Path Of Exile 2: Best Witch Class Build

Path of Exile 2‘s Witch class has seen a revamp in this sequel, but what is the best way to use this chaotic character? PoE 2‘s early access is currently limited to six classes, many of which are the best solo classes. However, Grinding Gear Games has said that more classes will be held during the planned six-month period.

Even with its changes, the Witch class still heavily revolves around minions, damage over time, and curses. It can start slowly in the early game but ramps up quickly as higher-level skills are unlocked. This class greatly benefits from the new dodgeball mechanic, giving it more mobility than its predecessor. This mechanic is also one of many that have made PoE 2 feel like a soulslike game.

Best Equipment For a Witch Build In PoE 2

Boost Survivability And Damage

Though PoE 2 has made its classes more flexible, every class has specific equipment and skills geared toward them. Witches are all about energy shields and maximum health. The energy shield should realistically serve as a secondary health bar and recharge/refill fast enough to avoid health taking much if any, damage. This makes the best outfits pieces like robes, sandals, and lighter gear that naturally have energy shields and increased chances to get energy shield augments.

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Weapons are a bit more versatile, depending on the desired playstyle. Generally, Scepters are required as they will be the only way to summon minions. This can be ignored if desired, but then it removes minions from the build and takes away the core feeling of a Witch. Scepters are, therefore, paired with Wands for more offensive builds or shields for defensive builds. Shields, generally the lighter or more focused versions, are easier for Witches to handle and give more helpful boosts like mana or energy shields.

Best Skill Gems For a Witch Build In PoE 2

Fiery Minions Of Destruction

So far, the Witch class has been populated by two major builds: burning minions and chaos damage. Burning minions plays around Skeleton Arsonists, Pain Offering, Flame Wall, Flammability, and Detonate Dead. Flammability will reduce enemies’ fire resistance in the target area, which opens the door for the Skeleton Arsonists and Flame Wall to do more damage. Pain Offering massively buffs minions around it and is best used on the regular Skeleton Warriors summoned by Scepters. Detonate Dead is a handy bonus to explode all the corpses the minions will leave.

Since this build has a lot of fire resistance shred, it can dip a bit into the Elemental path. Simple fire skills like Solar Orb or Fireball can be used to add damage without taking away too much from the minions. However, this build is meant for minions to shine, so whatever leftover skills in PoE 2 are used should not break the core rotation.

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Secondly, though it has been nerfed slightly, chaos damage is still a helpful alternative. The tricky thing with chaos damage, especially for Witches, is that they are almost all damage over time. Luckily, the best skills in Contagion, Profane Ritual, Despair, and Dark Effigy make up for it. Contagion is a simple spell that causes light damage over time but spreads with higher damage if the inflicted target dies. Profane Ritual causes corpses to become circles of chaos damage over time. Meanwhile, Dark Effigy is a placeable turret/totem that attacks anything inflicted with a chaos debuff.

This build all plays around the Despair curse at high levels. This curse will decrease enemy chaos resistance, making all this damage over time damage more effective. This can be complemented with other skills like Essence Drain for a bit of initial impact and damage over time.

Best Passive Skills For a Witch Build In PoE 2

Create The Best Minions Possible

Though the PoE 2 skill tree is a massive culmination of all the classes, Witch paths are generally simple. For minion builds, especially the burning minions, the paths are nearly identical. You should focus on getting as much minion damage, health, critical stats, elemental resistance, attack speed, and revive speed. These alone make minions powerful forces of nature that can clear most enemies, which is boosted even more when using Pain Offering.

With Chaos builds, the passive skill tree goes a bit more erratic. This is because it is necessary to raise a bit of everything outside physical damage to make Witches well-rounded. Chaos damage and status duration bonuses are the top choices here, maxing out the damage and time it will linger. Minions also need attention, but this can be limited to health and resistance, making them frontline tanks and taking some pressure off the character.

Best Spirit Gem For a Witch Build In PoE 2

The Passive Backbone Of Builds

Path of Exile 2‘s Spirit gems can be the make or break of most builds, but especially with Witch builds. Regardless of the build, Grim Feast is necessary for surviving. This will cause enemies to occasionally drop Grim Remnants, which, when collected, will replenish the energy shield for the Witch. The burning minions build uses this and Raging Spirits from the elemental path. The latter will summon small fire skulls from the Flame Wall ability to attack any enemies in range before expiring.

For chaos builds, Withering Presence is a helpful Spirit skill to buff chaos damage passively. This skill will inflict Withered on enemies in range every few seconds, stacking up to 10% due to the time limits. Withered increases the damage chaos skills will do to those infected, which works well with the Despair skill.

Ascendencies For a Witch Build In PoE 2

An Obvious Choice

Every class in PoE 2 has three Ascendency classes, but the Witch is currently limited to two. The best option by far is the Infernalist. This class is focused on fire damage and buffing spell damage. In this choice, the go-to options are Loyal Hellhound and Demonic Possession. The former summons a reviving Hellhound that doesn’t do as much damage but is tanky and absorbs 20% of the damage the character takes. Meanwhile, Demonic Possession turns the Witch into a Demon with cast speed, spell damage, and skill level buffs while losing some health while the form is active.

Bloodmage is the weaker option of the two but has some potential. Its abilities revolve around losing health and defenses to boost the overall damage to all skills. It has some strong options, like Gore Spike and Sunder The Flesh, which grants extra base critical chance and damage. Unfortunately, when compared to the Infernalist and how Witches are at their best in the game currently, Bloodmage is just the weaker choice.

Despite her slow start, the Witch makes up for it by becoming a strong choice in PoE 2. If Witch has one downside, it would be that since minions are the core of their kit, it gives little room for flexibility. Trying to do something else with Witches weakens the minions or takes them away entirely. At that point, it would be better off to play another class. Building the best Witch properly in Path of Exile 2 gives you a fun and powerful character.

Systems

Franchise

Path of Exile

Released

2024-12

Developer(s)

Grinding Gear Games

Publisher(s)

Grinding Gear Games

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer
, Online Co-Op

Engine

Proprietary Engine

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Nudity, Violence

Early Access Release

December 6, 2024

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