Critical Lightning Witch Build?

Now I've been working on a possible build based around critical hits with lightning based spells for Witch. The main spell I'm thinking of using is Spark with, in the future, increased projectile speed and fork (I already have fork added and it works amazing in small areas). Chain added in as well just seems like it'll cost too much mana for what it's worth. I would be using Conductivity on mobs as well with this build, possibly even a Voll's Protector late game for added critical chances with Power Charges. As it stands at level 36, I have an 18% chance to crit with Spark so far, with only one critical chance node group spec'd into, so it seems very viable once I get the whole build in, and Voll's combined with Power Charges I could snowball into a near 100% crit chance possibly (assuming there's no cap on crit chance). Just a thought.

Still undecided about that whole Spark thing, but any suggestions on the passive tree I've set up?

Here it is:



Any criticism would be greatly appreciated as it would help me build it a better way. Thanks.
Last edited by Cause on Feb 11, 2013, 2:29:25 AM
maybe run a spark with gmp faster casting faster proj and like elemental prolif with either arc or shock nova, idk
Spark already casts pretty fast with the little cast speed nodes I have already, but gmp might be a good idea. Shock Nova seems impracticable to use because you shouldn't have things that close to you in the first place, lol. Arc though works well, but I'm thinking of just using faster casting and reduced cost on that because it takes so long to cast over and over compared to Spark, then I can use Arc as my focus spell when I need to hit something specifically compared to Spark where it goes anywhere and hits anything at random.
Last edited by Cause on Feb 10, 2013, 11:37:58 PM
Just a couple of random considerations on your build, from my little experience with a crit lightning witch (lvl 45).
1. You completely skip the hp or ES passives. I think that you need at least a bunch of those to increase your survivability on higher difficulties.
2. Even if spark is not so mana intensive I suggest you to put some points to increase the mana pool and the mana regen rate. The clarity gem is also a must have for a caster.
3. If I've understood a little of this game, increasing cast speed should result in more mana spent. Personally I prefer to increase the damage keeping a low attack speed in order to save mana.
4. Probably you could move some points from crit passives to lightning ones. The cool thing of lightning is the shock effect (that increases the damage taken). If you crit a lot, it would be good to have bonuses on shock, so maybe you can put some points on the shock stuff.
5. The spark spell is really awesome when spammed in small areas, particularly with fork support. It can clear a room even without enter in it. I found it a little less awesome in open spaces. You can also add a lightning penetration support that works pretty well against elemental resistant mobs. Even at low gem levels the lightning penetration+conductivity combo can apply a -50% lightning res.
As an alternative, as already suggested, arc is good, it has high dps and hits up to three targets without even clicking on them. The only problem is that it's more mana intensive than spark.
This is pretty much what I'm doing, here's my build at level 67 if you're interested.

Pro tip on build making: you won't ever have 111 points to spent as it stands, you should aim your build around 90 points instead of 111.

For my build, I used to use Conductivity but at some point in merciless it didn't make all that much of a difference with or without it so I dropped it for Critical Weakness (even more crit chance + crit damage).

For Auras I only ever use Discipline and Clarity, tough at some point I did wait to level Clarity since the mana reserved eats a pretty big portion of my mana pool.

Most of the time I play with Spark + Lesser Multiple Projectile + Fork + Item Rarity (because why not :D), I sometimes swap for Faster Projectile because it's awesome and makes Spark somewhat more accurate. I tried LMP + GMP and it's amazing but really mana intensive (~90 per cast at Spark lvl 16) :p. In the future I'll probably use a totem with another spark for some more free dps or a cold spell for the chill or something.

I went full damage until act 1 merciless, at that point I had trouble soloing The Ledge without dying, a lot of stuff was 1 shot killing me. Things got easier very quickly when I invested in some ES and life. Right now I have ~1200 life and ~1400 ES, geared only with ES+Evasion gear. As long as I kite and don't get hit too much I don't have too much trouble. I didn't start doing maps though, so I can't comment on those. From normal to the end of merciless I soloed pretty much everything, except for the bandits in act 2, General Gravicius and the final Piety in act 3. Right now I'm soloing The Docks pretty easily to level up and gear up some more before maps.

Some comments for the build you linked:
- You will miss somme dex for fork, faster projectiles and LMP/GMP
- You really don't need any casting speed at all, with LMP and fork you decimate pretty much anything with a few casts except some nasty yellows.
- You will cry tears of blood in merciless if you don't pick any health/energy shield nodes.

For yellow mobs, watch out for elemental reflection yellows. I killed myself pretty often on those while leveling. The only other troublesome ones are the very fast ones (hard to kite), and the ones that have insane energy shield just takes a while to kill.
You will get pretty much destroyed on merciless/maps without at least a little bit of survivability in your skill tree.
Maximizing damage is fantastic, but you'll have like 600-800 life with approx. the same in ES.

That'll last yourself 1-2 hits later on.

A pure glass cannon is just not feasible in my opinion, at least on merciless since the 15% xp loss does hurt quite a lot later on when you need like 50m xp for a level.

I play a lightning witch, level 69, and i picked 3 of the available es-cluster, i'm sitting at 850 life and 3.5k ES, and granted, i'm planning to go CI later, but even with life leech and Ghost Reaver there are situations in which even 3,5k ES tend to drop very low.
ign: Bowsomnia
This really got me going for the Lightning Witch.. gone make one.. :)

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