Witch Class Guide – Path of Exile 2

Road to exile 2
There are 12 classes to play, each with a unique set of Ascendancy subclasses and several skills to choose from. The Witch is a returning fan-favorite class from the previous installment, this time equipped with a new set of Ascendancies and a slight design change. Rather than complete all intelligence-themed builds, Witch now features multiple summoning and glass canon playstyles.

A witch who masters her craft can transform into a monster, summon hordes of undead to fight at their side, or tap into their life essence to power their spells. In this class overview, we'll take a look at how the Witch class works, break down all of its Ascendancy subclasses, and give you some build recommendations to help you take down the horrors of Wraeclast with ease.

Witch class observation

The Witch is an Intelligence class that is suited for this Minion summons and high risk spell builds. This is due to the class' top position in the passive tree, giving them ample access to spell modifiers and minion passives. Their choice of Ascendancy subclasses—the Bloodmage and the Infernalist—really give this class its place.

Any class can use any skill and weapon in PoE2. Your class only determines your starting position in the passive tree and available climbing options.

Starting off, witches will have access to basic summons, chaos spells, and a small selection of spells. You can always get other non-witch skills from uncut gems, but the starting roster of skills is great if you're planning on building a necromancer, physical spellcaster, or some sort of chaos affliction.

Witch Ascendency classes

As of PoE 2's Early Access launch, there are two Witch ascendances you can try: Bloodmage and Infernalist. Bloodmages Use their Lifie pool as a secondary source of permanence, generating relics that can be claimed to heal your character. If you want to build your character for meaty critical hits and survivability, then Bloodmaze is the perfect choice.

Summoners and glass cannons should direct their attention towards spellcasters infernalist This subclass can scale most of its stats, including max life, spirit. You can summon a monstrous hellhound pet to tank incoming damage, or you can transform into a monster to exponentially increase your spell damage at the cost of constant HP drain.

bloodshed

Focuses on The Bloodmage Life stacking and critical hits. forced to take satisfaction As your first node, which allows you to generate life remnants by killing monsters and landing critical hits. You can pick up these relics to restore a portion of your HP. If your life pool is full, you will heal up to twice your maximum life. This makes Bloodmage an incredibly tanky space for spellcasters and caster/melee hybrid builds.

The HP drain tied to Sanguimancy makes it a downgrade for leveling. Since you are bound to take it, we recommend you don't do Allocate Sanguimancy until you unlock your next set of ascension points. Once you can grab Vitality Siphon, Sanguimancy's HP drain should be negligible.

You can increase your critical damage to take advantage of your large health pool Gore SpikeGiving you more critical damage for every 40 life you have. Considering you can effectively double your HP with life remnants, this makes Bloodmage unnecessarily strong for critical builds. You can also take The flesh is beautiful To give your spells a 15% base critical chance while leveling, which is easily scaled with passive tree nodes and equipment.

Here's another major standout Catching woundsA defensive mechanic similar to petrified blood and progenesis from the original PoE. When you lose HP from an incoming hit, a quarter of that damage is converted into a damage-over-time effect that drains your HP over the next four seconds.

For example, if you take 1,000 damage, you will instead take 750 damage and hit 250 DoT over four seconds, which means you will take 62.5 damage per second.

Pair Grasping Wounds with some form of HP recovery to reduce the DoT effect. It recovers exceptionally well paired with passive.

infernalist

While the Infernalist seems like a fire-themed Ascendancy at first glance, this fantasy is actually the most appropriate summoners and spellcasting. If you want to build a minion as a Witch, you'll ideally want to go Infernalist Beidat's wish, Increase your max spirit based on your max HP. Spirit is a difficult resource to measure in PoE2, so having a clear means of measuring it is invaluable for all summoning builds, not just pyromancy-themed characters.

Minion builds should also be caught Loyal Hellhound On their second or third climb, as it gives you a constant 20% damage resistance against all incoming hits. Hellhound will also ignite everything nearby, which can prove useful for triggering certain passives or skill gems.

If minions aren't your thing, Infernalist has a lot to offer spellcasters. monstrous form Transforms your dial into a floating harpy, significantly increasing your spell damage when activated. This comes at the cost of constant HP degen that increases over time, but you can clamp this HP loss to 10% of your max HP per second via Mastered Darkness. Throw in some life regeneration or recovery resources, and you should be able to stay in monster form indefinitely.

You can also guess at Pyromantic agreement To replace your mana with Infernal Flare, a resource you generate with each spell cast. This is a disadvantage in itself since max stacks trigger self-damage, but you can use Infernal Flame to buff your damage massively. bringer of flame and Crimson Power. If you can keep your Infernal Flare under 100% capacity, it can prove incredibly strong for endgame caster builds.

Infernal flares no Count as mind; It does not trigger Mind Over Matter or similar effects.

Makes a witch

It's still early days for Path of Exile 2, so we don't have any firm build recommendations yet. Once we've reached the endgame and thoroughly tested this class, we'll link up some powerful Witch builds that you can use throughout the campaign and beyond. Stay in touch.

Coming soon