Cold Dot Elementalist League Starter Gear Progression, Important Milestones, Budget Items, Jewels & Crafting.
Milestones
The Item Progression in Path of Exile is not as rigid as in most other games. Unique Items can provide easy upgrades early, but overall your gear mostly consist of Rare Items. This means that flexibility is key. The game won't always give you exactly the item you are looking for, so you need to adapt. Even if small upgrades seem insignificant, the sum of them decides whether your character fails or succeeds.
If you want full context to everything, watch my fully detailed Video Guide on Youtube as well. It is linked at the end of the article! You can also check out my stream on twitch.tv/Tripolarbear and ask me questions or simply hang out!
Early Game Goal
Your goals in the early game are to establish skill setups by socketing, linking and colouring your gear appropriately and to start leveling Gems.
Since you are wearing "Act Gear" at this point, you need to focus on upgrades to get the necessary Attribute Requirements and cap your Resistances.
Milestone 1 - Capped Resistance + Life
Your very first focus when you hit maps is to upgrade all of your gear to have Resistance AND Life on almost every slot. You can do this by picking up every Rare item that has Energy Shield (to make coloring easier), or to find Evasion Rating/Energy Shield bases for a bit of Evasion Rating and a chance at a Suppression roll which you need 3 of to cap. Use the following Essences you may find on those bases:
- Screaming Essence of Greed
- Screaming Essence of Hatred
- Screaming Essence of Anger
- Screaming Essence of Wrath
- Finish the item by crafting Life or Hybrid Elemental Resistances. The Syndicate Hybrid Chaos + Elemental Resistance craft is a very easy way to get your Chaos Resistance to at least 0%.
Do this throughout your early mapping experience. Track which slot is your weakest and upgrade it through Essences, purchasing from the trade site, or by picking a better piece off the ground. For any gear that isn't an upgrade, throw it in a premium tab at 2 Chaos Orbs each (unless many people PM you for it. Then you must figure out its real price). Later you can vendor all those items for Orb of Alteration, or complete the Chaos Orb recipe (vendor 1 item of each gear slot) if they don't sell.
Milestone 2 - Flasks
Flasks are a significant part of your defence. You need every single one of the following:
- Silver Flask
- Quicksilver Flask
- Granite Flask
- Jade Flask
- Divine Life Flask
Craft your Flasks by first using an Orb of Transmutation on White Flasks and then alternating between using Orb of Alteration and Orb of Augmentation until you hit the following mods on your Quicksilver Flask, Silver Flask, Granite Flask and Jade Flask (any of the below mods can be on any of the flasks you're rolling):
- Increased Evasion during Flask effect.
- Increased Armor during Flask effect.
- Reduced Effect of Curses on you during Flask effect.
- Increased Attack/Cast Speed during Flask effect.
When rolling your Divine Life Flask you want Grants Immunity to Bleeding if used while Bleeding. The easiest way to obtain this is through a beast craft that adds an "of Sealing" modifier to your Life Flask after you Orb of Alteration spam one of the following modifiers onto your Divine Life Flask:
- 46% reduced Amount Recovered / 135% increased Recovery rate / 50% of Recovery applied Instantly
- 66% reduced Amount Recovered / Instant Recovery
- 21% reduced Amount Recovered / Instant Recovery when on Low Life
After picking up or purchasing 20 Instilling Orbs and Glassblower's Baubles, check the Crafting Bench and craft Used when charges reach full so that you no longer need to press your Flasks, other than your Life Flask, while mapping.
Milestone 3 - Uniques
Purchase a Mark of Submission as soon as you can, and put your Frostbite into it for easy application of one Curse. When you obtain this item, feel free to spec into Whispers of Doom and use Elemental Weakness on bosses to shred even more Resistances.
An Elevore is a great early pick up to help cap your Chance to Suppress Spell Damage. You also obtain Recover (100-200) Life when you Suppress Spell Damage, which is a great way to mitigate a lot of early Spell Damage. Try to purchase a roll close to 200, since that is the most important roll on the Helmet.
Milestone 3.5 - Syndicate Unveil
This build needs a few modifiers only obtained by unveiling them from Syndicate encounters. These are the modifiers you should look to unveil on your journey through the Atlas, with Syndicate missions or random encounters:
- 6% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire/Lightning Damage (Gravicius Body Armour)
- Cold/Fire/Lightning Damage over Time Multiplier (Weapons)
- #% increased Movement Speed / #% chance to gain Onslaught for 4 seconds on Kill (Boots)
- +1 to Minimum Endurance Charges (Rings)
- Hybrid Chaos/Elemental Resistance (All Gear)
- #% reduced Effect of Chill and Shock on you (Gloves)
- #% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments (Amulets)
Milestone 4 - 5-Link Body Armour
You probably don't have enough Energy Shield to cast your Hatred with Eldritch Battery. That's OK! Just wait until you do later on in the build, as you don't need that additional damage just yet. Obtain Energy Shield bases on a few slots just to make sure you have enough to cast your basic abilities. Purchase a 5-linked (or 6-linked if you can afford) Body Armour base and craft your own with Screaming Essence of Greed, Screaming Essence of Hatred, Screaming Essence of Anger or Screaming Essence of Wrath. Or purchase/craft one with the following modifiers (one of which can be from the Crafting bench):
- +60 to maximum Life
- At least 2 +29% to Cold/Lightning/Fire Resistance
Milestone 5 - New Sceptre + Shield
Purchase any Sceptre base with one of the following modifiers:
- 69% increased Spell/Cold Damage
- +1 to Level of all Cold Spell Skill Gems
- +12% to Damage over Time Multiplier
Finish this Item by crafting +19% to Cold Damage over Time Multiplier.
Purchase any Shield base with one of the following modifiers
- 69% increased Spell/Cold Damage
- +1 to Level of all Cold Spell Skill Gems
Finish this Item by crafting +70 to maximum Life.
Milestone 6 - Amulet
Your Amulet can be a great source of Strength, Dexterity and Damage over Time Multiplier. Try to purchase an Amulet on a Citrine Amulet base with 15%+ Damage over Time Multiplier and an open Prefix to Craft Life or 30% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments.
Anoint Ash, Frost and Storm with the following Oils:
Sepia Oil
Crimson Oil
Crimson Oil
Milestone 7 - Quality Bases
Now that your Gear and Character have been properly triaged, focus now on higher quality bases and modifier dense upgrades. Amethyst Ring as your Ring base and Stygian Vise for your Belt should be priority's in those 2 Gear slots. Keep picking up Evasion Rating or Evasion Rating/Energy Shield Boots and Gloves to obtain a few Suppression rolls combined with Resistance an Life. Even a low amount of Spell Suppression is still very useful (85% Suppression chance is MUCH better than 70%).
All Bases should have Resistances and Life at this point, but now you want more than just the bare minimum. Obtain the following additional modifiers on your gear:
- 6% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire/Lightning Damage (Prefix Crafted onto Body Armours)
- +6% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (Gloves and Boots)
- #% increased Movement Speed / #% chance to gain Onslaught for 4 seconds on Kill (Prefix Crafted onto Boots)
- +1 to Minimum Endurance Charges (Suffix Crafted onto Rings)
- #% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments (Suffix Crafted onto Amulets)
Milestone 8 - Lesser Eldritch Ember and Lesser Eldritch Ichor
Once you have Quality Boots and Gloves, spend a few Chaos Orbs and roll Lesser Eldritch Ember on your Boots for the Scorched Ground while moving modifier and Lesser Eldritch Ichor on your Gloves for the Inflict Cold Exposure modifier UNLESS you already have Eye of Malice, then you should roll .2% of Cold Damage Leeched as Life as your Helmet already provides a source of Cold Exposure.
Your goal here is to cap your chance to Suppress Spell Damage, Level your Skill Gems to 20/20 (and corrupt main Gems to Level 21). Your 2nd goal is to make Damage upgrades to prepare for more difficult content like Altar Farming.
Milestone 1 - +1 Shield
Replace one of your Sceptres with a Shield, but don't spend more than 2 Divine Orb, that has one of the following modifiers on it alongside Life AND an open Suffix to craft (8-10)% chance to Suppress Spell Damage:
- +1 Level of all Cold Spell Skill Gems
- 70%+ increased Spell Damage
- 70%+ increased Cold Damage
Milestone 2 - 6-Link Body Armour
Next purchase a 6-Linked Energy Shield/Evasion Rating based Body Armour Item Level 73+ and roll it with ~20 Screaming Essence of Greed until you roll any tier of Chance to Suppress Spell Damage and finish it with the Craft (5-6)% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire and Lightning Damage. Finish your Body Armour by rolling it with Lesser Eldritch Ember and Lesser Eldritch Ichor for (9-10)% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills and Determination has (19-21)% increased Aura Effect.
If your Body Armour doesn't have any Resistances, that's OK and you should try and gear around not having Resistances in this slot because you will upgrade this later to a Skin of the Lords.
Milestone 3 - CB Immunity
Purchase and socket a Rare Jewel with any useful modifier (Dexterity, Resistances, Damage or Life) alongside the Corrupted Implicit Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you. This helps you prevent a lot of sudden loss of Life to the DoT and makes mapping much smoother.
Milestone 5 - Check Point
This is a check point. You must pull over and look at all of your gear. Making sure you have all of the following:
- Rolled Flasks that each have a useful modifier (eg: increased Armour/Evasion rating, reduced Effect of Curses on you). Make sure to use the Crafting Bench to add Use When Full to ALL Utility Flasks.
- 50+ to Maximum Life on each Rare gear slot (It's OK if you don't have this on your Amulet).
- Suppression of at LEAST 90%+ (or are pathing towards the nodes that will cap you)
- Close to 0%+ Chaos Resistance
- Purchase Eye of Malice if you've not already
Milestone 6 - Amulet and Sceptre Upgrade
Upgrade your Amulet by purchasing a base that has at least:
- +1 to Level of all Cold/All Skill Gems
- +10% to Damage over Time Multiplier
- Open Suffix to Craft (23-30)% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments
Upgrade your Sceptre by purchasing one with 2 of the following modifiers and an Open Suffix to Craft +(18-20)% to Cold Damage over Time Multiplier:
- +1 to Level of all Cold/All Skill Gems
- +10% to Damage over Time Multiplier
- 50% Increased Cold/Spell Damage
- 25% Increased Damage over Time
Milestone 7 - Rare Jewels
Rare Jewels can assist your Resistance or Stat needs, and if those are already taken care of you can obtain a Jewel with this link. Change the modifier count to find cheaper, or more expensive options.
Milestone 8 - Gem Upgrades
An easy and impactful upgrade is to obtain Level 21 Gems, Awakened Gems and Alternate Quality Gems. Purchase the following if they're no more than 1 Divine Orb each.
- Level 21 Creeping Frost and Vortex
- Awakened Swift Affliction Support, Awakened Controlled Destruction Support and Awakened Elemental Focus Support for your main Gem Setup (Creeping Frost and Vortex)
- Level 21 Determination and Grace
- Anomalous Molten Shell
At this point all of your Gems should be Level 20, with all damage supports also at 20% Quality.
Milestone 9 - Watcher's Eye
Depending on how quickly you're progressing through this build on league start, you may be able to purchase a Watcher's Eye with a good modifier or two. Some of the ones I recommend for this build are:
- % additional Physical Damage Reduction while affected by Determination
- % chance to Evade Attack Hits while affected by Grace
- % to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence
- % increased Cold Damage while affected by Hatred
Milestone 10 - Stygian Round 2
At this point your Gear is probably getting pretty tight on Resistance/Stat needs. The endgame is going to get even tighter, but a great spot to obtain some flexibility is the Belt. Make sure you obtain as much Resistance here as possible. An easy way to do that is to purchase a belt with 2 Resistance mods + Life then Crafting a 3rd Resistance, or 3 Resistance mods and then Crafting Life. As for the Abyss Jewel you want to make sure you pick up 5% chance to gain Phasing for 4 seconds on Kill combined with Resistance/Dexterity to help free up other slots.
Your goal in the End Game is to equip Legacy of Fury while still capping your chance to Suppress Spell Damage, obtaining more damage and over capping your Fire Resistance against Red Altars.
In the Endgame Version you have multiple Body Armour options depending on prices. Make sure to read the Milestone to decide which Body Armour you choose!
Milestone 1 - Suppression Without Boots and Body Armour
This gear setup is meant to enable the use of Legacy of Fury, which adds an explosion like mechanic to this build and no longer requires you to step underneath enemies to apply the Scorch debuff.
You also need to obtain enough Suppression Chance to drop your Body Armour for Skin of the Lords or one of the other choices. To make this swap easier, don't swap just yet and instead understand that you're gearing is strict in the next few milestones.
Milestone 2 - Drop Mark of Submission and obtain a Curse on Hit Ring
Purchase one of these 3 options of a Frostbite on Hit Ring to replace the Resistance/Stats you have on your Body Armour/Boots. You will lose damage since it will now curse with a level 1 version, but it will make gearing SO much easier.
- Synthesized Frostbite on Hit Implicit.
- Fractured (or normal) Delve Frostbite on Hit
- These can drop Fractured in Delve, or normally in Delve. Fractured just allows an easy Craft
- Redeemer Influenced Frostbite on Hit
If you obtained the Synthesized or Fractured base, you need to Craft this with Screaming Essence of Sorrow or Essence of Delirium if you have more Currency. If you purchase the other bases, you must purchase them with the additional Resistances or Stats that you need or can Craft onto them.
Milestone 3 - Glove Upgrade
To give a damage boost to your Vaal Cold Snap and Cold Snap and to help Cap your Suppression in future steps follow the Crafting instructions bellow:
Milestone 4 - Shield Replacement
This is your last chance to cover the hole that your Body Armour and Boots will leave in your Resistance/Stat needs. Make sure you cap Suppression with your Shield + Gloves. An easy way to squeeze a bit more out is to obtain any of the Yellow (Ornate Spiked Shield) or Metal (Burnished Spiked Shield) Spiked Shield Bases that have an implicit 5% chance to Suppress Spell Damage. Make sure whatever you purchase has Life, or an open Prefix to Craft it!
Milestone 5 - Body Armour Swap
A 3 Blue 1 Green 2 Red colored Skin of the Lords with a Keystone that is not detrimental to your build is the best in slot Body Armour for damage but has been very expensive in past leagues. Instead, you can opt for a Cloak of Flame or Lightning Coil Corrupted with +2 to Level of Socketed AoE/Duration Gems OR +1 Level of Socketed Gems if you're using Empower Support.
To decide which Body Armour to use, you simply purchase one based on your budget. If you have the currency for a properly colored Skin of the Lords, purchase that and gear around it. Otherwise the next cheapest is the Lightning Coil with the proper Corruption. If you opt for Lightning Coil, you must obtain additional Lightning Resistance to compensate, which can be expensive. If obtaining enough Resistance is too difficult at your budget, then opting for the Cloak of Flame is your best choice. Cloak of Flame provides 60% Fire Resistance which allows much easier gearing compared to the -60% Lightning Resistance from Lightning Coil.
Milestone 6 - Legacy of Fury
Now you should be prepped and ready to equip Legacy of Fury and start clearing a lot smoother. If you have the option to purchase an Enchanted pair, opt for the 16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently.
At this point you could continue to make upgrades to this build, but could opt instead to start Crafting and purchasing gear to transfer into the smoother, easier on the hands Delirium Blaster Ignite Vortex.