[Top 5] Path of Exile Best Cold Builds (3.20.2)

Updated:

24 Apr 2023

5 – Von Vikton’s Ice Spear Totems Hierophant

Now this a build made for low budget that can scale insanely high with some minor-ish investment, and almost plays by itself. It’s not the best fit for all people, since Totem playstyle is an acquired taste, but it can absolutely do all content easily, if you know what you’re doing.

What Ice Spear Totems Excels in:

Great to League Start
Insane single Target damage
Simple to play, but not for everyone
Clears rather well
Can do all content in the game, including Uber bosses.

Pick Ice Spear Totems if you Like:

Totem playstyle
Dealing dozens and dozens of millions of damage
Hiding in a corner while your totems do your dirty work

Ice Spear Totems Hierophant full details:

This build makes excellent use of one of the new uniques added in patch 3.20, the Anathema ring, so your curse limit is equal to your maximum Power Charges. And because we’re a Hierophant, we quickly get 4 Power Charges, which is a simple and elegant fix to stacking as many curses as possible.
And that is quite impactful because of the changes GGG made surrounding curses, and how they are no longer reduced in effect against bosses, even if numerically, they’ve been mostly ‘nerfed’. So Anathema allows us to use Frostbite, Elemental Weakness, Sniper’s Mark and a long-forgotten curse that rose in popularity, Punishment, for massive extra damage against enemies at low life.
We’re also making use of both Coward’s Legacy (the biggest bulk of single expense, besides the helmet with Ice Spear Enchant, which is massive for DPS) in combination with Self-Flagelation and Soul Mantle, which not only grants us an extra totem and a 7th link to our main skill but also grants over 160% increased damage(up to 20% per curse on us), as well as enabling Pain Attunement for ‘free’. All you need to do is get curse effect reduction on yourself.

For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR_WXjmfeb4

4 – Zizaran’s Cold Dot Trickster

Having played this character as my third one in the league, and reaching level 95 within a couple days, I can safely say this has been of the most enjoyable builds I’ve played in years, due to the sheer level of comfort.

It can do pretty much all bosses (not ubers, unless you’re massively geared, and it’s not worth investing that much), and it’s particularly amazing at Sanctums, but also a fantastic mapper.

What Cold DoT Trickster Excels in:

Super safe and tanky
Buttery Smooth to play when you have all the main components
Extremely strong at crowd-controlling enemies
Perfect for League Starting, both HC and SC, as well as SSF and Ruthless viable.

Pick Cold DoT if you Like:

Using multiple spells for dealing your damage
Chilling, cursing and freezing your enemies into submission
Seeing the life of your enemies drain as they struggle to get to you
Buttery smooth playstyle.

Cold DoT Trickster full details:

The beauty of this build comes from the fact that you get so much power and safety from the passive tree with a couple items, that it makes most of the nuisances that PoE has a non-issue. It’s elemental ailment immune, Corrupted Blood Immune, Stun, Maim and Hindered Immune, as well as being super easy to cap your Chaos Resistance and getting some Poison Immunity with a couple jewels.
The biggest issue of the build, though, is single target damage. While you can clear all content (except Ubers) with relative ease, unless you invest a lot into getting +2 weapon, +2 amulet, lots of Cold DoT Multipliers on your jewels and gear, as well as scaling your curses, you’ll be sore for damage against Conqueror and Guardian’s level of damage.
Clearing with this build is fantastic and easy because Vortex kills as you walk. Using Creeping Frost and Cold Snap is also quick with the amount of Cast speed we have from so many Frenzy Charges.
Our tankyness comes from having a large health pool and a lot of ES on top, being a truly hybrid build, combined with full Trickster Spell Suppress, Ghost Shrouds, Wicked Ward, Escape Artist, and a buttload of Evasion.

For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJfWk11D98k

3 – Cast on Crit Ice Spear Occultist

This is what CoC Ice Spear looks like when you have near infinite budget, and can toy around with one of the best and most broken uniques introduced this league, Nimis. It’s a ring that makes it so all projectiles return to you, regardless of their travel. This means they can also double-hit and shotgun. However, it comes with a drawback (which isn’t a big drawback depending on the skill): it fires your projectiles in random directions.

What Cast on Crit Ice Spear Excels in:

Insane clearing.
Buttery smooth gameplay. You kill as you spin.
Amazing single-target damage.
Can clear all content.

Pick Cast on Crit Ice Spear if you Like:

Spinning to win
Erasing enemies from 2 screens away
Having your screen littered with your projectiles

Cast on Crit Ice Spear full details:

Nimis makes it so all your projectiles fire in random directions and then return to you, hitting enemies on their path once again. And since Ice Spear is an exceptionally quick projectile, and Sniper’s Mark creates over a dozen more projectiles, with Nimis, you’re dealing by sheer virtue of projectile count, a buttload of damage.
You can either go with a Cospri’s Malice as your weapon, or you can use a dagger with Vagan Mod to not worry about accuracy at all, while also getting a ton of good benefits, like Crit Multi, Crit Chance, +1all Cold (levels for spells are the best to increase their damage) and attack speed.
That is important because there are certain thresholds you wanna reach with CoC builds, those being 7.57 and 10.10 attacks per second (with all buffs active). So you need a quick weapon to reach that attack speed threshold (and not go over it), as it will significantly ruin your damage. Aim to get it as close but UNDER the point. As well as getting a ton of CDR is needed. 52% is required for 10 aps.

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/phasegrenade/CallMeKermitTheFrog?time-machine=week-3&i=1&search=time-machine%3Dweek-3%26skill%3DIce-Spear%26item%3DNimis%26sort%3Ddps

2 – Wardloop Ascendant

Made extremely popular in both Archnemesis and Sentinel League, this archetype revolves around a few unique mechanics to create a self-sustaining loop of carnage, that will essentially play by itself. It’s a fun build though not for all tastes.

What the Wardloop Excels In:

Fantastic clearing
Great single-target damage
Auto-targeting, walking simulator
Easy and fun to play

Pick Wardloop if you Like:

Unique specific mechanics
Self-damaging builds
Clearing without having to attack
Spending as much as you can and yet still needing more money.

Wardloop full details:

The build revolves around Olroth’s Resolve unique Iron Flask, which makes your Ward permanent while it’s in effect (and thus, you want to have 100% uptime on it), at the high cost of a 70% less Ward modifier.
This means you need a lot of Ward to make this effective, as you cast spells through self-damage. And you ignore that damage entirely because you have a large Ward pool (which is never broken because of the flask), but still trigger your Cast When Damage Taken.
The spell-feed-loop works, and it’s a delicate balance, with two To Dust jewels with the perfect amount of Reduced Skeleton Duration and a Catalised Heartbound Loop (hence the build’s name), which damages you when a minion dies. And we cast skeletons when we take damage, which are instantly ‘killed’ because their duration is almost 0, thus proccing the Heartbound Loop, and all our spells in a self-perpetuating loop.

For more information, check here: https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/alvinnguyen011/Alvinnnn?i=13&search=skill%3DCreeping-Frost%26sort%3Ddps

1 – K2Gaming’s Ice Trap Saboteur

One of my favourite builds of all time, having played multiple variations of it to mixed and great success, I had the joy of playing a variation I made following almost the exact same core tenets of this build, just a lot tankier and using a Mageblood (you don’t need it, I just love MB).

This build relies on stacking as many maximum Power Charges (and Endurance!!) in order to make the best out of Badge of the Brotherhood, and by being a supremely strong skill and using the absolutely busted reworked Heatshiver, it gains up to 130% Cold damage as Fire. With a single item!

What Ice Trap Saboteur Excels in:

Absolutely insane amounts of single-target damage (over 300 million!!!!!)
Good enough clearing, though this is straight-up a bossing character.
Surprisingly cheap to get it together (less than 40 divines).
Can league start with a tankier and more mapping oriented character and transition to Uber Bossing.

Pick Ice Trap Saboteur if you Like:

Pre-laying your traps to instantly phase all bosses (yes, all, even Ubers)
Dealing so much damage that your traps freeze not only the bosses but your screen as well.
Trap playstyle
Pretty flowers (MTX)

Ice Trap Saboteur Full Details:

As mentioned, this build uses the beyond-broken and unbalanced reworked unique Heatshiver, which grants your chill as fire damage. Since we easily hit 30% chill on any mob, we gain 30% Cold Damage Added as Fire (which is a LOT), but it has a second line that says that we gain 100% Cold Damage Added as Fire if the enemy is frozen! And we do freeze Ubers. Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds are very often instantly deleted and killed with this build.
It also makes amazing use of several synergistic uniques, like Badge of the Brotherhood, Void Battery, Ralakesh’s Impatience and Malachai’s Loop, as well as ‘stealing’ Assassin’s node Unstable Infusion, granting us yet another Maximum Power Charge. This means we reach 13 Power Charges and, because of Badge of the Brotherhood, 13 Frenzy Charges as well!
But the best thing is that with Ralakesh, we don’t need to care about generating those charges, as they’re always up when we are standing still, and we are always standing still when throwing traps. This pair of boots circumvents all the negatives of both Militant’s Faith keystone Inner Conviction, which grants 3% more Spell Damage per Frenzy Charge, at the cost of removing any form of generation of said charge, as well as Malachai’s Loop downside, of losing all Power Charges when we reach maximum charges.

For more information, check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFUPqmDNW80