Racing the witch... or not... early witch build buffs

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Hilbert wrote:

Those special nodes are not the problem.


The problem is that you have to walk 2 paths and 1 path isn't good.


Example 1:
You take life nodes, at the ES part--->Next lifenodes 7 points away


Example 2:
You got one offensive way-> First nodes in 4 more levels.

This leaves 2 break out options one towards the Templar and 1 towards the shadow Tree.

Both have advantages and disadvantages.

On the one hand I agree, the 2 path mechanism is particularly harsh for the witch, particularly with the weak-ish damage boosts until you get to elemental-specific (or go around the spell damage + blast radius ring for AoE approaches)....

But I disagree about the unimportance of notables providing stat boosts. I think the special nodes are a significant part of the problem. 20 stat points (10 base mana, 4% "free" spell damage), and ZERO flexibility outside of straight intelligence where virtually every other class has some options outside of "lol wear an amulet." Strength gives base life, which while I understand is not how the witch works, there still needs to be some survivability (perhaps a "+20 base energy shield" node? That would ROCK!)


Stats from morning race: Witch did a bit better in this Timezone, veryyyy interesting
# EXP Rank Avg
Duelist 87 1126753 194.71
Marauder86 1111008 193.83
Ranger 72 841142 228.13
Shadow 76 814761 213.63
Templar 39 1271689 204.21
Witch 56 843619 223.25


#20 witch was 169th, (only) 49 ranks away from a perfect distribution

8
10
19
21
42
50
52
62
75
84
114
118
123
130
143
144
159
162
164
169

Ran stats on the latest solo race, so here's an excuse to bump this discussion about race-buffing the witch.

Top 20 Witch ranks and levels:
RANK LEVEL
20 / 30
24 / 29
42 / 28
50 / 27
71 / 26
79 / 25
84 / 25
104 / 24
109 / 24
136 / 23
141 / 23
143 / 23
148 / 23
157 / 22
173 / 21
180 / 20
183 / 20
217 / 20
226 / 19
233 / 19

Yeah that's right.... 3 hour race and you get points for ranking at LEVEL 19!! (Not a bad way to be for witch players I suppose)

Here's a look at the stats. All you need to know is shorter = bad, taller = good for these bars.




And a summary recap of proposed changes similar to the way the duelist starting area was buffed:
•Lack of +stat/+effect nodes: Virtually every other class gets +20 stat nodes with additional effects... I suggest moving the Deep Wisdom node in to the early mana ring at the very least
•Lack of flexibility: Literally zero flexibiltiy within 6-7 highway nodes, ZERO notables for anything outside of a might and agility about 9-10 away (notably, the Marauder has a +20dex/+20int node)... I suggest adding a notable or two to add Str and/or Dex. Swapping a current life node to a fitness node starts to address this.
•Long travel time for tank/DPS combo: The marauder has +48% damage by level 6, and can then take +21% life by level 8. The witch has +9% speed and +20% damage by 6, and can't take ANY tank nodes after that until level 10. I suggest shuffling nodes to allow an easier transition between tank and gank, and combining/buffing early dps nodes to condense the levels needed to do so....
•Tank is far away and lacking: The witch has zero mitigation, and has to get through 3-4 nodes before getting any tank at all. Early game ES tanking is weak without enough shield and ZERO mitigation (no str to buff with armor early game). I suggest moving the tank ring in closer and pushing the mana ring out slightly
•No early mitigation/survivability for witch: Although "range is tank" Applies here, you simply can't race viably fast and kite all the time. I suggest adding a skill that adds damage mitigation to the witch similar to molten shell. A "frost shell" that freezes nearby enemies on explosion would be excellent for this defensive purpose.

Gonna put in a thoughtful response to this tomorrow, gotta go sleep for now, keep this page bookmarked.

make the starting wand 12% :)

I do race with witch a lot, and doing pretty good at act 1, its just act2 where I start to fall behind, I think the main issue is that I really do prefer str/dex armor, because ES is pretty useless if you get hit constantly. At act2, my equipment options start to become pretty bad with 14 str/dex.

One race i was doing awesome and then i dropped a boots with 15% runspeed 7 fire resist, 7 chaos resist just before entering the western forest. I equiped it and closed inv again and 2 minutes later I died. I checked my inv and because of the rare boots I swapped out with +dex bonus, I failed requirements for boots/helmet and chest (which I start equiping in act2), so ran around pretty naked.

I would love the +30 int node to be replaced with a node with +14 to all attributes.

This would enable a lot of dual armors and quartz sceptre with 28 requirements that will be endgame material for a 3 hour race, while still keeping us away from the stronger full str or full dex items.

Wel maybe this would be pretty bad for normal leugue sorcs, missing out 16 int. And we might lack int requirements for full ES items including wands.

edit:

I got a better idea:

Raplace Lord of the dead by a +14 to all attributes node. This way there is a usefull bridge between the left and right path and we need 1 less skillpoint to take the lifenodes. Move the lord of the dead circle 1 spot up. Summoners will need 1 more skillpoint, but they tend to need dex/str anyway for supportgems, I actually think summmoners would be very happy with this change.

Or just place the node below Lord of the dead, I am likely willing to spend 2 skillpoints to take it. It might make me consider to do the deep dweller quest.

Yeah I put a flexibility-type node in my passive-revamp to the witch starting area.

Picture below:

Note that I've since tweaked this:


Savant Node become +10% ES, +20 Int node
Arcane Might becomes Adaptive Shielding... +20 Base ES, +20 DEX (no STR)
The rightmost life node becomes a fitness Node (+10% life, +20 STR)
The Deep Wisdom node is as it is now (loses the +20 Base ES). Deep wisdom move to the bottom of the mana ring (so you have to spend 3 total points to get +20 Int and +20 dex, as with Duelist separation.)

Witch start is so bad compared to the other classes now (with the duelist buff), I agree with pretty much any buff to witch start. Give her better notable passives closer to the start, or move the notable passives she has, closer to witch, so it's actually worth going witch as opposed to shadow or templar.

Witch is the only class without any good early life nodes, and everything else is sub par. It makes the templar start imbalanced compared to witch in terms of life, hp, energy shield, mana regen, and damage).

Templar can go mana regen, elemental/aoe, into life nodes and all resist. Witch can go to mana regen into shitty life nodes, into worse energy shield nodes (compared to body and soul) .... or can go same start as shadow, except not have any life nodes at the end.

I think eventually, via buffing, there will be pure notables in the tree (that'd be cool).

I will be going Witch every race this weekend, just to buck this stigma. This should be interesting.

Will there be any improvements to this in 1.0?

Edit: I bumped this because it's still relevant even if the stats are old, and the discussion is virtually unchanged. And because somebody asked about 1.0 in the last post.

Found this thread and looking at the witch tree there really hasn't been much improvement.

I'm bumping this discussion because I poked at playing witches again early Season 5 and it's ego-destroying to be so far behind even playing well.

A couple of buffs have taken place, namely the savant node now gives 20% more elem damage, which is a decent improvement, but several core problems remain:

1) Early game single-target DPS is hilariously bad, ESPECIALLY with the 2h damage buff. This needs a straight up active skill addition. I would suggest a single-target lightning strike or fire skill available from breaking some eggs. Arctic Armor requires dex, so without a flexibility node its fairly useless very quickly. Add a +des/+ES node to fix this.

2) The split-path concept with the witch is totally blown out of the water for racing by the mana nodes sitting in the way. The paths need to be connected through a USEFUL tanking / stats node. (+flat ES, +int, +mana at a MINIMUM). Alternatively, swap the location of the entire tanking ring and the mana ring (leaving the initial 40% recharge intact).

3) Condense the 3-node ring to the left to 2 nodes on each path as I outlined above, with the buffed numbers. The witch just takes too damn long to develop reasonable capabilities.


None of this will drastically affect end-game play but it'll make the witch less terrible.

zero witches in the top 100 in the 1h descent. Just saying.