[3.23 Cold Conversion Blade Vortex Elementalist / Occultist (League Starter + League Finisher)

3.20 Guide: https://youtu.be/5d_RxWDlinE
(this is the most comprehensive video version of the guide, and most of it still applies in patch 3.23)
Beginner's Guide to BV: https://youtu.be/7tig4cIxrEw
3.23 Guide Update: https://youtu.be/k0bRyRn2A2M

https://pobb.in/fp7KDl--5i7W (Exported Dec 21th 2023 - 12PM EST)

My POE way of the ninja is playing one character from league-start to league-end, until all the currently available content is cleared, and eventually trivialized. So that's what this build is designed to do.

It's a Jack-of-all-trades league-starter that can feel good mapping, bossing, and everything in between. But crucially, it can also scale to the moon with proper investment, and take on the toughest challenges in the game.

1. Damage output is almost completely contingent on maintaining 10 Blades, since BV scales exponentially with the number of blades you have out.

2. Maintaining 10 Blades is easy and comfortable if the following conditions are met:
a. You have 4 maximum Unleash seals (creating 5 blades on a max seal cast)
b. Your Skill Duration for BV is at least ~1 second more than TWICE the time it takes to generate maximum seals. USE THIS EQUATION: Skill Duration - 1 >= 2*MaxSealTime
c. You cast BV whenever you are at maximum seals or within about a .5 second window

This principle is referred to as the "Skill Duration :: Seal Generation Ratio"

3. Until you can afford to tank up, the best defense is a good freezefense.
Blast-Freeze and full Cold-Conversion with Increased Freeze Duration will enable you to freeze even extremely strong enemies with relatively low investment.
X% Increased Freeze Duration is essentially "Freeze as though dealing %X more damage" (different sources of duration stack additively, but the total then acts as a "more" multiplier on your maximum freeze threshold)
This build starts out as a not-quite-glass cannon that largely relies on freezing enemies before they can do anything to you, but can easily be made a lot tankier with a little investment.

4. Golems are spectacular in the early part of a league, because the effectiveness of their buffs isn't contingent upon gear at all.
Simply getting the Elementalist ascendancies and leveling the skill gems will provide a substantial boost to offense and defense no matter how well geared you are. ^7

5. This build can function on extremely low Unreserved Mana. Approximately 50-70 should be plenty, and since you don't ever spam cast, having ~50-70 Mana Regen is sufficient.
There are several skill gems that should be left at level 1 to conserve mana cost: Vortex, Frost Bomb, and Arcanist Brand

6. Stacking a lot of +Skill Gem Levels is better than ever before thanks to the most recent change to BV's damage numbers from patch 3.23
BV scales exponentially with more levels (up to Gem Level 30), and bigger base numbers mean that this exponential scaling is even more dramatic at the top end.

7. Blade Vortex gets +1 Base Radius at Gem level 22 and again at Gem Level 29.
This can be massive, especially with Vast Power and other large sources of increased AOE.
Keep this in mind when debating between rare wands/sceptres and Void Batteries, and when deciding to use Empower Support or not in high-end versions of the build.

8. Vaal Blade Vortex is absolutely essential and serves many purposes:
a. Gives you an option to do damage from range, which is extremely helpful for very dangerous mobs and League Content like Heists or the Forbidden Sanctum where the mobs are lying in wait.
b. Two charges means a huge damage boost on bosses
c. Enhances clear speed generally as you can use it to take out stragglers or spread out enemies.
d. Helps with League Content like Blight/Legion/Breach where it's good to be doing damage over a large area.

I would never consider using a level 21 non-vaal BV over a level 20 Vaal BV, no matter how tempting the 10% DPS increase on POB might look.

9. Shield Charge provides a massive boost to movement speed, and is definitely worth learning to use even if it seems difficult at first.
Lightning Golem goes a long way towards making it feel better at lower gem levels.
Keep your cursor at the edge of the screen to avoid making stationary attacks.

10. Alira is pretty much always the ideal Bandit Choice
Although this build has some very crucial nodes on the tree, and even in cluster jewels, it doesn't benefit greatly from extra points beyond those essentials.
I would only give up Alira if I was extremely overcapped in Resistances, and somehow had plenty of Mana Regeneration without any investment that couldn't be better used on damage/survivability.
It's already hard to do better than 25% Crit Multi with just 2 points, so the other benefits would have to be completely useless for it to be justifiable.

11. Ailment Effect is a sneakily strong source of damage up to a certain point, since it increases the effectiveness of Brittle Ground, the Shock from Shaper of Storms, and in some cases even the potency of Bonechill Support.
In most cases, the chill from your BV will be stronger than the one from your Vortex, and will therefore be used when Bonechill's effect is calculated.
It does not matter if the skill Bonechill is supporting is actually doing the chilling, since enemies can also be "In Chilling Areas from Supported Skills" for it to work
The strongest chill on a monster in a supported Chilling Area will be used in the calculation, regardless of source. (Confirmed by GGG)
The benefit of Increased Ailment Effect will be limited by the caps on the ailments themselves, which is 6% for Brittle Ground, 30% for Chill, and 50% for Shock.

12. Blizzard Crowns are worse than a helmet WITHOUT ANY IMPLICIT in 99.9% of cases with this build. Do not be fooled. Delete the implicit from a prospective helm in POB and check if your damage goes up.

13. The progressive phases of the build are all designed to be relatively strong at BOTH Bossing AND Mapping, and so there are certainly trade-offs that could be made in favor of one or the other if you have a specific goal.
The balance currently being struck is meant to make mapping feel quick and easy, while also enabling you to handily defeat all invitations/pinnacle bosses as you naturally unlock them during the beginning of the league.

14. Heatshiver can be a fairly strong item for the build, even after the nerfs, but it's also possible to add it in TOO EARLY
The most important thing for the build early on, is making sure that everything is freezing.
Heatshiver will not help with this at all, since it only provides Fire Damage and minimal stats compared to a Rare Helm.
Furthermore, killing frozen targets faster is really only impactful in a few situations such as Bossing or the Forbidden Sanctum, so don't be seduced by the boost to POB damage.
Maximizing the benefits of Heatshiver also means focusing on certain stats while taking priority away from others.
See this video for an even more detailed breakdown: https://youtu.be/uwZzUKZxBVY?si=GIhahUj857a1TfBF&t=331

15. The Brine King Pantheon is the best Major Pantheon at least until the swap to Occultist, and possibly after if you find that stuns are an issue.
Aberrath is the best Minor Pantheon because it provides huge ignite mitigation, enough that no further investment in that stat is needed.

Pros:
1. Damage output can stay at 100% while running around and only casting once every 2-3 seconds.
2. Freeze can still function as a layer of defense regardless of offensive monster mods and player defense penalties, enabling extreme map-juicing on lower gear investment.
3. Functions on 0 investment at first, thanks to the power of Golems.
4. Scales to the moon due to the high number of "more" damage multipliers that it can utilize, and BV's built-in 350% multiplier at 10 active blades.

Cons:
1. Limited range, so it can sometimes feel like a melee skill. Vaal BV helps, but doesn't have 100% uptime unless you spam anti-soul gain prevention sextants, so we have to be smart about engaging projectiles-launching packs of mobs. And by "smart" I mean frostblinking onto them ASAP.
2. Mediocre base movement speed. Shield charge helps, but some map layouts are not conducive to charging around.
3. Too much fun. If you're not careful, it can ruin other builds for you.

Get three items with B-B-G / B-B-B links as fast you can.

Use Frostblink and Frost Bomb to kill on the run.

Drop an Orb of Storms and couple Mines on tougher packs.

Use Flame Dash if you prefer it to Frostblink.

Though BV is available as early as level 12, it feels terrible without Unleash Support which requires level 38.
I also don't recommend trying to level a BV gem in your weapon swap, as the dex requirement will be a major annoyance.
It's better to just wait and craft dex on the items you have when you're actually ready to run BV.
You'll make up the gem XP with the sheer amount of extra killing that BV does by having constant damage output while you move.
I wait to swap until Act 6 because that's when all the support gems are purchasable (without needing to clear the Library),
and it doesn't make sense to swap immediately at level 38 if you're in the middle of Act 5. especially with how good mines are vs. Kitava

Get to Elemental Overload as soon as possible (passing through Lightning Walker)

Add Skitterbots and Herald of Thunder as soon as you are high enough level, and if you have spare sockets then start leveling Herald of Ice but don't activate it yet.

For the Bandit Quest, help Alira, Alira is Bae.

For your next Passives, get the Crackling Speed Notable, but skip the Mastery.

Then, get more Life with the Cruel Preparation Notable and the +50 Maximum Life Mastery.

Finally, get the Deep Thoughts Notable and the 12% Reservation Efficiency Mastery. This should enable you to actually activate Herald of Ice by the time you get to the A2 Boss.

Early In Act 3, once you complete the quest that unlocks the sewers, buy Wrath from Clarissa and add it to the build in place of the Heralds. (Optional, gains are small)

Also Early in Act 3, add a self-cast Conductivity Curse for use on beefy enemies/bosses.

For your next series of Passives, make the journey down to the Ash, Frost and Storm Notable.

After this, you won't see much benefit from the passive tree until the swap to BV, so just start taking the points you'll eventually need like the Increased Skill Duration Nodes and Heart of Ice.

This will get you through Acts 3-5, as there aren't any more gem changes needed until the swap to BV.

Frostblink + Frost Bomb will do the majority of the killing on White mobs, with OOS and SBM only being used on Magics and Rares.

Take Unleash Support and a Golem for your Act 4 quest rewards, but stash or weapon-swap them for now.

Try to save any decent 4-Links or even 4-Socket items, as the swap ideally requires a variety of socket colors: 7 Blue, 7 Green, and 4 Red

Thankfully, not all of these have to be linked in a specific way, and no R-B links are required.

You will need:
1. G-G-G-B (for BV+Supports)
2. R-R-G-B (for Golems+Culling, though having all three linked to Culling is a luxury and not worth spending early chromatics/fusings)
3. B-B-B (for Cold Snap + Frostblink + Bonechill, either skill can activate the bonus from Bonechill with its "Chilling Area")
4. R-G (for Shield Charge + Faster Attacks)
AND
1 Random Red Socket for Herald of Purity
2 Random Green Sockets for Herald of Ice and Hatred
2 Random Blue Sockets for Frostbite and Frost Bomb

Clear the Labyrinth and get the Liege of the Primordial Ascendancy. Add Stone/Flame golem, and link them to Culling Strike if you have the slots.

You can also do the Lab after the swap to BV, but I recommend doing the Lab first, especially if you've been speedrunning, because the currency/loot from the treasure chests at the end can aid with the swap.

Clear the Twilight Strand to unlock all basic gems at Lily.

Ideally, buy Hrimsorrow Gloves (should be 1-5C). If you can't do this, skip ahead to the pink section below.**

Unsocket these gems:
1. Stormblast + Supports
2. Orb of Storms + Supports
3. Conductivity
4. Frostblink/Flame Dash
5. Wrath
6. Summon Skitterbots

Buy these gems:
Act 6 - Cold Penetration, Hypothermia, Shield Charge, Faster Attacks Support, Cold Snap, Frost Bomb (be sure to buy Cold Snap/Frost Bomb here instead of Act 1-2, because you actually want a level 1 gem)
Act 1 - Blade Vortex
Act 2 - Herald of Purity, Culling Strike Support
Act 3 - Hatred, Frostbite
Act 4 - Bonechill (and Stone/Chaos/Flame/Lightning/Ice golems if you have orbs of Chance, but you won't equip all of these yet)


Use your Respec Points to make the necessary changes to your Passive Tree.

***Benchcraft dex/resistances as needed.

Make sure you have the Increased Skill Duration Mastery, but don't worry about a 4th seal and the Skill Duration :: Seal Generation Ratio yet
Low level Unleash Support won't have fast enough seal generation to make a 4th seal worthwhile, so the ratio math won't apply.
You'll need at least level 15 Unleash to actually make use of the 4th seal and constantly cruise with 10 blades.
Until then, just cast whenever you have max seals while running, as fewer than 10 blades is enough for trash mobs, but you'll want to spam a couple casts on tougher mobs.

Add Cold Snap with Bonechill Support for use on beefy targets.

Do not level up the Cold Snap gem. The damage coming from the Cold Snap is a non-factor, and it's only used for activating Bonechill's damage boost and generating Frenzy Charges

Use Frost Bomb on beefy packs/bosses to inflict exposure, but swap for a level 1 gem, as the damage is no longer a factor compared to BV.

Add Hatred, Herald of Purity, and Herald of Ice.

Be careful to AVOID accidentally linking your Heralds to Support Gems that will increase their reservation, e.g. Faster Attacks on Herald of Purity

OPTIONAL PRO TIP: Try to avoid socketing the golems/auras in your weapons, so that you can bind the summon/activation hotkeys on your weapon swap hotbar and not have them despawn/toggle off when you swap back/forth.

Get Vaal Blade Vortex ASAP, even before you can afford gem quality. I immediately use every vaal orb I get, until I hit a Vaal BV or can buy one off of trade.

Add Shield Charge with Faster Attacks Support. They'll feel a lot smoother once they're leveled at least a tiny bit, but use them as soon as they feel comfortable for you.
Lightning Golem helps a lot.

Suggested Passive Point Allocation Priority:
1. Quick Recover, Discord Artisan, Breath of Rime, and Heart and Soul
2. Winter's Embrace
3. Discipline and Training, Holy Dominion and Light of Divinity.
4. Constitution
5. Arcane Expanse
This can be adjusted as needed if you find yourself lacking damage, life, or a particular attribute.

Investing in cold ailment/freeze duration is very important, even though it won't affect POB damage, as it will let you freeze much beefier targets.
60% increased freeze duration is essentially: "Freeze as though dealing 60% more damage."

This set-up will get you through the rest of the Campaign.

SKIP THIS SECTION, UNLESS you weren't fortunate enough to drop a few chaos orbs in the early acts, are playing SSF, or lack access to Hrimsorrow Gloves for whatever reason:

Unsocket these gems:
1. Stormblast + Supports
2. Orb of Storms + Supports
3. Conductivity
4. Frostblink/Flame Dash
5. Wrath
6. Summon Skitterbots

Buy these gems:
Act 6 - Physical to Lightning Support, Shield Charge, Faster Attacks Support, Cold Snap, Frost Bomb (buy Cold Snap/Frost Bomb here instead of act 1-2, because you actually want a level 1 gem)
Act 1 - Blade Vortex
Act 2 - Trinity Support, Herald of Ice, Herald of Purity, and Culling Strike Support
Act 3 - Hatred, Elemental Weakness
Act 4 - Bonechill Support (and Stone/Chaos/Flame golems if you have orbs of Chance, but you won't equip these yet)

Get the Cold Mastery "Convert 40% of Physical Damage to Cold Damage"

With this setup, your damage should be balanced enough to maintain full Trinity Resonance, but you may have to make small tweaks depending on your gear. Make sure to add "50" in the config for resonance in POB.

Changes to Consider:
1. Swap Herald of Ice/Herald of Thunder/Herald of Purity
2. Move points around on the tree, out of or into lightning/cold nodes
3. Hatred outclasses Wrath immensely in overall DPS, so swap them only as a last resort

The Trinity setup will actually work into red maps if necessary, but balancing your cold and lightning damage is a hassle, so you'll still want to pick up a pair of Hrimsorrow Gloves as soon as you can afford them or find a pair.

In the meantime, go back and complete the section above, starting with "Benchcraft dex/resistances as needed" ***

Equip the Silver Flask from the A10 Quest if you haven't already

Continue using Frost Bomb as a source of Exposure and Frostblink/Flame Dash as a gap closing tool.

Get the Elemancer ascendency and start working towards the second Cold Mastery.

Use Flame/Stone/Chaos Golems to boost your damage and survivability, and Lightning Golem for QOL from cast/attack speed.

Add Culling Strike Support to 3/4 of your Golems in one of your 4-link setups if you haven't already.

For your third ascendency, get Bastion of Elements if you need to shore up your survivability, or Shaper of Storms if you need to shore up your damage during early mapping.
This decision will depend on the gear you dropped during the campaign, i.e. if you dropped good Weapons but very little Maximum Life on your gear, consider getting Bastion of Elements.
I would personally lean towards Shaper of Storms if the decision is close.

Definitely work Shield Charge with Faster Attacks support into the build if you haven't done so yet.

Optionally, add Steelskin for emergency defense if you don't mind an extra button, or if you have an extra gem slot for CWDT.

When you get a 5-link, use Added Cold Damage as the 5th link until the next phase of the build.

Use the Brine King and Abberrath Pantheons for Freeze Immunity and Ignite Mitigation.
60% Less Duration of ignites is more than enough mitigation, because if 40% of an ignite is enough to kill you, then the hit that applied the ignite probably would have one-shot you already.

Upgrade the Brine King ASAP to get Freeze Immunity
Try to run a flask with a freeze immunity mod in the meantime, as mobs that reflect ailments will freeze you for a long time without it.

This will get you well into Yellow/Early Red Maps.

At around level 70-75, you should have enough passive points to get to the Whispers of Doom Notable, enabling the addition of Assassin's Mark.
You can free up even more points by exiting the Witch starting location via the intelligence nodes instead of the ones that give negligible spell damage (as shown on the trees), but I wouldn't recommend doing that prior to this point.

Spec out of Elemental Overload.

I like running Assassin's Mark on an Arcanist Brand setup along with Frostbomb, but if you can't afford the gem slot, it can also be self-cast relatively easily due to its permanent duration.
Don't level up the Arcanist Brand gem or the Frostbomb, as it will only increase their mana costs for little-to-no benefit.

Always use Assassin's Mark on Bosses, and use it periodically while mapping (slightly more than once every 10 seconds) in order to generate Power Charges reliably.

Change up your support gems, probably dropping Added Cold Damage, and/or Hypothermia/Cold Penetration in favor of Increased Critical Strikes and Increased Critical Damage.
Check POB because the damage output is often very close either way, and individual results may vary depending on gear.
If you're struggling with Cold-Resistant Monsters in particular, definitely keep using Cold Penetration support.

Add Ice Golem, dropping Chaos, Flame, or Lightning. Definitely keep Stone Golem no matter what, as the regen and taunting are basically irreplaceable.
You probably won't miss the benefit of Chaos without more armour as a foundation, so that's my recommendation, but you won't break the build by removing Flame/Lightning.

It doesn't matter which 3 of your 4 golems have culling strike, as they all "hit", so the socket colors for this setup in the Skills section are just suggestions.

Use whatever surplus unreserved mana you have on an appropriately leveled Precision or Vitality aura.
Alternatively, you can also consider linking Herald of Ice to a support gem like Added Cold Damage or Increased Critical Strikes.
This can increase your clear speed substantially if you find that basic Herald of Ice isn't enough.

Gearing Priorities:

1. Cluster Jewel with Blast-Freeze
This is one of the biggest upgrades in the entire build, providing significant defense via freeze proliferation and more clear for Herald of Ice explosions.
Blast-Freeze can be found on Large Cluster Jewels with Increased Cold Damage and Medium Cluster Jewels with Increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments.
Other good notables on the Large Cluster would be Doryani's Lesson, Blanketed Snow, Widespread Destruction, or Prismatic Heart.
On the Medium Cluster, try to get Astonishing Affliction as a second notable.
2. Mark of Submission
Automating the application of your curse is more important than ever now that Vortex+Bonechill on left-click is no longer an option.
With the changes to curses in Patch 3.20, inflicting a maximum level Frostbite vs. the Level 1 you'd get from a Redeemer Mod makes a huge difference in DPS, especially vs. Bosses
Plus, don't sleep on the benefit of a maximum Quality Frostbite with it's 20% Increased Freeze Duration.
3. Boots with a Brittle Ground implicit
Buy some or try to add a Brittle Ground implicit to your boots with Eldritch Embers
4. Corrupt Hrimsorrows
Try to find a pair with Spell Critical Strike Chance, Maximum Life, or +Gem Levels.
Avoid Curse-on-Hit until much higher budget levels, the level one curse won't be worthwhile compared to a curse from a Mark of Submission.
5. Jewels with Increased Freeze Duration
These jewels are (historically) criminally underrated by the overall market, making them very easy to target as cheap upgrades while rounding out attributes/resistances/mana reserves.

When you do the Uber Lab, get either Bastion of Elements or Shaper of Storms, whichever you didn't choose last time.

Carcass Jack is just a suggestion, but is certainly a very strong item for the build if you're focused primarily on DPS over survivability.

If you get a 6-link, add Inspiration Support, but only if you're high enough level to use Gem Level 18+, as the mana cap for resetting the charges will be too low to reliably have 5 charges at lower levels.
If you're too low level, add whichever of these four (Hypothermia, Critical Strike Damage, Cold Penetration, Added Cold Damage) you're not using.

This build should be strong enough to kill End Game Bosses and farm Alch+Go T16 Maps, even without the 6-link.

WARNING: If this is your first time playing the build, you may find that after absolutely cruising through all content up to this point, doing high tier maps can sometimes feel a little difficult by comparison.

The key to making the build feel good at this stage is to avoid certain map mods that make it more difficult (or even impossible) to freeze enemies, as we are relying on freeze as our primary defensive layer until we can accumulate some currency and tank up in a more traditional fashion.

I use the following criteria/system when deciding if a scouring orb is needed:

1. Monsters Action Speed Cannot be Reduced Below Base Value
2. Monsters Take Reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes, Monsters Gain Elemental Resistance, and Monsters Have More Life
3. Monsters Have a Chance to Suppress Spell Damage and Monsters Have a Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments
4. Reduced Curse/Aura Effect, Cannot Inflict Exposure, Hexproof

Always reroll #1, it's as bad as reflect for a build that can't handle reflect.
One mod from #2 in isolation is ok, but a combo is much more deadly.
#3 are not the worst, but are dangerous when combined with one or two others on the list
I count two mods from #4 to be the same as one from #2

Also be wary if you have Increased Effect of Map Explicit Modifiers from Atlas Passives or if you are running a Memory series, as this can turn difficult mods into impossible ones.
e.g. with enough increased effect, 70% chance to Avoid Ailments becomes full on 100% Ailment Immunity.

Once you have about 10-15 Divines to invest in the build, you're ready to tank up.

I recommend prioritizing adding armour via auras and a Granite Flask before investing in spell suppression, since enabling Molten Shell is still a massive increase to survivability, even with recent nerfs.

Start by getting enough Mana Reservation Efficiency to enable the auras.

First, remove Precision/Vitality Aura if you were using it.

Buy an Amulet you won't mind keeping for a while, and annoint Charisma on it. (Gold+Gold+Opalescent)

Buy a Helm you won't mind keeping for a while, and craft a Grand or Exceptional Mana Reservation Efficiency Eldritch implicit on it. (or buy one pre-made)
Consider using the Orb of Conflict method to save currency if the price is right (see the video pinned in the discord's Crafting Discussion channel for details).

Get a 3-passive Small Cluster Jewel with Mana Reservation Efficiency, and either a Spiteful Presence or Uncompromising Notable.

For the last little bit needed, there are four options:
1. Get a jewel with a mana reservation efficiency explicit.
2. Look for small clusters with increased effect.
3. Increase your base mana (ideally with ring prefixes, since its hard to make good use of these at lower budget levels)
4. Spec into the Herald Reservation Efficiency nodes on the tree if you don't have them already.

Add Determination, Defiance Banner, and a Granite Flask.

Add Vaal Molten Shell, either manually cast or linked to Cast When Damage Taken Support depending on your personal preference.
If you do want to use CWDT, you'll probably have to remove Culling Strike Support or Arcanist Brand to free up a gem slot, as all other skills/supports are much more essential.

For Spell Suppression:

First, prioritize freeing up some points on the passive tree to enable taking the Instinct Notable Cluster.

If it's affordable, grab Awakened Unleash Level 5 so you no longer need Caster Mastery.
Prior to patch 3.20, this was a 1ex/1div gem, but it was almost 10 times more expensive than that during the early parts of Sanctum League, then only 5 times more expensive than that in Crucible, and varied wildly between 3 div and 10 div in Ancestor.
This price has become difficult to predict, and is the main reason why I adjusted the budget level at this stage to 10-15 div instead of 5-10 as it was in previous iterations.

If this is a league where Awakened Unleash is unreasonably expensive, you can also free up points with by getting rid of some of the pure damage nodes like Discord Artisan, or some of the life nodes near the center of the Tree

Once you have the points, Spec into the Instinct Notable cluster, and get the Mastery that makes your suppression chance "Lucky."
While Lucky won't get you to 100%, it will turn 90% into 99%, and the difference between 99% and 100% is only really a factor for hardcore players.
Losing a portal 1/100 times you get hit with spell damage that's between 100% and 200% of your max HP should be tolerable.
I recommend going as low as even 96% effective suppression chance, which means needing just 80% total before the Lucky Mastery.

After filling out the passives, ^7Look for Armour/Evasion bases that have high Spell Suppression.
Spell suppression can only roll on bases with evasion, and you'll want as much base armour as possible as well.

If you can get max-rolled T1 Suppression on your Gloves, Helmet, Body Armour, and Boots, you can get up to 64% Spell Suppression from those pieces.

The best Eldritch Implicits to target are:
Exarch Helm - Physical Damage to Spells, Frostbite Effect, Damage Per Power Charge (Individual Results May Vary, Consult POB)
Eater Helm - Mana Reservation Efficiency
Exarch Chest - Increased Aura Effect
Eater Chest - Increased Hatred/Determination Effect
Exarch Gloves - Chance to Unnerve Enemy on Hit
Eater Gloves - Phys to Cold Conversion
Exarch Boots - Brittle Ground
Eater Boots - Phys as Extra Cold, Life Regeneration Rate

Replace your gloves last, as you will need to buy/craft a pair that has the Eater of Worlds Physical to Cold Conversion implicit AND a crafted/unveiled Physical to Cold Conversion mod on them,
You will also need to Spec into the 40% Physical to Cold Conversion Mastery, in order to make up for the loss of conversion from Hrimsorrow.

I recommend aiming for 90% Physical to Cold Conversion at first (25% Exceptional Tier Eldritch Implicit + 25% Crafted Mod + 40% Mastery), since the cost of going for the 35% Exquisite Tier Eldritch Implicit or crafting gloves with the 35% Veiled Mod and Spell Suppression is significantly higher
The main benefit of 100% conversion isn't the superior damage, but rather the ability to do Physical Reflect content, which is something of a luxury.

With perfectly rolled gear, and the Instinct Cluster, you will be at 86% total, or 98% when accounting for the Lucky Mastery.
You can make up any deficit from imperfect rolls with a crafted mod on your shield that can add up to 10% suppression chance.

With perfect rolls and the shield craft, it's possible to get just under 97% suppression chance while skipping over the gloves, boots, or helmet.
If 97% Suppression is enough to satisfy your personal preference, consider skipping the gloves and getting a nice pair of corrupt Hrimsorrows instead.

For even more extreme survivability, add a Jade Flask and swap out Hatred for Grace.
I personally don't recommend this, but if you're newer to POE and feel like you're dying too much it might be worth considering.

This build should be able to easily farm Juicy T16s, Logbooks, Blueprints, or anything else short of 100% Delirious Maps and the Uber Pinnacles.

Before swapping to Occultist, make sure you have the following items:
1. A Void Battery Wand OR any weapon of similar power level.
Check POB and choose whatever has the best price/damage ratio, but make sure whatever you go with is at least as strong as the VB would be.
2. 1-2x Medium Cluster Jewels with Vast Power and Towering Threat Notables
3. Militant Faith Timeless Jewel with High Templar Dominus
Look for Aura Effect and Area/Elemental Damage per Devotion mods, and then use POB to check if it will ruin an important notable on the tree
You can also use the tool provided by POB to find numbers that will work: just fill out your tree, check "Filter Nodes," then select "Total Devotion" in the "Search for Node" dropdown to find jewels that don't replace notables.
4. Ring with Frostbite-on-Hit OR Mark of Submission
You should have this already, but it's absolutely necessary for the Occultist to take advantage of Profane Bloom
5. A source of Life Leech to make up for losing the Stone Golem Regen.
a. Amulet with corrupt implicit or Shaper/Redeemer influenced explicit
b. Ring with Delve Explicit
c. Helm with Corrupt Implicit
d. Doryani's Invitation Belt
e. Large Cluster Jewels with Doryani's Lesson (will likely be expensive)
f. Atziri's Promise Flask (fine for mapping, but unreliable vs. Bosses)
6. Meat Shield Support for your Herald of Purity, to make up for losing the taunt from Stone Golem.
It sucks that we lost Anomalous Herald of Purity for the easy solution here, but thankfully a jewel explicit or two should cover the extra reservation.

Level to approx 94-95, as you will want the extra points to get to the +1 power charge nodes without sacrificing too much beyond what is no longer needed

Spec out of the golem nodes and into the nodes relevant to Power Charges.
If you have enough crit chance from other sources, you can also probably spec out of the critical strike nodes.
With Power Charges, Brittle Ground, Assassin's Mark, and a little bit of ailment effect and crit chance from your weapons, you should be crit-capped, and IMO golems are not worth the hassle without the ascendency that resummons them on death.

Spec out of the "wheel of life" nodes near the Constitution Notable, and grab the life nodes closer to the maximum power charge nodes, these grant aura effect and life recovery on kill, which are very useful.

Use the extra points to add 1-2 Medium Cluster Jewels with Vast Power and Towering Threat.
Whether you add one or two will depend on your current clusters, because a Blast-Freeze Medium Cluster can only be replaced if you can get Freeze Proliferation elsewhere.

Swap out Hypothermia Support for Power Charge on Critical Support.

Keep using Frost Bomb at least until you can afford Level 5 Awakened Cold Penetration Support or incorporate a Cluster Jewel with the Heraldry Notable, or

For Lifesteal, there are several options:

Add Awakened Unleash level 5 if you haven't yet so that you can finally spec out of Caster Mastery.

Your DPS/EHP won't change dramatically with these initial upgrades, but you'll gain substantial AOE and the addition of Profane Bloom is an immense boost to your farming speed that cannot be quantified by POB numbers.

This build is the absolute map-blaster that will farm you your Headhunter.
It clears similarly difficult content to the Elementalist, but does so much faster.

Once you've made the swap to Occultist, no upgrade will feel as massive as a Headhunter, so I highly recommend saving for one if you can, but the build can still be improved in smaller increments as well, either before or after the addition of the Headhunter.

That being said, maintaining ~100% spell suppression while getting more damage from your armour past this point can be extremely expensive if not nearly impossible.

Therefore, focus on improving jewels, jewelry, and weapons with +Skill Gem Levels, Max Power Charges, and Crit Strike Multi.



Unique Flasks like Taste of Hate and Bottled Faith are also excellent options for more damage.

A Circle of Guilt with Herald of Purity Buff Effect and Increased Physical Damage, plus good implicits, can be a huge damage boost if you can afford to lose the resistances from your ring.
+1 Maximum Power Charges is obviously the best, but these will be very rare and expensive, as will onslaught and curse on hit.
Damage per power charge is really strong and often affordable, but after that the damage mods all become pretty much interchangeable.
Keep in mind that there are breakpoints when it comes to Increased Buff Effect, so always double check POB before divining.

Replica Dragonfang's Flight and Ashes of the Stars are both solid options for Amulets, even after the nerfs.
Ashes is better for tankiness since it affects defensive auras as well, but RDF is almost definitely going to be more DPS



The best Watcher's Eye mods for pure DPS are:
1. Hatred Cold Pen
2. Zealotry Crit Pen
3. Zealotry Increased Damage taken on Consecrated Ground
4. Hatred Crit Chance (if not capped)
Note: Hatred Crit Chance gives base crit to all of your damage output, which enables profane bloom, explody chests, and herald of ice to crit, despite those all having 0% base critical strike chance by default.
If you care at all about exploding screens in juicy maps, this is basically a necessity.



Other mods like increased/added cold damage are usually significantly worse, but it may depend on the rest of your gear.

The Watcher's Eye Determination mods are all nice defensive bonuses with the obvious exceptions of Block Chance and Reduced Physical Reflected Damage Taken.
The best is probably Reduced Extra Damage Taken from Critical Strikes, but it's difficult to say for sure and will depend on how much armour you have.

An Impossible Escape Jewel with Necromantic Aegis or Magebane gets you access to almost all of Skill Duration bonus you need to maintain the ideal Skill Duration :: Seal Generation Ratio without wasting travel points
For the last bit needed, consider a Corrupt Belt Implicit, or utilizing the new Wildwood Primalist acendency with charms that give Skill Duration.



The ideal final shape of the tree includes the mana reservation nodes on the far left (Sovereignty Notable), and these nodes plus Enlighten Supports, plus another small cluster with mana reservation, should enable adding Zealotry Aura.
The level of Enlighten Support you need will depend on the tier of your Helm Implicit. You can also look for a mana reservation cluster with increased effect if you're just a bit short.

The final tree also adds another Physical Damage Large Cluster, to take advantage of the strong notables: Force Multiplier, Battle-Hardened, and Iron Breaker, and to create room for more Medium/Small Clusters.




The best way to improve your movement speed (besides a Mageblood, of course) is to get Onslaught/Tailwind/Elusive boots, but this almost certainly means sacrificing Spell Suppression.
You can get Suppression back from the passives near Magebane if you have that version of the Impossible Escape.
O/T/E boots also definitely means sacrificing Brittle Ground, which means you will need a Hatred Crit Chance Watcher's Eye and likely a Diamond Flask to compensate.
A Shaper or Hunter Chest with +Spell Critical Strike Chance can be good as well.

To improve the build beyond this point, I recommend choosing to either...

Go something like the extremely tanky route that I laid out in my Blade Vortex vs. Uber Pinnacles Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWd7PsxAkEw
OR
Ditch Spell Suppression and pump DPS. It's definitely possible to get high enough DPS to essentially trivialize the Uber Pinnacles, even to the point where you can skip the generally skippable immunity phases.
OR
Ditch Spell Suppression and pump up your explosions. Focus on increased "generic" AOE and "generic" damage (as opposed to spell AOE/damage).

In my opinion, with the overall nerfs to defenses in 3.19 and 3.21, something closer to a Glass Cannon is looking more and more attractive as a top-end loadout than in previous patches.

I'll post more POBs with various end-game loadouts in the discord, as this guide is supposed to be as a well-rounded jumping off point for further specialization/investment, and already has enough loadouts as it is.

I stand firmly by this build.

I've played a version of it pretty much every league since Heist.

I was playing BV when it was still OP in Ritual League, but also when it was still heavily nerfed in Scourge League, and when the 50% damage buff was announced in patch 3.17, I knew I had to make a guide to let people know that their beloved BV was all the way back.

I've gotten tons of great feedback from people who have followed my guides from previous leagues, and have pretty much always been able to diagnose the issue for anyone who was having trouble getting it to work.

I hope if you try it, you enjoy it as much as I have.

Much Love <3