Demon form - it's kinda bad? Discussion.

The skill seems underwhelming for the investment.

I'm not sure if it's bugged, but you lose the stats from your weapon/shield when you transform making the buff it gives pretty marginal/maybe even worse than just using a weapon.

Probably the best thing about it is the improved dodge roll it gives - you can spam it to move fast, almost like a movement skill and it goes further than a regular one.

I just don't see investing in passives/ gear to negate the downside to be worth it when the skill itself doesn't seem that great.

Has anyone found a good use for the skill / am I missing something?

Unless you have horrible weapons, it's currently bad yes. It's unclear to me from the info I can find on the web if getting rid of your weapon stats is intended or not, but regardless it really needs to change :( I was very excited to do Demon Form but now I'm sitting here with 2 unspent passives and a fire doggo.

On top of the weapons thing, there seem to be numerous other bugs with spirit reservations (for example, it turns off Raging Spirits, and no, not because you lost your weapons, separate issue).

I need some ideas for that the hell to do with this Infernalist until Demon Form gets fixed (that isn't summons). No Pain Attunment so the life reserve nodes just seem bad as well. Turning your mana into heat is interesting but seems like a very lategame build if you can get huge sustain and have massive mana costs on a 6L. Perma-igniting yourself for 15% of HP to get crit damage again seems like a lategame thing if you stack enough max fire res, or find some ignite immunity.

Not fond of the forced focus on spells for either of the witch trees. Loosen it up and let us have fun making stupid combos!

And....when i go into demon form, and cast fireball I immediately revert to human form. Even if i try the fireball with no support.

Anyone else experiencing this? Seems really bugged...

Your Fireball probably has something about it that requires your weapon, either stat requirements, or you set the fireball gem to use that weapon set.

infernalist needs a massive rethink imo.


i wasnt sure of the games mechanics going in, i wanted to be fairly blind but i thought infernalist, the vids made it look like it would be good for ignite self casting. as a 10 year fan of burn prolif in poe1 i thought yeah lets go with it...


so demon form is trash. ok, so what about the fire mana thing? well i can build my whole setup around mitigating that, at massive cost, and what i get back is an occasional 20% of damage as extra fire depending on how well i can juggle casting and then not casting while im being swarmed.

and then u get into the game and find out 20% of damage as extra fire is 1 prefix you can get on a lvl30 wand?

so 4 ascendancy points, probably half you skill tree and gearing shaped around having a massive mana pool, max fire res, recouping damage taken etc and then a fiddling game of skill spend juggling to occasionally get a single low level weapon prefix stat?



what am i missing with this?


ok, its applying to your minions too, but for a casting witch...?


im seeing people taking 2 small nodes rather than 1 of the big ones because theres no nodes on this class that mean anything other than the doggo and maybe the damage taken conversion for so many different builds that wanted to use this class?




its a new game and im not ruling out that i need to think harder and understand new mechanics better, but right now im looking at this class and it seems like absolute trash in so many ways, needs ripped up and completely redesigned.

oh wow you lose (temp) your weapon/focus when changing? Heck I'm not even in endgame and my current weapon has more buffs than Demon Form (10 stack capped). I'd be giving up 4 ascendancy points to actually nerf myself (lose shield).

Also giving up on CI and a bunch of other stuff. It's a cool idea, but it'll need a major rework to be remotely useful. Can't use CI with any of Beidats ascendancy nodes i assume (since 25% of 1 life = dead presumably).

The fire flame thing looks way too difficult to manage as you need to watch your mana globe like a hawk, but you already need 150% concentration on spotting ground effects so can barely look away from your main character model.

CI on this ascendancy really does pigeonhole you into 1 specific thing which is annoying. Havent looked at the other witch ascendancy, but i'd assume you can't use CI at all there.

I'm guessing the 3rd witch ascendancy will be summoner focused again (hopefully) but so far 2/3 witch acendancies can't really use CI which really seems a bit off.

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Asmosis#7365 wrote:

oh wow you lose (temp) your weapon/focus when changing? Heck I'm not even in endgame and my current weapon has more buffs than Demon Form (10 stack capped). I'd be giving up 4 ascendancy points to actually nerf myself (lose shield).

Also giving up on CI and a bunch of other stuff. It's a cool idea, but it'll need a major rework to be remotely useful. Can't use CI with any of Beidats ascendancy nodes i assume (since 25% of 1 life = dead presumably).

The fire flame thing looks way too difficult to manage as you need to watch your mana globe like a hawk, but you already need 150% concentration on spotting ground effects so can barely look away from your main character model.

CI on this ascendancy really does pigeonhole you into 1 specific thing which is annoying. Havent looked at the other witch ascendancy, but i'd assume you can't use CI at all there.

I'm guessing the 3rd witch ascendancy will be summoner focused again (hopefully) but so far 2/3 witch acendancies can't really use CI which really seems a bit off.

As it stands, Infernalist *is* the summoner ascendency.
Making the 3rd option another summoner ascension would be redundant, which isn't itself a problem, but there are different witch builds currently lacking their ascension choice.

For ascendency nodes, the summoner build (any my suggested order for it) is:

-At first ascension take Loyal Hellhound for the added minion minion health from the small node, the special minion itself, and to and postpone the Pact until you're better geared & have 4 points to reach past it.

-At 2nd ascension respec out of hound, take Pyromantic Pact and pick between the two big nodes behind it based on what spells you've been using; whether you care more about ignite or raw damage.

The Pact includes a basis for you to stop attacking, and wait. The only build in which that is reasonable is the build that gets to hide behind minions which will still be attacking. That's why the Pact has that function, to keep it meshed with minion builds instead of other builds. The Pact is not meant for caster witch builds.

Likewise the nodes behind it have the primary function of buffing allies. Meaning minions. I would save the Pact for 2nd ascension so you can buff your minions the same level up you increase your reliance on them.

-3rd ascension get the dog back.

-4th take the other node behind the pact.

My minion witch will be doing Infernalist, as above.

As for CI and Beidat nodes, I'd expect 1 hp is the lowest your max hp can be.
And that wouldn't mean you can't take both, it would mean after taking both, you still have 1 hp.
The question then, is if the max life math on Beidats are done before or after CI changes your max to 1.
If it is done before, then my guess is not only that you can equip both, but also that stacking CI with multiple Beidat nodes is precisely one of the build options (some) people will gravitate to.
But of course if it's done after then the Beidat nodes wont do anything, because they're scaling off of 1. In which case, you still could take them, but nobody would want to.

Infernalist provides the summoner build, Infernalist and Blood both provide forms of being a spell spammer.
The ascension option that is missing, and is hopefully catered to by the third when it comes, is that of chaos plague builds. Those focused on spreading DoT spells like contagion and Essence Drain.

Regarding Demon Form.

Demon form acting like you don't have weapons equipped is something I could get behind, as long of the buffs of it are enough that it doesn't just equate to massively nerfing yourself by losing weapon stats. This thread is certainly providing the impression that that is not currently the case.
Plus a build where you don't really use weapons, can be a great build to use as your first character of a league, when you don't have any good weapons yet anyway.
I can see myself starting leagues as Demon Form Witch or Unarmed Monk, if either become properly usable.

Some Demon Form builds don't spend all 4 points by the way, only the first 2.
Two types of DF build, the one to maintain it longform, using Mastered Darkness and healing, and the one that wants to have has many stacks of DF as possible to do major burst damage in a short window.
The player who wants to keep up DF the entire boss fight vs the one who activates it right before the boss is frozen, or heavy stunned, or otherwise open to a damage rush, intending to fight in normal form the rest of the time.

Currently DF doesn't help at all if you want more damage. If losing your weapon is a feature of shapeshifting, I guess it will be maybe better when the Druid come online ? They should give support to the Shapeshift archetype (with Support Gem, Passive Skill Tree and Unique Gear) because the Druid will most likely be the "Shapeshift Class".

I also don't like the node behind Pyromantic Pact as you need to be in their presence (around 6m if I remember correctly).

But they are also lackluster on their own:

-The Ignite is kind of bad because enemies can only have one Burn and it's scale with the hit damage. Minions generally do a lot of little hit so the burn will be subpar most of the time. Maybe when the Specter Minion will be live but not currently.

-And 20% more damage as fire damage is decent but then you remember that you NEED to be on High Infernal Flame AND close to them. It's way to clunky for all the downside just to get 20%.

But Beidat's Will is enough for Minions. For Caster, I guess Beidat's Hand & Gaze can be good for Mana scaling (with MoM & EB).

It's kind of weird that currently both Witch Ascendancy scale more with HP than Mana or ES. :P

Bump for real.