Eye of Winter Inquisitor Build Guide (PoE The Forbidden Sanctum 3.20)

Introduction

Due to the latest balancing changes, we do not recommend playing this build anymore, as it does not meet the high standards we apply to our guides in terms of fun and performance. We are leaving it up as a reference and it might be revived in a later patch.

This build guide is a collaboration with Path of Matth who is the original designer of the build. It is one of the craziest low budget league starter builds designed to drop down the hardest end-game bosses with little to no currency invested at all. The build doesn’t sacrifice defenses to achieve this and is extremely cheap to get going on league start with as well as utilizing the build for the higher end-game bosses in almost no gear what so ever!

Below you can see the build in action from PathOfMatth’s YouTube Guide. Do note that the video might be outdated in terms of information, and you should always look at this guide to make sure you have the updated version.

Here’s a preview of the build in action with a mere 5-Link fighting t16 map with 60% delirious effect:

Build Overview

In this section I will outline the pros, cons, & the general play-style. This will allow you to determine if the build is for you or not!

Pros

+ League Starter – The gearing process for this build is so simple & straight forward it works extremely well as a league starter.

+ Bosser – The damage output this build can achieve even in the lowest of low budget is completely absurd.

+ Miner Play Style – The play-style as shown in the video is extremely satisfying when you detonate the army of mines and watch a boss get instantly zerged down to 0 HP.

Cons

– Miner Play Style – Clearing with a miner build is not as satisfying as the bossing play-style, there’s a lot of throwing mines down and detonating them frequently.

– Clear-Speed – Despite being rather effective at clearing it sadly isn’t the fastest clearing build in the world!

Playstyle

The build clears maps by throwing mines on the ground and detonating them frequently which can get rather spammy, however, once you encounter a boss you pre-cast a set of different abilities then mass out a ton mines which you’ll detonate in a beautiful sequence which will ramp up in damage output thanks to High-Impact Mine support which significantly increases the damage done for each mine detonated that hits the enemy to ramp up an absurd amount of damage.

Damage Scaling And Defensive Layers

Damage scaling for this build is all about stacking mines & putting up debuffs on the boss to make it take a ton of extra damage. This comes in the form a mark curse as well as Bear Trap. Thanks to the builds layers of defense and quality of life it is able to run Righteous Fire without worries or any heavy investments which increases damage dealt significantly.

Defensive scaling is how we are able to run Righteous Fire without any heavy investments, thanks to the Inquisitors ascendancy node Pious Path in combination with Mind over Matter & Eldritch Battery the build provides not just defensive layers that are consistently up it also provides a huge quality of life for the general mine play-style as we don’t have to think about our mana cost when placing mines anymore. Besides this the tree provides a huge amount of Spell Suppression which we are in the late game reaching the cap with thanks to gear making it sturdy & reliable for end-game bosses. Besides this the build is using both Molten Shell as well as Determination to further mitigate physical damage.

PoB And Passive Skill Tree

The PoB community fork created by Localidentity is the only version being kept up to date, so make sure you have the correct version: PoB Community Fork.

This low budget PoB showcase a generic approach to get a stable end-game mapping experience and with decent gear availability of killing the regular end-game pinnacle bosses: https://pobb.in/OmE6GuIW0Chr Do keep in mind that once you equip Snakepit you should remove the nodes on the far right side of the tree “Piercing Shots” as you are no longer able to pierce with your projectiles)

If you’re interested in 1 shotting the end game uber uber bosses but be completely unable to do any other type of content you can turn the build in to a super fragile glass cannon by following these instructions:

You can find more information on our dedicated page.

Eye of Winter Inquisitor PoB, Passive Skill Tree & Gem Links

Gearing

A lot of the end-game gear can easily be crafted, to learn how to craft as well as learn how to craft specific items check out my crafting guides here.

You can read more details about our gearing recommendations on the dedicated page, but for now you can see a summarized version below.

Eye of Winter Inquisitor Gear, Jewels & Flasks

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity
Head	Life then res/attributes as needed	Rare
Amulet	Life & + level of cold skills or critical strike multiplier	Rare
Chest	Life, spell suppression & res/attributes as needed	Rare
Gloves	Life then Res/Attributes as needed	Rare
Boots	Darkray Vectors	Unique
Belt	Life & res/attributes as needed	Rare
Rings	Snakepit (right ring slot) & Dream Fragments	2x Unique
Weapon	Spell damage, + lvl of cold skills & critical strike multiplier	Rare
Shield	Life, spell suppression & res/attributes as needed	Rare

Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Recommendations

You can read about the recommended Ascendancy, Bandit choice, and Pantheon Power recommendations for this build on our dedicated page.

Eye of Winter Inquisitor Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Powers

Leveling

The leveling experience with this build is very smooth, if done correctly. There are a few steps along the campaign that will allow for spikes in either damage, speed or defensive scaling layers for the build. Normally you’ll see a quick TL;DR of skill-gems to get going with in my guides but Path of Matth has gone ahead and created a 2 part video series going through the entire campaign which you can play-along with or utilize the chapters seen in the videos to skip to the parts you’ll want to check out as the PoB covers the details!

Part 1:

Part 2:

For more general leveling advice, we recommend the following guides.

• Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
• Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
• Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.

Questions?

To guarantee that my guides are tools you can utilize to enhance your experience in Path of Exile, all you need to do is post your question in the comments and I will personally attend to them as soon as possible.

Final Notes

As much as I love making build guides, it is very crucial in a game like Path of Exile that you play the game the way you enjoy playing it. With that said, if you’ve made any tweaks to the build compared to what I’m showing in this guide I would love if you’d posted it in the comments! It’s an effective way to show other approaches and it helps me grow as a build guide creator!

I hope you found the build guide useful and I wish you all many Exalted Orb drops!