TbXie's Winter Orb Hierophant Gear, Jewels & Flasks (PoE Necropolis)
Summary – TL;DR
As per usual, nothing matters more than capping your Elemental Resistance before anything else. This means modifiers on gear are subordinate to Resistances as long as you’re not capped. Since you’ll be running a decent amount of Unique items, it’ll be important to look out for a lot of resistances on your Rare pieces!
We’re providing you with an extensive analysis further down the page but chose to start off with an overview / recommendation.
Our recommendation:
Item Slot | Item Name |
Head | Corrupted +1 Power Charge Willclash |
Amulet | Citrine Amulet with +1 to Skill Gems, Crit Multi & Necessary Attributes |
Chest | Cloak of Defiance |
Gloves | Rare Gloves with Resistances, Life & Necessary Attributes |
Boots | Replica Inya's Epiphany |
Belt | Darkness Enthroned with Life, Damage, Resists & Attribute Jewels as necessary |
Rings | Rare rings with Life/Resistances, A single minus mana craft & A Fire/Lightning Damage craft |
Weapon | Tulfall |
Shield | Malachai's Loop |
For crafting Rare items, you can check out all the affixes that can roll on an item base, depending on its level, influence, and many other factors, using our affix tool.
Disclaimer
I usually don’t have build guides that rely on very specific & gimmicky things in gearing making most of my guides very accessible for veteran and new players alike. However, this guide does do some fun things with Gear to make combinations which are otherwise useless to most builds. I have put a lot effort into providing you with as many steps as possible, yet the build will work best if you have a baseline amount of currency. If not, and you’re trying to do this as a league starter or on the tighest of budgets, it’s mandatory to set correct expectations. The lowest of gearing options presented to you will probably cap out in white or yellow maps but was tailored so you could abuse the builds speed & map clear to farm up decent amounts of currency in those maps and snowball the build into higher tier content.
Armour Pieces
Helmet
This is a very straight forward item as we’re using a corrupted unique Willclash as one of the sources of maximum power charges the build requires. This can either be purchased, or self-corrupted. The average amount of corrupts necessary to hit this helmet is 40 however, as averages are only averages, this could vary very hard. I personally purchased a ton of well-rolled Willclashes and corrupted them myself until I hit it. If you’re opting into a non-grand spectrum version, to start this from virtually nothing, you don’t need this maximum power charge.
Body Armour
Another unique slot. As explaind, the mechanics between Petrified Blood, Eldritch Battery & Mind over Matter are fairly strong. Hierophant’s Ascendancy node already offers you a minuscule source of Mind Over Matter but in combination with Cloak of Defiance, this bumps up your maximum hit taken. This is important, as you generally will only die to oneshots. Again, before having currency to afford this, in lower tier content, the build is probably find with a generic chest.
Tip: If you’re not using a Cloak of Defiance, cause you can’t afford it, you probably dont’ have cluster jewels yet. In that case, you can path through mind over matter on the tree (Go to Mind over Matter from Templar, skip the north nodes with path to the Cluster Jewel, and pickup Arcanist Dominion & Frost Walker to connect to Cruel Preparation)
Gloves
The rare items this build uses are used to fix resistances & attributes. It is therefore incredibly hard to tell you exactly what you should do on specific items. You’re going to have to check what you need outof specific slots & work from there. I personally started with a pair of Gloves with a fractured Tier 1 resistance. No matter what, you’re going to be using Chaos Resistance Essences (envy) on them because you’ll need to make sure your Chaos Res is at least 0%, because you’re quite fragile to DoT’s. You’ll keep hitting the essences until you hit another good suffix (Tier 1 Strength, Dexterity or another resist) and you’ll finish off by crafting Life. Obviously, you could keep spamming until you hit a good life roll with that suffix and craft something like Damage while Leeching, but that’s a bit more advanced gearing tech.
Boots
Rarely I see myself mentioning a Unique item in the boot slot. In this case however, while stacking so many Power Charges, Replica Inya's Epiphany is just too good to pass up on. This pair of boots is super cheap, so you can probably easily pick one up with an enchant, while still grabbing max rolls on the other affixes. It gives you 50% movement speed, 50% increased damage, 5% Life Regen per second and a good amount of Life. Pretty solid piece of equipment!
Belt
Depending on the current state of the game, Darkness Enthroned can be a really good item. For me, it allowed me to grab Life & Resistances on jewels, mimicking a really solid belt, while still getting a single damage modifier. You could however easily aim for 4 stat jewels, if you’re looking to spend a bit more, which pushed DE even further ahead of a rare belt. If need be, a normal, rare belt, with some attributes & life can also work.
Accessories
Amulet & Rings
I decided to combine these because they basically follow the same rules. At first, these pieces should be used to cap your Resistances & Attribute requirements. However, with decent pieces, you’ll be able to do so whilst still finding some damage modifiers left and right. On your amulet, +1 (or +2) to Cold Skills / All Spell Skill Gems is a good damage modifier. Additionally, grabbing a good criticial strike multiplier roll here will be beneficial. On rings, you want to make sure one of your rings either has an open prefix or already has the Channeling Skills have -3 to Total Mana cost. The second one should either have an open prefix or Adds lightning and fire damage (not to attacks) to proc your Sadist Notable on your cluster jewel for maximum damage. If you have an open prefix you can craft these modifiers yourself.
Examples of these rares:
Anoint
As you have 11 Minimum Power Charges, you need to anoint Infused to get your 10th Maximum Power Charge. As mentioned before, the 11th Power Charge is too expensive to find.
Non-Grand Spectrum Starting Route
If you’re trying this build before you can afford at least a single Grand Spectrum that gives you Power Charges, the cap minimum power charges you will be able to obtain is 8. This is achieved through 4 from Hierophant, 1 from Disciple of the Forbidden on the tree & 3 from crafting suffixes on jewellery. This means that getting your resistances & attributes will be harder and you will most likely need to pick up some 30 nodes in the tree as well and grab some on jewels. This is fine as you’ll still be plenty strong to farm lower content for your Spectrums. (Check Path of Building – “Hyptothetical No Grand Spectrums gear & tree”)
Weapon
Easy pickings here. You’re using a Tulfall from start to finish. It just adds an absolutely ridiculous amount of Flat Cold damage and no longer has a downside because of our Minimum & Maximum Power charges juggle.
Shield
Another easy slot. Malachai's Loop was tailor-made for a build like this. Make sure your Minimum & Maximum Charges are equal. If you somehow end up in a non-equal situation, make sure you pick up the Charges Mastery that makes you immune to shock.
Flasks
I believe flasks are highly preference-based. One isn’t just outright better than another one for specific / certain builds. Obviously, sometimes, there’s a set in stone set of Flasks you should be using just because they synergize with your build so well. I wouldn’t say those really exist in this setup, but I’d strongly advise you to stick with the setup listed here.
When playing this build, I was considering a ton of unique Flasks to either boost damage or defenses. However, it ended up feeling very unnecessary. I want to, however, give a shoutout uto the absolutely best flask in the game (and also very expensive flask) which is Progenesis, the Flask from Uber Maven. If you can fit this in, it’ll increase the survivability by a lot, as far as I could tell. I however do not think it is necessary.
I went for a Granite Flask to boost my Determination a bit. Obvioulsy, don’t sleep on Flask modifiers (suffixes) as they are super strong in builds which can keep Flasks up indefinitely, such as fast mappers like this one. Next up, I went with a Diamond Flask and Sulphur Flask for damage. These push up your damage numbers which implies you’ll be able to clear screens more easily. Lastly, most importantly, speed. Getting a good Quicksilver Flask and Silver Flask is really important! Those round out your entire Flask-belt in the way I recommend setting it up.
Regardless of which utility Flasks you go for and whether you follow our recommendations or not, you’ll need to stick to the suffixes we have picked for you (Staunching, Warding). The affixes on your non-unique Flasks can be changed around, but I recommend the following setup (based on the Flask duration, charges, and affix priorities):
Our recommendation:
Slot | Flask |
1 | Flagellant’s Granite Flask of the Armadillo |
2 | Flagellant’s Diamond Flask of Incision |
3 | Flagellant’s Quicksilver Flask of the Cheetah |
4 | Flagellant’s Sulphur Flask of the Iguana |
5 | Flagellant’s Silver Flask of the Owl |
Be sure to check out our Flask Crafting Guide to learn everything you need to know about how to set up your non-Unique flasks.
Jewels
Jewels are basically what make this build. Without them, the end-game version of this build wouldn’t exist. I’ll start by mentioning the standard jewels.
Grand Spectrums
Let’s perhaps first explain a bit more thoroughly how these work as they’re usually confusing for newer players. Grand Spectrums add a certain effect per total Grand Spectrum equipped. This means that a GS which gives you ONE Minimum Power Charge per Grand Spectrum will give you THREE Power Charges if you run three Grand Spectrums. It doesn’t matter which Grand Spectrums you’re equipping, as long as you have three in total, that one GS with Minimum Power charge per Grand Spectrum will give you three.
This means that theoretically, either at start or at absolute bonkers gear, one of these should suffice. Let’s do some math together. Our maximum power charges are 10. They are obtained from the following sources: 3 from the base game (this is the standard), 1 from a corruption on your Helmet (4), 2 from your Shield (6), one from Hierophant’s Ascendancy (7) and three from the 3 maximum charges in the tree. Now, in order for the build to function properly, we need 10 minimum charges. We’re getting 4 of those from Hierophant, one from the tree (Disciple of the Forbidden) always. So we need to find another 5. Two Grand Spectrums would fix that, as they would give a combination of 6 (3 per jewel). This is honestly the easiest way to “fix” this “problem”.
However, this will not be possible without currency, as they’re mediocrely expensive. Without a single grand spectrum, the highest amount of minimum charges we can obtain is 8 (4 From Hierophant, 1 From Tree, 3 suffix crafts on Amulet/Rings). This means that with a Single Grand Spectrum we could also get to 10. This would require 4 from Hierophant, 1 from Tree, 3 from a Single Grand Spectrum and 2 from Suffixes on gear.
Lategame, I recommend running 2 Grand Spectrums with Minimum Power Charges and using a 3rd Grand Spectrum which adds 1 minimum Frenzy Charge per Grand Spectrum to get 3 Frenzy Charges too. This is by far the best GS to run in the third slot but usually is stupidly expensive. Before making that upgrade, you can run one that grants additional elemental damage per Grand Spectrum.
Militant Faith
Another upgrade you should make relatively fast. You need to buy a Militant Faith which says “converted by High Templar Dominus” as this one gives you the “Inner Conviction” Keystone. This keystone gives you more Damage per power charge of which we have a lot. This is a huge portion of your damage and should be purchased before making the transition to higher tier content. Ideally, you buy a Dominus one with 2 of the following modifiers:
- Increased Area Damage per 10 Devotion
- Increased Elemental Damage per 10 Devotion
- Increased Effect of non-curse Auras per 10 Devotion
Forbidden Flesh/Flame
At the end of your character’s progression, it’s possible to steal a very potent modifier from Inquisitor. If you can afford a Flesh & a Flame which Allocates Inevitable Judgement, you should do so.
Watcher’s Eye
Another fairly potent upgrade is a Watcher’s Eye that grants flat critical strike chance while affected by Hatred. This is mainly to boost the critical strike chance of your Herald of Ice which is greatly beneficial to making it chain off of itsself to enable greater screenwide clears.
Cluster Jewels
Again, I have to emphasize that picking up additional benefits to your Cluster Jewels is very important to achieve Resistance & Attribute requirements. You’ll be running 2 Large Cluster Jewels and 2 Medium Cluster Jewels.
Large Cluster Jewels
One of your Large Cluster Jewels needs Blast Freeze only obtainable on Cold or Elemental Clusters. Additionally, I recommend going for two Widespread Destructions for maximum Area of Effect, 2 Prismatic Hearts & a single Sadist. Do note that you need a source of Lightinig & Fire damage to active Sadist. Try and find copies that also give you some Resists or Attributes like shown underneath.
Medium Cluster Jewels
These are mainly focused on scaling Area of Effect. AoE is an important modifier because it helps Herald of Ice clear but also helps your Winter Orb projectiles overlap for maximum damage. You want a Magnifier & Vast Power notable on both of your Mediums. Again, try to find some with extra beneficiaries such as Attributes & Resistances.