0.3.0 OP Witchhunter Build (Delete Everything) Explosion/Cluster Grenade Combo

You can check out the full explanation on how this build works over here:
https://youtu.be/x4xzuogkuUw

Then here's the mobalytics links for the gem, passive and gear setup for easy browsing:

https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/36801eac-f195-4b50-b6bc-b94de70ccf8c/builds/01c00a4c-e8a2-4e42-b153-6aec84f295bd

Warning: Wall of text ahead

Now, this build has a gemling variant which I will showcase in a different video. It got the same passive distribution with only minor tweaks such as in the witch hunter variant, I sacrifice a little bit of survivability for the extra culling strike threshold with cull the hordes. This is not so great in bossing to be honest, but really a massive help with map clearing thanks to the witch hunter’s passive that grants culling strike. It even gets better because witch hunter has more abilities to lower the health of enemies. I took the decimating strike also for this purpose, as each grenade hits will remove between 5 to 30 percent of enemy life before applying the actual damage. And mind you, grenades can activate multiple times hence giving crazy results and destroying even pinnacle bosses really fast like what you have seen earlier. Another reason why this build is great with the witch hunter is because of its witch bane and no mercy skills. Witch bane will apply a condition wherein enemies will have maximum concentration equal to 40% percent of their health. Then, the no mercy passive will then deal up to 40% more damage based on the missing concentration that the enemies have.

I assume that the 40% more damage will be active once we fully break the concentration of enemies which we can see on their health icon depicting zero percent concentration. And mind you, we are using grenade skills here with payload that almost guaranteed to activate a second time. Both cluster grenade and explosive grenade has a 100% chance of breaking even uber pinnacle bosses’ concentration, which means that we always get the 40% more damage from the passive. And by the way, gemling has a higher D.P.S number in the screen, around 166k damage on explosive shot but, the witch hunter variant of this build will deal more massive damage thanks to the no mercy passive that we can always activate with this build. It may not be shown on the gem stat screen, but you will see a huge difference in terms of damage output against anything endgame in path of exile 2.

Before we continue, I also included a mobalytics link to this guide wherein you can conveniently see all the skill gem, passive and gear setup. This video will try to explain everything from the build and like I have said, there’s also a gemling version of this coming right after this guide, and another fun version which focuses on the voltaic grenade. But I needed more data on the build because both explosive and cluster grenades focus on fire damage, and this build takes advantage of elemental penetration setup to further boost its damage when hitting the max tier of pinnacle bosses. Basically, I am using the leopold’s applause unique gloves that further penetrates the elemental resistance of enemies up to negative 50 percent. Correct me if I’m wrong, but penetration works as if substracting the flat elemental resistance values of enemies. What I mean by this is when an enemy has 50% elemental resistance, and I have 30% elemental penetration, then the enemy’s elemental resistance will only be at 20%.

The unique gloves allow us to go further zero resistance, and correct me if I’m wrong again, but enemies having negative resistances will allow you to deal more damage. Yes, not just increase, but a multiplicative damage boost which is a huge part for this build. Now based on my research, the highest elemental resistance for now of enemies are about 75%, and one good example of this is the breach lord Xesht. So, if we want that negative 50 percent elemental resistance, then we need to take away the 75% resistance of Xesht, then add 50 percent more penetration. This means we need to have at least a total of 125% penetration in our build, which is achievable if you want to. Using jewels with fire penetration, and as well as anointing your amulet with more fire penetration will help you achieve this stat. In addition, there are close nodes in the mercenary tree that allows you to penetrate elemental resistance, which then can add up to your overall fire penetration. There’s also a fire penetration node called smoke inhalation which we can take on this build, and currently, I have 108% fire penetration using all these gems and skill tree notables.

Honestly, going with 125% is really overkill, as with 108% penetration you can still kill uber bosses in seconds with the amount of damage that the witch hunter passives also provide to this build.

Not to mention the health lowering passives, and as well as the culling strike which makes the build really crazy. Instead of going for more penetration through jewels, I decided to go with volcanic skin that adds extra fire damage. The cremation is given since it both gives extra fire damage and fire penetration. Finally, I would also like to add the fire penetration 2 skill gem which ignores fire resistance of all enemies. Ignoring elemental resistance then penetrating doesn’t work in path of exile 2. Even if we have the unique gloves, putting fire penetration 2 that ignores fire resistance then having 50% fire penetration in the build doesn’t show any improvement in damage. Exposure does seem to work, and you can do this with the oil grenade. The idea is to apply exposure which lowers the resistance of enemies then further penetrating it with fire resistance. However, running maps with crazy modifiers don’t get you enough time to use this trick. Most of my mapping experiences in tier 16 and above while corrupted and with abyssal modifiers will be super hectic that if you have a setup that requires you to press 2 or more button to achieve huge damage, then you are done for it.
You can play chill and use the exposure plus penetration method, but if you are going with endgame maps with crazy modifiers for that pure dopamine boost and rewards, then I strongly suggest focusing on elemental penetration with this build.

Another source of damage for this build is the “while being surrounded modifiers” which you can achieve with the new helmet called constricting viper command. The nodes you want to get here are the frantic fighter which gives 100% increased damage, and the tactical retreat. While favourable odds is just a personal preference for deflection and increase threshold for both stun and ailments. The rest of the small passives with “while being surrounded” are for maximizing the build, and you just get it when you to get more damage of survivability. Now, I have seen some crazy prices for this unique helmet, especially for those who have 6 fewer enemies’ modifier. The only requirement for this is 5 fewer enemies to get all the “while being surrounded” modifier from your passive skill tree, and this should be your third gear upgrade. The first one should be on your cross bow, then the gloves, and then the constricting viper cap.

Speaking of cross bow, let’s talk about the stats which will boost your damage for this build. Obviously, we should get the plus level to skill gem first. A higher number means that the skill will do more damage but cost more mana, hence I added the efficiency 2 skill gems on both my cluster grenade and explosive grenade to mitigate that huge mana consumption. By the way, the gemling version of this build is more mana efficient, but like I have said, witch hunter does more damage overall. Also, increase physical and flat physical stat should be in your crossbow. Both cluster and explosive convert your physical damage to fire, and the damage scales better if you have these stats in your crossbow. And finally, let’s talk about increase in elemental damage. Now, you can go with grenade damage if you don’t have the budget for this kind of crossbow just yet. Before this crossbow, I was using this one with grenade damage, and it works just fine. However, the upgrade to physical damage on this crossbow is just massive, and since we are doing mostly fire damage, then elemental damage increase becomes more preferable for me. You can go with flat fire damage also, but this crossbow is universal, and like I have said, I will try the voltaic grenade version later with this build which makes this crossbow still viable.

For the amulet, go for plus level to projectile gems. Then the other stats are personal choice, but it would be wise to have something with energy shield increase since we will be using the combination of energy shield and evasion as survivability for this build. For the rings, go for flat physical damage and fire damage boost, with rarity as the second most needed stat. And endgame build like this that can clear maps with crazy modifiers will be nothing without item rarity. I have seen some people saying in my previous path of exile 2 videos that I just got lucky on my drops, which is true, but I would also like to remind them that you can actually increase your luck in this game by providing rarity stats in your gears. This will pair well with the rarity on your waystones, and this will increase your chances on dropping divine orbs in maps or pinnacle bosses, or even drop items that sells for lots of divines. To further push my item rarity, I used the ingenuity belt to increase the bonuses on my rings.

Right now, I have 120% item rarity in my build which I think is the sweet spot, as going further will have diminishing returns, and I can’t simply afford to lose other valuable stats on my build. It’s kind of funny because morior Invictus regalia isn’t supposed to be part of this build. It’s best that you go for a rare body armour that has good evasion and energy shield stat, paired with elemental resistances. The reason why I have this unique armour is because I thought it will work with the rabbit talisman. The idea is to fill this body armour with the rabbit talisman, and I thought that I get the item rarity, and as well as the bonuses for filling up the sockets of this body armour. Sadly, it doesn’t work. I don’t know if this is a bug, but it’s just a waste having rabbit talisman in your morior grand regalia, as it won’t give you the bonuses of the body armour. The item rarity is there, but you will miss out on the chaos resistance, elemental resistance, and other stats you have in this unique body armor.

In terms of survivability by the way, just get all the evasion stats you can get on the passive tree just like what I did. Then, make sure that you have a pure evasion boot to further boost your rating for this stat, and the body armour should be a hybrid of both energy shield and evasion. This way, we can take advantage of the ghost dance skill gem that will restore your energy shield, based on 8% of your total evasion, once you get hit by an enemy. I can’t stress out how important this is, especially when you are dealing with breaches in your map. Remember those crazy monsters that will shoot multiple projectiles? You can mitigate some of those damage with ghost dance. Any hit damage that you receive can be mitigated with ghost dance plus evasion tech, as long as you have charges for the skill. But again, this is not a sure-fire way of surviving. This build is not a tank build as it focuses purely on killing enemies before they can hit you. The combo of high Damage output, plus evasion, energy shield and ghost dance allow this build to survive even the craziest map. Just don’t forget to add rolling in the mix because no matter how high your defense, there will be something in this game that can one-shot your character.

Finally, let’s talk about skill gem setup. For both cluster and explosive grenades, I have the same support gem setup. Efficiency to help with the insane mana cost, then fire attunement and elemental armament 2 to increase the fire damage of the skills. I also added short fuse, which is a huge quality of life improvement to both grenades. In my skill tree, I do have the cluster bomb passive which increases the detonation time but adds extra projectile. The short fuse 2 make it still viable for clearing, especially when paired with payload which is another best in slot despite of its negative bonuses. The skill gem will give you more percentage that grenades explode a second time, but lowers your cooldown recovery. The witch hunter has some cooldown recovery, and I also have grenade cooldown recovery nodes in my mercenary passive but still, it’s not enough if you have payload. I did try other setup, like adding multi-shot instead of payload, but the second explosion just deals more damage per second against bosses, and it really help especially against those breach monsters rushing towards you. Also, if you can get the plus grenade activation in your crossbow, then it would be nice, but the onslaught modifier is also a good choice since payload plus the repeating explosives from the passive tree is enough to trigger the second explosion most of the time.

To add more insult to injury, I also added rapid shot which is a way to gain extra fire damage. Just slot in all the attack and reload speed on this skill gem so you will reach the maximum heat. When you have heat generated in your crossbow, both your explosive and cluster grenades gain a massive fire damage boost, which makes a huge difference in killing uber bosses in this game. Best advice I can give is generate heat first before engaging the boost. After that, it’s just literally press 2 explosive then, cluster, and wrap it up with explosive grenades. I also added mortar cannon with the stun flash grenade. This setup will make uber simulacrum way easier. The thing is, when you pair stun grenade with the stun 3 support gem, it will stun those rare and trash mobs easily. Pair it with nova projectiles, and you will have a decent crowd control. Use this in simulacrum and you will see a huge difference. I also added herald of ash in the build for obvious reasons. And finally, for more survivability, I have the usual skill gem for evasion, wind runner that grants more evasion rating, and like we discussed earlier, the ghost dance skill gem for energy shield recovery.

So, that’s all about it for the build.