Witch Tree Proposals (Semi-Updated July 15.)

The biggest problem I have with Witch start is the near total lack of survivability. 3 run-of-the-mill Life nodes and a few run-of-the mill Energy Shield nodes plus one good notable. The ES nodes are even worse in the beginning as you can't get a large enough base for them to have an impact early on.

Moving on from there the next closest survival nodes are CI or the "Written In Blood" Life cluster. CI is a poor choice early on so that's out. The "Written In Blood" cluster is fine, but puts you in a position where you either go to Shadow where Life is still sparse and ES average, or go to Scion and wonder why you didn't just start there in the first place.

Ignoring all the above you could head over to Templar. It has plenty of Life for early-mid game, some of the better ES nodes, and access to both the Life and ES bits of Scion. More appealing for survivability, but it takes a lot more points to get there.

Given that -for a Witch- ES should be given more emphasis that Life I don't think giving big Life buffs in the Witch start is the way to go. But I do think a buff is in order to help the early game, approximately what the Shadow has with 16 flat life, 8%, and 12%. As for ES, it is quite silly that the Intelligence character has both fewer and lower quality ES nodes than Templar, Shadow, or Scion. Well, I guess Scion's are worse, but there are 10 of them. With that, I would change the first "Mana" nodes to "Mana and Energy Shield" nodes - at least 6% ES each. Last I would consider modifying the "Arcane Focus" notable to something like "+10% increased Energy Shield and +10 Energy Shield." Flat ES is nowhere to be found on the tree, and I think putting just a little bit of it in the Witch start would be helpful.

I would stop there and see how it feels, but if it still isn't enough to carry a Witch past the early levels I have a couple more ideas. First is to move the "Void Barrier" and "Body and Soul" clusters just a couple nodes north each, giving the Witch slightly earlier access to them but still well within the respective Shadow and Templar trees. The other idea is to put a "Life Leech with Spells" node somewhere, which could combo with "Ghost Reaver" later on. Currently all leech on the tree is for physical damage only.

As for damage, the Witch certainly doesn't lack for that. Although it does feel like many of them are filler nodes. I'd pretty much just be parroting the thread on this topic, so I'll just say I particularly like the idea of putting in some elemental penetration.

I agree with most of that.

I always felt the witch was more of a glass cannon, and even that is a stretch to say.

All the plain energy shield nodes are very lackluster. The Templar, Shadow, and Scion have better nodes in regard to hybrid defenses or quantity of energy shield.

I'd like to see flat energy shield nodes as well, and I think that's a good way to buff the witch area. Problem is, I don't know what they are going to change, and I only focused on the starting area.

It could work if flat ES was added onto the ES nodes.
The problem I don't like is separating ES recovery from the ES nodes.
I think they should add 20-30% ES recovery to the major ES node or spread it out over all the nodes.

Just a small correction, you can get 25 flat ES from the last claw leech notable, but I still agree that the witch starting area is the weakest.

You have to spend too many more points to get anywhere useful, and I've always found templars, shadows and now especially scions to be much more point efficient for caster builds.

The 40% regen and 25% spell crit nodes are nice sure, but the rest in the first two starting witch rings is meh, the only valid route I normally see is cast speed > elemental notable > spell damage centre, while the Scion just has everything much better.

What I would simply do for the witch is keep the nodes the same but buff them - make all the spell crit nodes 25%, cast speed nodes 4%, both mana regen nodes 40%, and the plain mana nodes 12%. And make the centre life passive a notable with +10% health, +20 str, +20 dex. Also add 6% life to the flask nodes.

I would agree with that sentiment - that if it's supposed to be a glass canon, quantity isn't enough. You also need higher quality for that stat.

In all seriousness elemental % should be 8 universally as a baseline; the only reason I can even fathom it isn't is due to multiprojectile giving you a damage multiplier of well over 2.

The gravy attached to the Walker stats always kind of pestered me. Resistance? What? Then, why aren't they all attached to one another like in a kite shape, so I can get that thar 5% resist all per point at the very least?

"

So GGG has stated on reddit they are going to change the Marauder tree, and massive changes to the witch tree.

Ah yes of course, the official Path of Exile website~

Yeah, it kind of sucks Reddit is a partial source for information.

I'd like to see GGG make a small news ticker, that can display short information.
Like you could see 5-8 news tickets at a time, and browse an archive.
They would contain small tidbits of information. What they're working on, whats in the works, new posts in general, etc....

That way they don't have to make continues front page article posts.

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I don't think the 25 flat ES is notable for any practical use, and has very limited build potential.

If there were more of them that are standalone / hybrid defense nodes, then that's different.

Honestly I'd like a small preview of what changes are being worked on specifically for the Marauder, Witch, Duelist, and Shadow.

I'm not talking about an outright preview of the tree, but more on the lines of layout efficiency, number changes, new nodes, moved nodes, etc.....
Unless they plan to do this in a teaser, which I doubt, it would be nice for the community to know a little about what's going on.

I'd love to see an accuracy cluster in the witch's tree, every other class has access to at least 1.

Oh and more ES, anytime I make a witch it just boils down to how quickly I can get out of her tree (to find survivability).

Bump.
New Screenshot(s) added.

More suggested changes added.
Since they haven't changed the witch that much, I decided to improve my overhaul quality. I've made the image myself in photoshop. Should give much better understanding of the changes.
Need more comments and suggestions.

Edit: Changing wand nodes to have 8 nodes again. Uploading the updated screenshots soon.
Edit 2: Fixed screenshots. Fixed Wand nodes. Fixed old Crit multiplier Circle. Reworked Right side starting circle. Fixed pathing.

Current areas for discussion would be adding Elemental Penetration, additional accuracy nodes, and somehow buffing areas between templar/shadow.

I think I've done a decent job of trying to buff survivability, by adding flat ES nodes combined with ES Recovery. I think if the flat ES was large enough, it could be boosted to a fair amount by the percent ES.
Adding some more elemental resistances to the life notable is good, but I don't know if 6% is impactful or not.

With the recent changes to elemental damage, cast speed nodes, and spell damage nodes, I am satisfied with the damage number tweaks.

Edit 3: Added areas for Elemental Penetration, and Accuracy Rating. Penetration is just to the right of Inner Force, while Accuracy is to the left of Throatseeker. Trying to find a good place for these.

For the amount of views this thread has and the lack of discussion makes me a little disappointed.

On another note, how about adding one small life node circle? One that isn't so far away.

Edit:
Noticed a lot of the notables can be "leap frogged" with only 2 node jumps.
While all other classes have this as well, my changes make it happen more frequent in the witch tree, which was unintended. Might consider revising the area again.

I think it looks beautiful :)

That being said, here's what I think about the current Witch tree and yours.

Current:
Like someone said, there's no way to "leapfrog" to notables. This is annoying as let's say I want to hit hard and hit once. I get the two spell damage nodes at the start, then... nothing. Do I spend 3 points on 55% crit? There's another notable that's far better and what if I don't use crit? Do I get cast speed? I want to hit once... Do I get mana -> life? Not if I want to go CI (and if you hit the life nodes, you HAVE to get ES to get out?! that's weird) The other option is INT nodes which you'll get plenty later.

(And it's interesting that none of the classes actually fill this role quite yet. Templar has no offense after his Elemental Nodes and Shadow starts to enforce crit/life/stat nodes, scion is well, nerfed...)

Yours:
It's so darn beautiful. I want to give you skill trees I've drawn just to see them look like that xD. Ok, enough of that, onto the critique.

There was some method to GGG's AoE/Spell Damage ring. It entered on a spell damage. Which I'm pretty sure a witch needs, but yours forces the 20% Elemental damage to lead into an AoE. FURTHERMORE, why does the OTHER SPELL DAMAGE side enter blast radius? I know that many spells are AoE (and I'd personally love the tree like that) but the enforcement of getting it to get the other spell damage (save walk around through ES) is strange.

Additionally, I think the mana circle was meant to get used. In it's current state, you'd enter from the power charge node and spend 2 points for the notable (and that's only if you're mana hungry which I've yet to see from a witch). There's no reason to get the 8% or 20% regen at all (Traversing by Int around from Blast radius is better placement for future nodes and equally cost effective).

Finally, I think your tree suffers from the same anti-Life that GGG's does. How can you take life and get out? You HAVE to go through an ES Notable or walk around and enter from the other side. This to me is a problem. A character's tree is like their personality and honestly, you shouldn't have to go to the roadside and soul search before you find what you're looking for ;P

Negative Feedback

* You've just added more points in the way to get the life nodes for Life based Witches

* You added an elemental damage node between life nodes, why?

* You just butchered all the good spell damage nodes in favour of that AoE node, now those who aren't even going to be AoE casters have to take that node even though they don't want it. (Freeze Pulse, Ice Spear, Arc, Spark, EK)

Neutral Feedback

* I guess how you changed the curse path is interesting, easier for those who just want to cast 2 curses but don't really need them to last forever, although being able to cast 2 curses is very powerful, which is why I guess it's gated behind those cast nodes and that infinite curse node.

Positive Feedback

* I like how you moved the Deep Thoughts circle, nice placing.
* The wand circle is pretty cool as well.