Skeletal Storm Mage Witch Infernalist End Game Build Guide

Hello everyone!

I have made an End Game Guide for the Witch with the Infernalist Ascendancy that focuses on Skeletal Storm Mages.

You can find the full guide here: https://maxroll.gg/poe2/build-guides/storm-mage-infernalist-build-guide

Video showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5s3k8w-L3Q

This guide is the continuation of my Minion army leveling guide but using Storm mages instead of Arsonists: https://maxroll.gg/poe2/build-guides/minion-army-infernalist-leveling-guide

Boss fight vs the Trialmaster in ultimatium without Doryani:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSPtOKcL9i8

Boss fight vs the Trialmaster in ultimatum with Doryani:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP5ttx8UCoc


Why not use Doryani's prototype?
I have play tested using Doryani's Prototype combined with two Ventor's Gamble that had negative Lightning resistance.
I reached around -120% Lightning resistance and the damage was barely higher then when I had played without it. With Doryani's I had to take more defensive passive nodes in the skill tree to compensate for the lower defenses compared to what a rare body Armour with a lot of energy shield had. With a rare you can spend these passive points on more damage instead. With Doryani's you also take a lot more Lightning damage since you have no Lightning resistance. The Doryani setup had around 6k ES, while with a rare I reached around 11k ES, in my opinion it is not worth using a Doryani because you loose to much ES for little damage gain. You can min-max the negative Lightning resistance to be much lower than -120%, but this would cost a lot more than a setup without Doryani's Prototype.

One more issue to point out with Doryani's is that it requires you to be within a specific distance for the negative Lightning resistance debuff to apply to enemies. If you are fighting bosses and need to avoid big attacks you could be forced to move far away which means you never gain the benefit of the extra damage it provides. Same thing applies when you are doing maps and your Skeletal Storm Mages are attacking monsters that are far away.

Remember to tag this Witch so it shows under Witch builds!

How does this build do compared to Arsonists with Raging Spirits? RS are a classic and always perform well, but they were never my favorite. Also the entire screen being always in fire gets tiring at some point.

I hadn't thought that you can use two setups for the same minion, I assume summon one Mage for debuff and the rest for damage? Great idea!

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Devilator#4354 wrote:

Remember to tag this Witch so it shows under Witch builds!

How does this build do compared to Arsonists with Raging Spirits? RS are a classic and always perform well, but they were never my favorite. Also the entire screen being always in fire gets tiring at some point.

I hadn't thought that you can use two setups for the same minion, I assume summon one Mage for debuff and the rest for damage? Great idea!

Hey, Thanks for pointing that out, forgot to add a tag which is now done.

This build has better clear speed than arsonists since Storm mages has longer cast range and instant casts instead of delayed throwing bombs.

This build is A LOT nicer to your PC as well since there is not a lot of screen clutter with fire wall, SRS and bombs going off.

Yeah this build has both damage dealing storm mages and 1-2 debuffing storm mages that apply shock and exposure.

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Hoffen#2482 wrote:

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Devilator#4354 wrote:

Remember to tag this Witch so it shows under Witch builds!

How does this build do compared to Arsonists with Raging Spirits? RS are a classic and always perform well, but they were never my favorite. Also the entire screen being always in fire gets tiring at some point.

I hadn't thought that you can use two setups for the same minion, I assume summon one Mage for debuff and the rest for damage? Great idea!

Hey, Thanks for pointing that out, forgot to add a tag which is now done.

This build has better clear speed than arsonists since Storm mages has longer cast range and instant casts instead of delayed throwing bombs.

This build is A LOT nicer to your PC as well since there is not a lot of screen clutter with fire wall, SRS and bombs going off.

Yeah this build has both damage dealing storm mages and 1-2 debuffing storm mages that apply shock and exposure.

Sound like exactly what I am looking for then! The passive tree and gear look the same, this build even saves two passive points because it doesn't need minion accuracy. It is a free swap, except that I will need a few new skill gem sockets. But even with 4-linked skills, I am sure I will see how it works.

Looking good after a couple of maps, even though I don't have as many supports as I had for Arsonists and RS.

For new players coming from the Arsonist build, one thing to watch out for is that there is no safety net if all your minions are dead - you have to survive on your own until they are up again. With the Arsonist variant you always had RS up.

You can keep Detonate Dead in the build, since there is space for one more skill (even if you want to use Blink, that comes much later). It should add some more clear speed, and help you finish off some enemies while you wait for your minions to respawn.

Uhh would like to ask, what about Electrocute on the dps minion?? I'd assume that's really good for some CC especially since the mages's lightning could chain

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lumine99#5604 wrote:

Uhh would like to ask, what about Electrocute on the dps minion?? I'd assume that's really good for some CC especially since the mages's lightning could chain

It is not worth loosing a damage support for the damage setup just to get electrocute.

So I tried this build out and I dont know if Im doing it right as it feels signifigantly less powerful than the Fire build. Which ring of the Storm mages do I make active?

edit - ok I forgot to enable the 2nd ring- so i put 5 on each Skeletal Storm Mage ring

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Hellzwraith#0237 wrote:

So I tried this build out and I dont know if Im doing it right as it feels signifigantly less powerful than the Fire build. Which ring of the Storm mages do I make active?

edit - ok I forgot to enable the 2nd ring- so i put 5 on each Skeletal Storm Mage ring

Ring ?
If you mean gem, you are supposed to use 1 storm mage that is used to shock enemies and the rest should be used for your damage gem setup.