[Top 5] Path of Exile Best Witch Builds That Wreck Hard!

With Patch 3.17, the Witch saw a massive intake of new players, reaching over 35% of the player base across her Ascendancies! She holds over a third of the other 16 Ascendancies in the game. And that’s because she’s one of the most benefited from the changes in this patch, with the insane amount of buffs to Spells. And here are some of the builds that took those buffs to the next level!

5 – ShakCentral’s Cold Dot Occultist

Wintertide Brand against The Hydra

Though it wasn’t directly buffed, with 3.17, we had the introduction of Eldritch Implicits, which breathed new life in some old and staple builds of PoE. One of those is Shak’s Cold Dot, which is now mostly a Wintertide Brand Build.

What ShakCentral’s Cold DoT Excels in:

• Fantastically tanky.
• Can do all content.
• Easy to play and boss.
• One of the most well-rounded builds.
• League Start, HC, SSF viable.

ShakCentral’s Cold DoT full details:

• To league start, you’ll start by going the life variant until you can switch to LL, with Shavronne’s Wrappings. Until then, you’ll have a smaller life pool and less damage, but you’ll still be able to do most content and easily break into Red Tier maps.
• Our damage comes mostly from Wintertide Brand, which essentially got buffed with the Mastery System, but we also can use new Eldritch Implicits to improve both our damage and our tankyness.
• We are block capped with Aegis Aurora, over 30k Armor, Divine Flesh, and over 8,5k ES. While our damage is not the highest, we have a fantastic uptime on it, since we’re always dealing our full damage even while running around, making it a perfect build for low gearing scenarios, like League Start!

For more information, check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2661120

4 – Crit Mage Skeletons Necromancer

Summon Mage Skeletons while Mapping

A clear favorite of past leagues, this build continued its dominance over Necromancers, due to its flexibility in gear, the ease to start playing, and how straightforward it is. It’s not for those of faint computers, however, as your Skelies can and will demolish your frame rates, but it’s a well-rounded build capable of everything!

What the Crit Mage Skeletons Excels in:

• Extremely Tanky with several layers of defense.
• Can do all Content.
• Can League Start and is HC viable.
• Clears reasonably well.

Crit Mage Skeletons full details:

• Minions want as much Gem Level as possible since they scale mostly through base damage. So you’ll want a +2 Convoking Wand, a +1 Amulet with +1 Skeletons and, if you can, a +2 Fleshcrafter, which is what makes our Skelies ignore the enemies’ Elemental Resistances.
• Our defense comes from having a substantial life pool, a good amount of ES, and having full block due to Bone Offering and Aegis, as well as a ton of armor, to boost the ES recovery from Aegis.
• We also have a cast of supporting Spectres and Animate Guardian to both protect us and buff our Skelies, giving them tons of damage and Charges.

For more information, check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3241718

3 – The Orbital Striker Occultist

Hexblast against The Maven

While not directly buffed, Hexblast is one of the best skills for Ignite, and the introduction of the new Eldritch Implicit and a few new uniques bring this build to a higher level!

What the Orbital Striker Excels in:

• Smooth Clearing, similar to ED/Cont.
• Tanky
• Can do all content.
• Great for League Starting.

Orbital Striker full details:

• The way these build works is that Hexblast can Ignite off any kind of damage, and as such, we use the Black Flame Ring to make use of Occultist’s high Chaos Debuff and Curse Effectiveness to lower the enemies’ Chaos Resistance as much as possible.
• Since Hexblast has a whopping 310% Added Damage Effectiveness, the more added flat damage to spells, the more damage our Hexblast will deal, and using the Doom mechanic, we can easily reach the cap of 120% more damage with ailments on top of that already strong hit!
• Our defenses come from using Magna Eclipsis, Doppelganger’s Guise, Elemental Aegis as well as Double Defensive Curse, and we have a ton of armor to protect us from regular hits.

For more information, check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3244618

2 – Forbidden Rite Occultist

Forbidden Rite against the Minotaur

While previous incarnations of Forbidden Rite were through Totems, with the nerfs to totems as well as buffs to the base damage of FR. The biggest hurdle to overcome with FR is the self-damage, and this build takes care of that, unleashing the full potential of this skill!

What the Forbidden Rite Occultist Excels in:

• Can reach dozens of millions of damage
• Surprisingly Tanky
• Amazing Clearing
• Fantastic Single Target

Forbidden Rite Occultist full details:

• Forbidden Rite works by dealing damage based on the amount of life sacrificed, and as such, we try to scale our life totals combined with Divine Flesh, for high amounts of Maximum Chaos Resistance, to limit how much damage we take.
• Since we take damage per cast, we can also slot in several CwDT setups to trigger when we cast, essentially creating a Cast when Cast, to both help us deal damage, proc utility spells, and most importantly, to recover the health we lost with spells, proccing our life gain on hit rings and Vitality Watcher’s Eye.
• Coincidentally, that’s also our defense, the more we cast, the more spells we unleash, and the more we heal on hit. That, combined with the Divine Flesh and high life pool, we’re extremely tanky.

For more information, click here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3250447

1 – Gryph’s Cremation Necromancer

Cremation against The Searing Exarch 

This immortal beast essentially got created because of a single new unique, introduced in Patch 3.17. Ashes of the Star. Arguably one of the best well-rounded uniques in the game, Ashes is hopefully here to stay, if it survives GGG’s nerf hammer.

What Gryph’s Cremation Necromancer Excels in:

• Near immortal, legitimately.
• Insane single target damage when properly set-up.
• Can do all content, including Simulacrum 30, face tanking Kosis, and Omniphobia.
• While the cost of entry is quite high (easily 20ex+), you can incrementally improve after it.

Gryph’s Crermation Necromancer full details:

• Phantasmal Cremation works by making our Cremations explode any corpses around it, for a 2% chance per 1% quality. Previously, this would only reach 40%. With Ashes of the Stars, which grants 30% Quality to all Active Gems, this gets bumped to a 100% chance. So, more corpses = more damage.
• We exploit that by getting Unearth to level as much as possible, reaching over level 85 Corpses, to explode of upwards of 900k damage per explosion. And we can lob over 30 Corpses per second! You do the math!
• Our immortality comes from a few sources. Aegis Aurora, with its broken mechanics, Full Block, Melding of the Flesh for guaranteed 90% All ele Res. We go Chaos Inoculation, so we’re immune to Chaos Damage. And finally, we also have Incandescent Heart, which makes so 25% of Elemental Damage Taken be converted into Chaos Damage (which we are immune to). So, essentially, if we would be hit by 100 Elemental damage, we would take only 7. And that’s if we don’t block it.

For a full breakdown, check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3250993

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