Melee Witch

So, I've been thinking for awhile now that I want to run a melee witch. Honestly, I kind of wanted to to a CoC melee witch, but I'm not sure how viable that would really be with the tree I ended up building. So I just wanted some advice and other peoples' ideas about my tree/gear that I'm thinking for this build.

Class: Witch
Ascendancy: Elementalist (Pendulum of Destruction || Mastermind of Discord || Paragon of Calamity || Shaper of Desolation

Tree: https://pastebin.com/qTxnQ1F0 (for Path of Building users)
Non-Path of Building Users


Main Attack Skill: Wild Strike

Uniques: The Tempestuous Steel || Rathpith Globe || Energy From Within (Used for the Melding cluster)

From what path of building is telling me, I could potentially have ~2600 Life, ~6600 ES by level 80, and that's just kind of a rough number, that's without putting str/int mods on jewelry, just mid-range life/es rolls. I feel like this could maybe be enough eHp with Mind over Matter in play as well. The rest of my jewel nodes I just tossed in Survival Secrets(x3) as placeholders as they'll likely be rare jewels.

I just wanted some potential pathing advice on the tree, and if I could be doing it a little bit better (Probably could, I'm terrible at pathing usually, I just have general ideas that I love to try and make work).

what will be your life/ES recovery? As a close range fighter you need some recovery (and/or mitigation). in longer fights you will be left with little life, no ES and with no mitigation, you not gonna last long :). In similar hybrid life/ES scenarios, I focus on life and use ES as extra buffer..

what is the advantage of Rathpith globe? the negligible spell block? or are you planning to get reasonable block some way? Or are you planning to use Crown of eyes to benefit from spell damage?

where do you get the damage from? The Tempestuous Steel has low base damage so I guess you will try to get lots of added elemental damage from tree, auras, gems.. low base damage would not be a problem, the problem is low base attack speed. Added damage greatly benefits from aps and the resist penetration (and full hit chance) would not compensate for it. Any random ~2.0 aps weapon would be better in most scenarios..

edit: as a non-crit elemental build build you shoul certainly try to involve Elemental Overload

I do have some life and mana leech on the tree, and the shield was for spell block, yeah. I felt even 20% is better than nothing (Since I grabbed the shield nodes in the witch area), though I could always grab some more block on another piece of gear if need be.

I do plan on using added cold and lightning gems for this build, and scaling the crap out of elemental damage. Thank you for the elemental overload comment, btw. Normally I would grab it on a build like this, I just spaced on it this time for some reason.

My attack speed will be coming from multistrike, and possibly a warped timepiece (I have one or two lying around). With MS I'm getting around 3.3aps, which is pretty low, I'll admit. I'll probably have to run an onslaught flask, or alter my tree to hit up Coordination maybe?

alright, so you will recover some life. but not the ES. so your 6.6k ES will be available only temporarily and you will be left with 2.6k life, with all consequences (stuns, ailments, chaos damage). You are playing close range build so you definitely will get hit. I suggest in this scenario getting 4-5k life as usual and ES as extra buffer to start the fight with. 4k+4k would certainly be better than what you have.. or get decent ES leech and some chaos res..

what I wanted to point out with the aps is that any 10 elemental damage you add to 2.0 aps weapon is like adding roughly 15 damage to 1.35 aps weapon.. or in other words, added damage to 2.0 weapon would be ~50% more effective. and when I count low base damage and crit, your chosen weapon does not look good

Yeah, now that you put it that way, I suppose I should just tear my tree apart and rebuild from the ground up. Too much stuff my tired brain wasn't considering at all. Thanks for the perspective.

New Tree
https://pastebin.com/qTxnQ1F0

Had to cut a lot of the damage out, but that should hopefully be okay with the ele penetration from my weapon and ascendancy points, and the chunk of ele damage I've taken in the shadow starting area. The build will now sit at ~4300 life by about level 85, and ~6500 ES. Almost 5aps with flask and warped timepiece, tossed in a rainbow stride to boost spell block to 25% (Still not amazing, but not the worst thing ever to have 1 in 4 to block a spell). Had to cut the mana leech, but swapped in warlord's mark for my curse (probably vaal a +1 to curse if I can to put in ele weakness)

I'll check back on this thread later, I need to get to sleep for work.

I think you should first search for synergy you build around, then adapt the tree to it.

I was also thinking about Wild strike elementalist.. I wanted to use the fact that with 100% conversion and elemental damage scaling it does not matter whether the weapon damage comes from phys, elemental, or combined. I was thinking about using high aps imperial claw for the great life on hit against the packs (and/or Vaal Pact leech).. Pure life, maybe with MoM (and perhaps Rallying cry with the threshold jewels to get mana back).. wanted to crit too for freeze/shock prolif.. I did not come up with any specific/complete build though (at least not yet:))

edit: I wrote this up before you edited your post (also, I cant see your new tree)

The new tree should be available in Path of Building, but I may actually disregard that entirely for this new on I came up with (Yes, I said I was going to sleep, but I just couldn't let well enough alone). I spent a few minutes and drafted up several different trees until I came up with something I really like the looks of.

Tree
https://pastebin.com/4CKAHQ78

That right there is a full life wild strike witch build. I'll probably feel out which weapon I'm going to use, because the ele pen could be fantastic on The Tempestuous Steel, but I'm also considering Ichimonji, and a few other weapons. Okay, now that I got that out of my system for now, time for bed.

Alright, you dropped ES and focused on life, got a bit of block and went long way for Vitality void. Seems you dont want to give up your sword :) .. well, not saying this would be terrible but it seems sub-optimal in various aspects.

Imagine you would choose the Imperial Claw and went the other way. You would gain mare damage, crit, attack speed, leech from Soul Raker + Vaal Pact, life on hit, 40/30(46 with atziri step) dodge for 5 points (more then current block + ability to use some other shield), while still having ~20% block, evasion, penetration from passives.. youd have a little less life and would have to get some accuracy on gear.. lose MoM (which does not work well without good mana pool and recovery.. so by dropping it you gain more space for things like Wrath/Herald Ice/Thunder)

something like this (focused on having similar %life you have in your tree)

I personally think this would work better.. but if you want to stick with your original idea, do it, try to make it work well.. youd learn a lot this way.. but please dont use my tree and later rage at me that your char sucks:)

I did say that I might be willing to drop the sword in my last post :P

I did have a tree I drafted up going through the right side of the tree, not sure how good it really is or not though. Seems pretty decent on paper I suppose (And could be tweaked for various weapon types, if I wanted to change out for claws). I still kept MoM since I need all the mitigation I can kind of get, and I've grown fond of MoM since I've been on satellite, and with a little mana leech on the tree, it works out really well to be honest.

Pastebin code for Path of Building: https://pastebin.com/ESGYKdEn

Trying to look at your tree, but I'm on satellite internet and already over my 12gb for the month, so loading up your tree is stuck around 68% at the moment. It'll probably get a bit quicker around midnight, but I'll be going to work soon, so I'll have to view the tree you made in about 10 hours or so.

Also, I don't believe I've ever really raged about my characters sucking. 99% of my characters, I make myself.

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Ludvator wrote:

something like this (focused on having similar %life you have in your tree)

I personally think this would work better.. but if you want to stick with your original idea, do it, try to make it work well.. youd learn a lot this way.. but please dont use my tree and later rage at me that your char sucks:)

That tree you linked is exactly the same tree as the one I posted before your most recent post, btw.