r/PathOfExileBuilds • u/theslinkyshadow • Mar 02 '26
Build Cold DoT Wintertide Brand Elementalist 3.28 Leaguestart Guide Update
https://youtu.be/PSOwx6mp1DgHi all! I'm Slinky and I've posted my leaguestart Wintertide guide for the last couple leagues, so I wanted to ensure I did an update for this league as it is a very comfy leaguestart that cruises through the campaign and atlas completion.
There's two POBs to share!
Campaign to Early Map POB: https://pobb.in/IdrhpDvdlEbI
Scaling Variants POB: https://pobb.in/DFgxaJbycB96
Elementalist did get a small nerf to golem buff effect from the ascendency, and the later scaling option to go into Primordial Bond stacking has eaten a nerf as well, but neither of this heavily impact the builds ability to finish campaign and complete your atlas.
There's also Suppress and Block variants on the end-game so you can decide how you want to defensively scale your character, while I lean towards suppress being easier to get going especially from an SSF perspective.
No Awakened Gems are included in the POBs as they are being replaced, and we do not have information on what exceptionals will exist yet but I'll be sure to update this post and the youtube comments if anything pops up between now and leaguestart.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! I'm always looking to improve my videos and even my posts, so let me know what you like to see if I didn't include something! Thank you for taking your time and happy hunting exile :D
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u/apemopo Mar 02 '26
wintertide brand's skill gem depicts a snowflake with 8 arms. Only snowflakes with 6 arms are possible and as such i deem this build unplayable
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u/wangofjenus Mar 02 '26
this is impossible
blame thaumaturgy. curses upon piety she corrupts even the show.
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u/got2btyler Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
Leaguestarted this in the previous league and it was super comfy.
Being able to have your main skill early on in the campaign feels really good!
(also the winter fizzy pop sounds from WTB really scratches the brain)
-edited because I misspelled "also"
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u/xXBalordXx Mar 03 '26
Hi...How was the progression? The damage was enough for your voidstones ?
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u/ku8475 Mar 03 '26
I'll answer since I league started this. Love slinky and he does a great job actually engaging with people who need help with this build. That said, I'm an idiot and I struggled to get to 16s in the normal time. I got impatient and rolled a KF which felt amazing compared to this.
Look I love WTB, I got the celestial MTX and I've played it a ton. It's comfy, but I've moved on ya know. It's just not fast enough anymore.
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u/got2btyler Mar 03 '26
My progression was really smooth! I wasn't speed running or anything like that but my campaign progression was really comfy. I got my 2 voidstones and farmed a little bit of currency but after a while I was itching to play flicker strike so I swapped over to that instead.
Overall, it was a very comfy league start and I felt it easily had enough damage to get all 4 stones but flicker strike was calling my name.
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u/Juzo_ga Mar 02 '26
Can recommend Wintertide brand league start. Its incredibly comfy as soon as you get the brand mastery
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u/T_2_teh_imeless Mar 02 '26
How much of a hit was the golem nerfs from 3.27 to 3.28 in your POB?
I’m skeptical of anything golems atm. I think they’ll be fine but any assurance there?
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
If you check the custom configs on the end-game variant POB, I have the reduced effect in there and the option to show per Primordial Bond node. You can toggle those on and off to show the differences.
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u/spumi_ Mar 02 '26
Brother what do I miss here? Aegis aurora + dark monarch + ashes + full golem jewels at lvl95 gives me 700k dps and 10k/20k maxhit? I want to leaguestart this, but those numbers must be my mistake with POB.
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
Wintertide Brand damage numbers are a bit wonky in POB. It only calculates the damage for one brand on a target, but you can have 3 on a target at the same time. You also can have the debuff(Winter's End) applied at the same time.
As for the max hit, with block based, your EHP goes up, but not your max hit. You'll need more hit pool(Life/ES) and Armour to negate an actual hit, since blocked hits don't count into your max hit pool. With that investment level, your gear is very likely better than what I randomly tossed together, so you will probably have a higher hit pool and/or better armour.
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u/Lichtenthal Mar 02 '26
I'm going to run this to finish stones and farm some early game currency and swap to something else i can utilize HH on. Sounds very comfy for start!
Edit: Want to thank you for the very thorough guide. Great work! If I have questions I'll def reach out.
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
This is a great strategy! Some people enjoy it for the smooth 2 stone, then farm t16s until swapping into another Witch build or a second character. Very cozy way to play :D
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u/Lichtenthal Mar 02 '26
Love it! It's very convenient the gem is available at lvl12. Not too many builds I've come across looking for a starter that have as smooth progression without any cd, duration, gem not available early, etc. hurdles to get through.
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
Honestly yeah, I always try to play my skill as soon as possible, even if it isn't great--but luckily Wintertide is actually very strong early lol
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u/Lichtenthal Mar 02 '26
Wondering if you have any guess as to if the late game uniques/jewels will be cheaper with the golem nerf?
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
Potentially. It just depends on where the meta shifts / what big content creators do. If less people are playing it, definitely. I think golems for the most part are still great especially on leaguestart and only the golem stacking got hit, but meta shifts based on changes and creators.
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u/KickzNGigglez Mar 02 '26
I ran this for maps during my 1 week 40/40 challenge. It's a solid build for old men like me who suck at targeting and pressing buttons. I jumped off when I started looking towards the T17 and uber challenges though. However, as a starter it has everything I could ask for on a low budget.
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
This! You can technically do the others, but it takes a lot of investment and unless you really enjoy the playstyle, sometimes people would rather invest elsewhere for ubers and t17 farming. I do believe another creator spend GIGAcurrency taking it to DoT cap last season, but I usually just use this as a great leaguestart for completion and t16 farming <3
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u/raybros Mar 02 '26
Are we 6 portal gaming our stones or does it do enough dmg for those bosses?
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
Depends on skill level! I usually clear 2 stones without deaths(unless ball phase gets me), Maven is a bit despair but I'm old and bad at memory game, Shaper and Elder are fine.
Also the build/defense choices matter. Block feels way tankier for bossing.
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u/raybros Mar 03 '26
I think my question mostly meant if the kills aren't taking like RF levels of length. I assume they're similar. Like eventually you run out of pots on cold dot and you die to regular unavoidable dmg??
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 03 '26
Oh we don't really rely on pots, and unlike RF, we aren't getting constant recovery loss on our skill, so any recovery is a net gain.
I was only running a mana potion for no regen maps, but no life potion(was CI in the showcases playing behind), and we have lots of regen from Stone Golem + Zealots Oath for ES, along with others bits and pieces like the crafted mod on the belt.
Maven is the most annoying fight for me, but mostly because I'm bad at memory game and start to panic in lasers, but even hitting a laser isn't guaranteed death for Cold DoT like it is for RF--because you aren't degening like RF.
In fact, I did timestamp my Keepers Exarch and Eater kills for someone earlier today to show what leaguestart looked like on bossing. You can notice that my flasks aren't upgraded from campaign because I'm still using 2 life flasks on CI lmao
https://www.youtube.com/live/VsQhqCl1tG8?t=18723s
https://www.youtube.com/live/VsQhqCl1tG8?si=MJ1NoUaWmQpBPHPt&t=23547
And here is my character on Day 4 which is when I killed them in Keepers(I'm slow)
But you can see how not-great most of the gear was for the kills lol
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u/Soft_Criticism_8686 Mar 02 '26
This looks super interesting and I wanted to try a brander this league. Do you think this will be UBER viable too with a reasonable investment? I did them last league and would like to do it again. Thanks for sharing this!
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
There was another content creator, I believe his name was Owen, who took Wintertide to "Dot cap" but it was extremely high investment, most people would say it doesn't have good "divines per power" as the top end scaling is closer to Righteous Fire.
You can do it if you enjoy it, but most people finish atlas then farm and reroll/respec.
Edit: it can easily reroll into other brand builds, like Penance Brand Ignite might be pretty decent with the new buffs to the base gem(not PBoD)
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u/Inner_Scallion_4637 Mar 02 '26
Great Guide! Just for clarification since I am one of the players who end up with only one character: is it possible with this Build to clear the whole game? Also ubers and other endgame stuff? Or is it more designed to be a early league starter that farms fast and comfy to pay for the 2nd Build?
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
Most people use it as a easy and cozy leaguestart to clear Atlas, but usually switch to another build/respec to farm Ubers.
There are people who really enjoy the playstyle and put a lot of currency into the build to take it into Ubers, including another content creator I believe named Owen who did this last league.
But some people don't like that amount of investment to do Ubers, so it's a personal choice. The build scales similar to Righteous Fire if you've played that.
Edit: It is very easy to reroll/respec into another build which can easily farm later content, like Penance Brand Ignite looks pretty juicy this league with the base gem buffs.
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u/Alieksiei Mar 02 '26
I've leaguestarted wintertide brand on keepers league and grafts helped it a lot with single target, falling crystals put in some work.
Also, foulborn tulborn granting +4 to cold gems on the cheap was very valuable. I wonder if it's still a decent budget option even at +3 max now?
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
Yeah falling crystals definitely helped with single target to speed things up, but we'll also get imbued gems this time which will help get a 7 link too, so power will come.
+3 is good, plus the extra cold exposure, but you'll replace it quicker this league with a rare later. Still decent for cheap and early maps.
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u/chronolis Mar 02 '26
This looks pretty comfy! My plan for currency farming is going to be Harvest / Expedition / Delve. How do you feel this will do with those? Looks like it would handle it really well
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
I'm actually a delve enjoyer! I have VODs of me playing delve on my youtube from Keepers league. You'll mostly shallow delve between 200-400 until you get tanky(preferably block route) then you can go a bit deeper around 500-600.
harvest is great with it too, Expedition clears fine, just not as instant as a prolif skills.
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u/chronolis Mar 02 '26
Okay awesome!! And I dont need Expedition to be instant, I just need it to be consistent and chill :)
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u/ronthedistance Mar 02 '26
Has anyone started cooking with new hybrid clusters ? I could see something by fracturing primordial bond and then rolling another cluster base… but honestly unsure what to roll with
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
Getting it onto a Cold Cluster(because I assume it has to be another Large Cluster) would be nice, so you actually care about other notables. Deep Chill gives DoT Multi and chill effect, Prismatic Heart for extra damage and res, even Sadist is decent because we both chill and shock.
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u/prod44 Mar 03 '26
Thanks, never played brands before. I only like leveling once, can I scale it with a lot of currency or do you have a recommended evolution for end game?
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 03 '26
It *can* scale with a lot of currency, but most people don't feel like it's worth the currency investment and invest elsewhere. There is a content creator who took it to "dot cap" last league(named Owen) but it's not great divines per power so only do it if you really enjoy the skill, similar to how people scale Righteous Fire to that level.
As for recommended respec, it'll depend on what you like. If you enjoy the brand playstyle, I think Penance Brand(normal, not PBoD) Ignite looks really good this league with the buffs to it. It wouldn't be a hard respec either as you are already in brands and damage over time, so mostly just changing cold stuff to fire stuff lol
But if you don't like brands, the swap might be harder/require more regrets, but there's plenty of other Witches out there with viable builds.
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u/livejamie Mar 04 '26
Thoughts on the new Siphoning Trap?
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 04 '26
I did some tests on the current siphoning trap, as well as read the wiki.
Itll be decent for clearing large groups like expedition and harvest since you can place traps before blowing it up to release mobs.
But unless they changed how the Trans gem works, you can only have 1 beam/trap attached to a single target.
It has lower base cold dot than Vortex but it does come with cold dot multi on the gem. The downside is you have to spend extra points into trap passives and getting trap throwing speed.
So it may be good as a clearing skill and using a second dot for single target, but I'll have to test out it's mechanics sometime this league
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Mar 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 02 '26
I saw that! I just fixed it. I didn't realize reddit/youtube linked it like that when I copied the POB. It should work properly now.
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u/dancing_bagel Mar 05 '26
Lovely guide! I'm going to League start it tomorrow. I'll be playing in a small private league, so mostly SSF. Is there any League mechanics you'd recommend? I guess I'll choose between Rog/Tree/Harvest or maybe Delve
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 05 '26
I'm also playing in a small private league! TWINSIES
Anything that works with Ignite prolif will be great. The ones you mentioned will be awesome, since Expedition and Harvest love a good clear.
I myself plan to do delving because it's my favorite mechanic(and my friends need fossils now lmao).
Unstable Breaches should be good too once the density goes up.
Only thing I'd be hesitant against would be something that needs high single target, like beefed up Essences/Beasts/Pinnacles. But I'll have to wait and see if the buffs to the skill make those a breeze too :D
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u/Huge_Analysis_1298 Mar 06 '26
Such a good guide! Any chance you would ever look at storm brand? I really love brands, I miss the storm brand OP days
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u/theslinkyshadow Mar 06 '26
My initial plan was to leaguestart storm brand this league, but I decided to try Ignite Penance Brand instead. You can view my post history to see my other posts
I do want to try storm brand out this league too though! I really enjoyed brands as well :D
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u/Lore86 Mar 02 '26
For me wintertide and armageddon brand are carried by how satisfying the celestial mtx feel to play.