[3.4]Warcrying Two-hander Debeon's Dirge Ice Crash 8 Golem Witch!

This is a Melee/Golemancer Elementalist using Two-handed Debeon's Dirge. I have always wanted to make a melee witch using a Two-hander. She relies alot on buffs from golems and uses Rallying cry to increase damage and get mana reg.
The point is to to get the Elementalist Ascendancies Liege of the primordial and Elemenacer.

Liege of the primordial gives me 20% increased damage for each summoned Golem and 25% increased buff effect for each summoned golem. That together with the Primordial chain + anima stone + Primordial eminence (further buffs golem buff effect) gives me a total of 8 golems. Which gives quite noticable buff from each golem + it boosts my damage.
Elemeancer gives me immunities to Shock, chill, freeze and ignite as long as the golems are up. Which is great not havin't to worry about that.


The Golems aren't supposed to be the main damage, they are mostly there to buff you.
The other asendancy nodes are Pendelum of destruction switches between bosting elemental damage and increasing AOE by 75% and Mastermind of Discord.
25% more cold pen while i'm using Herald of Ice and it reduces mana reservation of it.

Since the Debeon's Dirge deals almost only cold damage I choose to get a Cold Steel jewel to transform all phys damage from my nearby skills to cold damage.
Dyadain dawn belt removes any physical damage but gives me 1% life leech on chilled enemies. It's not a fantastic belt but I kinda stuck with it and extra leech doesn't hurt.
The problem with pure cold damage is that I can't really leech mana. But Debon's Dirge gives me 150% more elemental damage if I have Warcried recently.
Then Rallying cry becomes perfect. It gives me a good amount of mana reg and also gives me and my minions more damage.
Since you will be warcrying alot you must pickup the "Battlecry" passive in the skill tree which gives you Instant Warcries.

At first i wanted to get some crit since i get quite a nice boost from the Golem, but it was too tricky to try and get that aswell. So went resolute technique.

Early game

In the early game just play the game as a caster. You can take some elemental damage nodes near templar and climb your way down the tree to get the health/armor nodes. Then once you reach 66 and can use Debon's Dirge, make sure to get the Axe nodes and a Cold Steel Jewel.


Link to passive tree.
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMCAAECAecEswmWDF8OPBBRES0UIBRNFHEYkRjXGjgb-hzcJd8nLzB3MPgy0TkOOlI6xjrYPAU8LUGHRUdFnUbXSp9Mi1BHU1JTpVcpWfNZ_Fn-Xz9g-GL0ZFJmVGaeZ3FoZWjycYVxsnIPcql2rHflfIN82YIHgpuDX4PMhVKJvIx2jM-Ovo8akFWQ-pLBlG-XeZrgn8uf36DmogCkGaaspzCqqayqrY2u_7FCtzG3PrsBvJ_AZsGjxPbGqsauz37UB9i92WHZfNo_2rncjd9t37DiYeRR6hjrCevu7w7vS-988B_z3fZI9zL46_no_Ev-Cg==?accountName=WickedSausage&characterName=HypotermicShrimp

-It's quite a fun and unusual build. Don't expect it to do millions of DPS.
Got around 400ish k DPS + some extra from golems etc. +70% Cold Penetration.
Still I have done most of the end game. Breach lords, Pale council, Atziri, Abyss and Delv Lich, Guardians, Elder.
Haven't tried Uber Elder and did 1 try each on Uber Atziri and Shaper. But failed.

-Quite a cheap build, Anima stone +100ish chaos and 6 linked Debon's Dirge is about 1 exalt. I was lucky with six linking my chest, but its not really a must have. Rest of the gear is quite cheap.

-Can do End game maps with all mods except elemental reflect. Overall pretty decent clear speed.

-Can reliably do Uber lab. I'm quite reckless but the traps just deal too little damage to be any danger. Can face tank enraged Argus and take slams from Izaro.

-Good for delving. (so far atleast im at depth 270, monster level 83. And i'm still going further without any big issue. Find it kinda dull though)

-Immune to Chill, Freeze, Iginite and Shock thanks to the Elementalist Asendancy. Also Stun immune from Unwavering stance passive.

-Pretty good leach and life reg. I have 852 life reg with stone golem up. I also got 2.5% Elemental leech which feels like twice that value when comparing to phys leech.

-Good Phys mitigation. Chaos golem ramps up my phys reduction from 54% to 72% 18% additional phys reduction! Thats quite a buff from something that reserves no mana.
Besides that I also have Fortify + Arctic Armor (12% less phys when hit) and
Enfeeble Blasphemy which further reduce damage.
Also have gain endurance charges on stun from my leap slam for additional phys reduction. Its just a nice little bonus at times.

-The Golems buffs are very noticable thanks to the Elementalist Ascendancies.
The Golems also helps draw attention from you at times which is quite nice. They also help a little bit with DPS, even though its quite low.

-Kinda low HP. Right now i'm just below 5k HP. (level 91) Got plenty of health nodes but atm its hard to find something that I wanna give up.
The low HP mostly becomes noticable in Boss fights with ele damage where my enfeeble effect is reduced greatly and only really fortify helps a bit to mitigate elemental damage (except fire, which arctic armor also helps).

-The Golems are kinda squishy since i'm using Primordial Chain and don't really have much gear or passives that buff them. Since I rely alot on the buffs I get from them. I really need to keep them up. Especially Chaos and Rock golem.
It can become a bit of a hassle at times on some boss fights or delves.

-I'm a weird two-handed melee hybrid. It's not optimal in current meta and The damage isn't that great for dealing with for example Shaper or Uber Atziri.

-Ice Crash has a great AOE but sometimes its hard to really tell whats going on when it covers most of the screen.

-Relies on alot of gems, so its a bit of a hassle to have room for all of them

-The Witch start in the passive tree is kinda bad so i lose a couple valuble points. I also need 4 slots for jewels. 2 primordials + anima stone + cold steel. None gives me more life which kinda suck.

Not a very popular weapon. But actually pretty nice. Was hoping for a even bigger damage boost from the increased elemental damage effect. But it's still something.
Its a really cheap weapon to get. About 1 ex for a six link and a few chaos for a 5 link.


Managed to get a corrupted Primordial chain with 0.5 cold leech for a few chaos. This is a must have item for this build.
Since its Primordial I also only need 2 primordials jewels to be able to get all the bonuses from the Anima Stone.


Devoto's with increased Ice crash damage or AoE is something I would recommend. Attackspeed, movement speed, dex and chaos res is all stuff that is needed. But getting a helmet with some life sure would not hurt.


I Bought a six socketed Death Oath and managed to six link it quite fast. Overall I think its a pretty damn solid chest.
+48 to all attributes, decent amount of life, good armor, 15% attack speed, all resist and 1% life leech with attacks. That 1% life leech is really needed since i can't get leech from any nodes nearby.
I also deal about 2200 chaos dmg every sec to enemies, its something I guess...The 450 chaos damage I take is not noticable thanks to my life reg and leech.


Corrupted Dyadain Dawn gives a decent amount of life and res. But also 1% cold leech vs chilled enemies.





Flasks
Flasks could be better. Kinda neglected them. Would want to replace the mana pot but certain times its needed when I forget to warcry and need my mana back fast.
Onslaught pot could probably be replaced with something else that boosts damage more. Just haven't botherd.



Jewels
2 primordials jewels are needed in this build. I use 2 Primordial Eminence They are nice because they are cheap. They boosts the buffs the golems give which we already get alot of bonus from. Eminance also gives more attack speed and armor to the golems.
However sometimes I replace a Eminance with a Primordial might. It has its advantages and disadvantages. But at times it is a bit annoying when they are aggressive in delves for example.

Cold steel is needed to be placed near the Mauruder's jewel socket. So you convert the damage from the Axe nodes and Two handed nodes to Cold.

Anima stone. Highly recommended so you get 2 more golems.

Skills

Main attack on Axe
Ice Crash + Cold Pen + Faster Attacks + Elemental damage with attacks + Multistrike + Increased AOE(or Conc effect for bosses)

Golems on chest
Chaos Golem + Lightning Golem + Flame Golem + Stone Golem + Minion life + Empower.

Movement skill on head
Leap Slam + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Endurance charge on melee stun.

Gems on gloves
Arctic Armor, Summon Ice golem, Vengence, Rallying Cry.

Gems on Boots
Blasphemy, Enfeeble, Immortal Call, Cast when damage taken.

Herald of Ice on a shaped Ring.

Some gameplay on a rare tier 14 map. With less life recovery rate 60%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWy8pkdO0XE

Pretty fun and different build with overall pretty good clear speed. Usually get tired of builds at around level 80-85, but stayed a bit longer with this one. If I stayed and took a few levels and replaced some gear, Its not impossible that maybe I would have been able to take Shaper.
I do wonder how a build like this would work with using one handed and shield instead. Since alot of its problems was low HP and elemental mitigation, a good shield could for sure help.
It certainly has its flaws and I really cannot recommend it for anyone playing Hardcore. Still if you want to try something different, go for it!

Feel free to give feedback or ask questions if you like!

If you got tired of this build, can you have a look at mine, and give feed-back and perhaps a try, too?
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2220147