[1.2] KuteKitteh's New Tanky Arc/Incinerate Hybrid, HC/Endgame-viable

In the previous build, there were two extremely serious flaws:
-physical resistance. While Block, AA, and MoM synergize amazingly, the few really hard hits that go through are really painful. The most common complaint with the build was getting one-shot by hard phys hits.
-single-target DPS. Arc by nature is a very poor single-target spell, and I had previously attempted to fix this issue with dual curse-on-hit.

I attempted a new approach to the two problems above, which were:
-Adopt Lightning Coil (in addition to MoM, block, and AA) for insane physical damage reduction
-Go Arc-Incinerate hybrid
-Use Righteous Fire

The end result? Facetanking vaal smashes for days and mowing down uniques in seconds. Both of these changes warranted significant tree and gear changes, and the cost of the build went up (sadly). However, I will provide all the viable alternatives to cater to people of all levels of wealth.

”A dead witch deals 0 DPS” - KuteKitteh

I've spent quite a bit of time and currency perfecting the build, and I invested days of theorycrafting time into making an amazing 1.2 tree, which turned out to work flawlessly. The build remains ridiculously tanky, and the dual curse on hit shreds resistances like nobody's business.

I believe in a concept called "DPS sufficiency." This means that, at one point, you have an acceptable level of DPS to perform most tasks and that any further increase to DPS will be mitigated by the need to kite and move from one pack to the next. Once we hit that mark of DPS sufficiency, the best way to increase REAL DPS output is to minimize the time spent moving. While it can be difficult for us to change the time required to move from pack to pack, we can definitely change the time spent kiting by beefing up defenses. In addition, extremely high DPS is wasted if the loss of survivability results in deaths, leading to 10% exp penalties.

The build is centered around achieving DPS sufficiency and abusing as many defense mechanisms as possible. This build combines block, Lightning Coil, MoM, AA, and Armor to create insane eHP multiplier cascades and create an extremely tanky build with an Atziri-viable level of defense, brought to you in an affordable form.

-Eldritch battery, Mind over Matter, Unwavering Stance
-74 base block, 75 spell block
-Lightning Coil (optional)
-Passive mana/life leech via Tempest Shield
-Immunity to elemental reflect
-4000-5000 HP
-Arctic Armor
-Arc/Incinerate hybrid, greater DPS versatility
-Righteous Fire (optional)

Vaal Smash facetanking
I was goofing off with Vaal. After a few attempts, he finally scored two consecutive smashes on me. I survived, and I have less than 4k HP. Granted, I did get dropped to 300 life, but the key point is that each hit was reduced by a huge amount due to the LC + MoM combo. For the record, my friend was not running any defensive auras.

Righteous Fiaaahh
This was among my first few attempts at RFing, so the flasking and spell aiming was a little clumsy.

Per usual, the build can AFK kill Chaska. In fact, the build can AFK kill Chaska better than the previous build.

Actual gameplay videos complete with RF toggling and Arc/Incinerate switching will come if I ever have a good chunk of free time.

Pros:
-Insanely durable. It takes effort to die.
-Almost entirely immune to elemental reflect, as usual.
-Decent clear speeds. Thanks to the new Arc/Incinerate combo, single-target DPS is no longer problematic.
-Extremely powerful solo-play.
-Completely affordable. The entire build can be made with under 2-10 exalts depending on how much gear you salvage from your other characters.
-Effortless mapping, doesn’t care about map mods. BM, half regen, no regen, reflect + EW or minus max res, etc. are all possible. The plus side is that I can run RIP-mod 100-120% iiq 77s and 78s, giving me good map returns.
-Facetanks bosses and rogues. It's not every day that someone can afk in a Vaal fight and survive indefinitely. Sometimes I sit next to rogues and have a nice chat and some tea with them while they rudely try to kill me.
-Desync-resistant. Going out of sync won't get you killed.
-Hardcore-viable.

Cons
-Susceptible to DoT’s, like any other build. Block and MoM won’t do squat against desecrated ground, poison cloud, or viper strike. Beware of those exiles!
-Extremely mana hungry. You need some great ES items to fuel your EB, and both rings should come with formidable mana regen.
-Not invincible, but closer still!
-DPS isn’t amazing. If the size of your ego correlates with your tooltip DPS and you don’t care about the -10% exp penalty, this build is not for you.

Bandits:
N: Oak or Passive
C: Alira
M: Passive

Level 90 tree


Important notes about the new tree:
-At the left side of the witch start, you pick up the Cast speed nodes first. The Spell damage nodes are late-game additions to the tree (around level 80-90).
-Depending on how much dex you get from your rings, you may need to take one or two of the +30 dex nodes.
-The tree and Tempest Shield gives 74% block. You need a 51% spell block Rathpith for max spell block.
-The tree gives 27% to all resists. You can either use this to lower the resistance requirements on your gear or overcap resists enough to run Elemental Weakness maps. I personally do the latter.

Note: Keep in mind that none of my gear is gg considering how poor I am and how little time I've had to farm up.

Total cost to date: 4 exalts (2.5 in the LC, 1 in the rathpith)

4L Geo:
Arc + FC + SE + LPen

5/6L chest:
Incinerate + SE + GMP/LMP + Added Chaos + FPen + FC
I usually use LMP for better DPS on rare/unique mobs. In maps where Arc becomes moot (e.g. +75% lightning resist map), I go pure GMP Incinerate. Also, the above order is the order of importance.

Note: Because BBBGR can be a little costly to get on LC, an alternative is the BBGGR LC with Incinerate + SE + Added cold + LMP/GMP + Firepen. Obviously the lowest DPS option here, but still somewhat viable.

Optional:
3L: CWDT + EC + IC
You can do any combo of CWDT with Enduring Cry and Immortal Call. I prefer the following setup:
lvl9 EC + lvl7 CWDT + lvl8 IC in that particular order from top left to top right to bottom right.
I say that this setup is optional because I've stopped running CWDT, EC, or IC entirely after switching to Lightning Coil. I might just do something goofy like CWDT + Lightning warp + Elemental weakness.

4L: TS + LL + ML + RM
Per usual, we're sticking with the Tempest Shield with Life Leech, Mana Leech, and Reduced Mana combo. It's too strong.

4L: Clarity + Herald of Ice + Herald of Thunder + RM
Self explanatory.

Others: Arctic Armour, Lightning Warp + Reduced Duration, Elemental Weakness, Righteous Fire.

The following will demand special accommodations:
-Half regen: Disc instead of HoI. No AA.
-Ele weak: Purity of Elements instead of HoI (only if you're not overcapped)
-Minus max res: Keep at least 1 Atziri flask on you. Consider running a Topaz flask if you're using the LC setup.
-Blood magic: No Clarity, HoI, or AA – just TS, if at all. Would not attempt 76-78 BM maps due to loss of MoM.
-No regen: No Clarity, HoI, or AA – just TS. I would not attempt no-regen in 76-78 maps (e.g. Crematorium, Piety), since boss fights are often a little too damaging for a couple mana flasks to sustain my MoM.

I'm including some special notes about certain bosses because they're especially strong versus block builds:
-Torture Chamber boss: Stay mobile, bring a Topaz Flask.
-Dominus, second form: Bring lots of staunching flasks. You should be carrying 2 staunching flasks at the bare minimum anyways.
-Courtyard boss: The cycloner and the mage are harmless. Stay away from one that shoots fire projectiles and leapslams. The burning ground DoT can hurt, and I've come very close to dying from it in a minus-max-res + vulnerability map.
-Vaal/Dom: Don't sit under their smash. They can one-shot you in a map that has +unique boss damage and +element as extra damage with vulnerability. I don't think I have to say this.

So what's this nonsense about running Righteous Fire?

For reference, here are my flasks again:


Lately, I've been running Righteous Fire the way GGG intended it to be used. Essentially, every time there's a pack of significantly tanky enemies or a unique boss, I toggle RF on, activate a Ruby flask + Atziri's Promise, and demolish everything using Arc. If there's a unique boss, I'll be using Incinerate which deals well over 100k single-target DPS when RF + Atziri's Promise is activated.

With a Ruby running, I have 85% fire resist. That means I burn for 13.5% of my life per second. Considering leech speed is 20% of my max HP per second and I get over 4% regen per second from the tree, I can sustain RF for a short duration. The life flask I have on slot one helps me to sustain it even without any Ruby flasks. When I'm done, I hit 5 to toggle RF off and rapidly restore any health I might have burned off.

The Atz flask isn't actually necessary, it's just that I have no leech on my gear/gems so I kinda need that 1.5% leech to gain the extra 20% life/s.

Essentially, the sequence is:
Middle mouse (where RF is)
3 + 4 (Atz + Ruby)
Hold Q (Arc)
3 + 4 again (if everything isn't dead within 5 seconds)
5 (toggle it off)

Essentially, you should be able to sustain it for 4.2 seconds + 4.2 seconds (if you use the flasks again) plus however long the life flask on 1 will sustain you for. Usually it gives a safe margin of 10-12 seconds without any recharging, which is more than enough to kill tanky enemies like 2nd stage Dominus using Incinerate.

The downside to this is that gameplay becomes a little more involved and a little less lazy. This is an optimal solution for those who desire a greater level of skill play with this build.

Warning: Don't use RF in a -maxres or vuln map.

In case you're curious as to what direction I'm going with this incomplete build, here you go:

-Obtain Doryani's Catalyst so I actually have leech. More of a convenience factor than anything else.
-Obtain a good 5L ES chest for elemental damage.
-Replace belt and gloves with new ones that have better resist/life synergy.
-Equip Herald of Thunder once that sucker comes out.
-Get some sleep. I have a work shift tomorrow. Meeeeeeeehhhhhhh.