[3.17] In-Depth Ice Spear CoC Occultist Build Guide

Hello to you beloved Path of Exile community,

This is my second build guide of Ice Spear CoC. My very first guide was Scion.

As some of you might know, I had my very first build guide back in 3.14 with Ice Spear CoC Scion build and I got tremendous amount of excellent feedbacks. First of all, thank you very much about that. If you wonder, you should check it out! https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3126170

After 3.14 Ultimatum, I took a break and didn't play at 3.15 Expedition and played for a while at 3.16 Scourge. Then I completely came back for 3.17 Archnemesis & Siege of the Atlas Expansion. Before starting the guide, I want to mention that this league mechanic might be a little monotone but the new Atlas expansion felt completely refreshing and I pretty much liked everything about it.

The base line for the need to create this guide is:

- Scion is no longer suitable for Ice Spear CoC mana based builds because of changes for both items and the tree itself.
-I could not find a proper source for Occultist CoC with Ice Spear skill. There are lots of sources for Ice Nova skill though but Ice Spear is way, way better. We can explain these differences later.

Ascendancy Choice: Why Occultist?

- Free additional curse. Can't we have additional curse through other ways? In theory we can. But let's see how inefficient these ways are:

1) Amulet Corruption? Good luck about this. You cannot find it on the market %99 of the time, even if you find it, add. Curse Presence of Chayula would be absurdly expensive.
2) Whispers of Doom? Waste of 3 points. With a build with 2 Large Cluster wheels, wasting 3 points is just too much. Also we must anonint Essence Sap to solve our mana leech problem permanently. So this is also not an option.

- Crazy amount of AoE and damage through power charges. All AoE need is done with single ascendancy node.

- Free Chill & Freeze immmunity and Chill & Freeze ability.

APS & Cooldown Recovery Rate Relation, Calculations

In my building choice, we prefer %52 CDR in total. But to make this work, we also need 10.1 APS maximum(attacks-per-second).

- If you exceed this APS, your Ice Spear trigger rate will not catch up and you will lose DPS.
- If you have less APS, trigger rate will be too low and you will lose DPS, again.

So, optimum attack rate would be between 10-10.1

How to Build

To Reach %52 Cooldown Recovery Rate

- Belt (T1 Shaper; %16-20)
- Boots (T1 Shaper; %10-15)
- Awakened CoC Skill Gem (Level 5; %22)

To Have 10-10.1 APS

- %14 Attack Speed (Max.roll) Cospri's Malice
- 3x Eye to Eye & Repeater Medium Cluster Jewel
(Repeater gives %8 Attack Speed)
- 1x Pressure Points & Quick Getaway Medium Cluster Jewel
(Quick Getaway gives %5 Attack Speed)
- Unnatural Instinct (Near Harrier node on the tree, take two minor spell damage nodes and get max. attack speed. If you take two minor attack speed nodes, Unnatural Instinct will ignore those nodes. Please read Unnatural Instinct in case if you do not know the jewel.)

If you meet the requirements above, you shouldn't get any other attack speed from anywhere. No attack speed on rare jewels!

Before Awakened CoC?

Awakened CoC is level 80. Before %52, previous Cooldown breakpoint is %14. If you have at least %14 Cooldown Recovery Rate with a belt or boots, your max. APS limit is now 7.57 instead of 10.1. Do NOT exceed 7.57. You can check it with trying on PoB. You can't see it in game properly. You might use lower Attack Speed Cospri's and/or have one less Cluster jewel to lower the attack speed.
(PoB -> Calcs. -> Socket Group: Ice Spear, Cyclone -> Active Skill: Cyclone, Attack Cast Rate)
(Do not forget to tick Tailwind, Onslaught and power charges in Configuration tab!)

General Itemization

I will mention the most important/mandatory items/mods and optional choices in order.

Body Armor

Shavronne's. BIS Low Life Item.

Best single corruption is +2 Proj. skills, if you have enough money to min max later.

This build uses 4 Green, 1 Red, 1 Blue with Shavronne's (full blue armor)

Coloring trick is use Crafting bench to have 3 Green Sockets guaranteed and use Harvest Craft via Discord and buy Non-Green to Green Socket and hope for the good result. If fails, try again. You can solve alternate out comes with Non-Blue to Blue etc.

Main Hand

Cospri's Malice, mandatory. BIS CoC item, no need to explain right? Cold Damage to spells mod is important and as mentioned above, attack speed choice depends on your level and current attack speed sources.

Best Corruption: Skills fire add. proj.

Off Hand

Prism Guardian, mandatory for low life mechanic. Reservation Efficiency is great to use too many auras with life reservation.

Best Corruption: +2 Aura gems.


Helmet

Rare ES Helmet or Blizzard Crown w/ Ice Spear add. proj. enchant is completely fine alone.

Best additional mods are +1 to max. power charges and nearby enemies -%cold res. If you can't afford those additional mods, you better try new Eater of Worlds/Searing Exarch mods. Example: %Damage per power charge (Searing Exarch)


Amulet

Presence of Chayula, mandatory. We are playing a LL (Low Life) build. Free Stun immunity, ES conversion, Huge Chaos res.

Anointment: Essence Sap

Rings

Circle of Fear, good but optional.

%Cold Damage & Herald of Ice Buff Effect is the only option here. I recommend using this. If you can find or afford, there are good implicit options like Crit. multi, %ES etc.

Rare ring w/ Frostbite curse. I always try to get as much as resistance from ring to be free for other items. So additional mods are resistances and energy shield here for me.

Additional offensive mods if you can afford: Cold dmg to spells against chilled or frozen enemies, crit. multi.

Belt

Rare Shaper Belt (ideally Crystal Belt) with Cooldown Recovery Rate. Cooldown recovery rate is the only mandatory mod here.

Additionally, try to get flat ES, %ES from Body armour mods here.

Gloves

Rare ES Gloves with ES and Damage against chilled enemies temple mod. Just like rings, gloves are a good and cheap option for resistances.

There are good new implicit choices here. (For example: %Crit. Chance for attacks - Searing Exarch, Cold exposure on hit - Eater of Worlds)

Boots

Rare Boots (ideally Two-Toned) with Cooldown Recovery Rate, Tailwind. Not to mention that high movement speed is always excellent. You do not need to get onslaught here because it is onslaught on kill, not hit. Which is completely useless for boss fights. So we will use Cinderswallow anyways.

Flasks

Dying Sun. Ice Spear insanely scales with additional projectiles. No need further explanation.

Bottled Faith. The best crit. flask and we are playing a Cast on Critical Strike build.

Quicksilver Flask. Mods depend on you but my choice is Reduced Duration-Increased Effect and Spell damage ES leech.

Diamond Flask. We need to completely cap our crit chance. Do not forget to take T1 %Increased Critical strike chance during flask effect suffix here.

Cinderswallow Urn. Instant onslaught, not on hit/kill. Recover %ES on kill mod is worth to mention.

A quick note, you should get %Increased effect flask enchantments for unique flasks.

Jewels

Unnatural Instinct, kinda mandatory. you save sooo many points. Place this jewel to the left of Harrier node.

Watcher's Eye. %Hatred base Crit. Chance mod is mandatory here. Try to get above %1,7. If you have the currency, go for ES gain on hit Discipline mod as secondary. It's insane survivability.

Militant Faith (High Templar Dominus - Inner Convinction). Options are up to your play style but I prefer %Ele Dmg and %Ele Res per 10 Devotion. Place this jewel to the right bottom of The Agnostic node and take The Agnostic because it will turn into Inner Convinction.

2x Large Cluster (Blanketed Snow, Prismatic Heart, Disorienting Display)

We are not getting Prismatic Heart here. It is there to get Blanketed Snow with less skill point investment.

Blanketed Snow is perfect because of cold pen.
Disorienting Display is decent because of %Ele Dmg and Blind chance stacks.

3x Medium Cluster Jewel (Eye to Eye, Repeater)

Repeater is kinda mandatory to have the required attack speed.
Eye to eye is perfect because of proj. damage.

1x Medium Cluster Jewel (Pressure Points, Quick Getaway)

This Cluster is mandatory because of huge crit. chance it gives. Quick Getaway also gives attack speed as well, as mentioned above.

Thread of Hope (Large). This is not mandatory but so cheap and we pretty much should get Heart of Ice and Arcane Focus in this build. You place this jewel to the right of Instability (+1 max. power charges) node.

For rare jewels, go for %ES, Crit multi with ele. skills, crit multi with cold skills.
If you lack attack speed for some reason, you can obviously take attack speed too.

Gems

6L : Anomalous Ice Spear - Divergent Cyclone - Awakened Added Cold - Awakened CoC - Awakened Greater Multiple Projectiles - Anomalous Inspiration

Prism Guardian : Hatred - Grace - Zealotry

Helmet : Discipline - Skitterbots - Herald of Ice - Flame Dash

Main Hand : Freezing Pulse - Power Charge on Crit - Frost Bomb

Gloves : Vortex - Bonechill - Unbound Ailments - Arcane Surge

Boots : Mark on Hit - Assassin's Mark - Precision - Summon Ice Golem

Happily, we do not need Enlighten for this gem setup here if you do not forget these wheels on the tree:

- Reservation Mastery (Inc. mana reservation efficiency of skills)
- Reservation Mastery (Inc. life reservation efficiency of skills)


Notes:

Anomalous Ice Spear? Projectiles pierce additional targets.
Divergent Cyclone? Movement speed.
Awakened Added Cold (Level 5)? +1 level of supported cold skill gems.
Awakened CoC? Cooldown Recovery Rate as mentioned before.
Awakened GMP? Additional projectile.
Anomalous Inspiration? Crit chance.

There are other good alternate quality options that you can explore yourself, check PoB at the end of the guide below or poeninja.

Strength - Dexterity Issue

You need 212 Dexterity to use Cospri's Malice and 85 Strength to use Prism Guardian. Strength is not a big problem but Dexterity is.

You will have 4 rare jewel sockets in total. You can get Strength and Dexterity from there. But this probably won't be enough. You can get T1 Dexterity roll from your rare ring or one of your gear pieces. We don't have a mandatory or expensive mod for our gloves so it might be easier to find a good gloves with T1 Dex.

After getting T1 Dex gloves and rare jewels with Dex mods, you can get a big 30 Dex node near Throatseeker on the tree as a last option.

%100 Hit Chance, Accuracy

To have a good CoC build, your Hit chance must be %100, not 99. Some price efficient tips below:

- Precision Level 21
- Anomalous Ice Golem Level 21 (Anomalous increases the buff effect)
- Accuracy per quality weapon enchantment (you can get %28 Weapon Quality with Syndicate)

In addition to those tips above, you might want an Accuracy roll from one of the gear pieces to reach %100 Hit Chance. Check it yourself.

%100 Crit Chance

Again, we need %100 Crit Chance, not 99. Major requirements below:

- Bottled Faith w/ at least %140 roll
- Diamond Flask w/ T1 Crit chance roll
- Watcher's Eye w/ Hatred base Crit (ideally above %1,7)
- Pressure Points, Quick Getaway (Medium Cluster Jewel nodes)
- Anomalous Inspiration Support Gem
- Max. Level Ice Golem & Precision (Ideally Level 21)
- 20 Quality Cast on Critical Strike Gem
- Disciple of the forbidden wheel on the tree (crit chance per power charge)
- Sovereignity (non-curse aura effectiveness)
- Assassin's Mark Skill Gem

Leveling?

You can level however you feel good and safe. I generally level Witch characters Tabula/Goldrim/7LeagueStep/Lochtonial/Lifesprig.

I used Vortex and Cold Snap while leveling.

PoB

https://pastebin.com/FrZxn9Fu

Low Life Transition Level?

70 is fine.

Tree Priorities

Pain attunement after transition, Sovereignty w/Reservation Mastery, Influence w/Reservation Mastery, Leadership, + max. power charges nodes, Unnatural instinct, Militant faith, 1 Large Cluster setup, Disciple of the forbidden, Ghost dance if your Grace skill level is high.

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If you have further questions, feedbacks or if I forgot something, do not hesitate to contact me here.

With my best regards,

Stay safe, exile!

Hey there!

The build looks nice, im thinking to swap my skeleton mages to a CoC Ice spear build.

Are you able to do all content with your current gear?
How about delirium 30?

"

Warsong87 wrote:

Hey there!

The build looks nice, im thinking to swap my skeleton mages to a CoC Ice spear build.

Are you able to do all content with your current gear?
How about delirium 30?

This build is a kind of glass cannon, you pretty much annihilate everything before they kill you. And when you look at PoE contents in general, this type of build works very well, maybe except Delirium 30. I only tried once and failed on 28th wave.

Other than that, I cleared every content first try. For example, The Feared w/ +%80 Quant, The Hidden w/ Pure encounters etc.

A quick note, there are certain map mods that MUST be avoided. I am going to add those to the guide.

Hi, im following your build guide but seem like my trigger rate got trouble, slowly kill mapss boss and sure im die often when maping :(
here my POB: https://pastebin.com/yrNfVUaT
can your help to check? big thanks

Yop.

Nice guide with explanations of choices.

I'm trying to do test this build, and i have some questions.

First about defense layers:
_ignite remove/immune
_bleed remove/immune (flask are uniques or without bleed/ignite immune)
_is not better to cast determination instead of grace, if you explored this option.

Second about mechs of the build:
_how to crit cap (100% crit chance on cyclone) without flask enchant "cannot gain charges during flask effect" or something.
_how to deal with maps with "reduced cooldown recovery" and map mods in general
_how to solve mana problem, do you spam vortex on "move" click (especialy in no regen maps)
_what is the main source of power charge generation, 200 mana spend (ascendency) or power charge on crit on cospri's

Last for QoL:
_is the build good to wear HH (even if we lost CDR on belt)
_i hate cast golem every time and this minion die too much, can i set up a cwdt or something ? should i delete vortex ? (cast on death portal ?)

I just buy some items, spend about 20ex i think on this build (i had some gear from vortex occ), and i really like the gameplay and i know it requires more investment to be smooth, but mapping is chill and sweet, i just hate to die.

i gonna implement and test my self obviously, but if you have some advices i take them!
Thanks for the job, i hope you (and maybe me) gonna push the build to its limit in 100% deli full juiced map!

Stay safe exile.

"

tuongminh2017 wrote:

Hi, im following your build guide but seem like my trigger rate got trouble, slowly kill mapss boss and sure im die often when maping :(
here my POB: https://pastebin.com/yrNfVUaT
can your help to check? big thanks

I took a look on your pob, all seems good: aps and crit chance, except a bit of CDR on the belt (maybe you find this 3% in an other way).

So if you press (and keep) your flask on boss, it should be deleted with 37m shaper dps. Or i miss something with AoE and second projectiles don't hit the boss ? I forgot to mention AoE mechs (if good or not for bossing/clearing) in my previous post.

Btw it's really nice gear exile!
I hope you gonna find a way to enjoy the build.

Stay safe exile.

Im having a hard time figure out how to get my damage to 37 million

I have a mildly scuff version currently, but i thought i'd be doing more damage than i am.

I'm putting items into pob and testing but my dmg isn't really getting beyond 18-20.

I'm a bit lost on what items i should go for as my next big upgrade.

Things i think i need still:

21 gems
better watchers eye, they're just so expensive.
implicit on the armor/shield
Maybe a different helm? get the ice damage vs just my standard hubris.
-EDIT- and different large clusters, i have 2 passive cheap ones

but even with those... my dmg only goes up a couple mil. Is there something i might be completely overlooking?

Is it ok to level up with this passive tree or should I go a different way?
Great guide!

can anyone tell me what am i doingo wrong? i cant reach the trigger rate cap.

my current pob

https://pastebin.com/tFEgSqcV

thanks.

I just sold off my necro mage build and thought of trying this and bought everything for the build and it feels absolutely horrible to play. It's so damn squishy and I die to every little thing. I was already skeptical because of the defensive layers, but they're a lot worse than I thought they'd be. This is my POB https://pastebin.com/68E73L1q

The dps is definitely there and I've already done some guardian invitations, but it still feels way worse than the ice nova assassin I played a few leagues ago with 1/10 the investment.

I was thinking about switching skitter out for temp shield, and maybe grace for determination and one of the vortex links for molten shell as well as some of the flasks for armor ones. Maybe move around some of my tree, but really not sure.

Either this is just like what my friend said where it's just a poe.ninja dps showoff build with horrible playability and I got suckered or I'm doing something wrong. It's the first league I've actually saved up over 100 ex for something and it just feels bad that I spent all this time grinding just to be disappointed.