Lvl 35 Witch, I feel super weak

Just got to the Faridun fight, and it kinda dawned on me how hard it is to actually powerup.

I get nothing from leveling up, no stats at all, except a single skill point. And with that, I can either 1) increase my defense, 2) increase my offense, 3) Do nothing, put it into a stat so I can actually the skills I get from my skill/spirit/support gems (because if I don't have the right Int, that lvl 9 gem is completely useless).

I've got some pretty good gear and some cool looking skill gems . . . that I can't equip, because I had to put points into offense so I could actually kill mobs. My offense skills aren't great (minions suck, and I can still only summon 2 of them, aside from the scepter minions), but I can get around. My defense is non-existent because what's the point in putting anything into defense if you 1) can't use your current-level gems, or 2) kill mobs.


It's all too much, IMO. I either fall behind on being able to use my skills at all/equip gear, or fall behind on defense, or fall behind on offense. It's just too many places that NEED points, and not enough to go around.

I've only seen 3 quests that reward 2 skill points each, so 6 total. And TBH, I feel like I need about 10-15 more to really get to where I'd feel decent at this level.

TLDR: Either give some kind of str/dex/int stats on level up, or give more quests that reward skill points, because there aren't enough to go around right now

That's strange because on my Witch I feel like everything gets deleted with next to no effort in the slightest. I ascended at 26 and the only thing that kills me faster than I erase it is mechanics I'm not paying attention to. I'd suggest looking at some builds and fixing where you're lacking because the Witch is far from weak.

You get a base 100 spirit from the scepter. Certain minions are great in situations but I find the Arsonists with the scattershot support gem are busted beyond belief and they lob 3 grenades over obstacles most of the time. With 100 spirit you should get 2 of them and still have a little left over outside of the two you get from your scepter Warriors.

Mobs get deleted, yeah. Witch is great with mobs, but when it comes to bosses, the minions are vaporized instantly and she's completely alone

You can spec the timer for them coming back to go down considerably. I think I'm at 6 seconds. Don't forget you're not a tank. Make use of your dodges and wait for them to respawn. Have you ascended yet? Pre-ascension I supplemented my minions with a couple DoT spells to help with damage. I one shotted(a single attempt not a single attack) most of the bosses that took my Monk a couple attempts each at.

I ascended into Blood Mage, and she feels good so far. I think infinite curse duration will be a huge powerup with a curse that lowers chaos resistance, but I still need to get my 3rd and 4th points for that.

So far I've been trying to spec into chaos damage and crit chance, so I can do DoT and proc blood orbs for sustain.

It's worked well so far, but Faridun doesn't give me a chance to breathe, or even channel my best skill, Bonestorm. He just vaporizes the minions, and I just don't have the Int to equip my lvl 9 skill gems because all the points went into trying to keep my DoT up so I could keep killing the mobs.

Could really use another few points to up my Int and add a little more crit chance for more blood orbs

You might be in a bad place by picking Blood Mage. It's currently one of the weakest ascendancies. a lot of the Ascendency picks are a net loss. It definitely needs some love.

True. She's at a serious disadvantage in boss fights, between needing HP to cast her curses and staying alive. Speccing into crit chance has enabled me to spawn a few more blood orbs for sustain, but otherwise it's a liability compared to when I could cast without needing HP for it

I felt fine getting through the Dreadnought, never felt like it was too hard or too much. Everything felt like I could handle it if I was just smart about pulling aggro. But I get to Faridun and it's like, "Where's my DPS?". Can't channel bonestorm because he doesn't target minions, so it's just dodge curse, dodge curse for a few measly HP points until he gets me with chip damage

I'm kinda new to Poe 1+2,
but I played witch through all of PoE 1 and now 2.

Playing her with ice and minions.
The trick for me was,
to gain some more will.
Right now I'm lvl 38 and I'm having 200 will through items.
One of 'em is a scepter and the second one is a chest-item.

The second thing I considerated, was,
to decide myself wether or not to use additional auras etc. to consume will.
Right now I run 5 skeletons (the base ones, leveled up to 8 or 9), ice mage skeletons, curses for physical damage reduce, armor reduce and if needed, ice resistances reduces.

(Later on there's a meta skill, that can be merged with curses, but it costs a lot of will, therefore I imagine, there are possibilities, tho you have to be lucky with drops and rolls, to increase will)

Then I go like frost bomb, black ice and frost wall.
The bone-sacrifice is in there too, for some extra damage and resistances (minions).
On the scepter I have discipline for energy shielding my minions,
but I will switch to malice, once I have the base item, that fits.

Generally speaking - will in my opinion is a key that is crucial,
so you have a lot of options in terms of minions.

Also, do I consider to get armor and energy shield through gear.

The blood thingy is my ascendancy. Although I don't like either of both ascendencies for the witch.

Right now it's not a running through and no-braining mobs.
But a calculated and movement orientated playstyle,
that relies on cooling and freezing mobs (skeletons have cold-damage that adds to physical damage) and shattering the frozen ones.

Frozen wall and frozen orb do a good job in adding cooling and freeze to mobs,
and the ice skeletons can cast an ice cone onto mobs aswell.

Oh, exhume and boneshattering are my main skills with good support gems.
Clearing single mobs, or just adding some creepers that spawn out of corpses for a good amount of mass, is nice to have.

(Edit #whoknowshowoften: I got +9,6% movement speed bonus, too. That's very nice.)

That's my two cents so far.

I think skill tree wise its good to have a good base instead of looking to far around the tree.

Get manareg, minion health and damage, respawn-time shortened for minions (!!!), critical spelldamage and chances,
a good amount of energy shield,
and from there on you can specialize in what is needed.

Just an addition from a beginner, that is enjoying the immersion of the sequel and experimenting like all the others.

I play Blood Mage Chaos damage Witch (lvl 53) at the moment and I can't recommend it at this time.

Chaos damage feels horrible after act 2. The further you go the weaker you feel. I feel I do no damage. I had to change my skills and play-style and over-level (6-7 levels over zone) just to get through act 3. This was frustrating and painful.
Now I'm at the end of "Act 4" and again I feel like I do no damage and because I invested all my passives in spell damage and chaos damage (I'm starting to build towards crit now) skipping all defences I often get oneshot by normal groups of mobs...

Few pointers:
- chaos damage and +level of all chaos gems, both seem to be a rare mods as I see them way less than elemental or physical types

-chaos spell gems seem to lack damage and there is no good support gem options to fix this issue at my level (my wand damage skill has more dps than Essence Drain with 2 support gems XD )

- there is not much chaos damage on passive tree and nods are far away from each other. (why so many minion passives?)

- building up stun through Chaos is almost impossible at this stage (the support gem is unlocked later on) and this is another disadvantage comparing to other damage types

- cant craft better gear as no Exalts (i think I dropped 10-11 so far after 25+ hours of gameplay)

- I don't feel satisfaction for beating most of the bosses. Its more like a relief that I can move on and I don't have to fight them again...
I had to completely skip couple of bosses as it felt impossible to beat them with my damage at the time. I still not came back to them...
I wouldn't say they are too difficult, its just some of the mechanics are very annoying and frustrating and if they happen straight after each other you just die. You fight and hope you don't get slammed straight after 2 aoe slows...

-Trials of ascendency. Personally I hate and skip both Sanctum and Ultimatum in POE and I hate the trials in POE2. For labyrinth you only needed time, damage and either good doge skills or big def. Here you can only relay on your luck.

I had few other issues on the way but those have been addressed already.

English is not my first language but I hope my feedback is clear.

Good to have a feedback on witch using chaos spells.
I was thinking about going this way,
but decided myself to stick towards a playstyle I've used in PoE 1,
which was, as stated before, the ice damage road.

Although I can imagine, that all elements could take a good role within this class.

Sad enough to hear, that chaos is more of a suffering experience to you and hopefully there will be some changes in terms of free respec sort of.

Thanks for replying.