Lightning Witch lvl 51, why low dps? Spark/shock totem?

Then use some mana points in the witch starting area. Don't let anyone tell you your build sucks in general - try it out first and change what doesn't work.
I have some mana nodes too and I need them - Faster Casting, LMP, fire pen, crit chance, crit damage and Fireball really eat into your mana pool at over 100 mana per second. If you don't have a high clarity aura and some mana and mana regeneration, it just doesn't work. If people tell you you don't need mana or mana regeneration as a witch, I'd like them to show me how I can maintain 3 auras even with reduced mana and spam a high-cost fireball or any other dps spell. Yes, I could stop using discipline or purity, but why would I give up 25-30 all resist and ~1K shield ? No thx, I'd rather take 5 mana nodes.

And that is my suggestion to you too. Don't let people who don't play your character tell you how to play your character. use the nodes you think you need. You'll have a ton of respec points in lategame anyway.

Arc does surprisingly high dps, problem is it's insane mana cost which is impossible to sustain without blood magic, even with every regen node I doubt it's possible.

Never stack any crit for lightning spells, they have insanely low base crit that you're better off using cast speed or more spell power.


Assuming you have a quality 20 arc with shocking blows(and that talent below)

Arc at rank 18 has

44% shock chance (+1% for every 25% crit rate on gear)
380 base damage
1.25 attacks per second plus 15% from witch+templar nodes and 45% from gem


Assuming you have a modest +100% spell(lightning/elemental) from talents, 100% from wand, 100% from a good shield plus jewelry

Arc with penetration-castspeed-ironwill(250str) and 5th link is life leech

You will do 3400 damage per second with 44% shock(twice per sec) and resistance against lightning is capped at 35%.

3-target limit really hurts arc though, and using chain gem just kills your damage output.

I'm just waiting for the next balance patch to maybe up arc's target limit or something before I reroll or respect to lightning+bloodmagic.

Thank you both for replying!

Yea I am gona stick with my build, but making some changes, including more strength (for iron will) and Hex Master.

The mana use is insane, yes Kiedel. That's why I also think it's funny the guy on page 1 said lose all mana and int nodes.. It's just not possible to do so. I need them.

Never take any crit for lightning spells.. I find this hard to swallow. I crit alot, thanks to the few crit nodes I got + gear. Adding that up with high chanse to shock is just awesome if you ask me. Spell damage + lightning damage, taking some of those too.

Right now I am going for more strength and life. Closing up to Merciless, and think I am gona need it.

If you do the math you'll see crit is extremely awful point for point compared to straight damage or cast speed for arc's 4% base crit.

By itself(plus quality) and with static blows arc has a 44% chance to shock, no need to get crit if that's your intent.

So your passive tree is missing huge areas. Storm cast and all it's nodes should be picked up along with Static Blows and it's 2 areas. Basically the idea behind any lightning build is to keep 3 levels of shock on mobs all the time. This is done by increasing the chance to shock and increasing shock duration. Once you have this and keep your debuffs going you will see your dps go up.

I got Arc with 15%.

I already got Storm Cast, Lightning Walker and Static Blows. And most of the lightning nodes around them (missing some around Storm Cast, but getting those soon.

What do you mean by "your passive tree is missing huge areas"?

This is how I am planning out now. Removed all of of the critical nodes after advice from you guys. Taken Hex master and all the good Lightning nodes.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAuMEswVbB2MHpQ5IEZYR2xOeFE0UsBVQFm8ZLhmFGjgabB8CJIskqiepJ-0pTyycLR8ucDN2NsU26TowOtg8LT0PRKtG10myTdhVrlXGVytdxl3yYG1nvWz2bRlzU3YRerh8u31TffV-M36vf8aCEIKbgziLjIx2jRmPRo-mkFWSOJuhnYCdrqIAoi6io6SRpwinhKyYtQS1hbaGtz64k7ndwbTB88QVxPbGrs9l0NDUj9gk2V_a3d2M3fPfsOAS4XPjauQi5OzmTOw47SDub-8O8B_xdvIv89306ffX

I must have been looking at your old build. I should have read thru the rest of comments. Your new build looks solid. I am in act 2 on cruel and using lightning build along with summons. I put alot into summons because I felt that lightning might not do consistent enuff shock stacks. My minions take most agro and so I haven't invested in life nodes. Started to invest heavily in energy shield passives. I have an amulet that I re-rolled to get great plus to all attributes and also took the 25 strength and 25 dex that you took close to our starting point to help with some gear and gem requirements. Over all I like this new build you are working with. Has your dps improved? I know that there are alot more blue stat mobs with more resist and they also start having curse immunity sometimes. That is annoying to me since the game doesn't introduce you to this until the endgame. Without any curses and bonus to lightning resist you would probably die before you could kill some of the more tuff mobs. Good fortune to you in your lightning build.

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why low dps?

Because game no correct calculate project/chain/DoT/AoE spells. Do not look at labels

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Karble wrote:

I must have been looking at your old build. I should have read thru the rest of comments. Your new build looks solid. I am in act 2 on cruel and using lightning build along with summons. I put alot into summons because I felt that lightning might not do consistent enuff shock stacks. My minions take most agro and so I haven't invested in life nodes. Started to invest heavily in energy shield passives. I have an amulet that I re-rolled to get great plus to all attributes and also took the 25 strength and 25 dex that you took close to our starting point to help with some gear and gem requirements. Over all I like this new build you are working with. Has your dps improved? I know that there are alot more blue stat mobs with more resist and they also start having curse immunity sometimes. That is annoying to me since the game doesn't introduce you to this until the endgame. Without any curses and bonus to lightning resist you would probably die before you could kill some of the more tuff mobs. Good fortune to you in your lightning build.

Ok, yea I am gona try this build atleast, see what happends. In act 3 Cruel just before Piety now, and doing fine.

My dps on ARC is around 700 right now. 6200 on Molten Shell (but my armor is so low so can't use it close up to enemies at this point). My gear is not the best, lacking ES and armor for sure. But after taking the shock nodes and making Arc - iron will - elemental pro - lightning penetration linked I crush everything in front of me. Just awesome that shock effect :)

My Spark totem is a lifesaver. I put up a totem when facing harder enemies, so they attack that one instead of me. I don't even have to use Arc at this point, really... my totem kills everything as long as I have that one up. But it kills slowly compared to arc, tho.

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LosiD wrote:

This is how I am planning out now. Removed all of of the critical nodes after advice from you guys. Taken Hex master and all the good Lightning nodes.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAuMEswVbB2MHpQ5IEZYR2xOeFE0UsBVQFm8ZLhmFGjgabB8CJIskqiepJ-0pTyycLR8ucDN2NsU26TowOtg8LT0PRKtG10myTdhVrlXGVytdxl3yYG1nvWz2bRlzU3YRerh8u31TffV-M36vf8aCEIKbgziLjIx2jRmPRo-mkFWSOJuhnYCdrqIAoi6io6SRpwinhKyYtQS1hbaGtz64k7ndwbTB88QVxPbGrs9l0NDUj9gk2V_a3d2M3fPfsOAS4XPjauQi5OzmTOw47SDub-8O8B_xdvIv89306ffX

This build is better, but not perfect. To make a good build first decide what you need (like spell damage and hp for instance), then prioritize what attributes you must get.

You use purity which takes 40% of mana pool to get 24 allres, calc how much support nodes you will spend to support it. There is a 30% allres option for a cost of 4 nodes.
40% mana reg is a good node, 8% mana or 20% reg are not.
Each int node gives +5 mana and +2% ES, but ES has low priority for hp builds, its like a bonus. Remember you get 4 mana for every level of 100 levels, also can use mana flasks. You dont die if your mana is 0, but you do die if hp is 0, and loose 15% of exp.

If you take 250 base spell damage, +130-180% from shield+wand, +60-80% from iron will, +60% from passive talents - its + 285% spell dmg. 250 * 3.85 = 962, lets take all those minor talents - its additional 80% damage, 250 * 0.8 = +200 dmg, at the cost of 18 talents = +11 damage per talent. There are rings with +% spell damage and better wands/shields, they will further reduce those talents usefulness.
There are wands with 110% spell damage, but no wands with +110% HP.

Dont go double or long path somewhere to get good nodes, check if you can get them closer. Its good you went marauder area for some hp and strength, now you see marauder can make a good lightning witch.

When you finish making build - do a sum of everything you got, then try to make it better by taking more useful nodes and less useless.