Regikoko's 3.17 Eye of Winter Totem Hierophant Build (build improved but caught some nerfs.)

Eye of Winter
Added Cold Damage/Awakened Added Cold Damage
Increased Critical Damage(if not yet using soul mantle replace this with spell totem support)
Cold Penetration/Awakened Cold Penetration
Divergent Multiple Totems Support
Increased Critical Strikes

This is our main skill and source of damage it sends out a trail of projectiles that when it reaches it final destination or collides with terrain will detonate sending out a circle of projectiles. The final explosion can shotgun enemies allowing for big single target damage. The goal when using this skill is to set up your totems in a way that the final blast land as close to the enemy as possible. The support gems are pretty much just typical damage gems with multiple totems allowing us to fire as many projectiles as possible.

Sniper's Mark
Frost Bomb
Arcanist Brand
Spell Cascade
Frostbite
Arcane Surge (lvl 10)

Sniper's Mark allows us to deal more damage with projectiles to the target we mark with it and since Eye of Winter fires projectiles this will allow us to maximize our DPS. Frost bomb applies Cold exposure giving negative to enemy cold res, further increasing our damage. Arcanist Brand simply makes it so both abilities will fire simultaneously saving us some clicks. Spell cascade increases the hit area of our abilities. Frostbite Another curse increases cold damage taken by the target. Finally Arcane surge which will proc when we spend X amount of mana of the supported skill giving us spell damage and mana regen. If not on a six link I suggest dropping Frostbite and just delay picking up the curse nodes until you get it. (also watch the cost of the spell vs the required mana spent to trigger arcane surge).

Flame Dash
Arcane Surge (lvl 6)


Flame Dash is our movement ability allowing us to jump gaps and escape dangerour situations. We use another lower lvl Arcane Sruge here just to keep the buff up at all times (you don't have to use this here but wasn't sure what else to put...could us portal if you want)

Cast When Damage Taken lvl 5 (Anomalous)
Vaal Molten Shell lvl 13 or Immortal Call
Summon Lightning Golem lvl 7 (Anomalous)
Vaal Haste

This is pretty basic we take Vaal Molten shell to give us a nice shield when we get hit to ensure we don't take anymore damage to finish us off. If you're having trouble getting the str for determination (mentioned in the aura section) use this if taking grace, as Molten shell scales with armour. The vaal part of it can be used as an "oh shit" button in case we get into a bad situation. Summon lightning golem is just more damage and since they tend to die a lot its easier just to put it on cast when damage taken. Finally there is Vaal haste (we don't use the haste aura just the vaal buff) we use this buff to provide us with a large damage boost when we need it)

Hatred
Determination or grace
Zealotry
Enlighten

This is pretty simple the Hatred and Herald of Ice provide us with damage and Determination provides us with a large amount of armor to help reduce damage taken. If you can't yet afford Enlighten simply drop Herald of Ice until you can. (If you have Viridi's Veil put these there to get the plus to skills bonus on the auras). If you can't get enough str for determination or prefer evasion you can take grace if so use immortal call over molten shell. The option of Flesh and Stone is if you want to be more defensive, it also pairs well with grace since blind now only really works with evasion.

The budget version of this build uses

Once you get a lil richer you'll invest in a rare staff for this build. a staff with implicit block chance Any kind will work as the damage on the staff won't matter and we get 100% crit without it. Then you'll want Spell Damage, Cast Speed, Critical Chance for Spells, + to spell skills, + to cold skills, and crit multi.


something like this or close to it

Soul Mantle is the body armour you will use with this build it is a key part of the build it adds spell damage, and curses you when you're totems die (resummoning totems counts as them dying) although this may sound bad when you combine this with a way to become immune to curses and the self-flagellation jewel which adds damage per curse on you it becomes a power house and a heavy source of damage for this build. That being said make sure you have curse immunity which we will discuss further down in the guide before using this armour.

For gloves you'll want a set of rare gloves preferably Fingerless Silk Gloves for the bonus to spell damage but can use any old pair of gloves until then the stats you'll want are high life Res and Either Dex or Str depending on what you need this build really struggles getting those stats since we take mostly int nodes)


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For boots you'll want rare boots the base type does not matter as much although two-toned are going to be best to help with resistances. Again you'll want high life Res and again either str or dex, next you'll want movement speed since this build can feel really slow without it. For our boot enchant you'll want either movement speed or Damage penetrates Cold res if you hav'nt killed recently

If you're using the budget version you'll want anything with high life and resistance rolls

The final Version of this build uses Viridi's Veil This is a key part of this build as it provides us with hexproof while using a magic (blue) ring in right ring slot which allows us to use our armour (Soul Mantle) while bypassing the negative effects of the curses we inflict on ourselves

For enchant the best one for damage is Effect of Sniper's Mark but any of the damage ones relating to our skills will do.

For our amulet we now have a choice here you can use Gloomfang which allows chaining and extra damage as chaos for chained projectiles this was the goto amulet for us until they nerfed hydrosphere. Now if you want more single target damage take The Pandemonius.

(Ignore the super lucky scourge its fine without it :P)

For ring we will use Mark of the Shaper for a big damage boost and some life. alternatively in our right ring slot you'll use a Magic ring to synergize with Viridi's Veil. If using Mark of the Shaper you must get a Elder ring in order to benefit from the spell damage bonus on Mark of the Shaper. On this ring you'll want a Tier 1 life roll and as much res as you can get. I recommend a vermillion ring base although Cerulean or Opal can work if you want more damage over survivability.



If using the budget version of this build this will be the slot you use to get curse immunity as Viridi's Veil can be a bit costly. Using 2 Kikazaru rings will give you 80% reduced effect of curses on you. (40 each) combine that with the 20% you'll get for the pantheon (Yugul) and you have 100% reduced effect of curses. It also gives mana and life regen which is useful for this build and a good amount of lightning res on the implicit.

For the belt it heavily depends on what gear you have. If using Viridi's Veil then you will want to use Coward's Legacy it give you "You count as on low life while you are cursed with Vulnerability" plus curses you with Vulnerability with 80% increased Effect. which allows us to get a permanent buff from the passive keystone Pain Attunement. The movement speed and all attributes is nice as well.



For the budget version get a good Leather belt or Stygian Vise with life and resistances. If using a Stygian try to get life and some damage added to spells on your Jewel.

For jewels you'll need to get a Self-Flagellation. This gives us up to 20% increased damage per curse on you and allows an additional curse to be applied to you. This with soul mantle is a huge source of damage.



For the Jewel slot located nearest to your starting area you'll want to put a militant faith this jewel can be a nice damage increase or used to fill in resistances as needed.



next you'll want to eventually get a watchers eye a pure hatred one with cold pen is fine and usually not to expensive. if you're looking for a mid range one you can get hatred plus zealotry or determination. Or you can go all out cost and damage and get a double hatred.

this is what i'm using


Lastly our cluster jewel we only need 1 its a medium and its super easy to roll on your own so no need to worry about big spending. Its a medium 4 or 5 passive (doesn't matter) Projectile damage jewel with Shrieking Bolts and Repeater. Shrieking bolt provides us with some damage and causes our totems to taunt enemies causing them to target the totems instead of us, and Repeater is just damage. You can try for res or str/dex if needed on this.

I rolled this one in a couple hundred alts. Could of done it sooner but wanted that t1 res

These are the flasks I am using most are optional and i would suggest getting a immune to freeze flask. Surgeon's prefix is nice since we crit a lot, it just means more uptime on the flasks. The diamond flask is required to reach 100% crit chance so that's just damage. The quicksilver is for mobility and the final flask is just defense you can also use a silver over a granite for more damage. Lastly I wanna talk about Sorrow of the divine; What this does causes our energy shield to recharge while our life flask is active. That being said since life flasks end when you hit full like if you use it while you have full life it will not recover any energy shield. the Use when you use a life flask enchant is really handy for this.