Wintertide Brand Trickster Gear, Jewels, and Flasks

Path of Building

Path of Building for the Low-Life (recommended) version of this build is available here.

Included is the recommended set of mid-game gear, a full skill tree, and all the gem links needed to get the build to tick.

We use the Path of Building Community Fork for all of our builds, which is highly recommended. If you are encountering errors importing the build, please ensure you are using the Community Fork.

Gear Summary / TL;DR

Low-Life / End Game

These items strike a balance between power and cost-effectiveness.

Our recommendation:

Item Slot	Item Name
Head	Rime Gaze
Amulet	Presence of Chayula
Chest	Shavronne's Wrappings
Gloves	High Energy Shield Rare ( Fingerless Silk Gloves preferred)
Boots	Rare Sorcerer Boots or Sin Trek
Belt	Rare Crystal Belt
Ring 1	Mark of the Shaper
Ring 2	Rare Elder Ring
Weapon	Rare Wand ( Opal Wand preferred)
Shield	High Energy Shield Rare ( Titanium Spirit Shield preferred)

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.

Life Based / League Start

These items strike a balance between power and cost-effectiveness.

Our recommendation:

Item Slot	Item Name
Head	Rime Gaze
Amulet	Rare Amulet
Chest	The Perfect Form or any high evasion chest
Gloves	Rare Fingerless Silk Gloves
Boots	Rare Boots
Belt	Stygian Vise
Ring 1	Mark of the Shaper
Ring 2	Rare Elder Ring
Weapon	Rare Wand ( Opal Wand preferred)
Shield	Magna Eclipsis or Rare Spirit Shield

Gear, Jewels, and Flasks

Armour

Chest

Shavronne's Wrappings is required for the end-game and low-life version as it allows us to safely run auras off of our Life pool without being at risk of dying to Chaos damage immediately.

The Perfect Form is a good choice for Life based versions as it takes advantage of our Escape Artist Ascendancy keystone and grants Phase Acrobatics for more defense. It can also be swapped out for a high Evasion/Energy Shield rare base, such as a Sadist Garb.

Helmet

Rime Gaze is the perfect choice for this build and cheaply available at all points in the league. Your Vortex link should be socketed within Rime Gaze to benefit from its pseudo 5-link effect.

Gloves

Rare Gloves are the best choice in virtually all situations. For Low-Life you will want to use either Fingerless Silk Gloves or Sorcerer Gloves, with the following priority:

1. [Uncapped] Elemental Resistance
2. +# to Energy Shield
3. % Increased Energy Shield
4. % Increased Damage while Leeching (Crafted – only with Energy Leech Support and/or Light Eater)
5. +# to Mana

Life builds should replace Energy Shield with Life in the hierarchy of affixes.

Boots

Sin Trek are an excellent pair of Energy Shield boots that are generally very cheap at all points in the league.

A Rare pair of Sorcerer Boots (Low Life) or Two-Toned Boots (Fire and Lightning Resistances) (Life based – Evasion + Energy Shield is the preferred base) also make an excellent option and can surpass Sin Trek with top-tier rolls.

Prioritize the affixes as follows:

1. % Increased Movement Speed
2. [Uncapped] Elemental Resistance
3. +# to Energy Shield
4. % Increased Energy Shield
5. +# to Mana
6. +# to Intelligence

Life builds should replace Energy Shield with Life in the hierarchy of affixes.

Weapon

A wand is the best option for damage. The Opal Wand has the highest implicit spell damage but you should prioritize obtaining a wand with the best explicit affixes first.

1. % Increased Spell Damage
2. % Increased Cold Damage over Time Multiplier
3. +1 to the Level of all Spell Skill Gems
4. % Increased Cast Speed
5. Gain 7-8% of Cold Damage as Extra Chaos Damage (Crafted)
6. % Increased Cold Damage

Any other damage affixes that you can find are also beneficial and can be filled in.

Shield

Magna Eclipsis is a great Unique that is relatively cheap at most points in the league.

A Rare Titanium Spirit Shield is the best choice for a Low Life build in the late game. Prioritize as follows:

1. [Uncapped] Elemental Resistance
2. +# to Energy Shield
3. % Increased Energy Shield
4. % Increased Cold Damage
5. % Increased Cast Speed
6. +# to Mana

Accessories

Amulet

Presence of Chayula is an excellent late-game defensive choice for Low Life, but not necessary by any means to make the build work.

A Rare Amulet is a great choice for both Life and Low Life:

1. [Uncapped] Elemental Resistances
2. +# to Maximum Energy Shield
   % Increased Maximum Energy Shield
3. +# to Attributes (Strength or Dexterity, as needed)
4. % Increased Spell Damage
5. % Increased Cast Speed
6. % Increased Mana Regeneration

Life builds should replace Energy Shield with Life in the hierarchy of affixes.

Rings

The classic combination of Mark of the Shaper and a Rare Elder influenced ring affords a huge increase in spell damage via the unique explicit and the ability to use Elemental Equilibrium. While not necessary, it is recommended to invest towards this pairing relatively early as it grants good offense and defensive power. Before this power spike, you can use two Rare rings. The priority for Rare ring(s) is:

1. [Uncapped] Elemental Resistances
2. +# to Energy Shield
3. +# to Attributes (Strength or Dexterity, as needed)
4. % Increased Cold Damage
5. % Increased Mana Regeneration
6. +# to Maximum Mana

Life builds should replace Energy Shield with Life in the hierarchy of affixes.

Belt

For Low Life, the Crystal Belt makes the ideal base. Life based builds will prefer a Stygian Vise or Leather Belt.

1. [Uncapped] Elemental Resistances
2. +# to Energy Shield
3. +# to Strength
4. +# to Armour
5. % Increased Effect of Flasks on You

Life builds should replace Energy Shield with Life in the hierarchy of affixes.

Jewels

Energy From Within

Energy From Within can be socketed below Melding to double dip on the Life from the wheel. This is optional, but results in additional defense for Low Life builds.

Watcher’s Eye

There are several great mods for this build. Even having a single one of them would be a big upgrade, so there’s no need to wait until you can afford a double or triple modded Eye if you are ready to purchase one.

1. +% to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence
2. Damage Penetrates % Cold Resistance while affected by Hatred
3. % Chance to Block Spell Damage while affected by Discipline

Cluster Jewels

This build uses cluster Jewels. In our example Path of Building we opted to use 1 Large Cluster, 3 Medium Clusters, and 3 Small Clusters.

For Large Clusters (small passives Cold Damage), look for:

• Deep Chill — big boost for our brand and vortex
• Prismatic Heart — allows you to itemize more damage on your gear via Resistances and adds a nice chunk of damage
• Disorienting Display — nice damage and blind adds a defensive layer to clear
• Vengeful Commander — moderate damage boost
• Cold Blooded Killer — strictly worse than Deep Chill, but still decent enough damage

For Medium Clusters, we opted for two clusters with Brand Damage small passives and one with Cold Damage over Time Multiplier. Keep an eye out for:

• Brand Loyalty — excellent damage and clear boost
• Remarkable — nice to have one of these to help quickly stack your brands on a boss
• Holy Conquest — nice to have one of these for the unique passive, large clear boost
• Deep Chill — just as great as on large clusters
• Vile Reinvigoration — great utility and defense for clear
• Exposure Therapy — very strong damage

For Small Clusters, our preference is Energy Shield small passives with:

• Energy from Naught — huge Energy Shield boost
• Brush with Death — great damage and defense
• Vile Reinvigoration — great utility and defense for clear (if you do not have it on a medium cluster already)

For small passives you can either stack 3x Energy from Naught, pick one of the other two passives, or use one of each.

It is recommended to use one Large, three Medium, and a three Small cluster jewels for Low Life late game. See the Passive Skill Tree page for advice on what passives to drop from the tree. These are just general recommendations, however, and you can customize your tree to suit your current power level.

Flasks

1. Experimenter’s Jade Flask of Staunching
2. Experimenter’s Stibnite Flask of Warding
3. Rumi's Concoction
4. Chemist’s Quartz Flask of Heat
5. Alchemist’s Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline/Reflexes (personal preference)

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