[2.0.3] Blackdepp's Arc Witch (beginnner friendly, endgame viable)
 Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm Blackdepp and this is the guide for my 2.0.3 Arc Witch. Many people have asked me to update this guide for the launch of The Awakening and here it is. This build is quite tanky and capable of doing endgame content without any problems at very low costs. It is best suited for the start of new leagues or for new players looking for an easy but fairly strong build. I've played this build for over a year and I'm pretty satisfied with it. I've also added a transition you can perform in the endgame once your resistances and mana regeneration are high enough, boosting your dps quite a bit. Please keep in mind that there are several variations of this build possible, so feel free to switch some things out and find what you like best. Let's get started: (2.1 Arc Witch Update) _________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________
SKILLTREE
Skilltree (Lv. 90) If you experience mana problems allocate Righteous Decree in the templar area; that should help a lot. On the passive tree one Jewel Socket is allocated. You can put whatever Jewel you like in there. You will find more information about that in the Gear section. Leveling skilltrees can be found in the Leveling Guide section. The skilltree will change a little once you're about to perform the endgame transition. More information can be found in the Endgame Transition section.
GEAR
Rare Items
Wand/Scepter: Just look for high Spell Damage, Lightning Damage and Cast Speed. If possible craft leech on it. Flat lightning damage for spells is also a good mod. Alternatively you can run a Moonsorrow. It's pretty cheap and has good stats for that build. For endgame a Doryani's Catalyst is a good option too. _______________________________________________________________________________ Rings: Pretty standard: life, resistances, mana regeneration. If you get a little DEX on one ring, you don't need to grab it one the skilltree. _______________________________________________________________________________ Amulet: Pretty standard: life, resistances, mana regeneration. Look for one with a total of 52+ DEX so you don't need to grab it on the skilltree. Spell- or lightning damage is also a nice mod. _______________________________________________________________________________ Gloves: Pretty standard: life, resistances. Also try to look for a little mana. As a base I would recommend Crusader Gloves (armour/energy shield). _______________________________________________________________________________ Boots: Pretty standard: life, resistances, movement speed. Also try to look for a little mana. As a base I would recommend Crusader Boots (armour/energy shield).
Unique Items
Helmet: This is the key to our build, because +1 to all gems enables us to deal quite some damage without having a 5/6L. The Vertex is an endgame option when you have sufficient currency and capped your resistances without Geofri's Crest. _______________________________________________________________________________ Shield: Spellblock, +4% maximum resistances, little spell damage, nothing more to say. Until you can afford it, just run a high armour shield. You can also use a Rathpith Globe if you don't mind to loos the +4% maximum resistances. _______________________________________________________________________________ Belt: This belt is amazing, though in a new leage it's quite difficult to get your hands on it. Until you can afford one just roll with a decent leather belt. Life and 2-3 resistances and you are good to go. _______________________________________________________________________________ Chest: A 5 linked Lightning Coil isn't needed, though u want 5/6 sockets, so you have enough space for all your gems. Also you don't need 3 blue on your chest piece. When you can't afford a Lightning Coil yet, try to push your armour as high as possible by using a high armour chest and shield. Cloak Of Flames is also a viable and cheap option. If you don't want to use Lightning Coil but want to put Arc into your body armour (5L/6L) you can also grab a high armour/energy shield chest piece. Keep in mind though that Lightning Coil gives you a flat 30% * 79% = 23,7% physical damage reduction. So you won't be that tanky against physical damage. But with the careful use of a Granite Flask and Enduring Cry you can compensate that. _______________________________________________________________________________ What uniques to get first? Geofri's Crest is the key to this build and should be prioritized. After that try to get a Saffell's Frame and Doryani's Catalyst. The last piece would be the Lightning Coil (sadly it got quite expensive). Keep in mind that this build doesn't require those items until endgame though they are a nice addition.
Flasks
In 1.3.1 this build ran a Topaz Flask to deal better with reflect. Reflect now in 2.0 isn't that much of a problem for this character. You can use whatever Utility Flask you want (Granite Flask / Atziri's Promise / Doedre's Elixir). I would also recommend running at least 3 life flasks. Bubbling or Seething are good mods. At last I run a Quicksilver Flask for movement and positioning. Remind yourself that you need at least one flask each that: -Removes Bleeding -Removes Freeze -Removes Curses -Removes Shock
Jewels
This build has allocated one jewel socket in its normal tree and even more once you've performed the endgame transition Therefor you need to know what jewels fit this build. Aim for stats like... - Increased spell damage (while holding a shield) - Increased lightning damage - Increased cast speed (with lightning skills) - Increased maximum life ... and so on. These are crafted examples of what would suite this build. The reduced mana cost of skills mod becomes pretty handy in the endgame transition.
GEMS
Arc
As our main damage source we place ARC in the Geofri's Crest linked to: -Spell Echo -Lightning Penetration -Added Lightning/Faster Casting (If you are playing HC Life Leech would be a considerable option for more survivability, especially after the endgame transition, when your dps is high enough.)
Vaal Storm Call
Vaal Storm Call will help you to kill resistant single targets or bosses with high life faster. When it kills a shocked enemy Innervate will boost you dps for a short amount of time. Put it in the gloves/boots and link it to: -Lightning Penetration -Spell Echo -Innervate (Instead of Innervate you can also use a second Vaal Storm Call, Added Lighting Damage, Concentrated Effect or whatever you like.)
Lightning Warp
Lightning Warp is perfect for fast movement. Put it in your wand/shield and link it to: -Faster Casting -Less Duration (If you don't want to warp around you can use Flame Dash. If that's neither an option for you, you can also simply run around.)
Chaos Golem
The Chaos Brolem will help you against physical damage and keeps some enemies away from you. Because this setup dose only require two blue sockets it will fit best in the chest. To make him tanky and thus you not have to resummon him he is linked to: - Minion Life - Fortify - Life Leech (If you have a hard time coloring more than one blue socket, don't panic. He will be still very tanky without. If you somehow manage to color more blue minion speed and resitances are also an option. You can also put the golem in a Cast When Damage Taken setup together with for example Molten Shell and Tempest Shield.)
Auras
Because of the changes to Reduced Mana and Enlighten the auras section changed a bit to the previous 1.3.1. Because of the links/colors put it in gloves/boots. - Arctic Armour - Purity of Lightning - Clarity (whatever level your build suits best) - Enlighten Lv. 2+ (not mandatory)
Herald Of Thunder
Herald Of Thunder is not only a nice damage boost, but it helps us to apply curses on enemies. Put it in the shield/wand and link it with: -Curs On Hit -Conductivity/Quality Elemental Weekness (Other notable curses would be Enfeeble and Poacher's Mark for Frenzy Charges. You want to curse yourself? No problem, you can also put Innervate in the Herald Of Thunder setup together with either Enlighten Lv.2+ when you have to low mana or with Culling Strike to ensure more kills from the Herald. With this the Herald will trigger the onslaught buff, whenever it kills a shocked enemy; But don't forget to bring the curse of your choice with you and use it, when necessary.)
Warcry
When you manage to get 5 or 6 sockets on your chest, then you can put a warcry in there. You can decide on your own, which one you like better. Enduring Cry helps with physical damage reduction and life regeneration. Rallying Cry is a short boots of your dps and mana regeneration. When you have 6 sockets (neither 5 or 6 links are needed; you want 4L/2L on the chest) link it to: -Increased Duration _______________________________________________________________________________ Of course all gems should be leveled up to Lv. 20. Keep the Gemcutters Prism vendor recipe (vendor a Lv. 20 gem + 1 Gemcutters Prism for a Lv. 1 gem with 20% quality) in mind. Arc for example gains 0,5% shock chance per 1% quality. Try also to level a few Arc gems up to level 20, so that you can vaal those to get a Lv. 21 gem for a nice damage boost. Where is quality useful? - Arc (shock chance) - Lightning Penetration (lightning damage) - Added Lightning Damage (lightning damage) - Faster Casting (cast speed) - Spell Echo (spell damage) - Curse On Hit (curse effectiveness) - Herald Of Thunder (lightning damage)
BANDITS
Normal: Help Oak (flat life) Cruel: Help Alira (cast speed) (if you don't mind more cast speed just pick the passive point) Merciless: Kill all (passive point) (if you plan on using enduring cry actively in your build to boost your physical mitigation, consider taking oaks endurance charge)
STATS
The following stats are from my Lv. 91 character after the endgame transition.
Arc
Vaal Storm Call
Life, Mana, ES
Defense
 (golem's not up; hideout = normal difficulty)
LEVELING GUIDE
Until you can pick up Arc after the The Siren's Cadence quest you can level with pretty much every skill you want but the easiest way will be a combination of Firestorm and Flame Totem (ZiggyD's explanation). Don't worry, this setup will still be very powerful even we don't allocate any fire nodes in the passive. Try to look out for a four link item with at least three blue sockets and put Arc in there and link it to Added Lightning Damage (Act 1 quest reward), Added Cold Damage (Act 1 quest reward) and Faster Casting (Act 2 quest reward). Once you've made it into Act 3 pick up Lightning Penetration and switch it in for Added Cold Damage. In Act 4 you get Spell Echo. Switch it either with Added Lightning Damage or Faster Casting. For leveling I would also run a mana flask or at least a hybrid flask so that you don't have to back off and wait until your mana is refreshed but you can keep attacking. Especially in the first few levels (even with Clarity and some mana regeneration passive nodes) getting enough mana regeneration is a pain in the *ss. Of course if you don't need the flask anymore drop it for another life or a utility flask. To smooth up the leveling process try to get your hands on a Vaal Storm Call early on (trading). It speeds up things and makes boss fights much more enjoyable. While leveling not all gem's need to be fully supported by the support gems. That means your Chaos Golem will do fine without a support gem for a long time. Same goes with your Lightning Warp and Herald Of Thunder (just curse stuff yourself). But try at least to support Arc all the time with a 4L to speed things up. What I'm trying to say is that you don't have to look for gear with as many as possible links while leveling just to house all your gems, but look for gear with good stats and just support what's really important for leveling. By the way, always try to get your resistances capped. That it a great boost for your survivability. Any questions about leveling this character? What to do when? Just ask in the comments and I will probalby add it here or in the FAQ. _______________________________________________________________________________ Skilltree: Step 1 Skilltree: Step 2 Skilltree: Step 3 From here on you can go wherever you like. Though I would suggest routing into templar first. Keep in mind: - hard time killing stuff? --> pick damage nodes - feeling squishy? --> either improve gear or pick some life nodes - mana issues? --> grab some mana nodes - feeling satisfied? --> rout the stat points and pick the good stuff later on _______________________________________________________________________________ There are a few quite cheap Uniques out there, that make leveling so much easier. So if you can afford on of the following items it helps a lot: -Goldrim -Wanderlust -Asenath's Gentle Touch -Stone of Lazhwar -Perandus Signet -Thousand Ribbons
ENDGAMME TRANSITION
In this section I will explain you what is meant by the endgame transition, what you need to perform it and how it is done. It is supposed to boost you dps for endgame mapping by dropping Clarity (or run it at a very low level) and Purity Of Lighting and grabbing Wrath instead. Your character is supposed to be at least Lv. 80 to do that. _______________________________________________________________________________ What you need: - Overcapped resistances without Purity Of Lighting (fire, cold and lightning resistance over 113% in merciless; why 113%? because you still want to be resistance capped even when you run a elemental weakness mod on a map or a curse in a map hits you; 75%(max. resistance) + 4%(saffel's frame) + 34%(possible curse); with an anticipatory playstyle and the careful use of curse immune and/or resistance flasks 79% elemental resistances would be enough; please keep in mind that the active use of enduring cry also grants you 4% elemental resistance per charge) - High enough mana and mana regeneration (we will drop Clarity (or at least lower it's level significantly), so it is important that our mana regeneration is high enough; that can either be achieved by increasing our mana pool or our mana regeneration) The last piece you need is either: - the unique jewel Survival Secrets - a high rolled elreon mod (-(4 to 8) to mana cost of skills) on one of your jewelry pieces - at least two well rolled jewels with the reduced mana cost of skills mod - the unique item The Vertex (best but most expensive option) Once you have all that stuff acquired we can start to transform into our endgame mode. _______________________________________________________________________________ What you have to do: Spec out of the Heart Of Thunder cluster on the top of your skilltree. That will lower your dps temporally but when the transition is done, your dps will rise to an all time high. Now you have 7 skill points to spend elsewhere.
Heart Of Thunder Cluster
 Two of them you put in to Righteous Decree cluster in the templar area to lower the mana costs of your skills and increases your total maximum mana. With the next two skill points you allocate a jewel socket and put Survival Secrets in there. If you want to run two jewels with the reduced mana cost of skills mod you put one in there and the other one on the jewel socket, that you already have allocated. And if you decided to go the way with the elreon jewelry you can put a pure dmg jewel in there. If you have aquired The Vertex it might even be possible to drop points out of mana clusters. You have to figure out on your own how many mana/mana regeneration you need on your character but around 65 mana per second should be enough with The Vertex.
Righteous Decree + Jewel Socket
 If you now experience mana problems (not the general case) you can allocate the last point of the Righteous Decree cluster, chuck in a very low level Clarity and/or use Rallying Cry actively. With the last points remaining you can do whatever you like.
Suggestions for remaining points
- When you use Enduring Cry to boost your physical defense picking up the Endurance Charge in templar area might be an option - For more DPS the three elemental damage nodes in the shadow starting area as well as the spell damage nodes in the templar/witch starting area are viable options - Life and Energy Shield can be obtained by picking up the Melding wheel between shadow and witch - Got a nice Jewel? Grab the last Jewel socket - You like crit? Try to switch some points around and allocate a few crit nodes - There are for sure many more options, just pick what you like best (: Now you should be able to run Wrath instead of Purity Of Lightning and Clarity and your dps will be boosted quite significantly.  _______________________________________________________________________________ If you don't mind more dps you can also go magic find. Just keep your spec as it was before and switch some resistance stats for increased rarity of items found. Though keep in mind that isn't the main purpose of this character, just a little addition.
EXPLANATION
Arc itself is an incredible skill in terms of clear speed, because once you hit Lv. 21 on that Gem (Lv.20 Arc + Geofri's Crest) it chains 6 times. That means with one cast you hit up to 7 targets. Because it is a lightning spell it can shock. This build gains 15% shock chance from the passive tree and 10% from Arc itself. That combined with quality on Arc (another 10% chance to shock) and Doryani's Invitation shock chance during a flask effect result in a total of 45% chance to shock. So that will happen quite often. Shock increases the overall damage we deal by 50%. Not to mention the fact that this build makes use of the Celestial Punishment Passive Point increasing our damage, once an enemy is shocked, even further. The shock status applied by Arc works perfectly fine together with the Herald Of Thunder. When ever you kill an shocked enemy Herald Of Thunder triggers, striking enemies around you with flashes. Those flashes apply Conductivity / Quality Elemental Weakness (or whatever curse you prefer) to lower their targets lightning resistance so we can deal even more damage. Please note that in some situations, especially with hard bosses, you might want to switch to Enfeeble or even cast it manually. Therefor take out either the curse or the Curs On Hit gem in you Herald Of Thunder setup so that when you for example kill a shocked minion of a boss the curses will not overwrite them. The only downside about Arc is, that its single target damage is a bit low. To counteract that this build uses Vaal Storm Call for tough rare enemies, bosses and large groups of opponents. For defensive purpose this build runs an Lightning Coil converting some of the physical damage you take into lightning damage. Because of maximum lightning resistance and Saffell's Frame a large amount of that will be parried (30% * (75% + 4%) = 23,7%). Another defensive mechanism of this character is the already mentioned Saffell's Frame, which gives +4 to all maximum resistances, thus a great defensive boost against elemental damage. It also grants, depending on its rolls, 16-19% spell block. We also run Arctic Armour which provides defense against fire and physical damage while we are standing still. This prevents some more damage while casting for example. The Chaos Golem is our last form of defense. It does not only provide another 4% physical damage reduction but also keeps nasty monsters away from us and distracts bosses. More explanation needed? Just ask in the comments and I will add it here or in the FAQ.
FAQ
Is a 5/6L chest piece necessary? No it's not, though 6 sockets help a lot to house all your gems. Is this build hardcore viable? Yes, I think it is. For a spell caster it's quite tanky. Though please keep in mind not only the build, but also the playstyle is crucial to survive. How do you deal with single target damage? Arcs single target damage is a little low, that's right. The dmg of Herald Of Thunder and the curse it applies help a lot + Vaal Storm Call kills single targets quite fast. I'm experiencing mana problems. What should I do? Try to use Rallying Cry actively. It boosts your mana regeneration for 8 sec. Physical damage is a problem for me. What should I do? Try to use Enduring Cry actively. It can give you up to 12% flat physical mitigation. Why don't we start of with Wrath? Why all that endgame transition stuff? Because if we would start with Wrath you won't be able to run Purity Of Lightning and Clarity. That would make the leveling process less fun and harder because you barely will be resistance capped and will experience serious mana problems. Therefor the transition is supposed to be made in the endgame with good gear. Any further gear changes with the endgame transition? New uniques and stuff? No. I can't really think of something that might help us here. If you have any suggestions just drop me a comment. Is reflect a problem? No not really. Arcs low single target damage helps us to deal with this subject quite well. Usually just pop one or two flaks. You can also run a Atziri's Promise or Topaz Flask to deal better with reflect. Atziri viable? Probably not the best build for that because of arcs low single target damage. It might work with storm call or ball lightning, but I guess there are better builds out there.
VIDEOS
_________________________________________________________________________________ Other build guides: [2.0.3] Blackdepp's 2H Mace AoE Marauder (easy, cheap, strong) [2.0.3] Blackdepp's Firestorm Witch (General Gravicius Cosplay) [2.0.3] Blackdepp's Dual Flame Totem Witch I hope you like this build and my guide helped you at least a bit. If you have any questions just ask them in the comments below. Also feel free to test any versions of this and modify it as you like. If you are interested in more Path of Exile stuff you can subscribe to my Youtube Channel. Have a nice day and a great gaming experience (: IGN - Blackdepp Last edited by Blackdepp on Jan 23, 2016, 8:33:59 AM
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Hello, Storm shield spell normally don't work with the legendary shield (passiv : all dammage no blocked)
I don't know but.... | |
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Thank you soo much for this! I'm a total noob and this is my first character, but ive been following you're 1.3 guide so far and have been loving the game. I was super worried that with the changes to the game I would be lost. I don't have a ton of time to put into messing with builds and all that jazz so this is amazing, Thanks again!
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I'm glad you like it (:
(Skilltree updated) IGN - Blackdepp
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This build is crazy
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If I end up with a 5/6L what else should I link to Arc?
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I am wondering how to use innervate in this build? I have replaced faster casting with innervate with amazing results. The onslaugh buff really makes up for it, anyone tried it?
Resists trolls
Casts Joy Ninja looter Spreads tar when tickled |
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Seems like it is rather awesome, at least with Echo. 28% chance to shock at lvl 44, works well with 2,30 casts/s. Onslaught is pretty much all the time, except for bosses without a nice stream of lowbie mobs ofc.
You must unlearn what you have learned! Do or do not, there is no try! - Yoda THE man
I play, I explore, I experiment and I LOVE it! | |
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I'm wondering, why aren't you using jewels, or is that because they are still too new?
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A 5/6L is not needed for this build and won't add any significant bonus, because arc is supposed to remain in the helmet.
I have limited time right now, so I wasn't able to do much testing. As a result I haven't tried Innervate or jewels until now. I will test stuff like that later on and maybe give it a go, but you can modify this build as you wish. IGN - Blackdepp
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