[2.4] Khelsie’s AFK CWS CI Occulist [Tri-Curse]

Not a problem, I'll film some T11/T12 rare maps this weekend and post them up :)

I've been playing this game since Closed Beta (almost 4 years) and up to date i've never played a Witch/CI Character in the Lategame. The reason to test your build was some boredom after 2 Gladiator builds this league.

My Impressions so far:
Levelling was pretty easy - grab a Sprig and a favourite Spell you're good to go. At Level 28 i switched to Vortex - a spell i've never used b4. Pretty solid damage and the DoT is very nice. In combination with Rapid Decay, inc. AoE and the Profane Bloom ascendancy the clearspeed is very good.
At level 50 I switched my gloves to ones crafted with Essnece of Hysteria. The flat Eledamage on it pushed the Vortexdamage even Higher. For selfcast Vortex a good option next to Voidbringers.

After getting the Merc Ascendancy i tried the PVP capabilities. I was in the late 60s and i could feel the potential of the build. Against pure PVPers i had no chance, due to low ES (<9k) and low gem levels they killed me faster than i could kill them. But normal guys killed themselves pretty often against me. One guy tried it like 20 times with no chance, it was so hilarious.

I'm level 78 now and keep pushing my levels for the Crit nodes. It should give a significant Boost to the damage after getting those nodes.

What's left? 2 Questions which are related to each other.

First: Why do you grab the Mind Barrier Node? You get like 7% Spellblock and 40% ES from shields for 4 Points. Does not seem very effective. I mean the difference between 0% and 7% SpellBlock is barely noticable. For the 4 Points you could get for example 2 extra Powercharge nodes.

The other one is Tempest shield. Why do you use it? Due to the low overall Blockchance it hardly triggers and is imho a wasted gemslot.


€: some typo rem.

Hey Smokah,

Thanks for trying my build :)

I'm glad you used a Sprig - they're excellent for leveling (scales well) and Vortex is brilliant. Have been using it since launch! Vortex + Controlled Destruction + Increase AOE + Rapid Decay is a great (and cheap) 4L Combo.

I also agree that if you don't have Voidbringers (due to level) that self cast Vortex (which is what I used for some time) is the way to go... 100%

Level 65 in Sarn Arena is when I started to shine... and just like you - there is soo much potential that just shines, the scaling with this build is excellent and I'm very happy with it so far.

I've updated the Skill Points Tree to reflect my current build variant v1.3

I took onboard your feedback and removed the 3 points from Mind Barrier Node. It made zero noticeable difference and I only lost 250 ES.

Put those points into Crit and have been laughing all the way to the bank!

Tempest... Lost that one too! Replaced with Firestorm which is just amazing for the amount of times it Crits!

Please check my updated build and let me know what you think.

PVE video uploaded :)

I'm Level 83 now and still experimenting. Never used so much Regret Orbs :D Respecced yesterday into a non Crit Build, but that was a bust. Damage went overall down, only the DoT damage from Vortex went up. My aim is to get around level 90 for some more points to play with. I'll definitely respecc back to the Crit Variation.

I also tried a Lowlife version which showed an impressive Damageboost. But without a Shavs i was not able to survive in many situations. For people who own a Shavs i'd definitely recommend a Lowlife Build. If you put Discipline in as an additional Aura for the Lowlife condition the ES lost is not that high.

Another Build variation that i tried was the removal of both Shield/Block nodes, named Sanctuary and Deflection. I love block builds (hello to my Gladiators) but in this case i don't see much benefit from the 7% additional Block chance. My shield has 25% and with that nodes it goes up to 32%. And that counts only for attacks, spells aren't blocked at all. The only downside of this removal was the lack of strength and some ES lost. I freed up to 12 Points and invested them into the ES nodes around Melding and Foresight. IIrc it was around 1.5k ES that i gained with this.

My current tree



I took the Practical Aplication Node for the Dex and Strength mainly. I don't know if it has a further benefit. Like can a cast from CwDT/CwS be interrupted by a Stun and does this node help to prevent that. Still searching for some answer on that.

Usefull for comparison here are some numbers of my current char level 83:
ES 12,5k
Capped resistances, but not overcapped
Spell gems between 16-19
Firestorm 18 1k Damage, Cold Snap 19 2,8k, Selfcast Vortex 5,2k/DoT 6,6k, Molten Shell 18 10k

Current Gear:

Haha... Yes Smokah, I've never ever used so many regrets in the 3 years I've been playing POE... as I have with Khelsie... It's all in the name of progress :P

I realised very quickly that crit-based CWDT \ CWS is absolutely the way to go!

Your build and gear looks solid so far :)

I've made some modifications to your build to help you on your way to crit-build transition.



Low life sounds like an interesting option (for the wealthy out there) - fortunately the build is designed to work very well on 1 ex total budget... any extra just scales better and better!

Taking up Discipline is also a great idea... I took up some reduced reserved mana nodes to allow me to run dual curse + discipline and my ES went up from 10.1k to 11.5k - so I'm very happy with that 4 skill point investment.

Obviously my mana is 99% reserved so I can no longer use flame dash to move around... you can always hot swap it in and out as you need.

My 12x Damage Skills are currently achieving great DPS with ZERO gear changes + level 88:

Bladefall 2.4k
Moltenshell 17k
Fireball 3.8k
Arctic Breath 3.1k
Glacial Cascade 2.5k
Flame Dash 2.7k
Cold Snap 4.2k
Lightning Warp 2.1k
Ice Spear 3.3k
Firestorm 1.4k
Vortex 4.5k
Frost Bomb 4.6k

Base 33.25% Crit Chance per spell (most are higher)
Base 340% Crit Multiplier per spell

Did you watch my PVE video that I recently uploaded?

I also may consider removing the block nodes in the future and going all ES like yourself - so far though, they're proving very useful for me :)

Thanks for uploading the PVE video Xenatos =)
As for me I'm clearing maps faster using one skill actively Vortex + Controlled Destruction + Increase AOE + Rapid Decay + (Spell Echo). Also I'm really happy I could clear Uber lab with this setting.

Well done :)

I can clear Merc Labs on 100% CWDT / CWS absolutely piece of cake.

Haven't tried Uber Labs on my own yet - will need to give it a shot :)

Hi Xenatos,

Love the build. It looked like such a blast to play that I'm making one a spin-off for myself. Have you considered dropping some of your less-efficient spells so you can run quad curse in your helm with a heretic's veil? Just did some tooling around with the tree to see how much reduced mana-res you could get by level-cap, and it's pretty significant.



I haven't done the math on this, but I think you could run Warlords, ele weakness, enfeeble, and your choice of (temp chains, frostbite, etc.) with discipline and have enough mana to cast a movement ability. I think with the improved curse effect nodes and quality gems you could take someone's elemental resists down to 0 and cut their damage in half. I know it's a long way off and pretty expensive, but that might be the best dps increase you could get.

That being said, I'm a scrub and I've never really played a curse-cwdt build before, so I could be pretty off base. Either way, thanks for the cool build, hope it ends up being as fun as it looks! :)

Thanks Mena, I'm proud knowing that there are players who are now excited and curious enough to give my build a shot!

Good luck and I hope to see you in Essence!

Regarding your pathing + curse ideas... I love it and you're more than welcome to go down this path... however, the idea behind my build is flexibility of play style, spells, gear and most importantly it's affordable for the masses!

All gear and gems for under 1 ex.

So for now - that's how I am positioning Khelsie's AFK CWDT CI Occulist... however I am constantly making changes and play testing each time I'm on POE - I've never before used so many regrets... I'm guessing I'm now at approx. 5ex.

My current wealth is 7 chaos...

...and I do this all for YOU - the community :)