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

I've played previous iterations of Pew's other Incinerate build both as Witch and Scion so I knew this would be fairly strong.

I have a witch on Torment I was playing with Ethereal Knives which I have converted to this passive tree. Close enough without spending many regrets that I don't have. I'm currently at L68 Damage and survivability are both good, though I do often find the Warlord's Mark coverage patchy - it's dependent on a number of non-guaranteed mechanics - though I am hoping that improves after I level gems some more. My gear is crappy self-found stuff (I spend all my currency on different char):



The Infernal Mantle is by no means necessary. It gave a DPS boost (levels are everything for spells) over a 5L rare with bad stats that I found, but I might switch back if I want the extra link, say for fire pen, which will doesn't add to tooltip DPS but I know does improve damage.

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gtrans wrote:

Also, if the new player reaches level 80 and has more than enough to buy a Cloak of Defiance, should he bare the burden or restarting his whole character because he just found a simple unique that over throws all his effort in making the best of the build core mechanism?

The build is designed not to rely on any specific items. That doesn't mean certain items wont be useful. In the build guide Pew explicitly mentions Cloak of Defiance along with other uniques. If one finds or buys a Cloak of Defiance, it's a simple matter to refund the 9 points for Mind over Matter from the tree (and possibly swap Clarity out for something else if the extra mana regen from CoD is more than enough regen).

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gtrans wrote:

15 chaos is easy to get, trade stuff that you find in end game maps for a chaos each and voila you have it in less than an hours

What? That is so far from my experience in the past three leagues that it's comical. I have a shop thread with nothing priced higher than a chaos. In the weeks that Torment has been running I have made a total of 3 alch. From gems. Honestly the currency I have comes from direct currency drops or the chaos recipe. I realise this is getting away from the the point of the thread, but your description of how apparently easy it is to make currency made me scoff.

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Norky wrote:

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gtrans wrote:

Also, if the new player reaches level 80 and has more than enough to buy a Cloak of Defiance, should he bare the burden or restarting his whole character because he just found a simple unique that over throws all his effort in making the best of the build core mechanism?

The build is designed not to rely on any specific items. That doesn't mean certain items wont be useful. In the build guide Pew explicitly mentions Cloak of Defiance along with other uniques. If one finds or buys a Cloak of Defiance, it's a simple matter to refund the 9 points for Mind over Matter from the tree (and possibly swap Clarity out for something else if the extra mana regen from CoD is more than enough regen).

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gtrans wrote:

15 chaos is easy to get, trade stuff that you find in end game maps for a chaos each and voila you have it in less than an hours

What? That is so far from my experience in the past three leagues that it's comical. I have a shop thread with nothing priced higher than a chaos. In the weeks that Torment has been running I have made a total of 3 alch. From gems. Honestly the currency I have comes from direct currency drops or the chaos recipe. I realise this is getting away from the the point of the thread, but your description of how apparently easy it is to make currency made me scoff.

woah woah woah there mate. It not just refunding 9 points, it is more than that. If you want to blend in CoD in this, id suggest you take a look at KuteKitteh'd build. That's how you perfect a CoD/Incinerate build.

Secondly, you don't have to play seasonal leagues as far as I know. Everything on standard is cheaper due to the large quantity of items available. If you aren't looking for a challenge or if you are new to the genre, I strongly suggest any newcomers to start off on standard first and try a challenge later.

Plus, refunding passive is as costly if not more costly than buying a CoD. Last time I checked, a CoD was 1 chaos. What is your argument against that?

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gtrans wrote:

woah woah woah there mate. It not just refunding 9 points, it is more than that. If you want to blend in CoD in this, id suggest you take a look at KuteKitteh'd build. That's how you perfect a CoD/Incinerate build.

Again, Pew's build is explicitly and deliberately not designed around any specific unique item. (Pew, if I'm misunderstanding your intention, or putting words in your mouth, please tell me that I'm wrong). Pew's build, plus a CoD, minus those 9 points may well not be quite as strong as this other "perfect" build (a link would be nice) which builds around that one item. That's not the point.

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I strongly suggest any newcomers to start off on standard first and try a challenge later.

That is exactly the opposite of what happens. The default, recommended league for new players at the moment is Torment. Now you might be right and GGG might be wrong, but the reality is that a new player will start off for the first time in a challenge league (if challenge leagues are running when they start). I started in Domination because that was the recommended choice.

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Plus, refunding passive is as costly if not more costly than buying a CoD. Last time I checked, a CoD was 1 chaos. What is your argument against that?

According to the wiki you get 18 passive refund points, from quest rewards, for free. Last time I checked, "free" is less costly than a CoD on any of the the leagues.

The build, as it stands, looks like it can be played by a new player, one who is learning the game, who has bad luck with drops and little understanding of/interest in the market, with reasonable success up to a high level. Finding/buying/being given some nice item may well improve the effectiveness of the build, perhaps not to the level of another build that is designed around specific items, but expecting it to be would be silly. However, this build is not crippled by the lack of a specific item.

If it matters, on Standard I have access to 6L Mantle, CoD, Doryani's belt and sceptre, apeps rage and other toys that make Incinerate really powerful, so I'm not complaining that gear like this is unobtainable; rather I appreciate a build designed with new players/new leagues/no currency in mind. Perhaps I'm seeing negative sentiment in your posts where you didn't intend it, but it seems to me like you're criticising someone else's efforts for no good reason.

Then OP should really emphasize on the use of a rare chest piece. Even as far as putting a warning. Example: Warning, build emmensly favorable with the use of a rare chest piece. If you want to use a CoD, see other build (link). Like I said, when I first read the post, it struck me a huge downgrade of what a Incinerate build is capable of.

Nowhere on the guide does it say that the use of CoD will likely affect the build's performance as to make you reroll another character because the cost in passive refunding would be far too great.

Also the lack of AA on this build is also a mystery. It provides huge physical reduction and you will literally be immune to reflect and most fire damage.

MoM requires huge mana regen to effectively sustain your spell cast and damage taken from your mana on hit. Vaal pact can be dropped for more mana regen/max mana. Rightous decree near the templar start is GREAT with Incinerate and MoM builds.

There are so many areas that can be reworked. My intent from the start was only to point out the available options.

If you can't accept criticism then you shouldn't make a build go public.

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gtrans wrote:

Even as far as putting a warning. Example: Warning, build emmensly favorable with the use of a rare chest piece. If you want to use a CoD, see other build (link). Like I said, when I first read the post, it struck me a huge downgrade of what a Incinerate build is capable of.

Nowhere on the guide does it say that the use of CoD will likely affect the build's performance as to make you reroll another character because the cost in passive refunding would be far too great.

Will it? Really? Honest question. As I said I've been following this new build on Torment with awful gear, only at 68 so far, under-levelled gems and zero currency spent (it all goes on a different char) and it's fine, damn good in fact when you consider the crap gear. Not as powerful as my incinerate char on standard with much better gear, but it's hard to do a fair comparison without comparing the two side by side at a similar level.

Play both Pew's build, plus CoD, with the MoM passives spent on something else and then play a same level char with KuteKitteh's build, with the same gear (i.e. so only difference is the passive tree). Are you certain that the latter will be worlds apart? I honestly don't know.

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gtrans wrote:

Also the lack of AA on this build is also a mystery. It provides huge physical reduction and you will literally be immune to reflect and most fire damage.

Hmm, fair point, I'm running AA on my witch. I'm sure the first iteration included AA but you're right in that it's not there now.

Ok it's obvious that you did not fully grasped the mechanics behind Kute's build. Where I could agree that even Kute's build can be reworked, it is far superior to this.

His build is based not only on fire damage but all of the other elements including chaos (which is not an element). His damage comes from stacking cast speed instead of pure raw damage.

Where I don't really agree with Kute's version is use of double herald. Atm, I am at 8.7k incinerate and elemental reflect kills me.

Passive




Now I ask you to come forth with your version of Incinerate using OP's guide and see what is superior.

I am very surprised no one bothered to do this build with CI

So I am taking it upon myself to show what I've done so far with a CI variant and I must say I'm tanky as hell and dps is nice

Items



The tree

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAuMEBwelDH0NfBB_EVAV1xbzFy8bJRzcHRQdTySwJjwo-ipTKo0snCymLL8tHy9vL501uTbYN4NCo0NjRtdHBkkbSVFJskuuTLNWY1cpVytXyVugXGtfKl9qYpVmnmjybRlwu3FNcYV0VXwOfEt-WX_GgKSCEIKbgseESIaujHaPRo_6kNaTJ5Z0mjuaz5uhnjym66cIpyunVayYsUKycLQMtoa3MbiTvYLAGsHFw23GntDQ1abZE9lb2t3b59-K37DpAuq66-Tr7uwY7DjsVe0g7Tzw1fFs8xH31_no-tL-sw==

So this build is so tanky I can literally stand in one spot and take atziri's worst I just pop a flask and she at best gets me down to half life...which I heal almost instantly (even with shock stack).

Right now as it stands I cast 15.1 times a sec dealing 6400 with herald of thunder on.

I further increase the damage 1st by 15% with burned enemies (from boots) (chance to burn is at 17%, but because is cast so many times a sec I almost burn in an instant if the monsters don't die first), then because HoT gives me a 10% chance to shock I gain another 50% increase to damage then the notable passive Celestial Punishment boosts it again another 25%

Fire Pen ---> 42%
ES ---> 6500 with CI
RES ---- fire 75 ---- cold 75 ---- lightning 76

Due to my armor negating 25% of elemental because I run CI its a little better to the equivalent of having 82% max res (83 for lightning) huge defense against elemental

Leech ---- 11% leech rate being 20% increase

Never get Stunned + Never get Frozen + No mana can be leeched from me = cannot be stopped to cast incin.

I basically light up indoor maps due to increase in light radius which is actually a nice luxury I rather enjoy alot
(I tried running a low life shavs build and realized I hated not seeing anything in indoor maps)

Also with the shav low life build, I noticed my armor is far worse so physically damage posed issues even at 6k ES, so I reverted back to the CI build because I love tanking anything and mobs and still melt them relatively just as fast as with the low life variation which boosted my dps to 9500 15.1 casts a second.


This build I feel is incredibly tanky, I basically just teleport onto mobs into mobs and mow them down with no loss to my ES

I also run AA at lvl 20 with no issues and can cast incin forever and I reach the edge of the screen with my projectiles. If I feel like I can set up my boots or gloves to allow me to swap the aura for max res depending on which boss I go up against. But really not necessary I pop a flask which last me as long as I need before I kill the bosses anyways.

There are areas still left to improve this build

I am now working on getting more appropriate gloves (armor ES) as my elemental damage mitigation is very good with my armor. This would further my ability to tank high phys damage targets.

Once I get a good set of gloves with either dex or strength stats I can then look to add cast speed to a more appropriate ring. The Boots can also be swapped out for more suitable stats. This build can basically do without the boots and the helm. But I would corrupt the boots to give +1 to gems then swap out the helm for a better helm that provides res. That would allow me to drop my all res aura altogether and run HoI boosting my dps to 7400-7500 range and then basically shocking freezing and burning everything. Once I add a bit more mana regen I can support a blood rage cast cap of 15%.
So even though this build is already a very fun and very tanky build there is still alot to be done to increase its dps and its tankability further.

Any feedback and comments is much appreciated.