[3.19] Ice Dancing Queen - Icestorm/Cyclone/CI - Viable For Everything

[3.18] Mapping in T16 with budget gear
[3.18] Uber Shaper
[3.18] Uber Cortex
[3.18] Uber Exarch
[3.18] Uber Invitations
[3.18] Uber Maven
[3.18] Uber Uber Elder
[3.18] Uber Sirus

[3.17] The Eldritch Bosses

[3.16] Simulacrum Wave 30
[3.16] SSF Endless Delve

[3.15] Uber Lab at lv 72
[3.15] AL9 Conquerors
[3.15] AL9 Maven

[3.12] 100% Delirium T19

[3.8] Leveling
[3.8] Uber Elder

Unlike the Ascendant, the Occultist is not immune to stun. Taking Vile Bastion is not worth it. The stun issue is solved by taking the Tolerance cluster and crafting 25% stun avoidance on gloves. Later on, Tolerance can be replaced by obtaining corrupted jewels with stun avoidance and Harvest crafting it on non-corrupted jewels.

You may also obtain Awakened Cast While Channelling lv 4. It becomes lv 5 in the staff and grants you stun avoidance while channelling. But that only works for mapping. You still need to be safe against bosses with the max damage self-cast setup.

Another difference from the Ascendant is that you don't automatically create consecrated ground, therefore ES regen is too small to matter and Zealot's Oath is not worth a skill point. Ghost Reaver was changed in 3.16 to disable ES recharge. This leaves you with no way to recover ES out of combat. If you are not comfortable with this, don't take Ghost Reaver (but then you lose a lot of leech and need Light Eater). I recommend getting used to Ghost Reaver and not standing on burning ground, etc. It's not hard. You can also carry The Sorrow of the Divine flask or The Writhing Jar flask as a 'heal'.

Use the Community version of PoB.

3.19 Leveling trees
Read the notes in PoB for more details.

3.19 Budget version (lv 90)

3.19 High End Full Build

Kill them all.

1. Profane Bloom
2. Void Beacon
3. Frigid Wake
4. Malediction

Major: Solaris
Minor: Yugul

Get them fully upgraded.

1. Clarity
2. Discipline
3. Purity of Elements
4. Blasphemy Frostbite
5. Aspect of the Spider (optional)

Having one curse as an aura makes the Profane Bloom explosions work really well.

Aspect of the Spider is a high level addition. It requires Enlighten lv 4 and some extra Mana Reservation Efficiency from the tree or corrupted jewels. Or a helmet enchantment.

!!! This is an Int stacking build. It scales from Int in multiple ways. Other than the build-enabling weapon and very special boots, every single piece of gear must provide a high amount of Int. Do not neglect Int on your items.

See the Ascendant version for detailed gear recommendations.

The only difference for the Occultist is that it doesn't use the Pure Talent jewel.

Anoinment

You have 2 items that can be anointed: amulet and The Stampede boots. Anoint them with:

1. Tranquility (Golden, Golden, Azure) - a huge damage boost.
2. Steelwood Stance (Teal, Teal, Azure) - a major defensive feature.

If you are just starting and can't afford Golden Oil yet, grab a cheap 30 Int node (Clear, Clear, Amber).

Arcane Surge Support 20/20, ideally 21/20, x2
Ball Lightning lv 1
Blasphemy Support 20/20, ideally Awakened
Bonechill Support 20/20, ideally Divergent
Cast When Damage Taken Support lv 1
Cast When Damage Taken Support with REQUIRED lv matching Immortal Call, ideally Anomalous 20q
Cast While Channelling Support lv 15-16, ideally Awakened lv 4+
Clarity lv 20, ideally lv 21
Cold Penetration 20/20, ideally Awakened
Concentrated Effect Support 20/20
Cyclone any lv
Discipline lv 20
Elemental Focus Support 20/20, ideally Awakened
Elemental Proliferation Support lv 20, ideally Divergent 20/20
Elemental Weakness 20/20
Enfeeble 20/20, ideally 21/20
Frost Bomb lv 1
Frostbite lv 20, ideally Divergent 20/20
Frostblink lv 20
Hextouch Support 20/20
Hypothermia Support lv 20, ideally Anomalous 20/20
Immortal Call lv up to your Str, ideally Anomalous 20q
Increased Duration Support lv up to your Str, 20q
Inspiration Support 20/20, x2
Intensify Support 20/20
Purity of Elements lv 20, ideally Anomalous 20/20
Vortex lv 1

Optional:
Enlighten lv 3+
Phantasmal Wave of Conviction 20/20
Flame Dash 20/20

Weapon

Chest

Gloves, boots, helmet

I highly recommend these flasks (or similar):

If you get your resists right, The Wise Oak provides a solid damage bonus (and a bit of defense). Atziri's Promise is good for damage too.

Rumi's is great for block and phys mitigation - important defenses.

Yugul Pantheon mitigates 30% curse effect on you. A flask with high enough curse mitigation takes care of the other 70% and lets you ignore curses. Very useful. It can be any utility base. Bismuth is just easy on the charges and doesn't break the balance of resists for The Wise Oak.

Making all these flasks trigger on rares and bosses lets you clear maps without ever worrying about flasks.

The final flask slot is very optional. I prefer to be safe from bleeding.

Having enough mana regen to constantly cast Icestorm is very important. If you can't sustain it, you will keep cycloning (which costs only 2 mana) but some Icestorm casts won't happen until you regen enough mana for it. When you take damage and proc CWDT - that also takes some mana. As well as casting Vortex and Frostblink.

3 gems are mandatory for this build to sustain mana:

1. Clarity - the bulk of your mana regen. It starts with low values but gets very decent with levels. Clarity 21/0 is cheap, get it whenever possible.

2. Inspiration Support - greatly reduces the mana cost of Icestorm (plus extra damage).

3. Arcane Surge Support - a few seconds after you start channelling, it gives you a large amount of mana regen (on top of massive extra damage).

While leveling, your mana pool is very small, and these gems are still low level, but Icestorm costs the same amount of mana at any level. That's why it's important to take some mana sustain nodes on the tree: Dreamer and Deep Thoughts.

All these things together make sure that you always have enough mana. Do not neglect them.

However, at high levels (80+), when your gems are fully leveled and your mana pool grows large enough, you want to use those skill points for other good things. Dreamer first, and then Deep Thoughts, get dropped. Instead, you take Shaper and later on Coldhearted Calculation.

When exactly to replace those nodes depends on your gear. You can always test it. In hideout, start channelling Cyclone and wait for the Arcane Surge icon to appear. If your mana keeps decreasing then you need more sustain. Don't replace Dreamer and Deep Thoughts too early. Or craft "-mana cost of non-channelling skills" on a ring (however, this makes Arcane Surge take longer to proc).

If you have enough mana sustain for Icestorm, but run out of mana while tanking a boss - that means you are losing mana when CWDT procs. It can be solved by crafting "X% of damage taken recouped as mana". This mod can also be obtained as a random Harvest jewel implicit.

CWDT - IC - ID is the most expensive link. I recommend having at least 200 unreserved mana to take full advantage of it. With Anomalous CWDT and IC gems, and ID 20/20, you can have it proc every 2.5 sec and last 1.94 sec, as long as you have enough mana.

Finally, you can craft a mana flask that doesn't end on full mana. It can also be used for No Regen maps.

See the Ascendant guide for details.

The difference for the Occultist (other than the tree and Ascendancies) is that she uses a Blasphemy Frostbite aura (can start using it in Act 3). And she does quite a bit more damage while leveling than the Ascendant.

Early leveling (lv 1-38)


Acts 4-10 (lv 39-69)


Early mapping (lv 70-80)


Advanced mapping (lv 80-90)