"Throw off the chains of fear and embrace that which was forbidden."

Occultists are suited for Witches with a focus on chaos damage or curses. Occultists are well-served by builds that rely on & maximize energy shield.

POE 3.5 introduced a new way to scale the cold spell - cold damge overtime multiplier, coupled with the new Occultist nodes, it basically doubles the damage of cold damage over time skills. This build is life based because it is a league starter, and so that we can buy cap resistance and at the the time find more damage on gear more easily.

Quick Jump

• Overview

• Skill Tree 

• Gems Setup

• Gear Setup

• Leveling

• Expectations & POB

Overview

We use dual curse temporal chain - enfeeble defensively, coupled with scaling chill effect for bonechill support gem-> Chill effect is basically another damage multiplier for us in 3.5. Later we can craft Aspect of the spider for another defensive aura -> very many layers of defense. But don't be overconfident though, because the Betrayal league mobs are very rippy, but at least you will die less compared to other builds.

Skill Tree 

Ascendancy

Every ascendency node has a major impact on our build.

Take Frigid wake as soon as possible.

Then Profane bloom -> Feels good factor

Then Malediction.

You can delay the last node until you have 5k hp (around level 80).

Bandits

Kill all ( best for damage and survivability) / Alira (For feels good factor and movement speed, I like it so I chose Alira ).

Pantheons

The Pantheon List

• Soul of Lunaris : Try to upgrade it as soon as possible, projectiles in incursion are very rippy, it really helps.
• Minor god: the one with life flask to do trial /uber (help massively). Otherwise choose the one with attack speed slow (Because we stacks so much slow). (Overall not important to upgrade this)

Passive Tree

The most important nodes on the tree: All cold damage multiplier nodes, Elemental Overload (use Cast on damage taken + Ice spear while leveling to trigger this, until u have this setup, dont take this node, because cold DoT casts are really slow with slow crit chance), Increased area nodes.

You don't have mana issues until much later. So don't take Eldricht Battery while leveling.

Gems Setup

On Weapons

Frostbolt - Greater multiple projectiles - Increased Critical Strike chance (To proc EO)

Desecrate- Increassed Duration (Corpse lasts longer that trigger spell cooldown -> good for the Helmet) - Spell cascasade OR equivalent setup:

Unearth - GMP - LMP ( I think it looks nicer, less lag on my machine)

Movement

Lightning warp - Reduced duration - Faster casting - fourth link can be Arcange surge / Swift affliction.

Cold snap setup

Vaal Coldsnap - Bonechill- Efficacy-Hypothermia

Vortex setup on body armour

Vortex- Elemetal focus- Efficacy-Swift affliction-Hypothermia-Controlled destruction

Why Elemental focus? Because Bonechill with the coldsnap is enough (It affects both skills) and we use instead Elemental focus for another large modifier.

Curse setup

Blasphemy-Enfeeble-Temporal chain on helmet

Gear

Weapon

We dual wield wands/scepter/mace, because shields can't use the trigger mod, which I find is one of the most interesting mod in this 3.5 expansion: it basically improves our quality of life massively and acts as another damage multiplier.

Helmets. 

The Devouring Diadem saves us 3 points pathing to Eldricht battery, which is equivalent to tier 2 life mod on a rare helm because we can spend the points else where on the tree to increase life. In addition, Fease of Fleash is a trigger skill that consumes all corpses round you (maximum 10 corpses) for 400 life + mana + ES for each corpse. Basically combined with our trigger spell, we recover full life + mana + es every 5 seconds. The +1 socketed gems are very good for curses.

Armours

Tabula rasa for the league starter ( I'm still using it). And then later in the league, when the 6 links are cheaper, buy a white 6 link for 50-60 chaos ( Remember you need blue and green gems, so buy the bases of items accordingly: Energy shield and Evasion base, or pure Energy shield, Energy shield is useful for Eldricht battery, so that we can reserve all of our mana later), then buy as high tier Essence of greed as possible, then try to craft it on gear. If the craft rolls another good 2 res on it, then you are good to go. 

Belts

At first just buy a belt with high life and resist : find a belt with >110 life (Leather belt), with one good res and open suffix. Then you craft another res on it, and you are done. Later in the league try to find cool down reduction on the belt, it helps proc spell more often (not needed though)

Glove

High life (>75) and another res with open suffix, and craft another res on it. Later in the league upgrade it with cold damage over time multiplier glove mod. 

2 Rings

High life 2 stone rings / Coral rings, with another resist mod, and open suffix. Same story. 

Boots

Find a boot with the mod : Grant level 20 aspect of the spider skill. You need high life, movement speed, and res as the other mods. Find any boot with 3 of the above mods ( must include Grant level 20 Aspect of the spider), with open affix to craft the other. It is the cheapest variant.

Amulet

We fill our dexterity here. You need life + dexterity, then craft res on it. Later find amulet with cold damage over time multiplier ( you see a pattern here?, that's basically how we scale)

Jewels

Life and increased effect of chill / Cold damge multiplier jewels.

Flask

Flask this league is so easy to craft with bestiary craft, so go for it. ( You can buy bauble at the Oriath )

One more thing, since incursion is prevalent this league, you need a chaos mod resistance somewhere on the gear. Basically, always try to find an item with open suffix / prefix to craft life/res on it, that way you will find much cheaper item. It's very easy to hear.

Leveling

1. The gems we need are all level 28 required gem. Arctic breath / Cold snap is dog shit clear without some increased AoE (Well Arctic breath is still dogshit with AoE). So I recommend you go with Arc till you have done your first Ascendency, and respec to get Area nodes and cold multiplier nodes. That means around act 4 -5.

2. Dexterity can be a bit lackey -> Take the dexterity node near Elemental overload. Respec later.

3. Level Blasphemy and curses gems to use them later when you have enough mana regen.

4. League starter is especially hard on resistance: use elemental resistance aura to mitigate this, because our build doesn't any need early auras.

5. To get the triggered spell mod, you need to find an veiled item and unveil it. If you see that mod, choose it immediately and it will appear on your crafting table (cost  3 poe chaos orb).

Expectations & POB

POB link: https://pastebin.com/ZuGQ4JNz

(If you do not know how to use it, see the instructions below, otherwise please ignore)

• Download Path of Building (link: https://github.com/Openarl/PathOfBuilding)
• Copy pastebin URL.
• Launch path of building.
• Click on Import/Export.
• Click Import from Pastebin
• Paste the URL copied in step 2.
• Done!