[1.3]PewPewPews Witch Incinerate Guide [ TheoryCrafting // W I P ]

Hi! What level gems have you planned for "Cast when Damage Taken - Frost Wall - Lightning Warp - Faster Casting"? :)

At level 70 with this tree and I'm doing very well.

Is the intent for the Exceptional Performance cluster primarily to lengthen the HoT lightning storm? Doesn't it negatively impact Lightning Warp? Think it's worth the trade? The wiki on Skill effect duration still left me with some questions that I might just have to discover via regrets.

I'm thinking of picking up the Quick Recovery cluster for some extra mana regen before I go for the 5% life nodes. The new Righteous Decree notable (22% increased maximum mana, 6% reduced skill mana cost) seems great for MoM chars, too, and is only two points away.

Hi Pew, this looks very interesting. I've played various versions of your incinerate build previously and had great fun. I will be respeccing a 66 Witch I have on Torment to do this (currently running EK with AoF but the tree isn't vastly different so I can change it without too many regrets).

I echo thalweg's question about Righteous Decree and also have to point out two more notables also in the Templar area: Retribution (14% spell damage, 5% cast speed, 1- str & int) and also Light of Divinity (15% spell damage, 4% cast speed, 10 str & int), ganted you have to take a 3% cast speed node to get to Light of Divinity but otherwise those two are just one point away. In fact, the Templar looks a pretty good start for this build too, although you'd miss out on that still powerful 25% mana regen node at Witch start...

What %age of your damage is non-fire at present? I.e. how much are you getting from the flat added lightning from Herald of Thunder? I ask because you're pathing via the single 6% ele damage rather than the two 12% fire damage nodes to get to Celestial Judgement... surely when fire is more than 50% of your ele damage the 12% nodes are better, or is it just to save points?

I'm considering something like this - note addition of Quick Recovery too. Maybe wearing Cloak of Defiance so I can drop the 9 nodes to get Mind of Matter (I might then need to get more dex from somewhere to level L/GMP).

@KB: I was thinking about keeping that CwDT at lvl 1.

As for Exceptional Performance, it is indeed for the Herald - and for the Immortal Call. Since we pick up a decent amount of faster casting, I thought it would even out. But you might be right, and maybe I should leave it out.

I'm not worried about the longer duration of the LW, I'm really struggling with the points. There are just so many good nodes, and I can not pick them all up! I'm really tempted to go with the Cloak of Defiance, so we clear some room for some extra points, but I also want to keep it viable for those who don't want to get the cloak/play self found. So I'm still working on a few things, keep making adjustments etc.

Funny that you pick up Quick Recovery Norky. I have been thinking about picking it up myself as well. I also included Retribution to the build, even though I am not too sure about Light of Divinity. Even though it is only 2 points away, I really need to watch my points. The tree in the first page, has only 140% life - which is somewhat low already. If I want to pick up more points, I need to sacrifice life points, or some other damage points. And since those points alone are already enough for some really nice damage output, I don't want to sacrifice more life. Same counts for those 2 12% fire nodes, I really feel this tree is quite balanced.

Well... there is always room for improvement of course. Now keep in mind, I don't want to make 105+ trees, simply because I believe not many people will level past 85. I am convinced that a build needs to be done at that point - also because you need a good build to keep levelling from that point on. So I keep cutting out points and adding them to other nodes. I'm quite happy with the tree as it is here. The biggest downside is the drop in mana related nodes. The mana regen is good enough, but the increase... well, I guess that one needs a little buff. I'm not sure if it will be enough for AA + MoM to be effective, but that is something I will find out as I get to that point.

As for the templar start - I really like the templar region atm. I feel it has a lot of damage potential, even though I'm not too sure about it's survivability. For some reason, his side doesn't feel too tanky(Maybe it's the loss of all those lovely block nodes?). I might look for a nice templar incinerator someday, but for now, I'll stick with the witch and the Scion :)

I did pick up Vaal Pact rather early. Mostly because I hadn't played with it for a long time, and wanted to see the strong and weak points of the node. I was surprised how effective it already was, even when I picked it up around lvl 50. Now, I'm most likely going to include Life Leech again to the build. Not because we need it, but mostly because Vaal pact just scales so well with additional life leech.

I guess I'll be making multiple trees for multiple setups, turning this guide into an incinerator guide for starters and more advanced players(and everything in between of course)(PewPewPews Ultimate incinerator guide? Ugh, that sounds horrible..)

I didn't have too much time to level up lately, still at 57, hoping to at least get to 60+ today, so I can test out some of the mappings as well with it.


Thanks for all the comments, tips, thoughts etc. I'm happy to know people are still interested in this build!

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Appels_Zijn_Gezond wrote:

Funny that you pick up Quick Recovery Norky. I have been thinking about picking it up myself as well. I also included Retribution to the build, even though I am not too sure about Light of Divinity. Even though it is only 2 points away, I really need to watch my points. The tree in the first page, has only 140% life - which is somewhat low already. If I want to pick up more points, I need to sacrifice life points, or some other damage points. And since those points alone are already enough for some really nice damage output, I don't want to sacrifice more life. Same counts for those 2 12% fire nodes, I really feel this tree is quite balanced.

Fair enough, the tree I posted is a massive 114 points spent (L94/95). You're quite right in that you need to be able to present a build as essentially 'finished' at some lower level, people who want to go beyond that should be able to make their own choices. Perhaps you could give a concrete build tree for ~L80 - 85 or so and then list additional passives that people might like to take beyond that?

That said, I'm looking at Foresight in the big ES wheel between Witch and Scion, two points for 20 flat ES and 20% increased. That sounds like a decent boost to total mana pool to address this problem:

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The biggest downside is the drop in mana related nodes. The mana regen is good enough, but the increase... well, I guess that one needs a little buff.

Either that one, or the nodes at the Templar. Both are 2 points, and both give a big bonus to our mana. I'll see whether we need it or not, and which one we'll need :)

I suppose which is better depends on how the bonuses are applied with EB...

Well, There it is, the big overhaul I was waiting for :D

New tree.

Keep in mind: this tree has a few advantages over the old tree, but that does not mean the old tree won't work. It just requires more gear to run AA, and I don't like that. I want people to be able to run everything without buying expensive gear. So if what you have there is working as intended, keep it. If you haven't gotten to the point where everything got all messed up and changed, you might want to stick with the new tree(Though, it'll probably change another few more times :D)


Now, The biggest changes are at the top side of the witch tree: I removed Heart of Flame to start with. It is a huge decrease in damage, but instead I pick up Light of Divinity, granting us additional cast speed over the spell damage we get alongside it. This mean, we don't need to take the upper path anymore, so we also ditch both Cruel Preperation and Deep thoughts.

Now we have points free to spend on the three mana/mana regen nodes near the witch start and Righteous Decree. This increase in mana should be enough to run Arctic Armour with semi decent gear(aka, stuff you'll find among the way).


I will most likely still make a build around the previous tree, for the more geared people, since it still has nice potential.

But yeah, as you might have figured, I will make a lot of different set ups in this guide... so there is that :D

I am sorry to say this but there are far more superior 1.3 Incinerate builds out there that will outshine this any day. I don't see anything interesting about this build. In fact, I don't understand many of your choices like not equipping a Cloak of Defiance and not waste so many passive points going for MoM.

A Cloak of Defiance is cheap, you can successfully run Incinerate on a 4L.

Of course, but there are many people who can not afford those 15 chaos for a cloak. Especially people who just started their first character, they have to work with the chaos they found while playing the game - and not every one manages to find enough chaos to buy that cloak as they hit higher levels.


I will most likely also add a build for the cloak in the final guide, I plan on making several incinerators, and the most challenging one is the incinerator that can be played selffound - to such an extend that it is even playable in end game maps.

There might be many other incinerator guides that are better than this one here, but I opt to be the cheapest and most accessible of all, just for those who hate trading, just started, or can't be bothered to spend a lot on a character that still works endgame :)