Witch Arc/Onslaught-Ball Lightning Build. Pointers needed.

[SmoothPanic]

Hi Exiles!
I just started PoE a week or two ago. I build a few chars to about about LVL 16-24, but being a caster fan from D2 and TL2.

KitteeChi level 74 Witch.

I have no impressive items at all. A few chaos orbs, a blessed orb, and half a dozen Vaal orbs and piles of the cheap ones I tend to use up.

https://www.poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMA37CCEI-mRKtVriycEFh2EeTsMjQfAgQHg9tVxjpYrJgRD36vjRngEtlf3YwFQkGWrrPQ9d-K6QL-s1crvYJtGQj0wFRqQ7zqIvRsC5Mnf8YwW6yXlYcdgxGWDkhd8uOEfjOkkROejDZzs_BrFeeXl0V8cNWJ03BSwJynNPb8ES18g-vumuBFnVNSMtFFR8BmBLOiAPAfaPLhc5o7gpvtILaGlnTsOIV7lG9mVHIPcYXMt9V1sUJXKUbXflntPNWmB2M=

She currently has lvl 74, 2008 life, 1388 Mana and 894 ES. 416 Int, 91 S, 133 Dex. The dex is too high but due to items.

Primary Attack: Arc, Light Pen, Echo, Crit Dam.

Buff Attack: Ball Lightning, Crit chance, Echo, Innervate.

Finishing move: Storm Call, Culling, IR, Echo.

Choas Golem, Minion Life, Min Resist. Very tanky.

3 auras: Arctic Armor, Herald o Thunder, Purity of Lightning.
Tempest Shield for a little more blocking.

Curse is Elemental Weakness (solo with Conductivity.)

Play style, I launch a few ball lightnings, which then activate the 5 second onslaught buff, which greatly increases cast speed and DPS of arc and Stormcall. Curse right after BL launch. The Ball Lightning is also useful for sending through doors and seems to work similarly to a Spell Totem to buff shock states. Onslaught is very useful, too.

This build grew organically, but I followed tips and trees from a few guides. She needs to be over leveled by at least 3 to an area, to succeed. Very early on, I neglected ES nodes, which made Eldritch Battery less feasable. I don't have EB.

Her biggest problems are Chaos Damage (Docks Blue Meanies with the breath weapon!) and I am terrified of Reflects Elemental, of course.

Do you see any glaring errors that can be salvaged? Any equip that I should trade for.

Thanks for your help.

[Psyringe]

I wanted to point you to the Witch builds section on the official PoE forums, since those are usually the best place for in-depth build discussion, but while getting the link, I noticed that you've already been there. :D

I can't say much to the build itself due to lack of experience with such builds at high levels, but here are a few things that crossed my mind:

- You have kind of neglected jewels so far. Don't. :) Jewels are amazing. A single jewel with a good roll can easily be as good as 2-3 notables, and you can switch it out whenever you want, at no cost.

- What role does the golem have? Personally I've been pretty underwhelmed by the golems, but my frame of reference is a summoner build where all minions get lots of bonuses from the skill tree. It's possible that in a scenario like yours, the golem does perform better than other minions. Nevertheless, have you considered or tried the following alternatives?
a) Spell totem with "summon skeletons", continuously puts pairs of skeletons right in front of your enemies. The skeletons don't last long, but work as a distraction
b) Decoy Totem. Guaranteed to distract the enemies, but not very tanky compared to the golem I think.
c) Animated Guardian. Tankiness and usefulness highly depend on the items used to summon it.
d) Using no minions, since your skill tree doesn't give them any bonuses they could benefit from?
I can't tell whether these alternatives are better than your golem, but they may be worth a look. Spending an entire 4-link on a golem looks like a pretty steep investment to me, so check if the results are good enough to warrant that.

- By "blue meanies", do you mean voidbringers? I thought those dealt fire damage, similar to the Incinerate spell?

- Not sure what you need Purity of Lightning for, but this may be just due to my inexperience with that kind of build. :D I'd have a look at Wrath for the increased lightning damage, not sure if it fits your mana management though

- You aren't using triggers. Have you tried them? Are you critting often enough so that "Cast on Crit" makes sense?

[SmoothPanic]

Thanks for your reply.

The golem is only for distraction. I can easily replace it with something more useful. I like your skelly idea, since it's getting hard to cast all the things I use! Something on autocast would be great.

Purity of Lightning is to avoid insta-light reflect death. Doesn't seem to work well! Most of my deaths are reflected...I could switch to purity of elements, I suppose.

I have a Jewel socket and a Unique jewel. I forget which, but It's a spell dmaage mana one.

Reflected damage and piercing are my biggest problems leveling in Dried Lake.

[Psyringe]

Regarding jewels: Don't let the unique jewels distract you. Some of them _are_ quite powerful, most of them are very situational though. But look at what the magic and (especially) rare jewels can do for you.

For example, you can unlock a jewel slot by spending two passives, and slot a magic jewel with "+15% lightning damage" and "+12% spell damage" into that slot. Where else in the tree can you get +27% damage to lightning spells within two steps, _and_ get up to two more abilities on top of that if you take a rare jewels instead of a magic one?

It depends on getting a jewels with useful affixes of course, but you can craft those. Re-rolling a magic jewel only costs an alteration orb. Take a jewel with a high itemlevel, re-roll it a few times until you get something good out of it, perhaps spend a Regal orb to give it one additional affix. Then look at the skill tree, see that you have several jewel sockets in reach, and ponder the possibilities. :)

Regarding purity of lightning: Ah, I understand now. :) To deal with reflect, it will certainly be better than Purity of Elements (the latter does not raise your resistance cap, and you're only doing lightning damage anyway). You should have all your elemental resistances capped at 75% through your gear anyway.

If you die very easily to reflect, then perhaps you need to invest more into defenses. 2900 effective HP might be a little low. The "Melding" wheel is in reach, and might help with that. Did you prioritize Life and ES bonuses on your gear? That is very important to make good use of the "+x% Life" and "+x% ES" nodes that you already took in the skill tree.

Regarding the golem / spell totem, keep in mind that you would need to cast/recast the spell totem frequently as well. But it might still be worth a shot. As a witch, you should get leveled versions of the required gems cheaply from town vendors.

[Josh]

Hey Smooth, i would recommend that you add me so we can discuss this quickly, with no delay :) Much thanks!

Josh, Leader of Domination.

[FictionVortex]

I have played this game for almost 1500 hours. Take my advice however you wish, but I would really recommend getting more life. Arc witches are decent beginner builds and can do fairly well. With your build though, I see the low life being a problem in maps. You could easily be one-shotted by many enemies. Add me here on Steam if you wish and I can really help you out buddy

[SmoothPanic]

Great stuff. Thanks guys/gals. I was just checking and I really don't have much if any ES nodes activated. I can run 3 auras at once, which of course pins my resists. I have started allocating more life via the Devotion wheel, which adds 20% life for 3 nodes. The other one Melding may come next if need be. I've already nocticed a difference!

[Jorstad]

If you aren't already using a topaz flask when you come across a reflect mob then it's really usefull, I was having the same problem on my arc witch til I started using one