Witch - Edge of Madness + fun - Forum

Wanted to make something with an Edge of Madness.

For those that don't want to look it up, it's primary features are:

Spoiler

Lvl 22, slow 2H sword dealing about 200 phys/chaos dps.

It's party piece, other than having a large flat chaos damage, is the three levelX mods:

- gain 1 life on kill per level

- gain %inc elemental damage per level

- gain %inc chaos damage per level

Of course %inc chaos being something of interest, at least to me. The reason being that it is relatively difficult to get on gear and/or passive tree. In fact the tree yields 79% inc chaos max (I think), which is as simple as being level 79 and wielding the sword. Toss on a healthy elemental damage mod, one that approaches a Doryani's Catalyst, and you have something nifty.

Now how to apply that damage. Melee? There is the major obstacle of being low level base damage and slow attack speed (1.10 aps). I decided to try a spell for this initial foray onto the Sill of Silliness.

Of the spells available, I wanted something with chaos damage (Desecrate) or high cast/hit per second (to link added Chaos support). Of these available options, I went with incinerate, for two reasons:

1 - I had an old Incinerate build from a few patches ago, decently leveled to 85 and ready for a fresh respec.

2 - It is a fire based skill, and I wanted to incorporate a bit more Madness into the build. Namely, an Infernal Mantle.

To refresh your memory on the Infernal "Troll" Mantle:

Spoiler

It is an ES chest with mediocre/low ES

- %inc fire damage (nice enough)

- a rather high global %inc crit (worthless on an incinerate build)

- a hefty (some would say crippling) drawback of doubling spell damage when you are on low mana (<35% max)

- and the kicker that I am after, 25% of fire damage converted to chaos damage.

So obviously, in my feverish dreams, I am seeing my little witch with sword and mantle (and she looks dead sexy holding a 2H sword, a different pose than other character models). She is casting, at high speed . . .

Incinerate + Echo + Faster Cast + GMP + Added Chaos

Nothing surprising or new. The fire damage is being buffed by the sword, and chest. 25% of that damage is converted to Chaos, which, in addition to the chaos from the support gem, is buffed by the sword again.

So there is the plan, and as you can see it presents some obstacles:

- Basically no defense (no shield, armor, eva) except HP and eHP

- expensive mana cost skill to spam at that high cast speed, and...

- if that mana dips below that 35% mark... well assume that incinerate stacks will be lost because I'll have to manually dodge spells or die quickly.

Solution to obstacle:

Spoiler

- Get some projectile speed. Since there is no room on the 5L, get it on the tree. Yes, "shotgunning" is very effective with GMP + incinerate, but range is king in PoE. Luckily my build inherited a 20% quality incinerate gem from previous incinerate build.

- Well, everyone knows the solution to the mana cost, Eldritch Battery. Spec'ing EB means that I can solve the mitigation with more than just avoidance through Arctic Armor and Mind over Matter. Wearing the Troll Mantle means I'll have to travel far to the south for MoM, but that pathing takes me near projectile speed nodes, win-win. The joy of AA coupled with incinerate is also obvious and well documented. The smaller MoM (non-10% buffed CoD MoM)is actually an advantage for this build. My mana pool will take less of a hit... well, per hit.

- To keep that mana regen up, along with the large pool EB provides, is of course Discipline (more pool) and Clarity. That left me with mana enough for a Herald. I chose HoI for no reason other than the color slot available on my current hat. HoT will be a slightly better choice for dps reasons. Neither will, in reality be doing much unless heroic efforts are made to %inc chance freeze/shock 3dragons etc. None of which interested me for this build. Although an auto curse HoT would be nice...

- I choose to curse with Warlord's. I find it is the best balance for defensively buffing both my hp and mana (ehp). It also has the not inconsiderable advantage of granting end charges. Mitigation is always welcome. I prefer this active defensive curse, through leeching, opposed to the more passive temp chains or enfeeble. Ideally my choice curse would be Poacher's Mark, but alas, the mana/life gain on hit only applies to Attacks not Hits. See, it's not paranoia if they are out to get me!

So here is the current build at level 85.

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAuMDHgX5Bx4HpQj0DH0PqxB_ES0RlhR1FfAWvxjbGYoajxzcH0Ej9iaVKPosnC1HLYMvbzWSOuFBh0WdSRNJUUmyTZJN41BCUzVTUlVLVvpXK15FYeJqQ2sXbRlwu3Txd9d8g38rf8aCEIIegseFMongjDaP-pLzkx-VIJUulwaa4Ju1oqOjiqZXtz64k7zqvYLAVMHzwzrEosaezfrWiti92RPbC9-K37DlGeZY6QLr7uwY7g7w1fJF9tr5Y_no-wn-Cv6P_rM=

Rough? Yup. With a level or two more, I could optimize a touch here and there. Linking through the scion ES wheel rather than via the west fork of witch starter to name one area of imporvement. My best guess as to what bandit choices I made is life, cast speed, kill.

It is frustrating that the build has +max cold rather than the +max light resists, what with where they are located in relation to the witch starting area, but that's the breaks of the build. It'd cost ~11 spec to get to them, and it's unclear what would be a good sacrifice for it.

Also, I'm very ambivalent about the value of Ondar's Guile in the build. On one hand melee mobs typically melt before getting too close, so ranged mitigation should be good. However, lack of eva focus on gear/tree means that even doubled, it is a rather low number.

I'll just leave that as, "Results may vary, test on non-exposed skin before applying to face, if your Ondar stays Guile'd for longer than four hours, consult your physician."

Conclusion(ish)
Currently the Incinerate Toot Tip is ~2989. Not spectacular, but not bad... a solidly mediocre build damage-wise. A bit more interesting when you take into account the fact that a large % of damage (~62.5%+ depending on gem levels and spec) is non-reflect-able, doesn't care about ES, non-resistible (for good and ill). Most importantly, and I can't stress this enough, it has highlights of a rather pretty shade of violet.

How does it compare to a DW Apep's Rage Incinerate build (congrats to those that recognize the similarity)? I can only speculate. My guess would be that the DW Apep's Rage will do more damage (greater chaos damage added through wands, and large cast speed increase, but without the %inc chaos scaling), but will cost a bit more (gearing from poe.trade), and will be harder to balance the mana regen/drain (large increased mana cost downside of wands). DW Apep's is also a bit more "glassy" (note: the Edging to Madness build is not tanky, just a bit *less* glassy... again speculation) I would NOT recommend this for HC.

Last edited by Seicar#1681 on Mar 9, 2015, 9:37:49 PM