Fire Witch Wand/Shield VS Searing Touch

Hey guys. I have been deeply considering rolling a fire witch recently.



Will a Searing Touch Long Staff be better end game for a fire witch than the above wand and shield combo?


Also, I am looking for some high level fire witches to comment on the strength of a fire spec witch. Can you clear end game maps easily and quickly? Are you able to tank some hits? How often do you die? Can you do chaos damage maps or elemental reflect maps with relative ease? Thanks!!

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Your current setup isn't very good so the touch is better


Anyway


An endgame one hander can have

120% fire damage
80-100% spell crit
18-22 cast speed(all 3 present is already in the 10+ exalted range, no cast speed is in the 2-3 range)
69% Critical strike multiplier(20+exal if all present)


Your offhand shield can have

+100hp
+70-80 spell damage
+98% spell crit
up to 2 more resist rolls and 1 defense/eva/es roll



Searing touch is nowhere near the level of a great wand/shield, it's really good at leveling alts but the bonus stats (200% SP, 200% crit, 20% speed, 68% multiplier) just destroys the +2gem bonus.

so what kind of skills and stats do fire witches want on gear? Are people building CI fire witches? I'm considering running rhox's fire witch build but idk.

thanks a lot for the reply! so do you think it's worth it to drop a few exalts on a searing touch with a 4 or 5 link? or would it be better to get a cheaper searing touch with less sockets but high rolled stats and try to roll the sockets myself? I have about 100 jewellers orbs.

or should I just hold out and try to save for a really good wand?

off topic: do you guys think a fire witch is more effective late game than an EK build? assuming they both have gear of about equal value.

The damage output is far higher on fireball if you can multi-hit things with the same ball, EK however always hits everything in the screen so it can vary.

2-4 clumps fireball beats it, 5-8+ EK definitely wins out.


Reflect physical is very hard to mitigate though(as opposed to elemental), which is why I don't like to go EK.

thanks a lot for the info! you mention problems with physical reflect as ek, how about elemental reflect as fireball?

It's almost mandatory to play with 75-80% elemental resists, so 20% elemental reflect only hurts you for 4%, a 4000 damage fireball crit reflect would only do 160 damage, not too bad.


EK however can't be mitigated without tons of armor, so if they reflect that 4000 physical crit attack you'll get hurt for 800 damage per target, very easy to die if you don't pay attention.

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Fluttershypony wrote:

It's almost mandatory to play with 75-80% elemental resists, so 20% elemental reflect only hurts you for 4%, a 4000 damage fireball crit reflect would only do 160 damage, not too bad.


EK however can't be mitigated without tons of armor, so if they reflect that 4000 physical crit attack you'll get hurt for 800 damage per target, very easy to die if you don't pay attention.

Ahh thats very useful info. Thank you. I think ill make the fire witch. The question now is, how much should i spend on a searing touch?

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Fluttershypony wrote:

Searing touch is nowhere near the level of a great wand/shield, it's really good at leveling alts but the bonus stats (200% SP, 200% crit, 20% speed, 68% multiplier) just destroys the +2gem bonus.

don't forget that a searing touch can be 5 or 6 linked!

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Slisk wrote:

Ahh thats very useful info. Thank you. I think ill make the fire witch. The question now is, how much should i spend on a searing touch?

For less than 5 link, you should get one with decent rolls under 2gcp very easy!