



this will be the first guide that I am making. It will not be the most fancy and it will be a lot of text.

I leveled a few Occultists in the past and people often ask what they should look for, when they should transition to CI, what items are needed for that. A lot of people also think that Occultists are bad leaguestarters, since ES gear seems to be a bit more expensive and I have to say, that I disagree with that opinion. With this guide you will get any spellbased Occultist through the acts and transition to CI smoothly and with minor investments. I will be doing this for spellbuilds only, since my experience with attack builds is quite limited.



PROS of Occultist: Spoiler It is the by far most tanky ascendancy with the most overpowered defense without a lot of investment!

With investment our toughness will just go through the roof!



CONS of Occultist: Spoiler It might not be the very fastest racer but you will have decent speed.



START: Act 1-4

Spoiler



Items to look for

Spoiler +1 Wands (Craftable through vendor recipies), movementspeed boots, life/resist on gear.





Bandits

Spoiler You can grab Alira early on at a leaguestart, just for the resists. I usually don't do it and grab the skillpoints but it is a viable option to grab Alira and change it later.



Here are some trees for about level 35ish and before doing the first lab:



Spoiler Storm brand: www.poeurl.com/cijr



Any elemental spell (that can crit): www.poeurl.com/cijw (for Bladevortex take Potency of Will too)



Chaos spells (blight, ED, Soulrend) :www.poeurl.com/cijE (a little higher lvel since the tree will go more to the right side from there on)



Vortex/Coldsnap/Arctic Breath: www.poeurl.com/cijS (EO will be triggered with Storm Brand)



In most of those trees I also grabbed a few Resistance nodes, Some live and the first few damage nodes. With any elemental spell, I recommend rushing to Elemental Overload ASAP.



Since spells usually have very good damage and you dont need to invest in damage all that much I always take Wicked Ward as my first Ascendancy. It will be a pretty shitty Ascendancy compared to others at this point of the leveling process but later on it will make us very beefy.



Before your first Ascendancy you start like any other class. I normally like grabbing the first lab when my character reaches about 1k HP. That mosty happens either before Kaom/Daresso or after killing one or both of those.Items to look forBanditsHere are some trees for about level 35ish and before doing the first lab:Since spells usually have very good damage and you dont need to invest in damage all that much I always take Wicked Ward as my first Ascendancy. It will be a pretty shitty Ascendancy compared to others at this point of the leveling process but later on it will make us very beefy.



Act 4-7:



Spoiler Act 4 and 5 are normally pretty easy going and with act 6 the game gets a lot harder in my opinion. Keep looking for some decent live and resists on your gear. You normally will not need any damage stats on the gear but ofcourse they dont hurt. In most cases a +1 level of gems 3L is pretty much as good as a 4L.



Act 7-maps (after 2nd lab)

Spoiler



Here are some tree examples for lvl 55ish trees:



Storm Brand:

www.poeurl.com/cikW



Chaos Stuff:

www.poeurl.com/cik1



Cold DOT:

www.poeurl.com/cik7 (its a little higher level, if you need dmg go for dmg first, if you lack survivabilty go for that first)



At this point I start including the best ES% nodes on the tree. At this point we will have our 250 ES from the Ascendancies and with the Tree we get nearly 300 flat ES without any of it on the gear. With the Chaos Tree for example we will get 127% increased ES already and on top of that we have about 260 Int, with is another 52% increased ES. So without a single point of ES on the gear we will already have 800ish ES already.



At this point we will start viewing the vendors for ES bases. Look for:

"

Shields: Chiming Spirit Shield (lvl 49+) Thorium Spirit Shield (lvl 53+) Lacewood Spirit Shield (lvl 56+) Fossiliesed Spirit Shield (lvl 59+)

Helmets: Steel Circlet (lvl 48+) Necromancer Circlet (lvl 54+) Solaris Circlet (lvl 59+)



Boots, Gloves, Jewellery doesn't have that much ES on the bases, so it is not worth looking for those.

Body Armour: Spidersilk Robe (lvl 49+) Destroyer Regalia (lvl 53+) Savant's Robe (lvl 56+) Necromancer Silk (lvl 59+)Shields: Chiming Spirit Shield (lvl 49+) Thorium Spirit Shield (lvl 53+) Lacewood Spirit Shield (lvl 56+) Fossiliesed Spirit Shield (lvl 59+)Helmets: Steel Circlet (lvl 48+) Necromancer Circlet (lvl 54+) Solaris Circlet (lvl 59+)Boots, Gloves, Jewellery doesn't have that much ES on the bases, so it is not worth looking for those.



Now you can just use any essences on these. ES and Life essences are by far the worst, since the essence mods are a lot worse than what you can roll. Resist essences are the best. You should have grabbed a few essences along the way. If you have some alchs, also use those and you can even just Transmute, Augment and Alteration. If you have Armourer's Scraps use those first.



What can we hit?:

Spoiler Body Armour:

LIFE: ilvl 54+ T5 Life (80-89), T6 Life (70-79), T7Life (60-69) T8 Life 50-59...

Flat ES: ilvl 51+ T4 (50-61) .....

% ES: ilvl 40+ T5 %ES (56-67%)

Resists: ilvl 48+ T4 Resists (30-35%)



What can we craft?

Spoiler If you take the crafting recipies along the way we can fairly cheap add some stuff to our items:

A6 Lower Prison Trial: Double Res

A6 Tokohama Arena: Defences

A8 Toxic Condouits WP Single Resists



So if we are wearing only two out of body armour, shield, helmet out of the suggested bases above AND don't hit any additional ES we will already have 250 more flat ES, wich results to 675 Flat ES.



What will be our realistic defense at level 55 after the 2nd lab:



Spoiler Without gear:

At level 55 a Witch with 55 strength has 725 life.

With our Ascendancy and the tree we have 300 flat ES

Our tree together with Int gives as about 90% increased Life and 170% increased ES.



So without ANY gear equipped we have 1377 Life and 810 ES. This is already over 2k. If you look up some racers, they get to maps with not a lot more than that and we already have this at level 55 on a a NAKED char!



We have all items equipped at this point, wich is 9 items that give us defensive stats.



If we got an average of 40 life an only 5 of those that is 200 more flat life. With our tree this will result in 380 flat life.

If we were a little more lucky we can easily have hit 350 flat life on gear at this point, wich will result to 665 flat Life.



As mentioned above, if we are wearing only two ES bases of the above mentioned we will already have 675 more flat ES.

If we are wearing all three and maybe hit an ES roll on 2 of our gear pieces it can easily go to 450 flat ES on our gear, wich results in 1215 flat ES.



So our geared character will have (estimation):



Life: 1750 to 2100

ES: 1475 to 2025



Wich results into a total effective HP pool of 3225 to 4125 at level 55!! This ofcourse will go up a bit more before we reach maps and when we start mapping we will easily reach 4.5 + 6k effective HP pool.



The last occultist I leveled in SSFHC had about 3.8k Life and 4.2k ES when I reached blood aqueducts. This was not a starter and I had plenty of alchs and essences to waste. Having a 8k effecive HP pool before even starting maps however is pretty sick.



When we reach blood aqueducts I recommend farming there up to level 65-70. We can either use the tabula if we get enough cards or sell the cards for some early money.



Here are some trees for level 70 (still hybrid):

Spoiler

Storm Brand: www.poeurl.com/cimB



Chaos: www.poeurl.com/cimy



Cold DOT: www.poeurl.com/cimG



Danger at this point:

Spoiler CHAOS DAMAGE!! I recommend being careful when you meet chaosdamage dealing enemies. The first area in act 7 is a little dangerous.

The biggest threat to us before finally transitioning to CI however is the one and only Ulysses Morvant. It is the rogue exile guy that has the wither totem and shoots Essence Drains at us. I recommend running away from him since he can easily delete us with a single hit. In the 2nd Lab we will grab Vile Bastion. The 2nd Lab is ilvl 55 and I normally do it as soon as I got all the trials.Here are some tree examples for lvl 55ish trees:Storm Brand:www.poeurl.com/cikWChaos Stuff:www.poeurl.com/cik1Cold DOT:www.poeurl.com/cik7 (its a little higher level, if you need dmg go for dmg first, if you lack survivabilty go for that first)At this point I start including the best ES% nodes on the tree. At this point we will have our 250 ES from the Ascendancies and with the Tree we get nearly 300 flat ES without any of it on the gear. With the Chaos Tree for example we will get 127% increased ES already and on top of that we have about 260 Int, with is another 52% increased ES. So without a single point of ES on the gear we will already have 800ish ES already.At this point we will start viewing the vendors for ES bases. Look for:Now you can just use any essences on these. ES and Life essences are by far the worst, since the essence mods are a lot worse than what you can roll. Resist essences are the best. You should have grabbed a few essences along the way. If you have some alchs, also use those and you can even just Transmute, Augment and Alteration. If you have Armourer's Scraps use those first.What can we hit?:What can we craft?So if we are wearing only two out of body armour, shield, helmet out of the suggested bases above AND don't hit any additional ES we will already have 250 more flat ES, wich results to 675 Flat ES.What will be our realistic defense at level 55 after the 2nd lab:When we reach blood aqueducts I recommend farming there up to level 65-70. We can either use the tabula if we get enough cards or sell the cards for some early money.Here are some trees for level 70 (still hybrid):Danger at this point:







Transition to ES:



Spoiler



If you stay hybrid and advance to maps I recommend buying a Broken Crown unique helmet, since it gives us some decent ES and a shitload of Chaosresistance.



What do we need before transitioning:



Spoiler Helmet: Hubris Circlet

Body Armour: Vaal Regalia

Shield: Titanium Spirit Shield

Gloves: Sorcerer Gloves

Boots: Sorcerer Boots or Sin Trek

Belt: Chain Belt, Heavy Belt or Stygian Vise



Recommended ES values to look for at least:



Helmet: 250

Body Armour: 500

Shield: 250

Amulet: %increased ES roll or craft



Here I threw together a tree for Cold DOT at level 71 and added some pretty shitty gear. I didnt regard resists, only looked for some ES. Even with this really really bad gear you would come out at 6800 ES after transitioning at level 71. This is a very decent pool to start mapping.

PoB: https://pastebin.com/qa7uvzz6



Considering that most HP based builts are hitting maps at about 4-5k HP we will have a pretty decent ES pool in comparison.



Of course, we also need to max out our resists.







How will we get that gear?



1. Buy it? Some pieces might be affordable, most will be quite pricey at leaguestarts, even with shitty ES values.

2. Find them? If that works for you, that is the best option.

3. Craft them ourselves!

I normally craft most of my gear myself since delve. You will need a few bases. You can either find those, if you decide to map as hybrid or you just buy the bases.

We will need the following ilvls to hit decent values:

Body Arour ilvl 72 (75 is a bit better though)

Helmet ilvl 72

Shield ilvl 72



So these bases can be found from:

T3 Boss only

T4 Boss, Rares, Blues

T5 Any enemy



Then we will just buy or farm a few dense fossils and chuck them on those bases. (Body Armour, Shield, Helmet)



The other pieces of gear should actually be affordable.



Why is making them ourselves sooo much better than buying the gear?

1. The gear will be pretty pricey early on even with shitty ES rolls. Maybe you can get one or two pieces for a fair price but most will be pretty overpriced.

2. Crafting it yourself gives you the chance to hit something very! good. You can even check the marked and sell the crafts that maybe dont fit your needs.



Now comes the most interesting part for most people I guess. You can either stay in blood aqueducts for a while and farm currency there until you can just buy/craft the following gear or advance to maps still as hybrid.If you stay hybrid and advance to maps I recommend buying a Broken Crown unique helmet, since it gives us some decent ES and a shitload of Chaosresistance.What do we need before transitioning:How will we get that gear?1. Buy it? Some pieces might be affordable, most will be quite pricey at leaguestarts, even with shitty ES values.2. Find them? If that works for you, that is the best option.3. Craft them ourselves!I normally craft most of my gear myself since delve. You will need a few bases. You can either find those, if you decide to map as hybrid or you just buy the bases.We will need the following ilvls to hit decent values:Body Arour ilvl 72 (75 is a bit better though)Helmet ilvl 72Shield ilvl 72So these bases can be found from:T3 Boss onlyT4 Boss, Rares, BluesT5 Any enemyThen we will just buy or farm a few dense fossils and chuck them on those bases. (Body Armour, Shield, Helmet)The other pieces of gear should actually be affordable.Why is making them ourselves sooo much better than buying the gear?1. The gear will be pretty pricey early on even with shitty ES rolls. Maybe you can get one or two pieces for a fair price but most will be pretty overpriced.2. Crafting it yourself gives you the chance to hit something very! good. You can even check the marked and sell the crafts that maybe dont fit your needs.





Here are two occultists I played last league:



Spoiler SSFSC Vortex/Coldsnap:

http://poe-profile.info/profile/borkenschnorke/SkyrundMett



SSFHC Spark (died at t9 map against beyond+perandus+red beast)

http://poe-profile.info/profile/borkenschnorke/molneischaua

The damage of this one was very shitty, I had over 11k ES at lvl 83 though.









































































Hi guys,this will be the first guide that I am making. It will not be the most fancy and it will be a lot of text.I leveled a few Occultists in the past and people often ask what they should look for, when they should transition to CI, what items are needed for that. A lot of people also think that Occultists are bad leaguestarters, since ES gear seems to be a bit more expensive and I have to say, that I disagree with that opinion. With this guide you will get any spellbased Occultist through the acts and transition to CI smoothly and with minor investments. I will be doing this for spellbuilds only, since my experience with attack builds is quite limited.PROS of Occultist:CONS of Occultist:START: Act 1-4Act 4-7:Act 7-maps (after 2nd lab)Transition to ES:Here are two occultists I played last league: Last bumped on Mar 25, 2019, 7:02:51 PM