Ultimate Witch Build Guide for Path of Exile 2

In this guide for Path of Exile 2, we will explain how to level up a Witch character, as well as which skills and equipment to choose. You don't have to strictly follow this guide if you want to experiment and create your unique character.

The number of choices for each class can be vast and confusing, making the game quite challenging for beginners. Fortunately, the more you read and experiment, the more versatile build you can achieve. Moreover, this system gives Path of Exile 2 great replayability, as you will always want to see what a class can do when mixed with another set of skills and passive abilities.

The Witch is a mage capable of fighting from a long distance, much like the Sorceress. However, that's where the similarities end.

The Witch is somewhat similar to the Necromancer. She mainly focuses on summoning minions and other creatures that can attack enemies. But you don't necessarily have to use minions when playing as a Witch, although the class excels in this direction. For example, you can use spells and curses. However, if you are a beginner, playing as a summoner will be easier.

At early levels, you should always remember that the Witch is not a standalone class—she entirely relies on her minions to fight enemies. The best approach is to keep a safe distance from enemies, use spells, and let your minions fight on the front lines. If the summons die, be sure to kite the enemies while waiting for your army to resurrect.

The passive skill tree can initially be intimidating due to the insane number of options. The Witch excels at using spells to deal physical and chaos damage. Therefore, you need to focus on any passive skill that enhances spells, physical, and chaos damage. In addition to this, you also need to improve critical strike chance and spell damage.

The Witch starts at the top of the passive skill tree with options for spell and minion damage or energy shield and mana regeneration. Damage is the best early choice. Killing faster will make it easier for you to stay alive. This will not only improve your damage but also simultaneously increase the strength of your summons.

After that, you can focus more on minions or casting spells, depending on what you do most often. There are other passives, such as minion health, which you can take if you notice your minions dying too easily.

The main means by which the Witch summons minions is spirit. The maximum spirit value determines how many summoned creatures you can use. Each summon you have will cost a certain amount of spirit. Therefore, you will need to optimize which minions you have based on the current amount of spirit available to you. Each minion costs differently.

So, for example, if you don't have enough spirit to summon another skeleton warrior, you can put the remaining spirit into something else that costs a little less. This way, you can use another summon until you gather more spirit.

The best way to increase your spirit early on is to equip a scepter in your left hand. Scepters always add to the spirit stat. Sometimes they even provide a percentage boost to spirit. This will allow you to summon many more minions.

Additionally, some scepters offer the skill to summon a skeleton warrior, allowing you to summon more skeleton warriors without any spirit cost. So this is a good way to build up your forces early in the game when you don't have much spirit.

When you are on the skills screen, if you have a skeleton warrior summon on your scepter and a skill gem slot, you will see two separate skills here. You can insert skill gems into them individually, and they will affect them differently. Also, the level of these skills will be independent of each other. Thus, one skeleton minion may be stronger than another depending on the skill level on your scepter or the skill level of your spirit gem.

However, this is not the only way to get summons early in the game. There is a way to get some temporary summons, and that is by using the Unearth skill, which you should get right away. Whenever you kill an enemy with this skill or hit a corpse with it, it can summon a minion that lives for only 12 seconds. This is a great way to build up your forces early on without having access to many summoning skills or a large amount of spirit.

Additionally, what's really great about Unearth is that it has a pretty good AoE radius, which you can expand with support gems. It also deals physical damage. Pay attention to things that improve your physical damage if you use this skill to make it easier to kill with it and get more summons faster. You can use some strength support gems to increase its physical damage if you have enough strength.

Other early game Witch spells deal chaos damage, such as Contagion and Essence Drain. So things that enhance chaos damage are also good for your build. Items with spell damage enhancement, like on your wand, are also suitable. This will simultaneously enhance both physical damage spells and chaos damage spells.

Contagion is a useful skill for Witch builds because it deals damage over time. Additionally, if you hit an enemy with Unearth that died from Infection, your summoned creatures will activate Contagion when it attacks. This allows you to continue spreading this effect across the battlefield with very few casts.

When they attack other enemies, they spread Infection. Then, when they die, if you resurrect them, they spread Infection. You can maintain this almost 100% of the time with a very, very small number of casts. You need to quickly move across the screen, allowing your minions to extend the effect before they die.

Essence Drain is a more powerful chaos damage over time that takes longer to cast but deals more damage. It can spread if Infection is used on the target. If you don't want to use minions, then this is probably the combination you will choose. You cast Essence Drain on a target and then immediately use Infection to spread it to other enemies.

Make sure to keep Essence Drain on enemies that are hard to kill, such as elites, unique characters, and bosses. Because the skill deals quite a bit of damage and quickly drains their health. In some boss fights, there are no minions, and it will be difficult if you don't have Contagion and Essence Drain. You should aim to maintain Contagion and Essence Drain on these bosses.

Let's consider some of the minions you can summon. You have Skeletal Warrior, Skeletal Sniper, Skeletal Arsonist, and Bone Construct. The first and last are your shield, distracting opponents onto themselves.

Bone Constructs are summoned using Unearth. They have a very limited lifespan. Snipers shoot from a long distance and can use the Gas Arrow skill to spray poisonous gas over an area — it deals poison damage over time. It's good to have this in combination with Contagion or Essence Drain to deal more damage over time.

Arsonists can throw incendiary bombs and can also explode low-health minions. Usually, such creatures have a red glow above their heads, which gives you a hint that you can blow them up. And if you blow these guys up inside the gas cloud, you essentially explode the entire gas cloud, dealing massive damage across the screen. So there is also a bit of synergy here.

Minions in the early and mid-game stages are not capable of dealing massive damage, so it's better to develop their resilience so they can take more hits and protect the Witch.

Let's move on to the characteristics. You need to focus on Intelligence, because many of the skills you use will require it. It will also increase your mana, which is very necessary because you regularly cast a lot of spells.

It is also necessary for the type of armor that provides an energy shield. There are many passive skills that you start with, and they increase the effectiveness of the energy shield. You will have synergy with armor that also provides an energy shield.

At the beginning of the game, you need about 20 Intelligence to be able to work with the Witch's skills and equipment. When you reach Act 2, you will need to increase Intelligence to about 55, as this is the mid-game. Eventually, you will need to reach about 120 Intelligence to be able to use and unlock everything related to the Witch in Path of Exile 2.

However, you will still need some Strength if you are using Unearth or any other spell that deals physical damage. You will gain a bit more health with each point of Strength. Additionally, many of the Witch's support gems require either Strength or Intelligence, which gives Strength more value than Dexterity.

A bit of Dexterity is also nice to have for the Witch at the beginning, as there are a few skill support gems in Dexterity that affect damage over time and chaos damage. For example, Contagion and Essence Drain.

As for equipment, look for armor with an energy shield if you are taking energy shield passive abilities. Otherwise, use whatever you can with a high armor, evasion, or energy shield rating. You also need passives that enhance summons.

Scepters are almost mandatory if you want to summon minions. But you can use a focus if you want to improve spell damage and don't want to use minions. They also enhance the energy shield by default. You can use a skill with your wand if you want. Pay attention to the passive bonuses on your wand.

Another thing to pay attention to is that you need to look for a healing flask. It also replenishes some health to your minions when you use it. This can help keep them alive, especially as you progress further in the game and the difficulty increases.

You need to look for accessories that increase your life and damage. Amulets can boost your Spirit stat. If you find a ring with increased chaos damage, you can use it — you might need the extra damage.

Finally, regarding Ascendancy, these are essentially subclasses that you will be able to choose once you reach Act 2 and complete the trial there. The ones currently available for the Witch are Blood Mage and Infernalist.

The Blood Mage focuses more on spells and physical damage, while the Infernalist focuses on fire damage, ignition, and minions. Therefore, the choice of ascendancy class will largely depend on whether you go the minion route or focus primarily on casting.

This build uses skeletons to dominate enemies, starting with sniper skeletons early in the game, transitioning to ravager skeletons mid-game, and culminating with an army of pyromancers and clerics focused on critical strikes late in the game. Pain Offering enhances your army's offensive capabilities, while Vulnerability and Flammability weaken your enemies.

This build is great for clearing monsters and bosses: your minions do the heavy lifting while you retreat, applying buffs and debuffs.

Helmet:

Armor:

Gloves:

Belt:

Boots:

Ring:

Amulet:

Ring:

Omen Scepter:

Shield:

Take a scepter with increased minion skill levels, maximum spirit, and double critical strike — upgrade it to the Omen Scepter late in the game. Equip gear with shields and resistances, a headpiece with increased minion skill levels, armor with maximum spirit, and a shield with block chance, resistances, and maximum health.

As you progress, prioritize skill levels, resistances, and minion spirit. Adjust charms based on the boss, paying special attention to elemental resistances and immunities to gain an advantage.

At the beginning of the game, prioritize Skeletal Snipers for their strong single-target damage. Acquire Flame Wall and Raging Spirits early on to add consistent fire damage and additional minion support. Use Bonestorm for extra single-target damage and Raise Zombie to expand your minion army.

Mid-game, transition to Skeletal Reavers as soon as level 9 skill gems become available, then upgrade to Skeletal Brutes with level 13 skill gems for enhanced melee strength and powerful stuns. Slot Scattershot into your Skeletal Arsonists to turn their attacks into explosive fireworks. Support your minions with Pain Offering to boost their attack and casting speed, and use Vulnerability to weaken enemy armor. Finally, once enemies fall, use Detonate Corpse with Magnified Effect and Spell Echo to clear the battlefield.

Late-game, your build shifts focus to critical strikes, with Skeletal Arsonists becoming the centerpiece of your strategy. Melee minions gradually fade out, Flammability replaces Vulnerability, and Skeletal Clerics keep your Arsonists in top shape.

The end-game skill path focuses on increasing minion damage and crit chance, armor, and energy shield, using strength and intelligence to optimize your stats. Start by obtaining minion damage at the beginning of the tree. Then pivot to pick up Pure Energy and Melding for additional energy shield bonuses.

Moving up the middle section of the Witch passives, focus on minion buffs that enhance both their damage and survivability. Aim for nodes like Lord of Horrors and Left Hand of Darkness to further scale your minions' effectiveness.

After that, return to the base of the tree, from Power of the Dead, head left to take Spiral into Depression, then ascend to the Sentinels branch, where you'll find key nodes that enhance your minions. Finish by securing the remaining nodes that provide additional armor, energy shield, and minion damage to balance offense and defense.

This build provides single-target damage and high burst damage, excelling against bosses, through the Bonestorm spell. This build focuses everything (passive abilities and skill gems) on making Bonestorm deal as much damage as possible.

After Ascendancy achievements, the build uses minimal damage and Blood Mage attack bonuses, passive techniques allow armor penetration on strong hits.

Helmet:

Armor:

Gloves:

Belt:

Boots:

Ring:

Amulet:

Ring:

Wand:

Focus:

Focus on gear with Increased Spell Damage, Critical Hit Chance, Critical Damage, Increased Physical Damage, and + Spell Levels to maximize the effectiveness of Bonestorm. Boost Spirit with the amulet and prioritize Intelligence and Energy Shield, with Life and Resistances for survivability.

Since Bonestorm deals Physical Damage, Physical Damage modifiers will enhance its effectiveness. For charms and runes, equip what the challenge demands!

This build focuses on maximizing Bonestorm damage. Power Siphon generates power charges that increase your damage, while Vulnerability and Blasphemy weaken nearby enemies. Bone Cage can pin enemies down, giving you enough time to cast spells.

The passive tree for this build focuses on increasing critical strike chance, critical damage, and spell damage. It also enhances the generation and use of Power Charges. The selected passives ensure consistent critical hits and maximize burst damage, making each strike with Bonestorm incredibly powerful.

Start on the left side of the tree, taking Raw Destruction, then Jagged Shards, Critical Overload, Sudden Escalation, Cut to the Bone, Blood Tearing, and finally Shredding Force.

Then move to the right side and go through Critical Exploit, then Crashing Wave, Moment of Truth, Stylebender, For the Jugular, Deadly Force, and finish with True Strike in this area.

Return to the left side to take Mind over Matter, then Touch of the Arcane. Finally, return to the right side and complete the build with The Power Within and Immortal Infamy.

Once you reach the Blood Mage Ascendancy, first take Sanguimancy, then Gore Spike, then Vitality Siphon, and finish with Blood Barbs.

The build uses the Demon Form ascension skill, utilizing Flameblast and Solar Orb to obliterate enemies. The build uses Demonflame to stack spell damage but requires a lot of Life and Life Regeneration per second to mitigate health drain.

With excellent mob and boss clearing capabilities, as well as high mobility, this endgame-ready build is perfect for infernalists who don't want to play with minions.

Helmet:

Armor Ghostwrithe Tattered Robe:

Belt:

Boots:

Ring:

Amulet:

Ring:

Shield:

Regarding gear, the key piece for this build is a unique chest piece that converts 50% of your maximum health into a shield. The best way to obtain this unique gear is through trading.

Next, prioritize life regeneration per second to maintain your sustainability in Demon Form. Aim for sufficient regeneration to fully offset the health loss from Demonflame.

Resistances are necessary in the endgame, so don't overlook them. Additionally, Intelligence and Mana are needed to continuously cast spells. On gloves, look for Gain Life Per Enemy Killed to keep your sustainability high.

Weapons are not essential in this build since you will be in demon form for most of your fights, but a shield can be useful if you are pushed out of demon form.

The build revolves around Demon Form, where you continuously stack Demonflame to increase spell damage while managing Health and Energy Shield with high life regeneration per second and Grim Feast. Demon Form requires the Second Wind and Ingenuity jewels to speed up its cooldown and extend its duration.

Additionally, the build uses Infernal Hound for extra endurance and greater survivability. Grim Feast provides energy shield regeneration from slain enemies.

Solar Orb and Flammability are used as support for Flameblast. The idea is to place the Solar Orb and then use Flameblast on it to trigger explosions. Fire Exposure and Inspiration are linked to Solar Orb to enhance enemy fire resistance reduction and make it less costly to use.

The passive skill path for this build focuses on enhancing the energy shield, effects of your fire exposure, and spell damage. Start with Pure Energy to boost your energy shield, then quickly take Raw Destruction. Move upward to enhance fire exposure with Overexposure, and increase fire spell damage with Volcanic Skin and Cremation.

Return to the base of the tree to further enhance your energy shield with Insightfulness, then increase damage with Breath of Fire and Exploit the Flames. Pick up Essence Infusion, then focus on life recovery by taking Devoted Protector, Resilient Soul, and Full Recovery. Increase AOE size and cast speed with Spiral into Mania.

Finally, move to All Natural and Breaking Point for a huge elemental damage increase. Complete the build with Calibration and Heavy Buffer for additional shield and Reverberation for increased AOE size.