[2.1 SC TALISMAN] 20K+ DPS TANKY BEGINNER NON CRIT IRON WILL ARC WITCH
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Hey guys! I want to share with you all a new build I've been playing in the Softcore Talisman league. It can deal with all levels of content, including Rigwald, Atziri, and potentially even Uber Atziri with very good gear. This is the first in-depth build guide I've written so any feedback regarding content or structure is highly appreciated!
Why arc?
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Overview
Pros
- Very Cheap to gear, requires no uniques
- Can run most map mods, Atziri and Rigwald - High damage based on gems and fast clear speed, only requires a 4 link - Armour-based, tanky with endurance charges, high life and resists (chaos resist included) - High number of jewels for increased flexibility - Flexible passive tree - Easy to level, no levelling build or transition stages required
Cons
- Relatively low single target
- Uses mostly blue gems while wearing all pure armour items, can be annoying to chrome - No investment in dexterity, can’t use blood rage, leap slam w/ faster attacks
Stats
Arc (with auras)
Defenses (with charges and golem in merciless)
Life and Mana
Skill tree
Stage 1
End of Normal
Relatively straightforward, we take lightning walker and spell damage instead of cast speed in the witch starting area for early damage and to minimise mana expenditure. Life is optional, can opt for more damage, cast speed or life and mana regen instead of life. Only pick up jewel slots if you can fill it with something useful, otherwise leave until later.
Stage 2
End of Cruel
Switch spell damage with cast speed to improve general feel of the character, pick up deep thoughts if you're having mana issues. Go to heart of thunder first if you want damage, or go towards diamond skin and warrior's blood in the marauder starting area if you want life, armour and resist.
Stage 3
End of Merciless
Optimising the tree, drop lightning walker and pick up all jewel slots and endurance charges. Pick up celestial punishment and celestial judgement for more damage, pick up unrelenting or life from scion life wheel for more life.
Stage 4
Bandits
Normal: Oak
Cruel: Alira/kill all Merciless: Oak
Gear
Helm
Rare helm (pure armour base prefered, use armour/energy shield hybrid otherwise) with life, armour and resists (chaos resist optional).
Chest
Kingsguard: very cheap (1-2 chaos unlinked), good mixture of stats (life, mana, decent armour), unique affixe essentially gives free 'instant heal flask' at 6 endurance charges every time immortal call procs. Very good as the first spike damage required to proc cast when damage taken is immediatly healed without needing to react and press flasks. Alternate options: Rare chest (pure armour base prefered, use armour/energy shield hybrid otherwise) with life, armour and resists (chaos resist optional).
Gloves
Rare gloves (pure armour base prefered, use armour/energy shield hybrid otherwise) with life, armour and resists (chaos resist optional).
Boots
Rare boots (pure armour base prefered, use armour/energy shield hybrid otherwise) with life, armour, movement speed and resists (chaos resist optional).
Staff
Agnerod North: quite cheap (5-10 chaos unlinked), any Agnerod is fine (except Agnerod East). Alternate options: Rare staff with +3 to gems, cast speed and lightning/spell damage. Pledge of hands (more expensive).
Amulet
Rare amulet (strength base prefered) with life, %armour, cast speed, lightning/spell damage and resists (chaos resist optional).
Rings
Rare rings with life, cast speed, and resists (chaos resist optional).
Belt
Doryani's invitation (lightning variant): completely optional (10-20 chaos), good mixture of stats (life, resists, armour, strength), unique affixes grant more survivability and damage. Alternate options: Rare belt with life, armour and resists.
Jewels
Jewels with %armour, cast speed, cast speed while holding a staff, cast speed with lightning skills, spell damage while holding a staff, lightning damage, spell damage and %life.
Flasks
Atziri's Promise: very cheap (1-2 chaos), essentially 'free' chaos damage and chaos leech during flask effect, great dps boost for rares or bosses. Alternate options: 2 seething/bubbling divine flask of staunching/heat, 1 perpetual/ample granite flask of iron skin, 1 perpetual/ample quicksilver flask of adrenaline
Optional affixes
Mana
Mana regen Strength
Gems
Disclaimer: excluding staff, 1 item requires 4 blue and another requires 3 blue 1 red sockets to be optimised, if too difficult then opt for armour/energy shield base instead of pure armour base or different gems (suggestions will be listed). Gems listed in order of importance.
Arc
-Arc (Blue)
-Controlled Destruction (Blue) -Iron Will (Red) -Spell Echo (Blue) -Lightning Pen/Faster Casting (Blue) Only use lightning pen in lightning res/ele equilibrium maps -Empower (Red)
Atziri
Arc (Blue) -> Storm Call (Blue)
Lightning Pen/Faster Casting (Blue) -> Conc Effect (Blue)
Lightning Warp
-Lightning Warp (Blue)
-Faster Casting (Blue) -Less Duration (Red)
Cast when Damage Taken
-Enduring Cry (Red)
-Cast when Damage Taken (Red) Up to you how often you want your endurance charges used, lower level means more phys immunity but higher use of enduring cry, higher level means more consistent phys reduction and life regen, personally I wouldn't go over lv 15. -Immortal Call (Red) -Increased Duration (Red)
Auras/Curses
-Wrath (Blue)
-Herald of Thunder (Blue) -Curse on Hit (Blue) -Warlords's Mark (Red) Used to consistently generate endurance charges, also grants life and mana leech and allows lightning damage to stun enemies, which is useful as the very high end of lightning damage can stun enemies often. For other defensive curses, consider enfeeble (Blue). For offensive curses, consider conductivity (Blue) or elemental weakness (Blue).
Atziri
Curse on Hit (Blue) -> Blasphemy (Blue)
Currently Atziri does not reflect aurafied curses, if eventually this is changed, you can switch to purity of lightning (Blue) or purity of fire (Red). Herald of Thunder (Blue) -> Do Not Turn On
Golem/Vaal skill
-Chaos Golem (Blue)/Fire Golem (Red)
Use fire golem (Red) if getting 4 blue on a pure armour base is too difficult. -Minion Res (Blue) -Minion Life (Blue) -Vaal Summon Skeletons (Blue) defensive vaal skill. Provides distraction and blocks projectiles. For offensive vaal sill, use vaal storm call.
Current Gear
Atziri Guide
Coming soon!
FAQs
Coming soon!
Last edited by liming0830#3360 on Jan 9, 2016, 4:09:01 AM Last bumped on Mar 29, 2016, 10:26:15 AM
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Reserved for updates
18/12/2015:
Gear Update @ Lv 86
4/03/2016: I will be updating this build for Ascendancy as soon as I'm done testing out all the new aspects of the expansion and deciding what changes to make for the build. In the meantime, feel free to test out the build in Ascendancy and share your thoughts! 30/03/2016: Hey everyone! Due to a few things going on with my life now I probably won't be returning to PoE for a while :( I hope that this build guide has been helpful to you and has provided new players with the essentials to create their own builds! Eventually I will come back to the game but it's just right now I don't know when I will come back Good luck to you all! Last edited by liming0830#3360 on Mar 29, 2016, 10:28:45 AM
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I've been playing this build, though i've made a few changes, and it's going really well. On act 4 merciless and i haven't died yet. Tanky and awesome dps.
I've dropped endurance charges for my build which i'm not sure is wise or not, but it gives me points to spend elsewhere in the passive tree and i can use this 5L astral plate i have instead of kingsguard. Trying to figure out if enduring cry/immortal call is still worth it even without endurance charge passives. Using conductivity instead of warlord's mark as well. Wondering if i should put something else in my CWDT. I have five links in my armor and i have CWDT (lvl 11, though i really don't know what lvl is optimal) - Molten Shell - Decoy Totem. I can't think of anything else to put in it besides immortal call and enduring cry tho so they're there as well. I may give an update on my progress after i've further tweak my gear and passive tree. |
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PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST I MESSED UP LOL
Last edited by liming0830#3360 on Mar 5, 2016, 9:51:22 AM
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Espenanda I'm really glad you're enjoying the build! It's my first guide and it's good to see that its really easy to follow for beginners (which is what it's designed for)!
I have found that when running no regen maps you have to use warlords mark for the leech, otherwise it's impossible to sustain casting (and would I recommend to take a mana flask as well just in case). As for the Kingsguard it was only a cheap unique meant for levelling as switching it out for an Astral Plate would be the best option. As the build only requires 1 5 or 6 linked gear (which is on the agnerod's) it becomes easier to look for a body armour with a lot of armour, life or resists without having to pay more for a 5 or 6 link. Having an immortal call with a high amount of endurance charges is important to prevent getting shotgunned by a bunch or porcupines or titty-bitches but apart from that they're definitely not mandatory, especially for softcore leagues (but I don't like dying). For CwDT you have a lot of options: molten shell, a defensive curse now that you're using conductivity, decoy/devouring totem (good for mana), gmp-arctic breath are all possible and really up to you. Last edited by liming0830#3360 on Jan 31, 2016, 10:25:39 PM
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First of all liming0830, I have to thank you for this build of yours. I was not really getting forward with my Witch, but because of the latest patch I could totally remake her using your build. She is now level 40 and I am having fun blasting groups of enemies with arc.
But I do have two questions. ( At the moment. :) ) Q-1 --- I use Arc in a 4L linked 20% quality Pillar of the Caged God Long Staff. And in it I have at the moment Arc with Controlled Destruction - Faster Casting and Iron Will. I got Spell Echo a bit more then a day ago with another character, but it requires level 42 so I can not use it yet. But once I reach lvl 42 would it wise to switch Faster Casting with Spell Echo, or would it be better to stick with Faster Casting till I find a 5L/6L Weapon that can replace the Pillar of the Caged God? Q-2 --- What is your opinion on using Warlords Mark with Blasphemy? Personally I think it is worth it. ( Yeah I know that is the only thing that matters when playing PoE, but still. ) Or would Warlords Mark work better for this build if one can place it where ever you want? http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Blasphemy |
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Fessels2903 thanks for letting me know that the builds been such a big success for you! I'm glad that you could re-roll your witch into this new character! Now to answer your questions:
1: Spell echo is definitely the way to go over faster casting. Although I would keep levelling it as it will be your 5th link (or lightning penetration, depends on your preference). I would also look to replace the staff immediately. If not an agnerods then almost anything else would suffice as unfortunately Pillar of the Caged God offers nothing for the build. 2: It's up to you whether you want to use blasphemy with your warlords mark or attach it with your herald of thunder. Although it reserves 10% more mana we don't really need the spare mana to cast anything so it doesn't really matter, unless you don't have enough mana to sustain casting arc for at least a short time without leech. It also gives us very consistent leech and endurance charge generation which is nice. However I simply like having the more damage that herald of thunder gives me so that's what I'm sticking with and so far the leech and endurance charge generation have been constant enough that I don't run into mana issues and I almost always have full charges up (I use enduring cry straight after an immortal call to quickly build up my charges again). Hopefully that answers all your questions so far! |
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liming0830
1: Darn and here I thought it would help, oh well guess I will start looking for a 4L/5L. And remember to keep levelling Faster Attack in a secondary weapon while using Spell Echo. ( Thank for that. ) 2: Oh I am using Herald of Thunder as well, I just linked Blasphemy to Warlords Mark and was curious about it. I will think about Warlords Mark and Blasphemy, or if I will switch to Conductivity or something else you mentioned. Thank you for the help. :) |
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Why not use the repentence gloves? You'd gain iron will on everything, not just arc. And you'd save a socket.
Crit Shockwave Totem 650k +: #1657327 / Crit VMS (1 mil DPS): #1511368 / Crit self-cast spark: #1565708
1.3 crit firestorm: #1280086 / 1.3 crit Ice Nova: #1219809 / Flame Nova (sire of shards incinerate): #1359847 |
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liming0830
Well for some reason I could not get my previous post to show this, so here is a new on. " |
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