[ 1.2 - Forsaken Masters Physical Wander CI Witch ] - Many endgame variations

Hi there :-)

I decided to share my build with you. I was very happy when I saw the skill tree a few days earlier than the expansion was released. By looking at the tree, I knew that I want to play a Physical wander witch. With so many good wand and ES nods around I just couldn't rezist. And for my surprise, it works better than I expected.
quick note : This is tested and played in the Rampage league. I have no experience playing HC with this build.

Still Interested ? Read further.

Introduction

A physical wander is using a wand which dont have spell modifications like spell damage and casting speed because we have no use from these attributes. We are focusing on the weapon physical damage and all mods which can improve physical dps like attack speed, flat physical damage, critical strike chance etc. Wands have a very high critical chance.
The main skill for a physical wander is the Power Siphon skill, This is your bread and butter. Power Siphon has natural culling strike, which kills any target below 10 %. This skill mechanic is used by magic finders to make sure that they kill the target since they have high Icreased item rarity and item quantity usually.
It also grants a Power Charge on a kill.Every power charge gives 50 % increased critical strike chance. It is possible to have 7 power charges up all the time which is 350 % icreased critical strike chance.

Description of the skills from the Path of exile wikipedia.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Power_Siphon

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Power_Charge


The build

The core of the build is this, and it is finished at lvl 71-73 depending on your gear. If you need the +30 dex and the +30 str nod between the Witch starting area and CI or not.



My current skill tree. Level 79, 97 points, for solo play




Main Skills with support gems and auras.

Power Siphon - Lesser multiple projectiles, Chain, increased critical power. If you have a 5 or a 6 link item, I would suggest to add Faster attacks and Projectile physical damage.

Barrage/Power Siphon - You can use these two as your main skill for single targets like bosses, rares and exiles. Same applies to this aswell, you need faster attacks, increased critical damage, projectile physical damage.

Auras - If you are CI, you need Discipline. Clarity will help sustain with mana because PS is very mana hungry.
See at the bottom of this post the variations of this build. If you decide to go with aura buffs and reduced mana reserved nods you can use damage auras like hatred, wrath ( for shock if you dont have lightning damage on your gear ) for example. Of course, you want a reduced mana gem linked to your auras.

Assasin mark - it is a great curse, helps to get more criticals and also help a lot with the added mana after each kill.
Consider trying out projectile weakness if you feel that AM is not spot on, but after the nerf I dont feel like it is worth it. The knockback was really nice.

Blood rage : Adds lifeleech, which is very useful since we picked up Ghost Reaver in the passive tree. Lifeleech replenishes Energy shield instead of life. And we have a lot of energy shield :-) Increased duration helps a lot to keep this spell up when you are searching for more packs and there is nothing to kill at the moment.

Lightning Wrap - Reduced duration and faster casting is what you want linked to this spell. This is spell is an escape tool when you are in danger. Optional and recommended but not necessery.


The gear

Weapon - You are looking for a wand with 1.50 base attack speed.
Mods to look for : % Icreased physical damage, % attack speed, #-# physical damage, % crit chance, % crit multiplier, +# Accuracy
Rings - Accuracy, rezist, flat physical damage
Amulet - Eye of Chayula is great because it gives stun immunity, but if you are ok you can go with an Onyx amulet. You need str and dex for skill gems. Flat physical dmg,% icreased energy shield, Accuracy, critical chance, crit multiplier, elemental rezistances
Gloves - Attack speed, ES, Physical damage, rezistances
Boots - ES, Movespeed, Rezistances
Helm - ES, rezistances, accuracy


My current gear


Temporary gems in my gear : Two projectile dmg in the gloves since one is for barrage itself the 2nd one is for leveling purpose once I get 6L. I dont use barrage now since I am MF-ing a little bit in mid maps at the moment. This is just in case you would ask why Im using IIR gem linked to PS instead of critical dmg and why I have 2 Projectile dmg gems linked to barrage :-)


More variations of the build

111 points Ondars and aura buffs.


120 points, 3rd power charge, massive ES , Templar area


97 points More ES + Conduit ( power and frenzy charges sharing in parties )


As you can see there are many variations of the physical wander build for the 1.2 patch and the new expansion, so after reaching the core of the build, you can go any path you like.

The gameplay

The gameplay is very simple. Nothing extra and nothing special, you just curse your enemies and start shooting until everything dies on your screen :-) Might be boring for some players, but it is not different from bow users or any casters which uses 1-2 skills only.
PoE is designed to pimp one main skill and be superstrong with it. You can support your main skills with many different ones like Cast when damage taken, auras and also Single target skills like Barrage.

Tips

I recommend going Conduit if you are partying a lot in maps. You will give a minimum of 3 power charges and 3 frenzy charges to all party members, which is a huge buff and people will love you. In addition if you are already there, pick up Foresight. It adds a lot of ES and its only 2 points away.

Switching to CI. I dont recommend going CI before you hit atleast 2000-2200 ES. I went CI aroung lvl 50 which was at the end of Cruel difficulty. When going CI after you leveld up, respec 3 little damage nods and max out the CI area. You will need the extra ES.

Accuracy

Accuracy deserves an extra spot in this post, because many people underestimate this stat.
It is very very important to this build, otherwise you will lack mass dps and will complain about the build. Try to get this on every piece of your gear. Rings, Amulets, Weapon, gloves and helmet. My chance to hit is 91 % and I could use more. 95 % is the maximum.

Bandit rewards
Normal - kill all for an additional skill point
Ruthless - ? :-)
Cruel - Help Oak, +18% Physical damage
Merciless - Help Alira, +1 to maximum Power charge


Thank you :-)

Credits goes to a big supporter Aux who wrote a great guide long time ago. This is the original Physical wander build. I was inspired with his guide and also the video. Reworked for 1.2 Forsaken Masters.

Player profile http://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Aux
Aux's original guide pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/425218
Aux's gameplay video with great music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLmof-ColrI

This is my way to say thanks, and also thanks everyone for reading. I hope you will enjoy it :-)

I've been leveling a very similar build on a Shadow and wanted to offer a few notes.

Check out Ondar's Clasp unique gloves for the 30% attack speed. They don't offer much in the way of defense, but the offensive boost is amazing.

For auras, I think Hatred is more important than Discipline and puts Wrath to shame. It scales off your physical damage, which means it gets a big boost based on this being a phys-oriented build. Discipline is worth adding in if you have enough mana reduction on your reservation, but I think the added damage outweighs the added safety. As for lightning damage, you have the Tempest Blast notable, so you're already getting some lightning for shock. Hatred also adds in some freezing potential.

Absolutely agree with you on accuracy. If someone's following this guide and having any trouble with accuracy, it's probably worth switching out one of your gems for an Additional Accuracy gem. Probably Faster Attacks, though I haven't played around with it enough to be sure.

Personally, I'm not building down past the last ES node south of Shadow (Void Barrier); it seems like 5 points is an awful lot to spend just to get to Ballistic Mastery. Think you'd be better served picking up some more crit multiplier, like Throatseeker. If you'd rather have the base damage, five points builds you all the way into the Shadow starting point for a total of +57% phys damage. I haven't tried Ballistic Mastery out, though, so keep that in mind. =)

Also, I like bigger, slower wands because their crit chance is several points higher. If you're maxing crit damage, it makes sense to me.

Credit where it's due -- most of my take on it comes from Sherkhan's "Thick Stick" Witch wander guide. I went through a lot of different phys wander guides when I was working up my tree for 1.2, and his made the most sense to me.

Thanks LVZadoK for your tips.

I tried Hatred yesterday and it was very good. To be honest, I was planning to get hatred later on anyway when I get some mana reservation reduction nods but since I am CI and I dont like dying and losing xp I was preferring Discipline. Seems like 4K es is enought without Discipline ( Hatred instead ) to run 66-70 maps but it is a problem at higher level maps.

As for Ballistic Mastery, I use it with every ranged character it is a very very helpful nod and it adds a lot to your gameplay. 4 points can be too much, but I have plans to get also Finesse for more attack speed and a huge accuracy boost 20% and Ondars Guile and thats the most effective way to grab those. You need dexterity anyway for your green gems and for accuracy. I think that your chance to hit below 90 % is just bad. +10 dex nods doesnt sound much, but 10 dex here and there adds up very quickly to your accuracy and evasion. Also the gem requirements. This way I can completly avoid the dexterity stat on my gear and try to get something better instead like rezist or an offensive stat.

I am level 77 at the moment and this is my current spec and I am very happy with it.



I am running Conduit, because I party a lot. I have 6 power charges, 3 frenzy charges and 1 endurance charge. So I can share a minimum of 3 PC,3FC and 1EC with all my party members. It is a very very useful keystone with no drawback, and it adds a lot to your party's firepower.
However, I dont recommend it for solo play. It is a total waste of your precious 4 skill points then.

p.s.: I have no idea which guide are you referring to :-)

Hi,

I'm currently starting this build. Do you have any suggestions for leveling, gear-wise??

"

delf0s5781 wrote:

Hi,

I'm currently starting this build. Do you have any suggestions for leveling, gear-wise??

Hi there :-) When I started this character in the new league from scratch I simple picked up a Freezing Pulse skill gem as a very early quest reward. I used the wand for autoattacks and freezing pulse for bigger monster packs. The wand has a ranged attack so its cool.

Pick up Power Siphon skill gem aswell as a quest reward and try to get Lesser Multiple projectiles once you get to level 19. That should be around the middle of act2. Use clarity for mana regeneration, but dont level it up past level 4 or 5. Power Siphon can be very mana hungry. Once you get this done you can stop using Freezing Pulse and start playing with Power Siphon.

Also pick up another Power Siphon or a Barrage skill gem as your single target damageing spell. Barrage is from level 10. At level 31 buy a Chain support gem for 1-2 chaos. At this point you should be already have a 4 linked item. Connect your skill gems like this.

For packs :
Power Siphon - Lesser multiple projectiles -Chain - Added lightning damage or Increased critical strike multiplier. I played with added lightning damage because at this point you dont have enough critical strike chance to benefit from the crit multiplier gem, and the added lightning damage is a flat damage boost. In normal difficulty it is a huge damage support gem.

For single target:
Power Siphon/Barrage - Faster attacks - Increased projectile physical damage - Increased critical strike multiplier

You should have this at lvl 19. The 30dex nod will allow you to use Lesser Multiple projectiles since it is a dexterity gem and also chain later on.


Finishing normal difficulty - 37 points +/-. Here you go wand damage because you dont have to worry about ES, the game is still easy and the increased natural life gain with the new expansion will let you keep alive. Thats why you dont need to spec into life nods. I had 1k hp and 2,2k ES when I went Chaos Inoculation.



Finishing Cruel, entering Merciless difficulty 61 points. You should be level 50+. Here you go to the left from the witch starting are and finish the ES circle with Unnatural Calm. After this, you go start putting points to reach the shadow area for more ES. You need Nullification and Void Battery in Merciless.



Then I recommend to grab the Sniper and the Coordination nods. Finish the Wand damage nods, Assasination for critical hits, and then slowly move your way to Ballistic Mastery. At this point, you are already killed Merciless Dominus and you are ready for maps :-)

If you have any more questions please leave a comment here anytime.

What about Hardcore (Beyond) ?

"

Meuhmeuh wrote:

What about Hardcore (Beyond) ?

It is said at the very beginning of the OP.

@xxxmarok84xxx

First of all, thanks a LOT for the pointers. I have another 2 questions.

1. What do you recommend I do for survivability?? Acrobatics,ondar's guile?? or get lots of evation nodes??

2. Since I'm gonna go CI, do you recommend I use blood rage with this?? and Discharge??

Forget question 2

"

delf0s wrote:

@xxxmarok84xxx

First of all, thanks a LOT for the pointers. I have another 2 questions.

1. What do you recommend I do for survivability?? Acrobatics,ondar's guile?? or get lots of evation nodes??

2. Since I'm gonna go CI, do you recommend I use blood rage with this?? and Discharge??

1. I already said that GGG buffed the natural life gain per level and it was enough for me to survive without picking any life nods. I had 1k life and 2,2k ES when I switched to CI around lvl 50 which was in act2 Cruel. Ondar's guilde is a very nice and useful keystone, but its very far away and you have other priorities in the skill tree first. You need ES and damage/crit nods. Ondars Guile is a very lategame spec with this build between 85-90 lvl.
Acrobatics would be stupid since you are going for CI, and Acro reduces your energy shield by 50 % :-))

2. Yes, Blood Rage is a must have. It has no drawback for your character, since you are immune to chaos damage, it gives you 3 frenzy charges = 15 % attack speed ( big dps boost ), and Blood Rrage is also your only source of lifeleech.It is the reason behind picking Ghost Reaver in the passive skill tree. Lifeleech applies to energy shield instead of life. You will have a total of 6 % lifeleech which means you will replenish your ES by 6 % every time you attack. Dont use Blood Rage until you spec CI
Discharge is a nono, it consumes all your charges on use and you want your charges up everytime.