Level 99 LL Crit Winter Orb Elementalist^3.26

Notes

Attributes needed:
- 126 dex (for Lv 5 Awa added cold)
- 98 str (for Lv 20 golems)
Look for gloves with a high dex roll. You can get strength on ring, belt, jewels/cluster, craft on helmet/boots/gloves or spend one passive point for 30 str or dex.
If you use a Runegraft of the Fortress, keep in mind that this will reduce your attributes when planning your gear.

Projectiles & AoE:
- Base: 66% AoE from Flame Golem + 60% while we don't have Convergence + 40% from tree.
- For better overlaps/shotgunning, AoE can be further increased by: 
  ~20% from Dying Sun, ~10% craft on Helmet, ~7% craft on Gloves, 50% increased area of effect support, ~8% implicit on helmet, 15-20% from wand corruption,
  4-5% from jewel corruption, 10% from Anointment, any sources that increase Flame Golem buff effect
- Projectiles: 3 from wand, 2 from flask, 4 from GMP (or 5 with awa GMP)

Ascendancy:
I chose Elementalist over Occultist because of the reworked golems. Winter Orb has pretty good clear itself, we don't need explosions
(if you want explosions, you can get an Oriath's End).
Order:
1) Liege of the Primordial
2) Mastermind of Discord
3) Heart of Destruction
4) You can either go Shaper of Flames for phys reduction or Bastion of Elements for ele reduction. Shaper of Storms isn't needed as we run Skitterbots for shock.
     Bringer of Ruin & Shaper of Winter don't add much (as we don't inflict max chill).

Defences:
- 7-10k ES (depending on your gear/progress/investment)
- Shaper of Flames for 40% phys to fire conversion
- Lot of ES regen (Zealot's Oath), on kill recovery, some ES on block & double leech (Ghost Reaver as we can't recharge anyways due to RF)
- Freeze & Chill
- Evade (Grace + Jade Flask)
- Some attack block chance
- 80% spell block chance
- Capped ele & chaos res
- 70% reduced crit taken (90-100% if you use a corrupted shield and/or tattoos)
- Reduced curse effect
- Curses: Enfeeble & Temporal Chains
- Some phys taken as on helmet
- Minions that can take the aggro
- 55-65% base movement speed
- Elemental Ailment Immunity
- Support-Merc (auras / phys conversion)
- Flasks

Optional (for more phys/melee reduction): 
- Arctic Armour or Flesh & Stone
- Stone Golem of Safeguarding
(or you can just swap gems for specific phys-heavy encounter)

Pantheon:
Major: Arakaali (less DoT damage) (we get stun immunity from flask)
Minor: Yugul (for more reduced curse effect), Ralakesh (for bleeding), Shakari (for less poison damage) or Tukohama (for even more regen) - whatever you prefer or get on your flasks

Gear information:
We get ~120% ele res just from Purity of Elements, Alira, Prism Guardian and the tree (or even more if you don't use a corrupted shield).
As we don't need many ele resistances, we can use the suffixes for chaos res and attributes. You can craft hybrid str/dex or hybrid ele/chaos res as a suffix.
Or, if you have an open prefix on helmet/gloves, you can craft %AoE (put curses in helmet for gem levels).
If you use a Runegraft of the Fortress, keep in mind that this will reduce your attributes when planning your gear.

- Helmet: Eldritch implicits: Phys taken as (preferably lightning as this is our highest res) & cast speed (but AoE, spell crit or added cold damage is also fine)
- Gloves: Make sure you get a high dex roll on the gloves. Eldritch implicits: Cold exposure & Unnerve (or Freeze-spread)
- Boots: For the Exarch implicit you can use movement speed, action speed, chaos res, golem buff, drop ground X or max fire res - whatever you prefer/get.
- Wand: Can also get a corrupted one with increased AoE; make sure it has 3 projectiles.
- Shield: get one with high dex and corruption. Usable corruptions: reduced crit taken, spell block, max ES, Lv 23 Discipline
- Ring 1: Curse on Hit. This isn't necessarily needed but we want to make use of the maximum number of (automated) curses we're able to apply. 
  Also, the curse mastery grants you 40% reduced crit damage taken by cursed enemies and we only use Arcanist Brand on single targets. 
  You can either get a synthesised ring with Frostbite/Elemental Weakness or a fractured ring with Frostbite (if you want to self-craft). 
  Alternatively buy a redeemer, hunter-influenced or delve-ring with all the stats you wish. 
  If you get one with Elemental Weakness, don't forget to socket Frostbite instead of Ele Weakness.
- Ring 2: Anathema with high cast speed (can get one with corruption later. Good corruptions are: cast speed, ele res, aura effect, poison/bleed immunity)
- Amulet: Ashes of the Stars (for higher golem buffs, more Winter Orb stages and better power charge generation via Assassin's Mark).
  Try to get one with 30% quality for 3 additional Winter Orb stages (or 27% if you have a 23% quality Winter Orb).
  Start with a rare amulet (Marble Amulet is a good base) with +1 to cold or all skills or use The Pandemonius until you can afford an Ashes. I recommend getting one that doesn't have any res or 
  str/dex (or <19) so you can replace it later easily. 

Anointment: 
There's nothing specific you need. You choose whatever you like/can. Here are the best options:

Cheap ones to get started:
Blast Radius or Amplify (AoE), Frost Walker (damage, res, cast speed), Harrier (movement, cast speed), Mental Rapidity (cast speed, mana reg), 
Storm Weaver (damage), Nimbleness (cast speed, crit multi)

Mapping:
Exceptional Performance or Potency of Will (Skill Duration), Disciple of the Unyielding (endurance charges on kill), 
Last Rites (enemies have red. life reg and cannot recover ES)

Offensive: 
Assassination (crit, multi), Tranquility (damage + ES)

Defensive:
Sanctuary (1% max res + 4% spell block - this allows you to skip one block mod on jewels), Arcane Focus (20% ES), Prismatic Skin 
or Nomadic Teachings (2% max res), Hearty (regen), Brink of Death (regen - this is a huge boost and also super cheap), 
Asylum (18% chaos res and red. curse effect - great synergy with Steeped in the Profane and Yugul)

Reservation Efficiency: 
Charisma (mana reservation effi.), Leader of the Pack, Champion of the Cause (reservation effi.)

Jewel information:
- Rare Jewels: One needs to be corrupted with "2% reservation efficiency" implicit (NOT mana reservation!) to be able to run all the auras socketed in the shield.
   The other one should have Corrupted Blood immunity. You want +3% chance to block spell damage on both. 
   For the remaining stats look out for: %ES, crit chance, crit multi, damage, % max fire res, AoE (corruption)
- Large Cluster: get one with Conjured Wall and Mage Hunter. The Suffix doesn't matter as long as both nodes are in front.
- Timeless Jewel with Dominus. Make sure it doesn't change the allocated nodes in radius. Get one with channeling/aoe/elemental damage.
- Watcher's Eye: you don't necessarily need one with Hatred crit. You can start by using a rare jewel with ES and damage/crit or use a Watcher's Eye that has
  at least two mods of the following. If you do so, you also want to run a diamond flask with crit to get your crit chance up.
  Mods you're looking for (order doesn't mean anything): 
  1. Precision - Crit multi
  2. Zealotry - Cast Speed / crit chance / incr. damage taken / Arcane Surge 
  3. Discipline - Spell block / ES per hit / ES regen 
  4. Grace - MS / evade chance
  5. Haste - Phasing
  6. Purity of Elements - Chaos Res / Max Res 
  --> See 'Merc' if you use one with Hatred <--

Gem information:
- Use whatever travel skill you like
- Winter Orb: for the 6th socket, there's some options: 
  Red: Inspiration (damage) or More Duration (mapping)
  Blue: Power Charge on Crit (damage), Increased Area of Effect (mapping) or Focused Channeling (Pinnacles)
  Green: Hypothermia for more damage/freezes 
  If you don't run Inspiration, check mana cost!
- If you want more defence, you can replace one golem for Stone Golem of Safeguarding

Aura information:
- A fractured Unset Ring, Discipline as shield corruption or a crafted Aspect frees up a socket. This way you can use an Enlighten, socket Shield Charge or Frost Bomb, link Lv 1 Arcane Surge 
  to Flame Dash, link Culling Strike to golems, ... or fit in anything else.
- The 50% auras are socketed in the shield (Zealotry, Purity of Elements, Haste/Hatred)
- If you self-cast Haste, use the vaal version for extra mapping speed
- Make sure that Bonechill is only linked to Skitterbots and not to any other aura.
- Discipline & Tempest Shield whereever you like

For the last aura you can choose: 
- Defensively: Flesh & Stone (Sand Stance), Vitality or Arctic Armour
- Offensively: Herald of Ice, Herald of Ash (for overkill explosions) or Precision (this gives you additional Watcher's Eye options)
- Or craft a level 30 Aspect if you have any suffixes left:
  1. Avian: good for mapping; 14% MS + 12% double damage chance
  2. Spider: good for bossing; 20% increased damage taken + hinders (slows are good for more reliable hits)
  3. Cat: good allrounder; 16% cast speed, 120% crit chance, 15% damage avoidance
  Running an Aspect frees up a socket. So you can either use that for anything else or socket an aura and switch between those (eg Aspect of the Spider for
  bossing and Precision for mapping).

Note: If you use a 25% aura, you probably need another source of reservation efficiency. You can grab the mana reservation efficiency mastery, use an 
Enlighten, drop Bonechill, get reservation efficiency on helmet implicit, use a small reservation efficiency cluster or anoint your amulet 
with Charisma/Leader of the Pack/Champion of the Cause.

Skill Tree information:
The tree is set for level 99. 
Level 93-94 should be achievable fast and easy. Take the curse cluster last.

If you have very high resistances, you can change the bandit choice to get an additional skill point (or leave them overcapped for debuffs and eldritch altars).
When you do so (or reach level 100), here's some options:
- Aura Mastery: max res, damage per aura or aura effect
- Crit Mastery: effect of ailments or crit multi
- Evasion/ES Mastery: 30% incr. evasion rating or ES regen every 4 seconds
- Caster Mastery: cast speed or open nearby chests
- If you have a large cluster with either Essence Rush or Thaumophage (suffix), you can take that (respec the single leech node)

For the ES Mastery you alternatively can also choose "added stun threshold" (if at all, stuns can sometimes get a problem in T17s). 
I don't recommend the "less phys taken" mastery because of the RF degen and even if you're on full ES, the game sometimes shows you're not 
(not sure if this is a visual bug).

Merc:
Aura:
- The one we are looking for has Grace + Haste auras, so we can drop Haste and self-cast Hatred (needs less dex). Until we find that one, start with
  one that only has Grace. You'll need 155 dex for Haste, so you either take a 30 dex passive node or run a Level 13 Haste.
  If you self-cast Haste, use the vaal version for extra mapping speed. 
- When you find one that has both auras (or Grace + Hatred), you can consider using a Watcher's Eye.
- Hatred itself does nothing for the build, it's just used for a huge crit boost. So I'd only use a Watcher's Eye when you can afford one that has at least one
  additional usable modifier. Otherwise you can just skip on this tech and throw another aura in.
- The mercs that grant Grace + Haste/Hatred are all dex characters, so you want to exile the str/int ones to find them easier. 

Supporter Gear:
You only can equip dex-based gear pieces.
Give him items with evasion, life, suppress and resistances to increase survivability.

You also want the following unique items/eldritch implicits:
- Helmet: Elevore (Suppress/Recovery)
- Gloves: Corrupted with Temporal Chains on Hit
- Body: Rare with Eldritch implicits: aura effect + grace aura effect
- Boots: Rare with Eldritch implicits: drop sapped or scorched ground
- Amulet: The Jinxed Juju Amulet (aura effect) or The Ignomon (blind enemies = more evade) - Anoint: Leadership (aura effect/aoe)
- Belt: Kaom's Binding (enemy damage phys to fire conversion)
- Quiver: Rearguard (Block) or Maloney's Mechanism (Blind)

Power Charge Generation:
- While mapping: 8% on kill
- Single target: Assassin's Mark (needs quality!)
- Additionally: 20% on block from Mage Hunter, Anathema, Power Charge on Crit (if used)
Sometimes RNG can be ass during boss fights until you have an Ashes of the Stars. So if you want a more reliable charge generation, you can get the 
Caster Mastery for one charge per second while channeling or take the Mastery for 100% increased charge duration.

Tattoos & Runegraft:
(I didn't include Tattoos in PoB)
Int:
Reduced curse effect = Hinekora Deathwarden (take Yugul Pantheon)
Chaos res = Hinekora Storyteller
3% ES = Hinekora Warrior (this also reduces your max mana pool which means less degen from RF)
Reduced crit taken = Rongokurai Turtle
Hinder on Hit = Tasalio Shaman

Dex (only if your dex is >136):
Movement speed = Ramako Fleetfoot
Mark Effect = Tasalio Scout
Flask Duration = Tawhoa Herbalist

Runegraft:
Runegraft of the Fortress (reduces your attributes!) (in PoB this is added as Minion Mastery on top middle)

Additional information/tips:
- Positioning for single target is very important! Don't stand right in front of the target.
- Merc stats (except for auras), Flasks, Consecrated Ground, Aspect and Convergence (30% more damage) aren't included in PoB calculation 
- Instead of Militant Faith you can use a Elegant Hubris to get rid of attribute requirements. But be aware that this will change the passive nodes and you don't
  get any attribute bonuses. If you do, you can craft frenzy on kill chance on your ring.
- If you want more ES recovery at Pinnacle bosses, don't activate RF (can also put in Vitality).
- Keep your max mana pool as low as possible as RF scales with it (more mana = more degen).
- You can use a Quartz Flask for Phasing while mapping or Oriath's End for explosions and better clear.
- If you want to invest more and get some endgame upgrades, you can get Awakened GMP or a Headhunter (huge boost for this build!).
- Bonus: Bonus: if you allocate the caster mastery to open chests, you'll open/destroy almost any interactable which gives you additional gold and sometimes a surprise 

Crafting:
I don't know much about the PC trade market but at least on console buying your gear is hard because of the low player count. Either the items/mods you want
are not available or prices are ridiculously high. Crafting the few rare gear pieces actually isn't super hard. 
There are many ways to craft but here's what I did:
1. Helmet: Buy/farm a few bases with iLvl 84+ and high base value. Add quality. Harvest bench reforge defence mods. Stash any good ones and sell.
    When you hit 400+ ES, lock prefixes and harvest reforge chaos (if suffixes are full you can use an eldritch annul).
2. Boots: Same process with boots except you want iLvl 86 to be able to hit 35% MS. Alternatively to defence reforge, you can use speed reforge. Aim for 
    around 150+ ES because it's hard to hit high ES in combination with high MS.
3. Gloves: Same process but you want to do this with a fractured dex base. (You can also get fractured bases for helmet/boots)
4. Belt: Get a crystal belt iLvl 82+ with desired mods and one open prefix (make sure suffixes are full). Add quality using Tempering Catalysts.  
    Use a Crusader Exalt. If you get lucky and hit %ES, you're done. If not, you can either craft with Dense Fossils or harvest reforge defence.
5. Ring: Get a synthesised ring with Frostbite/Elemental Weakness or a fractured ring with Frostbite. Harvest reforge chaos until happy.

Crafting with the new memory strands should also be fine. Or you could look for gear with high ES prefixes and proceed with prefix lock and chaos reforge (eldritch annul if suffixes are full).

Map/Altar mods you want to avoid:
You can pretty much run all mods except for 'monsters remove %life/ES on hit'. This will instantly kill you.
As for elemental reflect, you can either run Bastion of Elements or change your Pantheon to Yugul and get the ele mastery for reduced reflect damage.
Make sure you there aren't any sources of 'increased damage taken' - this will kill you, even with 100% reduced reflect.

When running T16.5 and T17 maps with increased map mod effect on atlas, there are some mods you should keep an eye out for. Especially when there are multiple of them:
- Cannot regenerate life, mana, ES ->get a mana flask with 'effect doesn't end'. You still can leech and you'll get ES on kill but you constantly lose ES because of RF. Don't activate RF if necessary.
- Less ES recovery is playable but you'll only have ES gained on kill (don't turn on RF)
- Less leech (map mod effect will turn this into negative) or cannot leech
- Reduced aura effect
- Reduced block chance (this will also reduce your spell block chance)
- Projectiles are fired in random directions (can be fun but you'll have a hard time against single targets)
- Players have less defences (this will halve your ES)
- Players have less AoE (halves your AoE so your clear is much worse and projectiles don't overlap)
- Anything that will make monsters unnecessarily tanky such as: suppress, elemental res, %more life, cannot inflict exposure, less curse effect or hexproof. You can of course run those but they will take 
  much longer with 2 or more of these mods (for ele res you can get the res-inversion mastery but make sure you don't inflict expsosure and don't cast any curses).

Leveling & getting started: 
We don't start with Winter Orb right away. The earliest you can start playing is in your mid 70's. Please read the notes in the PoB for further information!
PoB: https://pobb.in/ahfZJB9xhdsv