might change depending on if you want more damage or defenses. Malevolence could be really good, almost mandatory depending on numbers and reservation cost. Half of hatreds effect now works for us if we want it.

The tempchains/enfeeble changes coupled with the overall curse effectiveness changes on bosses is pretty minor. lvl20 enfeeble (30% less dmg in current patch) as an example.
3.5: 30%*0.2=6% less dmg from elder/shaper (80% less effect of curses on bosses)
3.6: 15%*0.34=5,1% less dmg (15% vs bosses, 66% less effect of curses on bosses)

Minor nerf, I think people missed the curse effectiveness changes. The changes basically made temp/enf more or less the same but buffed the dmg curses overall since they don't have the built in 50% penalty on bosses like temp/enf now do.

If anything, the lowlife heavy dps versions got buffed with more choices and availability of dmg auras/curses.

TL;DR Build is the same for the vanilla version of vortex. Slightly more pathing options depending on if you want more dmg or more defenses. Malevolence probably good, we need numbers. How do we fit it in if its good? Drop 1curse? Drop 1blasphemy and apply second curse in other ways? Pick up mana reservation nodes?

Thats my thoughts for the build, still good, still tanky, still cheap and easy to gear for. Excellent league starter. As for me, I wont be playing or checking in to this thread anymore. My lvl100 setup and choices is posted some pages back from last league. I'll be moving on to explore something new.

As a last sidenote, I wouldn't bet on OP updating the thread for the new patch. Seems like he moved on to other builds and haven't been active in here since then. Build is mostly the same however, so we don't really need it to be updated.

Well that's unfortunate no updates. But if its the same and I see he hasn't logged in to the site since Jan anyhow guess this what it is.