Just how do you survive as a witch?

Hi. I've been playing since day 3 of closed beta but only now managed to get level 54 with a character (usually only played hardcore and temporary leagues). I tried lightning tendrils block build, at 54 had 1600hp, around 880 ES(which was supposed to be eldritched later) and all ele resistances maxed.

The build I followed had no armor or es whatsoever, only 1000+ evasion and a very high block/spell block. I had very high DPS but was taking very high damage from phys dmg (usually controllable).

That is - until I decided to finish cruel and went looking for gardens entrance, cleared a few packs in EB, saw a rare charging + beyond rare popping up, lagspike, death.
So... what did I do wrong? Was I supposed to go armor until I have all the key nodes, uniques and level 70+? If so, how would I even do that as a witch?

Tldr: playing since closed beta, don't know how to build surviving characters.

Witch survivability is a little tricky since she's not really near many typical mitigation nodes (armour, evasion, even life). Have you ever tried Cloak of Defiance or Lightning Coil? I love Cloak, aside from the fact that it limits the number of auras you can use on mana. I see some life/es builds popping up too (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1096140). The idea with that build is that you kill things so quickly you rarely get hit.

The build I followed recommended that cloak. Only that I didn't have it and didn't know what can I sell to amass the required currency for it.

I would recommend u to try having spell totem linked to summon skeletons and, if u like, also to faster casting. It is really good defense. And if u want some extra, go for ice spear, freeze is the best defense. U just need to be careful in maps, cuz reflect can kill u. If u want to not worry about reflect, do dual totem ice spear and cast skeletons urself.

1600 HP at act 3 cruel is way too low to not get oneshot occasionally. The cloak is not needed before high maps if you take enough life nodes. I don't know your build ideas but the lifewheel southwest of the scion start is an easy way to get a decent amount. Life on items is also very important.

I'd say a safe amount of life for late act 3 cruel/a1 merc is about 2-2.5k but an experienced HC player might correct me.

I recommend a spell totem too, though in addition/alteration to summon skeletons linked with frost wall, because

1) A skeleton totem will need some invested points in totem and minion clusters to stay effective but a frost wall totem won't necessarily need any boosts (because the wall itself is invulnerable) resp profits from elemental nodes like spells do.

2) the further you play and the stronger/more numerous the mobs become the less likely it is, that unskilled totem skeletons can tank them all or longer than 1 sec, but frost wall can do so.

3) Frost wall blocks melees and projectiles (also the spikes from dying porcupines in the gardens) and pushes casters back (often out of their attack range but not yours).

4) Frost wall works like a small force-to-walk-labyrinth and it's possible to temporary completely block a path to your character. In this case mobs that were on this path to reach you will turn and try to find another, unblocked path to you. They walk a few steps away, the wall disappears, they stop, turn to take the now again unblocked path, the wall appears and so on. Mobs that move very fast or can leap are not so easy to keep at a distance, but it works for all others and grants lots of valuable seconds.

5) Due to this blocking mechanic, if there is only one path to the character and it gets blocked, all melees and archers will stop their actions a/o move away. Casters won't because spells don't get blocked by the wall (the main reason why it is so useful for a caster).

6) Frost wall always targets the feet of the mobs to push them back, so it bypasses eg. proximity shields because the wall appears within the shield.

7) Skeletons have to move to the target first to get into melee range - if the totem has summoned the max amount of skeletons allowed, but they are too slow or whatever else and not able to reach and hit the mobs, there are many minions on the screen but it won't help you much - the wall on the other side reaches mobs instantly.

Especially when you're alone in zones and maps soon the frost wall totem will be your favourite "minion" I guess. But also carry a summon skeletons gem to swap it, if ever needed.

Block/sp block are excellent forms of defense. On a witch that was planning on using EB, i would go for hybrid gear (either armor/es or eva/es) for further mitigation. The downside of block is that when you do take a hit you have very little to no mitigation. So a solid life pool is needed to absorb the hits. I like to be around 1k life at the end of normal, 2.5k at the end of cruel, and about 3.5-4k by the time i am finishing merc. These do vary based on build, defense and gear of course. Artic armor is another great option but does take a decent investment. As mentioned cloak and coil are good options but I have taken many casters through merc self found with just rares. On a low budget or self found I am looking for rares that achieve max res with as much life as possible, arm/eva/es is secondary and something I build towards. Life and resists are mandatory. This leaves very little room for fancy things like crit, mf, and specialty mods (ele wep damage etc.). So plan on this going in and build around the idea that you need decent damage without crit (solo 5k damage is pretty decent at the end of merc.) and that your main defense is going to be hp and resist.

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Aviana wrote:

Hi. I've been playing since day 3 of closed beta but only now managed to get level 54 with a character (usually only played hardcore and temporary leagues). I tried lightning tendrils block build, at 54 had 1600hp, around 880 ES(which was supposed to be eldritched later) and all ele resistances maxed.

The build I followed had no armor or es whatsoever, only 1000+ evasion and a very high block/spell block. I had very high DPS but was taking very high damage from phys dmg (usually controllable).

That is - until I decided to finish cruel and went looking for gardens entrance, cleared a few packs in EB, saw a rare charging + beyond rare popping up, lagspike, death.
So... what did I do wrong? Was I supposed to go armor until I have all the key nodes, uniques and level 70+? If so, how would I even do that as a witch?

Tldr: playing since closed beta, don't know how to build surviving characters.

1600 hp is a little low imo, and can't really rely on the ES to be there when you need it sometimes. Most of my hc chars end up around 1500 when getting to cruel, about level 35. This does vary in my confidence/build. I'm usually around 3kish by merciless, usually slightly underleveled at level 50. Do you use AA? This probably wouldn't have helped much in your situation since it sounds like a couple large hits rather than bunch of tiny ones, but is an invaluable defense skill nonetheless.

imo witch is the way to go for for any es based build.
79%es(technically +90% cause of 34flat es and 20int) + 30% es recharge time + 40%manaregen + 20mana for 10points...additionally you can grab those 2x16%spelldmg nodes.
for any life/eb build it would just be nice points spent into spelldmg/utility but not the greatest survivability.
1.6k hp seems to be a little low for me at lvl54. i guess you got too many spelldmg/crit and blocknodes and were too low lvl to get more life nodes so that you would get oneshotted if you would desync and not block.. sry for your loss

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Tempada wrote:

Witch survivability is a little tricky since she's not really near many typical mitigation nodes (armour, evasion, even life). Have you ever tried Cloak of Defiance or Lightning Coil? I love Cloak, aside from the fact that it limits the number of auras you can use on mana. I see some life/es builds popping up too (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1096140). The idea with that build is that you kill things so quickly you rarely get hit.

Not true. The Witch has life nodes just like every other class. She also has near exclusive access to flask effect nodes, which affect all flasks. 13% max res instead of 10% from flasks? That's very powerful. Then there's the 10% spell block with shields, which is also very nice.

Don't forget the juicy ES/armor hybrid nodes in the templar area. Those are accessible as well. It gives 104% increased armor, if I recall correctly.