[3.29] MasterT's TRUE DOT CAP Vaal Cold Snap Autobomber

Heelllloo Internet,

This is the only build you will find that achieves DOT CAP using only Cold Snap and NO OTHER DAMAGE SKILLS, using a very cost efficient and affordable setup that requires no FF Jewels, No Ultra Expensive Uniques and very easy to craft rares.

What does "TRUE DOT CAP" Mean?

That is a term I have made myself, it means that you are achieving the CAP on damage over time (35.7m Dps) without utilizing curses, shock effect, or Any Conditionals. This means that you have this damage for MAPPING as well as bossing. Most builds that get dot cap need to press multiple curses, or "HIT" the enemy to apply a big shock, or walk under them to apply Scorched ground, or need maximum stages or Some form of conditionals that would never be realistically done while mapping.

This character does none of that, so the dps you see in the PoB is the actual dps you have for both bossing And clearing, which for an AUTOBOMBER playstyle is extremely comfortable, 30m dps happening as you just walk past something leads to everything just disappearing the moment you come in range. It's perfect. You do not have dot cap for clearing though, you do have to use regular cold snap once on a boss and that combined with Vaal Cold snap is dot capped on single target. The build WAS dot capped just on vaal cold snap, but I replaced alot of damage with more duration scaling to make it more comfortable, the ~28m is more than good enough still.

WHAT TO NOT DO?:

This build is by far one of the easiest builds I have made to set up, plug and play. But it does still have some specific things to keep an eye for, so please watch the video or refer to the F.A.Q at the bottom if you run into any problems.

Problems?

YOUR GAMEPLAY SHOULD LOOK THE SAME AS MINE IN ANY BUILD YOU PLAY OF MINE. IF YOU FEEL FORCED TO DO SOMETHING IM NOT DOING, THAT MEANS THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG IN THE SETUP. PLEASE CHECK THE FAQ FOR IT, OR ASK ME DIRECTLY IN MY DISCORD OR YOUTUBE COMMENTS.

Levelling??

I made this build close to when I was done with the league, so I do not have my own personal levelling setup. I love cold dot, and I have a great grasp on it and can fully recommend Jungroan's cold dot levelling league starter (I did not link it here since he's been offline and has not replied to me asking for permission to do so xd)

Videos?

Crafting Notes:

They are at the bottom of this page in the How it Works Section.

I HAVE QUESTIONS WHAT DO I DO?

There is an F.A.Q Section at the bottom of this page. Any questions that I repeatedly get I will put the answers in there, so please Ctrl + F and find your question there, if you dont find it then tag me @masterT in my discord help channel for poe 1, and i'll respond there, Or ask me in my youtube comments.

If its a very specific problem, please include an in game clip and your pob so I can see the issue and fix it.

Where to Reach Me?

You can reach me directly on my discord, I am active almost all the time there in the chats. I have too many jobs irl to stream so this is all i got.
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/rNVCYuRVkt

If you like what i do and appreciate the detail and work I put into things, then consider checking out the patreon, but you really do not have to just your views and comments on youtube and in my discord are enough to warm the fires.

Patreon for Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/c/_MasterT

F.A.Q:

This will be updated as more questions get asked so I know which parts are confusing to everyone.

REGEX:

"!te of|m resistances$|ur$|ced f|em$|rch$|t reg|s def"

This includes - max res in it so that RF doesnt start degenning you, but you can also just Not turn on RF for the maps that have - max res on it so that the regex can be less strict.

Also avoid the Red Altar modifier that turns off your flask charge gain.

Why is my Righteous Fire Turning Off??

You need Eternal Youth allocated. This prevents your life from ever hitting 1 (rf turns off at 1 hp) from Coruscating Elixir as it Instantly recharges above 1 thanks to the keystone, letting RF stay on.

You NEED REUSED AT THE END OF FLASK EFFECT Enchant on ALL your flasks. If you put "USED WHEN CHARGES REACH FULL" It will make your Coruscating Elixir get spam used and the life recharge wont be able to keep up and it will flick your RF off.

ONLY your Quicksilver flask will have Used When Charges Reach Full.

This only applies to the Non Mageblood Setup. With a mageblood you will have inc effect on all your flasks, but will keep the Coruscating Elixir on "Reused at the end of effect"

How Do I Get the Chaos Bloodline?

Take any t14+ map, scour it to make it easier, use a base ultimatum scarab + ultimatum scarab of dueling to guarantee the boss in the end. You can kill that boss with this same build even without the chaos bloodline.

Why Cant I Reserve All Auras and Skills?

You need Eldritch Blasphemy at Level 4 to be able to take Influence on the passive tree. If you do not have a level 4 Eldritch Blasphemy, then just use a Level 3 one and Unspec out of the Influence wheel and take Sovereignty (using 3 points) instead. It's just slightly lower aura effect.

You also can not make your Clarity be above level 9.

What is the build good at farming?

The build can not farm things like Legion, it needs alot of large screen clear.

It's great and very comfortable at altar farming, stacked deck farms, simulacrum, destructive play, ritual, breach. I would not use it to boss rush nightmare maps though, it doesn't have enough single target damage to insta kill nightmare bosses for that to feel comfortable.

Pantheons?

They're always in the POB Config for any build variant, sometimes pantheons change depending on what budget tier you're on.

For this build right now its the same pantheons:
Major: Lunaris
Minor: Ralakesh for Bleed and Corrupted Blood Mitigation

CRAFTING NOTES:

Cogwork / Helical Ring:

A Helical Ring is better but it costs more than a Cogwork Ring and its only a slight difference. The steps to craft it are simple:

1 - Buy a Fractured Chaos Resistance base, t1 or minimum t2 chaos res.
2 - Use Essence of Delirium until you get ANY T1 Res, and All Ele res. You can harvest swap the t1 res into cold res.
If you hit a t1 res OR all ele res, but have an empty suffix you can slam an exalt and hope it gives you the mod you're missing. You can also use the Allflame Bench to slam your exalt. I would only do this to slam t1 res, since all res is rarer to hit with an exalt.
3 - Craft mana on your prefix, and Slam an Exalt. (Can Allflame Slam the Exalt Here too) this is just a yolo step to try to get energy shield on your prefix and will only work on Cogwork Ring since it can have 2 prefixes. For Helical Ring if you have an empty prefix you will just craft %increased damage, or leave it with whatever random prefix it ended with.
4 - Use Prismatic Catalysts to pump up the resistance modifiers, and you're all set your ring is done.

AMULET:

https://youtu.be/6Bik7cuGCgU
Follow the steps in this video for the Donor amulet, up until you have the +1 skill, and tweak the steps slightly to get a +1 cold instead of +1 lightning the way I've explained in the video.

After that, Remove all Crafted Mods from the item (Craft Prefixes cannot be changed and scour if you have any other random bad suffixes) and do this:

ULTRA EASY METHOD:

- Craft can have upto 3 crafted mods
- Craft minimum endurance charge
- Craft %ES
If empty suffix still left, allflame slam an exalt and pick high tier res or cast speed. Cast speed for more qol, cold res for extra damage.
Done.
The main downside of this amulet is you only have 1 endurance charge, instead of 3 while mapping. But the COST of getting the right unveiled mod is stupid, it'll cost you like 40-100 divs if you get unlucky but I'll mention the steps below:

HARD METHOD:

- Craft Can Have Upto 3 Crafted Mods
- Craft mana on the prefix (To artificially fill your prefixes so that the Veiled Chaos can't fill it)
- Craft Prefixes cannot be changed
- Use a Veiled Chaos Orb (Can use it in the allflame bench too)
The IDEAL outcome here is you get a Veiled suffix, and NO OTHER Suffixes, but even if you get 1 other random trash suffix its okay you just miss out on being able to craft a suffix in the end.
- Craft any Hybrid Attributes to block that unveil
- Unveil and hope that you hit Endurance Charge on Kill.
If you do not hit, you can repeat this whole method IF you have 2 empty suffixes. If you only have 1 empty suffix you need to craft prefixes cannot be changed and Scour, then continue.
IF your suffixes got filled fully, you cry and try to yolo annul or use the allflame bench to annul. If it takes off your prefix, well. haha

- Once you hit the right unveil do this to finish the item:
IF 2 empty suffixes:
Craft can have upto 3 crafted mods, craft cold res for damage OR cast speed for qol, and %maximum energy shield.
IF 1 empty suffix:
Just craft %maximum energy shield and yolo exalt a suffix or vice versa, craft cold res or cast speed and yolo slam a prefix.

Good luck with that

STAFF:

I have a video for this too, in the video I am making a Lightning staff, but almost all steps are the same except you will be unveiling a different modifier.

https://youtu.be/JpKedRJ9qfw

Follow the steps until you have a +2 +4 all spell and cold spell staff, make sure your base is a 25% block implicit base and then do the following:

- Craft can have multiple crafted mods
- Craft lowest tier mana on the prefix (any non veil mod works but just do this for safety)
- Craft prefixes cannot be changed.
- Slam a Veiled Chaos in the allflame bench. (You do not want ANY other suffixes thats why you want to do it in the allflame bench and pick the option without other suffixes. If you get EXTREMELY unlucky and it Full fills your suffixes you have to yolo annul a suffix, if you miss you have to start over) You can also use a Veiled exalt to skip all potential bad rng on this step but that is very expensive i would never do it since the odds to full fill your suffixes are pretty low.
Pick the option that has No other suffixes once you get it
- Craft %dmg per endurance charge to block those mods
- Unveil the item. You are trying to hit Cold Damage Over Time Multiplier. I would not settle with any other modifier here.
IF you miss, you repeat from the first step.
Once you hit the right unveil then:
- Craft can have multiple crafted mods
- Craft %Increased Cold Damage
- Craft Cast speed (major QoL, you can also craft chance to block attack damage to be attack block capped, but cast speed feels 1000000x better)

EXTRA STEP:
Use Tempering Orbs until you hit %increased cold explicit mods. This buffs your cold damage and your unveiled cold damage multiplier. You can use these orbs in the allflame bench too.

For a cheaper option, you can use the harvest enchant for %increased elemental damage per quality, and quality your staff to 20% with Blacksmith's Whetstones.

Archdemon Crown Helmet:

This is one of the easiest and fastest crafts in the whole build.

- Get a Fractured "Socketed Gems Deal More Damage when on Low Life" OR "Socketed Gems Deal 30% More Elemental Damage"
- Use Essence of Hysteria or Horror (depending on what fractured mod you have) until you get Any T1 Res On Suffix, Prefixes do not matter you just need 1 empty prefix.
- Craft Suffixes cannot be changed
- Use Veiled chaos (Can be used in allflame bench too) you want 1 open prefix here, if you have 2 open prefixes its even better. IF you somehow filled all prefixes, you have to yolo annul a prefix, if you miss and remove a suffix you have to start over from essence spam.
- Craft Maximum Skeletons to block that mod and Unveil. You want +2 aoe gems. If you miss, repeat from suffixes cannot be changed.
- Craft %inc armour and es, and you're done.
IF you have 2 open prefixes, then after your unveil you want to craft mana, and Yolo Exalt Slam Or Allflame exalt slam and try to get %inc armour es or flat Armour ES.
If you get one of those modifiers, you will just craft the other one and your helmet is done. Dont forget to harvest swap the res into cold res if its not already cold res.

Rare Base Jewels:

To craft your rare jewels, it's extremely easy with the allflame bench. Just grab jewels with 3 relevant modifiers, and allflame exalt slam the 4th one. For a budget option, get 2 relevant mod jewels, and slam a 3rd and 4th one.

If you can not find jewels with open modifier slots, you can try to yolo annul and open them up.

Mod Priority:
Cast Speed while holding a staff
Cast speed with cold skills
Cold damage over time multiplier
damage over time multiplier
Attack and Cast speed
%maximum energy shield
%increased cold/spell damage
%increased damage

Cluster Jewels:

For the flask medium cluster, just reforge life + exalts and annuls until you have Special Reserve and Brewed for Potency.

For the Large Cold Damage cluster, get ANY of the modifiers you see on the cluster to be fractured, and then just alteration, regal, exalt spam until you get the other modifiers. Use the allflame bench for your regal + exalt to make it much much easier.

Animate Guardian Gear:

Animate Guardian Helmet Craft:

- Get a shaper influenced helmet with "Nearby enemies take %increased elemental damage"
- Get a redeemer influenced helmet with "Nearby enemies have - cold res"

Make sure both helmets are NOT Double Influenced and only have the above influenced mod on them and No Other Mods.

The base for the helmet does not matter. Use an Awakener Orb to smash the 2 items together to get a double influenced helmet with both those mods.

Bonus points, if you have an open suffix craft Life Regen rate. Its really good, if not then just craft Increased area on prefix.

OPTIONAL:

You can Elevate the modifiers first before you combine them using an Orb of Dominance. This is just 50-50 rng, it does give a good little bit of extra damage but will end up costing like 30-40D in attempts if you get unlucky so good luck.

Animate Guardian Shield:

Any shield with Recover Life on Block and %increased chance to block, and Crafted %chance to block spells (or if its already on the item thats okay too)

Animate Guardian Weapon, Boots, Body Armour and Gloves:

Body Armour: Doppelgänger Guise get this with a high roll of the Less physical and chaos damage taken. Nothing else matters.
Gloves: Southbound Get this with a high roll of %increased max life, and IDEALLY a %max life corrupt too.
Boots: Legacy of Fury get this with a high roll of %increased effect of scorch, nothing else matters.
Weapon: Relentless Fury this gives your build culling strike through your animate guardian.

- 28th September 2026
Build Posted with Just an Endgame Version, League start version will be set up for 3.30