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PoE Build

Cold BV Elementalist - Asmodeus League Starter Guide

3.27 KotF
presentationWitch
presentationElementalist
Updated on Oct 28, 2025
Oct 28, 2025

Path of Building Code

Build Overview

This is a league starter setup for Cold Blade Vortex Elementalist. It uses primarily cheap uniques, a few easy to acquire rare items and a couple of important cluster jewel notables. This setup is good enough to clear your atlas before swapping to crit with higher investment.

BV is not a strong meta league starter but with this setup you can comfortably clear your atlas and start farming for a Headhunter which works with this build and playstyle very well.

This PoB contains more information about the early progression and leveling: https://pobb.in/vVbQsdw7Pk2L

Strengths and Weaknesses

  • Comfortable and very fun Playstyle
  • Great Scaling with Explode
  • Fast Clear Speed
  • Doesn't need a 5/6-link to clear the atlas
  • Weak single target and bossing
  • Requires more investment for harder content
  • Squishy

Build Variants

This is a cheap mapping setup before swapping to crit and a 6-link or a shaper helmet.

In the PoB linked above, you will also find earlier steps in the progression, the leveling tree progression as well as fully rare and fully unique item sets to see other items you can use. For leveling I recommend using Righteous Fire and respeccing at the end of the campaign with gold. You can follow my RF leveling guide here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9H90b0kwjA

Equipment

Bitterdream
Mark of Submission
Hrimsorrow
Heatshiver
Carcass Jack
Doryani's Invitation (Physical)
Citrine Amulet
The Taming
Titanium Spirit Shield
Crusader Boots
Divine Life Flask
Granite Flask
Quartz Flask
Silver Flask
Quicksilver Flask
Cold BF
Heraldry
Heraldry
Careful Planning

Weapon

Bitterdream is a pseudo 8-link that fits very well with cold Blade Vortex. It can carry you through the entire atlas progression.

Shield

Use Kaltenhalt or a rare shield with increased block and +1 to Physical Spell Skills. Life and chaos res are good to have on all your rare items until you're capped on chaos res.

Body Armor

Carcass Jack provides a great way to increase your AoE and AoE damage early on as well as a mix of basic defensive stats needed early on.

Helmet

Heatshiver requires you to freeze enemies to be fully effective. If you notice that you're not freezing your targets, you can swap it for a rare helmet.

Gloves

Hrimsorrow are required for the build to work and should be your first purchase. Do not swap to Blade Vortex without them.

Boots

You can use Dusktoe early on to help with your chaos resistance, but I recommend getting a good rare pair of boots as soon as you can and putting the eldritch implicits on it for a massive damage boost.

Belt

Use a rare stygian vise or the cold damage version of Doryani's Invitation (Cold), It has all the stats you need plus a rare source of life leech from all cold hit damage.

Rings

Mark of Submission is a great way to get a curse on hit set up early on. Since we're playing BV, we want to automate everything we can for a smooth playstyle. Later this can be replaced with a Elemental Weakness glove corruption or a rare ring with a curse on hit modifier.

The Taming is the best other ring you can use early on. The cheapest way to get it is by combining Berek's Grip, Berek's Pass and Berek's Respite at the vendor.

Amulet

On the amulet you want to get Life and ideally Chaos resistance. Bloodsoaked Medallion is a great early option before you can get an amulet with +1 to level of all Physical Skills

Flasks

You want to use these 4 flasks:

  • Quartz Flask
  • Granite Flask
  • Silver Flask
  • Quicksilver Flask

and these 4 suffixes on them:

  • Movement Speed
  • Increased Armour
  • Spell Damage Leeched as ES
  • Reduced Effect of Curses on you

Get them as soon as you can and automate them with an instilling orb enchant so that they're automatically used when the charges reach full capacity.

Jewels

Use Careful Planning in the socket slot next to Mind Over Matter for an extra 100 Dexterity which will help you meet all of the attribute requirements.

Cluster Jewels

Make sure to get a Large Cold Cluster with Blast-Freeze and another notable that makes the Blast-Freeze accessible with just 2 points, instead of having to path to the back side of the jewel. You can always check which combination of notables allows you to do that, by importing it to PoB straight from the trade website or making the jewel yourself in PoB.

The second cluster jewel you NEED for this build is a single Medium Herald Damage Cluster with Heraldry. This node will give you almost 40% more damage. You MUST have it if you want to deal any damage with this setup.

Passive Tree

main:
123
123
ascendancy:
8
8
Keystones
Elemental Overload
Skills that have dealt a Critical Strike in the past 8 seconds deal 40% more Elemental Damage with Hits and Ailments Your Critical Strikes do not deal extra Damage Ailments never count as being from Critical Strikes
Masteries
Reservation Mastery (1)
8% increased Damage for each of your Aura or Herald Skills affecting you
Block Mastery (1)
+1% Chance to Block Spell Damage per 5% Chance to Block Attack Damage
Shield Mastery (1)
+1% Chance to Block Attack Damage per 5% Chance to Block on Equipped Shield
Elemental Mastery (1)
60% reduced Reflected Elemental Damage taken
Mana Mastery (1)
12% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills
Duration Mastery (1)
10% more Skill Effect Duration
Life Mastery (1)
+30 to maximum Life
Caster Mastery (1)
Spells which can gain Intensity have +1 to maximum Intensity

Skills

Carcass Jack
Varnished Coat
Summon Flame Golem
Summon Stone Golem
Summon Lightning Golem
Summon Chaos Golem
Hrimsorrow
Goathide Gloves
Shield Charge
Faster Attacks
Momentum
Purity of Elements
Bitterdream
Shadow Sceptre
Vaal Blade Vortex
Unleash
Increased Area of Effect
Heatshiver
Leather Hood
Herald of Ash
Herald of Purity
Herald of Ice
Rare 2
Crusader Boots
Cast when Damage Taken
Immortal Call
More Duration
Rare 2
Titanium Spirit Shield
Frostblink
Unbound Ailments
Bonechill
  • Vaal Blade Vortex is very important and will massively increase your single target damage. Make sure to get it as soon as you can.
  • Increased Area of Effect Support can be swapped for Concentrated Effect Support for bosses if you need more damage.

How it Plays

The gameplay is very straightforward. You want to keep your Blade Vortex at 10 blades whenever you need your maximum damage.

For more single target damage, you need to Frostblink on the target so that it takes more damage from Bonechill Support and Scorched Ground from your boots. This is a very big damage increase as well.

Video Guide

Stats

Stats are displayed for the "^6{5} BV [mid maps]" Variant only
Character
Attributes
187 / 
171 / 
242
Movement Speed
132%
Bandits
Kraityn
Pantheon Major
Solaris
Pantheon Minor
Yugul
Charges
Endurance Charges
3
Frenzy Charges
3
Power Charges
3
Defensive
Life
3,539
Energy Shield
897
Mana
1,156
Armour
907
Evasion Rating
3,168
Block
62%
Resistances
76% / 
76% / 
76% / 
59%
Simulated
Effective Health Pool
53K
Max Hit
13K / 
29K / 
29K / 
29K / 
8,632
Skill DPS Estimation
Primal Aegis
1.8M

Table of Contents

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