Dominion's Hardcore Dual-Spark CI Witch - UPDATED for 1.0.1

@ Raptile64

you can get up to 7 power charges through passives and bandit quest resulting in a total of 350% increased crit chance

why not LMP or GMP instead of culling strike? i know cast speed is good but more sparks bouncing seems better?

your input is appreciated :)

How did you go about getting those items.

FCR rings are nuts, I barely ever see fcr on rings. Scepter is pretty crazy too.

Hey, new to witches here.

Curious if this guide/build is still a very viable option for HC?


Also, is this build "boring" due to your damage purely coming from summonable items? I kind of prefer the D2 sorceress playstyle where you throw shitloads of magic everywhere. Do you rely on your totems as a witch in this build?

I also am a dual totem sparker, SC though lvl 82.


Some notes. Since you're hardcore, have you ever considered using knockback instead of culling strike? Sparking totems can sometimes have a difficult time surviving because they do better up close. Projectile Weakness, curse also knockbacks permanently immobilizing mobs.

Faster projectiles, also, maxed out give 10% fcr. Could this be better than lightning pen, when you have double curses?

Why acquire buff duration on the skill tree? Do you use power siphon? How do you get charges easily?

Why didn't you pick up doom cast 60% crit?

Is this build good for solo farming?

Well played. Thanks for sharing.

Is Ancestral Bond a must for this build? I like to be able to manually cast spells too, but I'm afraid the core of this build revolves around Ancestral Bond which would prevent me from doing so.


Could this build work if you skip Ancestral Bond?

Sorry for my slowness in replying to your questions. If anyone asked a question earlier that I missed, repost it after this post and I will get to it shortly. I'll try to keep up with them from now on.



@Sklez - 241 fusings, 2 mirrors so far.

@motoeric616 - GMP/LMP Reduce the damage of individual spark hits, which makes it much more difficult to shock targets. (Plus although you hit more often, each hit does substantially less damage - which means you don't actually increase dps through lmp/gmp). Culling strike however increases base damage, increases cast speed, kills mobs 10% faster, and has extremely low mana cost multiplier.

@PSGMud - Lots of farming and group work. I've given away a lot of valuable items to members of my group (Like Lioneye's glare for instance), but I've also gotten a lot of upgrades. It's worked out quite well.

@Kougrizzle - It's more viable for HC than default actually. By maintaining double totems, you are rarely targetted. Unfortunately, Ancestral bond means you take a more passive position when it comes to damage, though bear traps are still fantastic for single target. Remote mines are an option, but they are slow.

@PSGMud - I definitely don't like the idea of knockback for group play. It gets in the way more often than it helps in my experience. As far as switching lightning pen for faster projectiles, that's an interesting thought. I need to ascertain whether lightning pen reduces max resistance (like the map affix) or total resistances (like elemental weakness). If it reduces max resistances, I'm tempted to test alternatives such as faster projectiles perhaps.

@Ravenel - It depends on what you mean by "good". It's extremely safe, and moderately fast. There are better options for default since death isn't such a concern - and this definitely is not the fastest for farming.

@KouGrizzle - You lose a lot of defense by using only a single totem. If you only have one totem, when that totem dies, you are targetted much more quickly. If you have double totems, you can alternate NPC targetting from one target to the other, ensuring that you are never the target.

Can i ask dumb question, why fork and not chain?