3.0 Cmilles Orb of Storm Witch

This build is a beginner friendly Elementalist Witch that pushes Orb of Storms to some of it's furthest capacities. This was my primary build in the Essence League and I've recreated her in each league since. As sort of a play on words and because I play on predictive mode, you may see me refer to this build as the OOS build. 2 reasons: 1) Orb of Storms (OoS) and, 2) the number of actions this character makes will sometimes cause your client to get out of sync even with a latency of 50-80 thus the /OOS command is useful for predictive players. Enough of my poor puns, lets get into it!


Advantages of this build:

1) Unlike a lot of PoE builds, this build is playable starting at lvl 5. Meaning you can build and grow this build and adjust as you see fit rather than having to wait 50+ levels to start playing the character you want.

2) For the most part, this build is economically friendly for new players. There's only one unique that's a budget breaker.

3) Uses a secondary skill that most people throw on for on hit effects as it's primary damaging skill. It's fun watching enemies get shredded by an off Meta skill.

Disadvantages/Weaknesses:

1) Highly mobile bosses or proximity shields can be a problem since positioning inside your Orb of Storm radius is vital.

2) Reflected Damage. This is one of the few exiles I've made that I've truly had to watch my reflected damage enemies simply due to the sheer number of hits she produces.

3) As with most low life characters, building a healthy ES pool (especially after the 3.0 nerfs to energy shield) can be a bit challenging.

Basic Set Up

As the name implies, this build focuses on Orb of Storms as it's primary damaging skill. However, getting OOS to a point that it's damage and speed is high enough to clear maps and groups of enemies requires triggering it's effect as frequently as possible. In order to achieve this the use of Elemental hit is paired with Orb of Storms. Since Elemental Hit has the Lightning skill tag, each attack of Elemental hit procs Orb of Storms so long as you are within the area of Orb of Storms.

By adding Assassin's Mark with Curse on hit to Elemental Hit, your will crit often enough to keep your Elemental Overload going constantly. Thanks to the sheer number of hits this character produces, you can rely on RNG to ensure at least 1 crit per 8 seconds considering you should be attacking approximately 7x a second with Elemental Hit, and another 7x a second with Orb of Storms.

It's important to note that since OOS has a fairly low damage output, you want all the damage you can get to go through. For this reason Lightning Penetration is vital for taking down tougher enemies.

Required Skill Gems

Elemental Hit (Requires lvl 1) DO NOT LEVEL PAST LVL 1 UNLESS YOU CAN SUSTAIN THE MANA COST
Orb of Storms (Requires lvl 4)
Herald of Thunder (Requires lvl 16)
Assassin's Mark (Requires lvl 24)
Discipline (Requires lvl 24)
Wrath (Requires lvl 24)

Required Uniques

Karui Charge
Shavronne's Wrappings <Budget Breaker
Saemus' Gift
Quill Rain

Required Keystones

Pain Attunement
Elemental Overload

Forbidden Keystone

Resolute Technique
Eldrich Battery

Both are very poor options since they directly negate or penalize the benefits of the above mentioned Keystones.

Required Ascendancy

Elementalist
Below shows my choices of Ascendancy points and the two notable passives that make this build.

Mastermind of Discord is essential for this build as the use of Elemental Hit to trigger Orb of Storms satisfies all of the criteria for this notable passive. In plain English, each time you use Elemental hit to trigger OOS, you gain 25% penetration to all elements since it has all three tags.

Paragon of Calamity helps keep you from getting facerolled by elemental reflect rare monsters and uniques like K'aj Y'ara'az in the Apex of Sacrifice.


The remaining two points can be assigned to the golems or proliferation. My personal preference is the golems for the increased effect of buffs and additional golem, but either choice will work.



Passive Skill Tree

Your Passive skill tree should focus on gathering as much lightning damage and penetration as possible, while also picking up energy shield and the above noted Keystones.

Picking up nodes for Increased Area of Effect helps with the reach of Orb of Storms, but do note that area damage does NOT affect Orb of Storms' damage. Invest in area only if you feel like you need more reach. Personally, the reach feels better to play with and is worth the 6 point investment to me, but is not 100% necessary.

Below is the passive tree that is currently being ran on my lvl 86 version of an OOS witch. Jewel sockets are filled with lightning damage, accuracy, crit chance or energy shield increasing jewels.


Itemization and Gem Socketing

Disclaimer: The items I'm going to link as what I am currently using, and does not depict IDEAL gear. There is much room for improvement on many of the pieces that I will show. The purpose of showing the gear is to show the noteable parts that make this build viable. So please save the flaming of my gear for somewhere else :P


Universal Stats to Aim for:

Energy Shield (as you will be running low life + Shavronne's Wrappings this will be your life pool)
Resistances
Accuracy (This is a lesser stat but important to make sure you can proc your Curse on Hit)
Movement Speed
Attack Speed

Helm

Any Rare Energy Shield based helmet crafted with an Essence of Horror https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Essence_of_Horror

This is where your Orb of Storm will be socketed as it increased your Elemental Damage by another 30% multiplicative bonus.


Gloves

Any Rare Energy Shield based gloves crafted with Essence of Insanity https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Essence_of_Insanity (Ideally Fingerless Silk Gloves for more damage: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Fingerless_Silk_Gloves)

This is where your Elemental Hit will be socketed as the bonus attack speed will allow you to proc your Orb of Storms faster.


Body Armour

Shavronne's Wrappings
The gems that can be socketed in Shavronne's is up to your personal choice.

Weapon/Quiver

Saemus' Gift
Quill Rain

The Quill Rain is a staple piece of this build. It's extreme attack speed allows you to proc Orb of Storm faster than any other means in the game when paired with a lightning attack skill. Since Orb of Storm is a spell, it is not penalized by Quill rain. Additionally, we are not using Elemental Hit for damage just to proc OOS, therefore the damage penalty from Quill Rain is inconsequential.

Saemus' Gift helps raise your Lightning damage and gives you a slightly better crit chance for making sure your Elemental Overload procs.



Amulet

Karui Charge

This fated unique is easy to obtain and grants several stats that we are looking for, including attack speed and accuracy.


Rings, Boots, and Belt

These are our stat sticks. There are no required assets that any of these need to have on them outside the basic guidelines from above.

You will however need to find a place to socket Disciplne with a lvl 20 Blood Magic Support somewhere in your gear. I opted to put mine in my boots since blood magic is dangerous for any other skill used on this build and needed to be isolated from the other skills. You will want to link Disciple with Blood magic as doing so will drop your character to 32% remaining life. This satisifies the criteria for the Pain attunement Keystone and raises your Orb of Storm damage by 30% (multiplicative). The bow (once fully linked) will have additional benefits for your golems/cast on damage taken since it allows 6 sockets just like your body piece.

Alternate Set Up/Substitutions


Final Notes

This build is to be taken as a proof of concept and a fun to play build. So far, the highest Tier of map I have been able to complete with my current gear and set up is Tier 15 with a bit of struggle, simply due to monster damage (and as you can see from the links my gear is not exactly ideal just yet). That being said, respect the limitation of the character and know that it will not have an easy time dealing with harder content such as the Shaper. This is not a character that will plow through content passively, but is still strong enough to make for an enjoyable end game experience and fun leveling process from start to finish.

She has a fun play style that involves strategic placement of both your Orb of Storms and yourself. I enjoy playing her and I hope you do as well. There are several variations that can be made with her and I encourage you to try out different variations. Since this was my Essence baby, I am a bit dead set on including the Essence mods into the build, but are not fully required.

Give it a shot, try her out, and let me know what you think. If you have a question on something about the set up feel free to post it or message me and I'll try to update the guide as needed or respond as possible.

THANKS! GLHF!