[0.10.0] Claw Witch - We can rebuild her, We have the technology!

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Yukitan wrote:

No more people :( playing claw witches ?

guess not -.-; most people want to either cookie cutter it or follow the same boring bs that is posted on the witch forums.. so much for originality.

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No_Recoil wrote:

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Yukitan wrote:

No more people :( playing claw witches ?

guess not -.-; most people want to either cookie cutter it or follow the same boring bs that is posted on the witch forums.. so much for originality.

That is true, so far I got a dw claw witch in act3 cruel. Getting CI once i get my Es to 2000 i say. Its though alright, the lack of aoe makes it hard to clear, but singal target dps on my dual strike i get like 1k dps, which isn't bad.

so far my passive tree looks like this

I have been trying, but I'm kinda holding off until my desync issues go away. I could push through, but I'd be losing like 40% of my experience every play session. Melee witch with desync isn't good when you aren't very lucky on gear.

I have 3 witches. My first one uses summons and dual claws. It was fun and it got the job done, but I realized I didn't care for the summons at all. What I really wanted was to beat people up in close quarter combat with the sexy witch and claw weapons for the personal touch. So I made witch nr. 2. An absolute blast to play, though I didn't have any idea of what I was doing at the time. Witch nr. 3 was/is a basic caster, which totally works, but lets not go into details with her.

I'm now about to make my 4'th and hopefully last witch.

The idea, beat people up in melee with dual claws and don't die. How? There's a unique claw called Essentia Sanguis. The special thing about this piece is the 10% increased chance of blocking while dual wielding, I haven't tested this, but their innate 10% chance to block while dual wielding should stack. So I'm going to combine CI and a beefy energy shield with good evasion and %block chance.



The passive tree should cover all the stats the witch would need and leave some points for any missing touches.

Anything I haven't thought about, please let me know, and feel free to shamelessly copy my build if you think it might work. For now I'm going back to Wraeclast, saving a witch who's just washed to the shore.

I've done some actual playing, and my initial idea wasn't far off. However, the main problem with energy shield is the way stuns work. Stun duration is fixed, and the chance of getting stunned is the damage you take versus your max hp (with CI it uses your HP before CI). So a witch only boosting energy shield and not hp, you will get stunned more and more as game progresses and mobs become dangerous faster than you gain max hp from levels and random stats on items. With ES, though if you have more than 1 energy shield, you receive a fixed bonus to stun reduction. I don't know the exact value, but needless to say, it's not enough.

The conclusion I came to, was that the passives "Unwavering Stance" and "Iron Reflexes" are must haves to avoid stun locks. Hence, my starting "build" which isn't really a build at all, just the most epic (not the shortest) route down to those two passives. Along the way are all the dex and int the build needs to hit well a and equip all the gear it needs. The path also took me right past all kinds of epic node clusters I will need as the game advances.



A few levels ago, that was all I had achieved. Granted, I died when ever dsync got bad. But playing in general wasn't that hard. In fact, she's doing quite well in early cruel with only a few more points invested. She hits above 90% of the times, has just enough ES and hp not to die straight away, and dps + life on hit from gear and skill gems sufficient to kill everything before it kills her.

The first nodes I went for was Dervish along with the lesser weapon block nodes in the duelist tree, up to acceleration past the 8% mana node and to the "Master of the Arena" for the sweet melee range buff and some extra strength. From here, ignoring additional weapon block (read free attack damage reduction) for now, the Evasion and Energy shield nodes are obvious first or second picks along with "Ghost Reaver" and the Claw life leach nodes to the top right. Also (right before fighting piety on normal) I took the "Diamond Skin" resist for 15% all res and was able to keep hitting the bitch with dual strike until she died with out taking more damage than I could steal back, even though she kept buffing up with the fire or cold portals.

Worth mentioning is a unique pair of boots as well an amulet that converts % of block to spells as well. If I did the math right, the build should reach 67% block with both unique claws and all the block nodes (conveniently next to the path we initially took) transferring 72% of that block means we should have 48% reduction form spells as well. Additionally, "Berserking" is just too good to pass up, as is the "Gallantry" nodes along with "Bravado". Though additional damage or durability should be built as you need it.

Summarizing, with boosts to ES Evasion, and Weapon block, she will become an unstoppable dual striking beast. Or so I hope. Fun an effective early game, slightly troubling mid game (from 25ish to early 40'ies) but very very strong late game.

Just to let you all know, there's an amulet that grants stun immunity. Can't remember wich one tough.

are dagger witches viable too?

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ixa wrote:

Just to let you all know, there's an amulet that grants stun immunity. Can't remember wich one tough.

That would be the Eye of Chayula amulet. You'd also want to pick up something that grants freezing immunity with CI, such as the unique sapphire ring.