The PoE 3.9 Witch Vortex / Cold Snap build utilizes Chaos Inoculation which makes you 100% immune to all sources of chaos damage including poison. However, you'll have 1 HP and therefor need to cover yourself with Energy Shield alone. This is not suggested for early levels and this guide will cover the transition and workarounds to get yourself to CI.

Quick Jump

Skill Tree

Ascendancy

As this build is a CI build and an Occultist is it important to always start with Vile Bastion. When this node picked up you're able to reach comfortable energy shield numbers for your CI switch explained in the lvling trees below.

The other 2 ascendancy nodes you're gonna want to take are pure damage increasers in the form of: Void Beacon then Frigid Wake!

Lastly you'll pick up Forbidden Power for some extra damage.

Pantheon 

Major God - Soul of Lunaris

Basically just helps with avoiding some projectile damage

Minor God - Soul of Abberath

Since the builds defensive design requires you to not take damage for about 1 second to start your energy shield recharge, this allows you to be immune to burning ground effects. 

Bandit: Kill All 

Passive Tree & PoB

Path of Building Link: https://pastebin.com/JTNkjxj5


 

 

 

 

Gems Setup

Vortex, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, Efficacy, Hypothermia, Swift Affliction

Vaal Cold Snap, Hypothermia, Bonechill, Efficacy

Note: This setup is designed to increase cold damage taken by bosses and to use the Vaal version to speed up the map clearing speed.

3L TRIGGER weapon

Storm Brand, Frost Bomb, Orb of Storms

Note: It is VERY important that they are linked in the order described above, the craft "Trigger socketed spell when you use a skill" puts the ability on a 4 second CD and will be cast in the order of the links. This is used to provide cold resistance exposure (-25% cold res) debuff on enemies via Frost Bomb whilst the Storm Brand & Orb of Storms are consistently hitting enemies with Lightning damage making sure the enemies have lower Cold resistances via Elemental Equilibrium this makes it very important that you do NOT, EVER, get any sort of FLAT added cold damage on your tree or gear (%increased is fine, just not # added cold) as that will ruin this setup.

Cast When Damage Taken, Immortal Call

Note: The lvl of CWDT is suppose to be low, this comes down to a matter of taste, I prefer to keep it at lvl 3 with the Immortal Call at lvl 5, if it's higher it won't work. It also does not require Endurance Charges to function though the duration will be rather low without which is still enough to keep you from getting instantly killed by Porcupine packs that dies!

Mobility

- Flame Dash

- Phase Run, Increased Duration, Efficacy

Auras

- Malevolence, Discipline

Extra

If you play a high budget version you can run Blasphemy + Temporal Chains if you have a Solstice Vigil equipped!

 

Gear Setup

What items to use:

Low Budget

Before we talk about items it is VERY important to repeat what was stated in the gem section:

The craft "Trigger socketed spell when you use a skill" puts the ability on a 4 second CD and will be cast in the order of the links. This is used to provide cold resistance exposure (-25% cold res) debuff on enemies via Frost Bomb whilst the Storm Brand & Orb of Storms are consistently hitting enemies with Lightning damage making sure the enemies have lower Cold resistances via Elemental Equilibrium this makes it very important that you do NOT, EVER, get any sort of FLAT added cold damage on your tree or gear (%increased is fine, just not # added cold) as that will ruin this setup. 

The build can use the Fenumus unique set items or simply use rare items in all slots. It has a tonne of possibilities allowing you to approach the build in an extremely cheap manner.

I would strongly suggest to use the Aegis Aurora shield due to the defensive layers it applies vs the harder end-game bosses such as deeper delve lvl Aul as well as Shaper & Uber Elder.

Besides this it is important to note that the build doesn't need more than ~300-350k Shaper DPS to handle Uber Elder smoothly which makes the weapon the only real important piece which will allow for Elemental Equilibrium to be used which significantly increases your damage output. With that "threshold" reached you only need to focus on getting as tanky as your budget allows which can be anything from a couple of chaos to hundreds of exalted orbs. There really is no direct roof to what you can do with this build!

Higher Budget Examples

The use of Solstice Vigil allows you to use a Blasphemy + Temporal Chains setup!

Other styles of higher budget would include the bestiary Spider craft allowing that to be used which will require mana reservation tricks from the tree and/or specific items crafted or unique or even higher lvl Enlighten to allow for that approach, this not only increases the defensive layers a bit but also increases your damage dealt significantly.

Stat Priority

Defensive Stats:
1. Energy Shield
2. Resistances
3. Intelligence

Offensive Stats:
1. Spell Damage
1. Damage over Time
1. Cold Damage
1. Elemental Damage

Jewels:

1. Energy Shield
2. Spell Damage
2. Cold Damage
3. Cold damage over time multiplier

Flasks:

1x [urlhttps://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Sorrow_of_the_Divine]Sorrow of the Divine[/url] or a normal Sulphur Flask
1x w/e Stibnite Flask of Dousing
1x w/e Basalt Flask of Staunching
1x w/e Jade Flask of Warding
1x Ample Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline

 

Leveling Tips

1. Freezing Pulse till you reach lvl 12 at which point you'll get yourself a Storm Brand and later in Act 2, pick up Brand Recall. This will carry you all the way to lvl 70 and beyond if you wish till you're ready to transition to CI / Vortex.
2. Items such as Goldrim, Lifesprig, Wanderlust helps a lot to speed up the leveling process.
3. If you get a Tabula Rasa early on you're gucci all the way!

 

As this is a CI build it is very important to understand that you're gonna have to level the build up as either pure life based or hybrid utilizing both Life & Energy Shield as your sources for effective HP. To follow the leveling trees blindly is not always ideal: it all depends on how comfortable you are with your character based of the gear you've found / have equipped. The leveling trees are generically designed to fit most situations though. Always keep your elemental resistances at 75%+ after act 6 (preferably before if possible). 

You will need to spend some regret orbs when you do the "transition

Never pick up Elemental Equilibrium unless you have a weapon with the craft "Trigger socketed spell when you use a skill" or you'll do next to 0 damage.

You're most likely going to need assistance with attributes from a rare amulet and/or the +30 Dexterity & Strength nodes left of the witch area as shown in the finalized tree. This usually doesn't become an issue unless you go with high budget items such as the Solstice Vigil.