Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) is a game known for its complexity and deep customization, offering a variety of playstyles and builds. One such powerful and intriguing build is the Permafrost Bolt Witchhunter, a character that combines devastating cold damage, high burst potential, and crowd control. This build is particularly strong for players who enjoy scaling their damage and creating large, frozen zones in combat, while maintaining excellent survivability. Whether you're farming content or delving into endgame bosses, this build can be a powerful choice when paired with the right gear and playstyle. Along the way, PoE 2 Currency will play a key role in acquiring the best gear to make this build shine. By focusing on maximizing cold damage, critical strikes, and freeze chance, the Permafrost Bolt Witchhunter can become a formidable force, freezing and shattering enemies with ease.

The Witchhunter class is the foundation of this build, focusing on spellcasting, elemental damage, and utilizing cold-based skills. By leveraging Permafrost Bolt, a unique cold spell, this build can dominate both single-target bosses and large packs of enemies in PoE 2's vast world. With the right gear, passives, and proper planning, the Permafrost Bolt Witchhunter is a force to be reckoned with.

Key Features of the Build

Permafrost Bolt Skill

At the core of this build is the Permafrost Bolt, a cold spell that sends out projectiles dealing significant damage to enemies while creating zones of freezing cold upon impact. This freezing effect significantly slows enemies, providing essential crowd control while dealing massive cold damage. The scaling of Permafrost Bolt's damage comes from increasing cold damage, spell damage, and critical strike chance, all of which are enhanced by selecting the right passive nodes and gear.

Elemental Focus

As this build revolves around cold damage, it's crucial to stack elemental damage modifiers, as well as cold-specific bonuses. You will need to prioritize increasing your cold damage, critical strike chance, and spell damage through the passive tree, gear, and ascendancy nodes. Additionally, having a solid Elemental Focus setup for extra elemental penetration is key to taking down tougher enemies, especially in the late game when you encounter high-resistance bosses and difficult zones. Cold damage penetration will allow you to bypass enemy resistances and deal devastating damage.

Critical Strikes & Freeze Chance

Critical strikes are a cornerstone of the Witchhunter's damage output. This build can easily achieve high critical strike chances, especially when paired with Cold Damage and Critical Multiplier modifiers. Moreover, the chance to freeze enemies is another major benefit. With the right gear and support gems, the freezing chance can be significantly enhanced, making this build perfect for controlling large groups of enemies and preventing bosses from retaliating. As you deal critical hits, enemies freeze in place, leaving them open to follow-up attacks or allowing you to kite and avoid dangerous encounters.

Survivability

The Witchhunter is a highly evasive character, designed to rely on energy shield and evasion for survivability. Because this build revolves around range and maintaining distance, it is vital to stay out of close-quarter combat, where you may be vulnerable. The passive tree offers numerous ways to boost your energy shield, energy shield recovery, and evasion. Investing in Life and Energy Shield Leech, along with defensive gear such as Flasks of Freeze Immunity or flasks that provide elemental resistances, will help you stay alive during tough encounters. With high evasion and energy shield regeneration, the Permafrost Bolt Witchhunter can avoid incoming damage while dishing out devastating cold spells.

Passive Tree & Ascendancy Choices

Witch Class Passive Tree

When allocating passive points on the Witch's tree, your focus should be on cold damage, critical strike, spell damage, and mana regeneration nodes. Prioritize nodes that enhance elemental damage, energy shield, and spellcasting speed. Aim to pick up nodes that increase cold damage (including those that boost both cold and spell damage), critical strike chance (to enhance Permafrost Bolt's damage potential), and freeze chance. Look for energy shield and evasion nodes that boost your defenses, allowing you to stay safe while dealing damage from a distance.

Ascendancy-Occultist

The Occultist ascendancy is the most suitable for this build. It grants substantial bonuses to cold damage, increased freeze chance, and curse effectiveness. For the Permafrost Bolt Witchhunter, some notable nodes include:

Forbidden Power: This node enhances both energy shield and spell damage, making it essential for scaling your damage output while ensuring your survivability.

Forbidden Flesh: Grants additional cold damage bonuses, helping you boost your total damage potential, especially against higher-level enemies.

Forbidden Rite: A secondary option that increases curse effectiveness on enemies, which is useful for adding layers of control over bosses and large packs of monsters.

The Occultist ascendancy provides the perfect balance between offensive power and defensive survivability for this build.

Gear and Jewels

Weapons

For weapons, Wands or Scepters are ideal. These provide bonuses to spell damage, critical strike chance, and cold damage, all of which are crucial for this build. Look for wands that have high spell critical strike chance, increased cold damage, and elemental penetration for tougher bosses.

Armor and Defensive Gear

Since your survivability relies on evasion and energy shield, Energy Shield-based gear is essential. Look for helmets, chest pieces, and gloves that provide increased energy shield and evasion, along with resistances to elemental damage. Boots should have movement speed and freeze immunity to help you maintain distance from enemies. Adding Flasks of Freeze Immunity will also help ensure that you are never locked down by cold-based debuffs.

Rings and Amulets

Focus on rings and amulets that increase cold damage, critical strike chance, resistances, and life. Additionally, aim for rings that have increased energy shield to bolster your survivability. For your amulet, look for cold damage and critical strike multiplier to further increase your damage output.

Jewels

For jewels, prioritize those that increase cold damage, freeze chance, and critical strike multiplier. These will significantly enhance your overall performance, especially when you combine them with the right passives on the skill tree.

Conclusion

The Permafrost Bolt Witchhunter build is an exceptional choice for Path of Exile 2 players who enjoy cold-based, high-damage spells with a focus on crowd control. This build shines in both solo play and group content, offering explosive damage, excellent freeze potential, and solid survivability. With the right gear, passive tree, and strategic use of Permafrost Bolt, you'll dominate PoE 2's challenges in style! If you're looking to boost your progress or get the gear you need, it's always a good idea to buy POE 2 Orbs to fast-track your build's development and take on the toughest foes with confidence.