Witch - minion army build [asking for tips/reviews]

Hello,

I've always played witch on POE1 but only with my homemade build (161hr of game time) and I wanted to ask if there was a way to improve this?

I'm not sure yet how I could boost all my minions to do the dirty work while staying alive during boss fights.

Here's the passive tree with ascendancy (infernalist) from POE2DB:
https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgEBgh5xmi5FWkesTBoilrPAtjQSg0mdBtvZ_xoex_BXKqPtWSUO7-tG3mfhboUK5_C1FnkDxPeXyMDN5RsWka-Xrr0p9uCiBZmIGHoGvagfGFtWw7i4QJLaIxdXO4NMnQjxksUzgdg5eA8afgJMvLEf3r0i_dT5sz3v6_TVxiCqJSxwhZd3O7XaveMQr_WngcnxSPm25tUQLIO6ZlR-2nOroygkbHZ-25aro3HcVGaDXz4NWP9G8ERd0xR4AD3BecdpQQouqWa4tE-kO1oNVjjvYtcNBBE3IKWkB-5imDxvKld5Bac6YZh9n087_ihQrN-jsTjUDXP4OdeMsdpD8rgzv8BYo0Y1AAA=

I don't think I'll go all the way with dual specs but we'll see if I change my mind by this evening :D

cheers

for endgame build, you don't need to put most of your points in minions' damage, resist, or life in poe1. you dont have maximum life, but your ascendancy is increased spirit per 25 maximum life. you dont have resis, so its hard to cap your resis. you dont have any defense modifier such as armour, evasion, energy shield, block chance, offering effect. it means you will be so weak and die very fast. uhmm, be honest, use someone's tree. this looks doesnt work. i mean, at least you need find the clear way before create own tree.

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wyh1313113#7145 wrote:

for endgame build, you don't need to put most of your points in minions' damage, resist, or life in poe1. you dont have maximum life, but your ascendancy is increased spirit per 25 maximum life. you dont have resis, so its hard to cap your resis. you dont have any defense modifier such as armour, evasion, energy shield, block chance, offering effect. it means you will be so weak and die very fast. uhmm, be honest, use someone's tree. this looks doesnt work. i mean, at least you need find the clear way before create own tree.

There is almost no max life on the tree anymore btw

Minions builds are very weak starting out, they stuck badly at bossing, because the minions just get ripped regularly, and then they're on cooldown to revive.

Just take your pick of elemental damage spec, and it's better than minions early on. I'd even go as far as saying witch minion spec is one of the worst builds early on. I'm doing a lot better with monk and mercenary.

Maybe there will be a late game build that makes minions work that actually does some damage? I got a few ideas on that.

- It looks like zombies might be decent with power charges.
- Infernal legion looks like it could potentially be strong (assuming the damage stacks from each minion).

Maybe combine infernal legion with empowered zombies? So, basically you need a method for building power charges quickly to spawn empowered zombies w/infernal legion. Since zombies don't use spirit, you'd be able to use spirit to run aura buffs, or curse auras. Other stuff you'd need are resists for your zombies (definitely max fire), and infernal legion scales with minion life, so you'd want that too.

Has anyone tested out infernal legion on minions? Does the damage stack from each minion on 1 target if the minions swarm that target?

So far, here's what I've learned (I'm currently lvl 33).

Skeleton soldiers are nice with the 4 sec undying kind of support gem & Meat Shield (rip taunt, you will be missed).

Skeleton arsonists are the heaviest hitter with auto attack so far and it hit everything within a zone. I've added 2 support gems on them: the one that augment ignite chance by 100% + the one that increase fire damage by 25% but reduce other elemental damage.

Skeleton archer are nice if you plan to make a armor break or poison build (chaos damage + area of effect I guess?) but are very bad hitter with AA compared to arsonists

Unearth is my current AA skill, you can have a legion of skeletons constructs and they pair well with the support gem that make them detonate if they're low life (<35% hp) since they have a very low hp pool.

The passive tree don't have any % hp nodes or are too far from the witch start so it's kind of a waste to go get them.

Do no sleep on minion +% hp bonus in the passive trees or they'll get one shotted by everything. (Mine can tank gold elite monsters but not a boss yet. Still they manage to do some damage :D)

Minion +% attack damage and attack speed are very welcome.

Bone offering + support gem with area of effect buff it nice (+40% AOE aura to buff your entire army and see some crazy fire-rate from the arsonists)

Essence drain + support gem chain is nice to help them clear the first trash so you can start using unearth and build your skeleton construct army (limit is 8 at first but at my lvl it's around 14 constructs so it scale with gem level)

If you struggle to kill a boss, or you get wrecked way too easily, or take too much time killing trash mobs. Think about upgrading your gears, especially for bosses at the end of each acts.

I'm pretty hyped to get the skeleton priest because oh boy he will make everything go even smoother!

Infernalist is the go to ascension for minion right now. And I think (personaly) that unless you're max level, taking the 25% life reservation to get spirit perk is a waste at my level.
So I will go with both perks that give ignite chance, ignite magnitude and fire damage when I'm high in infernal flame (prob >=60?) (infernal flame replace mana in this ascension & using spells increase the flame until it reach max where you take damages & burn.)
Those perks are currently the best at around lvl 30 because it affect everyone in your presence.

I also need to find something to decrease enemies fire resistance when I fight, especially bosses. Any suggestion is very welcome.

PS: I'm currently preparing for end of Act 2 boss by farming his map and the trials to get more ascension stuff

Let me preface that I'm on level 42, I think past half of the act 3

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

Infernalist is the go to ascension for minion right now. And I think (personaly) that unless you're max level, taking the 25% life reservation to get spirit perk is a waste at my level.
So I will go with both perks that give ignite chance, ignite magnitude and fire damage when I'm high in infernal flame (prob >=60?) (infernal flame replace mana in this ascension & using spells increase the flame until it reach max where you take damages & burn.)
Those perks are currently the best at around lvl 30 because it affect everyone in your presence.

I went in an opposite direction, I wanted to have as much spirit as possible, so with almost 250 (+60 from bosses, +30 from passive, +22 sceptre +34 robe) that I have an army of 11 skeletons always available.
My current setup is: 2x soldiers from sceptre, 5x soldiers allocated, 1x archer, 3x arsonists,
while before I've seen your post I was going with: 2x soldiers from sceptre, 5x soldiers allocated, 2x archer, 2x ice mages,

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

Skeleton soldiers are nice with the 4 sec undying kind of support gem & Meat Shield (rip taunt, you will be missed).

Hmm... I find them more useful to output as much damage, so instead I'm using Cold Infusion (cause it requires int) + Last Gap (4 sec at 0 hp is lovely) + Heavy Swing (35%+ more damage at the cost of attack speed)

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

Skeleton archer are nice if you plan to make a armor break or poison build (chaos damage + area of effect I guess?) but are very bad hitter with AA compared to arsonists

I used them as a support for my skeleton soldiers, when their gas arrow (with armor break support gem) drops they destroy mobs beautifully

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

Skeleton arsonists are the heaviest hitter with auto attack so far and it hit everything within a zone. I've added 2 support gems on them: the one that augment ignite chance by 100% + the one that increase fire damage by 25% but reduce other elemental damage.

Thanks for the tip, I'll be trying them, before I was going with 2xArchers + 2xIce Mages

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

Essence drain + support gem chain is nice to help them clear the first trash so you can start using unearth and build your skeleton construct army (limit is 8 at first but at my lvl it's around 14 constructs so it scale with gem level)

I find combination of Contagion and Essence drain as a perfect party starter, ie. cast Contagion, then Essence Drain and if you kill targeted mob within 4 seconds, both will be spread :)

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I find combination of Contagion and Essence drain as a perfect party starter, ie. cast Contagion, then Essence Drain and if you kill targeted mob within 4 seconds, both will be spread :)

The advantage of Essence drain + chain (support gem DEX --> all gems tab) is that it free a spell slot for something else :D But I agree, contagion + essence drain early on clear fast the trash while you focus on elites if there are any in your current fight.

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I went in an opposite direction, I wanted to have as much spirit as possible, so with almost 250 (+60 from bosses, +30 from passive, +22 scepter* +34 robe) that I have an army of 11 skeletons always available.

Which passive give you +30 spirit please? The Beitat one?
If that's true I must have miscalculated because it give +1 spirit per 25hp reserved within the 25% reserved life pool (from what I understood and did the quick math with windows calculator app).

Also I could see a build with arsonist and ice mage but only if the notable node "fire ice" or "ice fire" (I don't remember the name but it's in the witch/sorceress passive skill tree area) which increase fire/ignite dmg after you deal fire damage to a frozen enemy. IF THAT NODE work with MINIONS.

For arsonists, you don't need to detonate every minion who has the red indicator. Their AA deal way enough damage and the minions at the front, even low life, are still a front lane.
I use the detonation only against a boss.

I'm hyped to get the infernal legion on either Unearth or the Reaver skeletons when I'll get them.

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I used them as a support for my skeleton soldiers, when their gas arrow (with armor break support gem) drops they destroy mobs beautifully

Agreed, but I don't have enough spirit to sustain another skeleton right now (sitting at 164-167 spirit as of right now because only my scepter give me spirit + the first +30 spirit bonus from act 1 boss.)

I currently play mostly around the 4 skeletons soldiers (2 scepter, 2 from skill gem) and 3 arsonists and it clear most content fast enough.
I just don't know yet if it's possible to create chain reaction with the arsonists bombs and AA. (which would be amazing if it works, even from a unique.)

Also, if anyone know of any ways to increase the "presence aura" range around your character (which is 6m like other auras by default)?
Please, do tell us how in this thread or link a POE2 thread explaining how to do that. :>

Good luck fellow summoners

On another notes, if your minions deal enough dmg. They end up taking most of the agro from most monsters. (I did say MOST in that sentence, there are special cases)

I just did ACT 2 boss with 5 arsonists while being lvl 34-35. They do pack a punch and it's even better with a physical/fire curse + bone offering buff :D

edit: this is my current passive tree for those interested:
https://poe2db.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAABgEBLF1IM3YSg0mdBtvZ_xoex_BXKqPtWSUO7-tG3meFCufwtRZ5A669KfbgogWZiBh6Br2oHxjDuJLaIxdXO3Hcg18-Dd581WiOmyClpAfuYpg8bypXeQWnOmEAAA==

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

The advantage of Essence drain + chain (support gem DEX --> all gems tab) is that it free a spell slot for something else :D But I agree, contagion + essence drain early on clear fast the trash while you focus on elites if there are any in your current fight.

Yeah, at the end of Act 3 it stopped working well :(

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

Which passive give you +30 spirit please? The Beitat one?
If that's true I must have miscalculated because it give +1 spirit per 25hp reserved within the 25% reserved life pool (from what I understood and did the quick math with windows calculator app).

Aye, it is Beitat - it grants you +1 spirt per max health, not reserved :)

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

Also I could see a build with arsonist and ice mage but only if the notable node "fire ice" or "ice fire" (I don't remember the name but it's in the witch/sorceress passive skill tree area) which increase fire/ignite dmg after you deal fire damage to a frozen enemy. IF THAT NODE work with MINIONS.

For arsonists, you don't need to detonate every minion who has the red indicator. Their AA deal way enough damage and the minions at the front, even low life, are still a front lane.
I use the detonation only against a boss.

In the end I resigned from Ice mages, they stopped working. Now depending on boss I either go with fire heavy option 8 arsonist from gem + 2 soldiers from weapon, or 14 soldiers and one sniper.
I've also added flammability curse (from elementalist skill tree), to soften up mobs for arsonist.

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jazzthomas#0218 wrote:

I'm hyped to get the infernal legion on either Unearth or the Reaver skeletons when I'll get them.

I tried Infernal Legion with Unearth, unfortunately unless you are facing a big group of mobs (= a lot of constructs), it doesn't feel like they do that much damage. Tho I've yet to try it with Reavers.


Also here is my passive tree at level 48. Next few points will be going into survivability of my minions (DR or HP or Chaos res)