Conduit Charge Battery Support Discharge Witch of Awesomeness?

I asked this in the Templar forum and it seems that the Witch's starting position in the passive tree might be better suited than the Templar starting position.

Can it be done? Has it already been done? If it hasn't already been done I'm going to need some insight from the forum dwellers and those with a greater understanding of the game.

So my idea is to use Enduring Cry, Power Siphon, and Frenzy to load up on charges. Conduit turns the Witch into a "Charge Battery" (play on Mana Battery from WoW Warlock Demonology). Discharge is used as an on demand AoE DPS charge dump.

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Edit Here:
I would most likely only pick 1 additional charge node for each type of charge or 1-2 additional charge nodes for 2 types of charges. If I went for only two charge types the it would most likely be endurance and power charges.

I'm considering the use of at least 1 totem. For totem use I was thinking either Skelly totem, Spark totem, Ice Spear totem, Curse Totem, or Corpse Explosion Totem (Detonate Dead). I'm not sure if I can hook-up Arc + Chain on a totem to make a Chain Lightning totem or maybe hook-up Shock Nova to a totem. I was thinking the curse I would use would be Elemental Proliferation or Enfeeble.

The Eight Skill Slots:
- Power Siphon
- Frenzy
- Enduring Cry
- Discharge
- Curse (Elemental Proliferation or Enfeeble)
***Variable Slot = an AoE spell, single target ranged spell, or some support spell
- Totem (have to pick a totem configuration)
- Aura(s) (haven't decided yet and taking suggestions)

For the Variable Slot I was considering potentially Tempest Shield, Molten Shell or Lightning Warp. Tempest shield would force me into loading up on shield block passives to ensure it was being triggered often, which potentially might get in the way. For Lightning Warp, I was thinking that if I get surrounded I could cast Lightning Warp > Discharge. Mobs get blasted and I teleport to safety. Popping Discharge right after Molten Shell triggers for 2x AoE hits.

Since I'm going to focus on loading up on charges I'll need efficient pathing to get the additional charge nodes in the passive skill tree. Static Blows and the additional chance to shock look like good passives to grab which would work well with Elemental Proliferation. Since I'll being using Power Siphon, the Wand damage passives look like good candidates as well. I know I'm going to need elemental damage and spell crit passives. Some faster cast speed would be nice if I can fit it in. I believe Discharge will benefit from Increased Area of Effect passives, which means I'll need those. I'm not sure if curses will benefit from Increased Area of Effect passives.

Keystone Passive Possibilities:
- Zealot Oath + Chaos Inoculation + Ghost Reaver (and load up on Energy Shield Passives)
- Static Blows (yes please)
- Hex Master + Whispers of Doom (enhancing my cursing ability)
- Doom cast (since I'm looking at using Wand/Shield or Wand/Spirit Shield, Discharge and Power Siphon)
- Conduit + Inner Focus (yes please)
- Ancestral Bond (if I wanted 2x totems)
- Eldritch Battery (and load up on +Life and Energy Shield passives)

Lastly, I considered the possibility of using one or more Blood Magic gems on active abilities to cast from the HP pool while Auras would be attached to the Mana pool. I know this last idea wont work with Chaos Inoculation, Eldritch Battery, and others that manipulate the size of the mana, HP, and ES pools.

Taking ideas and suggestions.

While it sounds nice, and possibly could be. Attempting to pick up all the +charge nodes would require ~60 skill points alone and that's excluding keystones and any additional modifiers, just simply shortest route to all +charge nodes.

I would recommend picking one type of charge and utilizing that, or 2 if you go with a hybrid starting class as it puts you in a decent position to pick up 2 types of +charge nodes. This would allow you to pick up a larger range of passives for survivability/efficiency.

An example would be Templar and pick up the End charges from templar tree and maurader tree and power charges from witch tree along with the lightning + fire damage boosts and several +area effect radius/area effect damage boosts for ~65 skill points.

Another example would be to go Shadow picking up the Frenzy/Power charges as well as cold and lightning damage. If you could go CI you could use bloodrage, build up power charges at range, lightning warp in, discharge would burn all your power charges dealing lightning damage, bloodrage being turned on would grant you a frenzy charge for every mob that died (up to 5) and you could immediately discharge again doing 5 frenzy charges worth of cold damage. If 5 mobs die again, you have 5 frenzy charges, allowing you to discharge again. Potentially spam discharging from group to group.

The same thing could be done for Frenzy and endurance charges except you would be a ways away from CI so would probably need some HP regen to compensate for blood rage and would need to get some + intel nodes or +intel gear to accomodate discharges intel requirement.

The damage median on all aspects of discharge is low, with only lightning damage averaging out to more then 300 base damage at 5 charges(Gem level 18). The best chance this has of working since it was nerfed in 0.9.7 is through rapid charge generation into rapid discharges. To do this, I would recommend trying to fit in Warlords Curse (20% chance for endurance charge on kill) and Blood Rage (100% chance for frenzy charge on kill while active) for passive charge generation once you start discharging.

Thanks for the insight Garth. I should have added that I would probably go for only 1 additional charge for each type or 1-2 additional for only 2 types of charges. The main damage sources would be Power Siphon, Frenzy, the totem if configured to be non-curse, and the variable slot if not being used for support. I considered using Discharge as a secondary source of damage/use since I would be stacking charges. After reading up on the spell at the PoE wiki I didn't expect to be able to spam it or (discharge > kill > discharge > kill) in rapid succession. Many thanks for the tips.

Do you think the added defense from Tempest Shield and shield block nodes would be worth pursuing?

/Le Bump