[2.3] Offscreen Melee Witch: FB/IB Elementalist- Insane Prolif Chains

TLDR: Stacking AOE with Infernal Blow and Elementalist leads to some crazy corpse explosion chains.

*Something worth noting- this build is getting a massive buff in Prophecy if nothing gets changed before release. Almost makes me sad I built it last league.

Build Video / Highlights

https://youtu.be/IJN8CenJyW4
I have some talented friends


Tree

Another classic button hook route out of the starting area
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMCAAN1BAcEswW1CPQOSA5cD6sWbxa_GF0aOBpsHNwdFB8CIvQj9iSqJogmlScvKo0wfDLRNj02xTbYNuk6WDrYPAU87z1fPs9FR0V-RZ1GUkkbTLNNklBCUUdSU1M1U1JUrlVLVYVVxlZIWHdfBGHiYqxo8mpDavpremwLbIxtGW1sfdKCm4PbhXuMNo19jb-PGo9GkFWRK5Mnl5WX9Jo7muCdqp2un9-iAKIupHily6cIrJit8a-NtzC86r3mwFTAZsHVyL_I3NQH2CTcjd7434rjaud06Fro1uvu7DjsVe988B_xbPxM?accountName=Kinch45&characterName=PurpleStickyPunch



Gems

Infernal Blow > Multistrike > Melee Splash > Fortify > Increased AOE > Faster Attacks (as 6th link)

Blade Vortex > Curse on Hit > Elemental Weakness > Increased Crit
This does double duty of keeping up Elemental Overload




Gear


Concept

This build started out as another attempt to use Doryani’s Fist. I thought a build called “The Fist Witch” would certainly attract some attention- but I eventually gave up on Doryani’s damage output, although looking back it may have been more competitive than I realized.

I ended up IB Facebreakers- nonCrit / nonRT (gross, I know). Basically I wanted to use Elemental Overload to scale the corpse explosion damage. I also went Avatar of Fire so I could pick up fire damage nodes to scale my melee damage and the explosion, and as a last ditch effort to crank it up some more picked up some frenzy charges for another “more” multiplier.

The effect from chaining these explosions while playing solo is quite dramatic. I give martial artistry a fair amount of the credit. The videos I showed were from the first two maps I ran after I realized I was running around without a shield on, so they were hardly cherry picked results. I tried to show off the potential of the explosions, and left in some parts where the build is less than top tier. You see the Rhoa boss in arid lake was just outside the explosion and I have to take him down with some so-so single target.

You can’t crit with unarmed so I use blade vortex to keep elemental overload and curse. The explosions from IB actually have a 5% base crit chance and will also help keep uptime on EO.

I threw the life regen into the build to help with blood fury degen.


Strengths

-AOE Clear Speed
-Cheap (6link Carcass is not required. You can even get pretty similar results in low tier maps with the aforementioned Doryani’s Fist.)
-Dried lake clear is insanely fast with this build- the explosions reach so far. I think I peaked around 230 Mil / hr exp while leveling
-Punching Witch Cool Factor


Weaknesses

-Targeted Melee Skill
-Meh Single Target. I think with EVERYTHING going I’m at around 40K which is not great.
-Stuns can be scary.
-Pretty Reliant on Flasks for defence, although it’s not hard to pre-pot since you blow up packs in such massive groups.
-


Overall there are a lot of directions you could take this build.
It’s hard to say how much Elementalist is really carrying everything, but I think it’s a lot. We’ve seen so many good builds with that class I’m not really doing anything revolutionary here, but I thought some of the melee explosion results were worth sharing.

I have no idea why GGG decided to buff this class in Prophecy but the proposed changes would be insanely good on this character. I hear Chris Wilson likes melee witches so maybe that had something to do with it…

Lastly if you happen to look up Fuel’s “Bad Day” music video, the guy kinda does look like Mathil, just sayin.


Questions below or hit me up IGN: Whipits_in_thebreakroom



Last edited by Kinch45 on May 27, 2016, 10:33:00 AM
Last bumped on Jul 27, 2016, 6:32:59 PM
With the changes to Shield Charge, it may be worth it to have Fortify linked to Shield Charge. Since you will no longer need to name lock for Shield Charge, it should proc Fortify much more reliably.
Yeah- that will be another amazing buff to the build I hadn't considered.
How is reflect with a build like this? This sounds very fun, thinking of giving it a go on the next temp HC league.
IGN- Vyvanne | Voxxvi (Tempest League)
Vyvanne's Odds and Bods Boutique - http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1311497
Any breakdown of how you leveled?
"
How is reflect with a build like this? This sounds very fun, thinking of giving it a go on the next temp HC league.


Well the Elementalist does get 50% reduced reflect next league.
All of the damage from the corpse explosions is also secondary damage so none of that gets reflected.

Still you'd have to work in quite a bit more life in the build for hardcore.
Honestly a lot of people are responding to the build with Duelist Slayer ideas and I think it would also be a very viable option (free melee splash / lots more AOE) at the cost of using the prolif gem.

Duelist would be easier to spec for HC I think, but if you really want to roll melee witch I suppose this could be an option. I honestly never really play HC.
"
Any breakdown of how you leveled?


It was all over the place because I was switching things a lot. For a while I was using Doryani's Fist and Dominating Blow with a reduced duration gem necromancer spec to give you an idea of the train wreck that was occurring.

You could probably level fire trap and Firestorm, then switch into Facebreakers later. You get enough fire damage, AOE, and life from Witch / Templar area I'd start there and then figure out what you want to do.

Hi want ask about new ascendacy passive: dmg pene 25% fire res if you use lightning spell. May be bettrer use it with lightning warp?
English is not my native language, so sorry for mistakes
"
Hi want ask about new ascendacy passive: dmg pene 25% fire res if you use lightning spell. May be bettrer use it with lightning warp?


If you really like using lightning warp I suppose this could work, but it sounds a little dangerous. The build can be squishy. One of the things that helps is you only have to kill one monster on the edge of a pack and the whole screen blows up.

I suppose you could just move around with lightning warp and still approach packs on foot.

The thing is I think the 25% fire pen is just more damage. With 8 total points now I'd probably go with the following (after getting beacon of ruin):

1. Pendulum of Destruction
2. Paragon of Calamity
3. Liege of the Primordial and maybe not do Avatar of Fire

I can't test the new skills yet though so who knows- maybe Pendulum is not as good as it seems. I also don't know if 50% reduced reflect will be enough to let you run reflect maps but it so it's a pretty strong option.
Really nice build! Video well done!

Don't give up on Doryani's Fist. The new Viridian Grand Spectrum jewel annouced today might be the answer to make it very strong.

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