Enki's Arc Witch Memorial Page

Hi, playing this build on warbands league, level 79 at the moment.

I have a little question about gear. I'm currently playing with quite cheap gear:


I managed to get lucky and dropped a 6-link int-based chest today. Should I craft it myself to use in my build or would it be better to sell it and invest in new gear outside of my chest armor? If that's a better choice, which items would you look to upgrade first? I have enough resists even without a chestpiece at all. I have 4000 hp, 900 es, 17k tooltip dps (no lifesteal gem, spamming those pots like crazy and keeping a look for reflect mobs).

@tntultra: Being able to freeze a pack of mobs, even if just for a splitsecond until arc chains back and kills them, can greatly increase your survivability against many ranged/charging/leaping mobs.
The biggest impact is noticeable on porcupines - their on-death spikes can get insanely dangerous when killed in a pack in high lvl maps. When you freeze them, they simply shatter and won't trigger the spikes at all.

@Violander: Unfortunately i can't try it in HC, as my fps/performance once again went down with this patch, and is pretty much unplayable at some points.

I've leveled the build twice in beta deathless to 80+, but that was right before the last part of Act4 was added. If you want, you can try it in Tempest and leave some feedback about actual HC viability of this build in 2.0 here, would greatly appreciate it.

@TheFrequency: Bada Bing suggested using Flame Totem instead of our Golem to proc blind a few pages ago. It results in more reliable blinding, but you also have to recast it at every new pack/rare/boss (wherever you feel the need for blind). But i guess since you use FT anyway that shouldn't be a huge problem.

@YTY6: Roll a good life roll on the 6L and use it, then save up for some good crit wands. Rest of your gear looks solid and doesn't really need any upgrade.

Just picked up cotb for cheap. Liking it so far, is it worth running herald of thunder and ice now or stick with wrath? Also, would I be better off changing enfeeble out for elemental weakness/assassins mark?

Loving the build so far! Just hit 80 and having no problems running 75 maps.

Hey I just thought of something. If I wear a Cloak Of Defiance could i respec all the points from MoM again and use them somewhere else?

@krustyle: Yeah, switch to HoT + HoI. It will decrease your tooltip a bit, but the HoI explosion helps alot with single target damage when theyre surrounded by trash mobs.

@Mist3rBlood: Yeah, with CoD you don't need to spec MoM. It's really only one node you save though.

Thanks for the guide, it's great and easy to follow. It's my first character and so far I'm lv 56 and I'm doing great :)

Could you tell me if these are good daggers to wear? I just want to make sure that I understood you correctly.



Also, should I use lv 4 Catarina's enhancement or lv 7? I've just leveled her to 4 but I've seen that lv 7 requires chaos orbs to upgrade.

One last thing. When you're talking about capping resistances, does chaos resistance count? Do I have to cap it?

Cheers.

Hey,

thanks for the great guide and all the hours you spent writting it.

As ice spear lost its credibility due to the new shotgun mechanics in awekening I was forced to change set up and luckily found your guide. I m now in the process of adjusting gear (e.g. fragments for all this mana reg...) and finding a good gem set up that suits my playing style best. Thats why I didnt go for the extra curse, since I believe it does not increase clearspeed by a lot but costs a lot of points. I went for lightning walker and crackling speed instead.

My stats are lvl 91, 3.9k HP, 1.5k ES, 663 mana unreserved, 117 mana reg

I hope you share your thoughts on following issues:

Dualwielding: It would be great if you could state in the guide what the benefits of dual wielding are. At least I havent found any information reading it through. Besides of heavily increased cast speed from dark arts (20%) and extra wand (20%)is there any other benefit? As I experience that the char is really squishy compared to the ice spear built (perma freeze), I use a shield for survivability and was additionally forced to spec into vaal pact, which i like. I believe for atziri you most probably need a shield anyways thus losing dual wielding benefits

Alira: Why didn't you go for the cast speed in cruel, since cast speed seems to be very valuable

Practical application: Did you skill this because it is the closest wayto the right area of the board or is this an important skill for the build?

Acrobatics: some witch guides prefer the acrobatics section for survivability. Do you think a shield makes sense when specing into the acrobatics cluster?

Skill tree: I have 4 points left and I'm not sure whether to skill into devotion or charisma. charisma might change the gear setup, since less mana is needed, so one might be able to use more aggressive rings

Survivability: heavy physical dmg is killing me instantly (e.g. these spike mobs). Is this getting better with gear or is this a matter of experience and movement. Do you have specific tips to cope with physical dmg? Arctic armour seems to be expendable eventhough i didn't try it.

Your answers would be appreciated very much

thanks

Hi, first of all thank you very much for the guide, it is my first character and i'm really enjoying it.

I wanted to ask you a few questions :

- My highest clear map is 77 for the moment, can this build reach some really high maps without problems ? Because i already feel pretty squishy (Tabula rasa doesn't help though) and i checked some streamers here and there, and it looks like they are demolishing 80+ maps without losing hp. (this might be a noob question sorry :p)

- And second question, i'm starting to feel kinda stuck, i don't really know what i should upgrade on my gear, i actually have those weapons , will it be an upgrade to get 2 doryani's catalyst or should i just aim for better rare wands ?

Thanks in advance for your answer

You don't need Vaal Pact to survive reflect?

edit: nvm it was answered in pg.37. you rely on warlord's extra 2% leech. Can I ask what is your current tooltip dps with max power charges?

@xnevann: Yes, that's the kind of daggers you should use. Their usable as they are right now, to refine them with Catarina you would have to regal each. Lv4 Catarina Spell Crit should be enough, it's just gateway weapons until you get better wands anyway.

Only elemental resistances are required to cap. It can help to also get your chaos res above 0, but only if it doesn't cost you too much.


@spartakussis: The main benefit of dual wield is indeed the Dark Arts cluster. Together with spell echo and a good cast speed on second wand, your cast speed gets multiplied so heavily that it easily outbeats Pledge of Hands by 1 more cast per second, while also having more potential spell damage and crit.

I would take Alira in Cruel, but it would require to drop one node in this already really point-starved passive tree after 2.0, and imo that's not worth it.

Practical Application, together with the stun avoidance from Nimbleness is really useful with all the heavy phys dmg buffs in 2.0. You'll get stunned far less often and thus have more survivability and killspeed. The node also gives a decent amount of stats to make gearing easier.

Acrobatics is a bit too far away for my taste, we would run in the same problem as with Alira's cast speed, i prefer taking more life instead of a defensive mechanism that doesn't work all the time.

Spent the last points to get Devotion. You'll really want that life, damage doesn't help when you're dead.

Our way to survive phys dmg is proper char placement and Granite flaks + flask nodes. Really, do not ever drop the flask nodes out of your setup, they are your life saver.
I've tried new AA and it barely made any difference, not worth the reservation.


@KappaPride: I only got to 81 Palace maps in standard so far, clearing them including Dominus was no problem. The only deadly thing can be phys damage, but surviving that is simply a matter of experience.

Your first wand is not bad, a catalyst would be straight up a downgrade here. Just try to ugprade the second wand to something with same stats but higher spell damage and you're good.


@Kaz2ndChance: Only times reflect can be deadly is if you forget to pop your Topaz flask on a huge thornflesh pack. Well and ele ref maps, but we can't run them in 2.0 anyway.

In Standard, my tooltip with 7 charges is 42k, 62k when adding Vaal Haste and Atziri's Promise.
In Warbands it was somewhere around 15k with charges due to worse gear and no maxed gems.