Witch - Poet's Pen Volatile Dead + Bodyswap Necromancer - Soul Tether + Vaal Pact Edition - Forum

Hello Friends,

this is gonna be my first real buildguide and still a work in progress. I would appreciate constructive criticism.

So, what is this build?
An old concept: Poet's Pen Volatile Dead, brought up to speed and current requirements of a build.
We (guildmate and i) invested about 20Ex into this Build, plus the Amulet we crafted ourselves.
I am currently playing this in my Stream and wanted to do a Guide for it. If you have Questions, comment here, ask in chat, or join the discord linked on my stream and message me there.

For those, who just want the PoB: PasteBin

Mechanics Overview

Olden-but-golden Poet's Pen (Mainhand DD + Desecrate + Spell Cascade | Offhand VD + Bodyswap + Spellcascade in those orders from top to bottom!)
Soul Tether for Overleech to Energy Shield.
Glorious Vanity (Doryani) to convert Avatar of Fire to Corrupted Soul for extra ES
Watcher's Eye with Anger Leech to have Leech without needing it on an amulet.
Precursor's Emblem with "You have Vaal Pact while at maximum Endurance Charges" and as many (up to 2 more) additional Endurance or Power Charge modifiers you can afford)
Rare Ring with "Curse Enemies with Level (8 or 12) Assassin's Mark on Hit"
Necromancer Ascendancy (also skill order)
1. Essence Glutton: For extra Regeneration.
2. Plague Bringer: Extra AoE and damage (most of the time), also we need this to get
3. Corpse Pact: The secret of out speed.
4. Mistress of Sacrifice: For our CwDt Spirit Offering for extra ES. (also, there is no real other option IMO)

Defense

~6k Health
Soul Tether and Corrupted Soul provide us with a ton of maximum Energy Shield, increased even further by any ES you get on your Gear (i have ~3k in my Hideout, about 5k with Spirit Offering active, but my Gear only has mediocre ES on Helmet and Gloves, and nothing on Boots, so it can easily be even more).
Because of Soul Tether we can only Leech ES or gain it on Hit, so we need to use some kind of Leech, easiest option here is a Watcher's Eye with Anger Leech. Since Regeneration is pretty much irrelevant, might as well use Vaal Pact:
Precursor's Emblem gives us Vaal Pact while at maximum (3) Endurance Charges. Amulet, Ring, and "Disciple of the Unyielding"(anointed Node) give us 3 minimum Endurance Charges. That gives us permanent Vaal Pact.
CwDT + Spirit Offering (for extra max ES, see above) + Wave of Conviction (for Elemental Exposure) + Steel Skin (for a bit of extra defense).

My equipped Gear at the time of writing this guide:

Required Gear

Preferably with 12% Attack speed. Our Buildenablers.

Soul Tether provides us with a ton of Survivability/Sustain when combined with enough leech.

Since we are using Anger anyways, as it is a ton of damage, this is almost a no-brainer (upgrade option to go for Anger Leech and Anger Pen).

Socket this so Avatar of Fire is in Radius. Don't forget to check for the other surrounding Nodes, as they get changed randomly and you might get some juice ones near your default pathing.

Other Gear Suggestions

This provides us with Vaal Pact and some survivability. On this we want "You have Vaal Pact while at maximum Endurance Charges" and as many (up to 2 more) additional Endurance or Power Charge modifiers.

~~We need The Red Dream to generate the Endurance Charges needed for Vaal Pact via Precursor's Emblem. No need upgrading this to The Red Nightmare, we dont use the Block Chance anyways.~~ This is obsolete with 3 min Endurance Charges.

Increased Spelldamage and More attackspeed, sign me up!

As we dont need a 6Link, we can just grab the huge flat Life and %fire damage from this. Go for as high fire damage as you can afford.

Assassins Mark is a nice damage boost, also with this you can think about dropping Power Charge on Critical Strike Support from your Barrage Setup, freeing up a socket to be used for example with Culling Strike Support.

The "Nearby Enemies have -9% to Fire Resistance" is extremely nice for Bosses, especially if you just Bodyswap-dance around/on the boss.

We dont need Movement Speed on boots, so these are our #1 opportunity to get some Resistances (and most likely Strength, as Kaoms needs 191 Str).

Gem Setups

You can also just check the Gear Section above for Links and Setups.
For Main- and Offhand use my setup's active Skill Gems in order as they are listed here, as the order in which they are triggered is relevant.
Mainhand 3L:

Detonate Dead
Desecrate
Spell Cascade Support

Offhand 3L:

Volatile Dead
Bodyswap
Spell Cascade Support

Gloves:

Barrage
Faster Attacks Support
Power Charge on Critical
Combustion Support

Helmet:

Anger
Herald of Ash
Precision
Flame Dash

Boots:

If you do not have 3 min Endurance Charges: Enduring Cry (Not to be triggered, you will want to use this on cooldown in bossfights)
If you have 3 min Endurance Charges: Steel Skin
Cast when Damage Taken Support
Wave of Conviction
Spirit Offering

Update 1 (18.02.2020)

So, this isn't how i planned to update this guide, but in the meantime until i find more time:

Updated PoB-Link above
Bought new (12% Attack Speed) Poet's Pens (4 of them)
Added Weaponswap Singletarget-Setup (See PoB)
Got a new Amulet (Stats on it are pretty straightforward):
Ditched Red Dream and Enduring Cry, instead got 3 Minimum Endurance Charges, keeping me permanently at Maximum Endurance Charges for Precursor's Emblem.
Finally got the (quite required) "Non-Channeling Skills have -# to Total Mana Cost" enchant.

TODO: