Enki's Arc Witch Memorial Page

Sorry if this has been already answered, but how about going elementalist instead of occultist?

You would lose:
3.5% crit chance (power charge and the minor node)
power charge on crit
10% more (profane bloom) and 8% more (malediction) modifiers
30% increased curse duration (hardly matters)
24% increased ES (same)
profane bloom explosions (no idea how much of an impact they have)
having to sacrifice 4-5 passives to get dual curse on tree (or, possibly a better option, wearing doedre's or a corrupt amulet and not losing any passives)

And as an ele, you would gain:
elemental conflux
proliferation
70% increased damage (30% elemental + 40% lightning)
9% increased cast speed (from having the golem bonus doubled)
30% ele status duration (meh)
3% to freeze, shock, ignite (meh)

To me, it seems the damage output gains from ele easily balance out (and overcome) the "more" and crit chance things on occultist, and on top, ele brings conflux and proliferation.
(Well, come to think of it now, would conflux be any useful, with the build critting and freezing so often anyways?)

edit: With two more ascendancy points coming with the endgame labyrinth, it seems ele will be even further ahead?

Thank you very much for the quick reply and thanks for clearing that one up. I did not see it

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Enki91 wrote:

@olesk: Vaal Storm Call used to be a good addition, but i don't think it's worth it anymore with Ascendancy buffs. Weaker bosses die easily with Arc, and for the tougher bosses it doesn't last long enough to make an impact worth giving up a 4L.
Normal Storm Call + Less Duration as swap for Arc is more reliable.

Thank you for helping! If I may follow up with a final question: I have a 3L sceptre I want to use for the Storm Call. I'm however confused as to which are the better support gems. You mentioned less duration (making it more accurate & easier to hit with), but others swear to some combination of Spell Echo/Concentrated Effect/Faster Casting/Lightning Penetration. Given this is a 3L sceptre, what would you prioritize?

@Gell: I can only say, give it a try. Doedre's Damning is no option, we need the stats from our rare ring slot, and a good +1 curse ammy will be very expensive.
So you'll have to spend 4 points getting Whispers of Doom - question is, which other 4 nodes to drop? Will the loss of those nodes outweigh what you gain from Elementalist? If you drop jewel sockets for example, the answer is no.

Next patch may or may not change that, depending on how Ascendancy classes get balanced, and how hard the map labyrinth actually is. It may be something that most players will never achieve, so no real point to revolve a build around the last two points.

@olesk: I'd go with Storm Call + Less Duration + Spell Echo.

Hi!

Thanks for taking the time to write this build.I had a lot of fun and some success with it especially considering this is my first Poe char ever.

I was wondering if you will update the build for prophecy? I am thinking about playing my char in Standard a bit when it comes out.

Thank you very much!

@Psychotikah: Thank you, glad it worked well for you :)

I will definitely update this for Prophecy. One change i can already spoil is, Witches will change to Elementalist for reflect safety.

Preliminary thoughts on Vaal pact moving forward into Prophecy? I've just recently caught wind of this build and plan to run with it in prophecy so while I have tested it a bit on Perandus I've yet to take it to the higher end, damage wise.

With the Reflect protection Elementalist will now give us, do you THINK we will be okay w/o Vaal pact? Saving ourselves 6 points. (We need 4 somewhere for that dual curse right?)

I'm looking at making a few other changes as well. All minor, just playing around atm.

I've been working on a tree for the new build and it has a lot of work to go..Hopefully we can see an updated tree before launch.

Ascendancy tree should be easy though. We don't make use of mastermind of discord nor care about elemental conflux or beacon of ruin. So I think it's safe to assume the best ascendancy tree will be this?



So what we're gaining over the 6 point occultist build:

40% cold and lightning damage(another 40% both when we are hit by those elements/reflected upon)
50% elemental damage
Every 10 seconds gain 100% more elemental damage for 4 seconds
50% reduced reflected elemental damage(YAY!)
40% critical strike chance(ice golem gives 40% more than minor occultist point)
17% cast speed(100% more effect on lightning golem +8% more from points)
Another Golem to tank stuff + golems become immune to elemental damage
20% increased character size(ONE BIG WITCH)
6% to all elemental resistances
8% reduced elemental damage when we are hit by those elements/reflected upon
3% chance to freeze/shock/ignite(meh)
10% elemental status duration(meh)


We're losing:

10% chance to gain a power charge on crit
1 power charge(though for 3 points we could spec that point back in)
Have to spec into whispers of doom(5 passive points)
Cursed Enemies you Kill have a 20% chance to Explode, dealing a quarter of their maximum Life as Chaos Damage
Enemies you Curse take 10% increased Damage
16% increased maximum Energy Shield
15% increased Curse Duration

Overall it looks like we're getting buffed really hard. We will have to generate power charges a different way, most likely power charge on crit? So we'll be losing cold penetration or empower. But yeah, a huge buff that i'm excited for.

On a side note, enfeeble and warlord's mark nerfs need to be examined by someone a bit more informed than I, but I don't personally see them leaving the build. Looking forward to the update to this guide!

Also since moving to elementalist what are the reasons, if any, not to use two call of the brotherhoods? We can now shock with any damage reliably, even single target No minion bosses can be shocked with use of a worm flask.

Would make capping resists a bit harder, a bit less life, but would help damage and freezing a ton though.

I have invested maybe 30-40 ex in to this build and at level 91 I can barely do most tier 12+ bosses, while a lot of other builds do double tier 15 bosses with less investment and lower level.

Extremely weak against bosses
Can't run a lot of map mods (no curses, elemental reflect, no mana regeneration, double bosses).

Sorry to be so critical, I know you have put in a lot of time to write this up, but weeks after playing this build and investing into it I feel deceived, because nowhere in your post does it mention how weak this build is against high tier map bosses and I kept thinking "if I invest more, better gear, better gems, it will get better" but it doesn't and I have lost out on time and on currency.

It's a good build for leveling and going through the campaign, but it's absolutely not end game viable.

When only 1/2 damage is cold, cold penetration gem is only about 10% damage boost and it's close to impossible to chrome lightning coil with 5 blue sockets.

Exactly same with Vinktars. Active life leech decreased from 20% to 10% when using CotB.

These ofcourse are very minor things, but it gets worse...

The whole

"

"Arc kills frozen enemy > Herald of Ice applies curses to surrounding enemies through AoE-explosion > Arc chains to said enemies > you profit from curses"

is also suboptimal. Arc is already extremely powerful with handling large groups and extremely weak with single target, why does this build further focus on improving the only thing it's good at instead of focusing on it's weak spots (map mods, bosses).

When fighting map mobs I click and everything in my screen dies in 1 second. I run around with power charges, endurance charges, frenzy charges, I heal from warlords mark after every kill (even though I completely don't need it due to my OP group killing speed).

When fighting a map boss all of my offensive curses are absolutely useless, I don't profit from endurance and frenzy charges, I don't leech, arc doesn't chain.

When I see these level 79 shadows with 8 ex investment killing bosses in 3 sec that I can't kill at level 91 with 40 ex investment I feel very dissapointed. It should read "build for noobs to level to 70 fast - not end game viable" at the very first post, first line of this thread.

If there is at least 1 character in Path of Exile that reached level 100 with this build (meaning he consistently did high tier maps without dying) I'd be very surprised.

Will sell all of my gear and gems, respec, and never ever play anything arc related. Very weak build.

/rant