Witch Ascendancy's are Trash Tier

Yeah I went with demon form because +5 spell levels....

Only to lose 50% of my kit whilst doing so...

And here's the kicker... I have spirit on my gear OTHER than my weapon... but I STILL lose ALL of my other summons... so I sacrifice survivability for more damage output... not that it matters because mobs tend to ignore your pets anyways...

But now I also take more dmage in addition to what a mob deal...

how does this path benefit me AT ALL... it only benefits me when I can deal uncontested damage.. which is NEVER

Agreed very poor design. They say they want to make it more acessible then add horrible asendancies that are bound to mess up most early builds.

Like why have so many ascendancies that doesn't work early game?
Like Infernalist...i mean really? Become ignited for some more crit? Then more shit that causes you to take damage, but really nothing that giveS you leech or regen etc.

All of it is also super vague and hard to get and it seems like you need multiple Asendancies in conjuction for it to even work.

i stopped playing my witch around 32 as blood because i keep doing damage to myself lol. i love the class but damn now im a warrior

1 of my character infernalist and like summoner - its bullshit. I have idea that MAY BE its not the worst self caster in demon form. Like you taking "damage taking as" and play CI node + demon form + demon flame etc. From this point it may be playable in the late game cause you have good boost from form. But like summoner its total crap. The dog is bugged. Or other option for selfcast - take 75% reserve life to get "lowlife" - > mana for archmage , spirit for some nerf CoS/CoC stacks,but its not summoner

Dog have 1200hp and 300hp regen when you get it first time around lvl 25 and your hp around 500 -> dogs dont have 300 regen as it wrote and dying like fat skeleton.

Also a huge problem that witch doesnt desecrate. Wish to use unearth on bosses? forget about that - bosses may not have body`s. With to use DD/VD/Zombie - same issue? Not only ascendancy.

Another "fun" story that you wanna be life stacker at some point and you have 0 HP nodes in the tree.

Need to think outside the box for Infernalist summoner to make best use of the ascendancy, there's a couple of nodes on the left side of the tree that combined with the damage reduction from the pet and the damage taken as fire node can make you pretty tanky. Looks like an interesting way to build vs the usual ES stacking route.

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Mortiferius#1833 wrote:

No idea why they shipped it like this.

They haven't. It's an early access. Just because AAA Devs have ruined the perception of what 'early' in 'early access' means, doesn't mean GGG has. It's a rough game that -has not shipped-.

As to the actual thread, playing a blood witch myself, getting a ton of extra healing via crits, AND being beefy enough to just eat major telegraphed hits like Silverbacks slam between having double max Health and double max ES with Grim Harvest is better than I expected. Plus it's two extra aura sockets at no extra cost beyond the support isn't the worst. And let's be real, the spells having a HP and Mana cost isn't an issue. Their mana cost is totally irrelevant, though the HP cost isn't fully irrelevant, it often is. It was well before that I tried to replace my Mana flask with an extra health flask.

I think a lot of people who pick blood mage don't realize you're opting into a crit build, like it or not.

When I say "Shipped" , I mean picked it as one of the ascendency classes for the Early Access and stamped ready to be released to the public.

Imho Infernalist needs the following at the very least to be viable...

* Demon form should still allow you to keep your spirit and available permanent summons.... I'M ok with them disabling non spell skills, but I see no reason why you are unable to keep your spirit based army. Demon Form description says nothing about sacrificing your spirit either, so most people get tricked into picking this class for minionss buils due to the doggo plus the occasional burst dps you can get due to +5 to all skills while in demon form. Would be so cool to have your entire existing army gain five levels briefly

* For the Infernal Flame, allow you to switch your mana potion to a second heath potion, make the infernal flame bar have 4 times as much energy as a regular mana bar AND make the time to empty it closer to like 5 seconds of idle (right now it's 2 seconds without casting anything and a whopping ten secons to get it full back down)... Also would be great if the node that scales army damage based on infernal flame value was a gradient from 0 to 100% increased army damage. That way it would promote a playstyle of always trying to keep your bar almost filled and risking to take a damage hit so your army does twice as much damage... It just doesn't make any sense to do all this risk/reward for a measly 20% minion damaage increase, which is basically two nodes on the regular tree...

* For the getting ignited when you crit, the crit damage bonus needs to be like 300% more crit damage, not 30% more... Why Would potentially kill myself every time I do crit when I only get a 30% crit damage increase out of it...

* The take more damage as fire and chaos node should be it's own micro branch that you can opt out. It's a niche playstyle that requires an endgame build, and it should not block access to getting good stuff like the reserve 25% life to gain spirit based on your max life node....

Feel with those changes the tree would at least be usable and somewhat good... But for now i'M going to pick like the 4% life, 12% spell damage nodes and the doggo and call it a day...

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Triobian#0481 wrote:

So after spending 10+ hours to get to the ascendancy (and beating it first try luckily) I get to do the age old tradition of ascendancy, the Build Defining thing. Only to find out... They SUCK.

Infernalist ascendancies are as follows:
"Take more damage, take more damage, take more damage, take more damage, or get a dog that takes damage for you."

Blood Mage is a bit different:
1) Penalize you for ascension as now all skills require life and mana.
2) Infinite curses is dope
3) Nothing else in the Ascension tree feels build defining, and they barely feel useful or impactful on gameplay.

What happened to the POE1 Ascensions that actually CHANGED how you played, or defined the entire build?

Extremely disappointed.

Did you try adding your input into the feedback section? Or are you just another D4 player who think whining actually works here?

As someone who rolled Bloodmage day 1, I can confirm it is an utter garbage tier ascendancy. I rerolled Sorc and the power difference is absolutely comical. (Buff Witch PLEASE DO NOT NERFT SORC AGAIN OMG)

My main issue with the ascendancies is not the self damage aspect but that they kinda shoehorn you into specific things far more than in poe 1.
Blood mage? Nothing minion related and CI out of the question thanks to the life cost of spells.
Infernalist? Fire , fire and more fire.
What about chaos, what about all the other minions that not fire based, what about the curses. I know there will be a 3rd ascendancy but so far they are just lackluster, more limiting than power giving.