Guide:Witch ascendancy classes

This is a guide on the subject of build archetypes for Witch Ascendancy classes.

Last updated on July 16, 2023.

In general, builds are defined by their Ascendancy class. This is a guide detailing the specifics of each notable, the archetypes they offer, and suggested skill gems and items.

Necromancer

As a Necromancer, Witches have two archetypes defined by their Ascendancy. They are minion and corpse-scaling builds.

Necromancer - Minions

For a Necromancer-Summoner character, the following Notable nodes may be favourable to allocate.

Mistress of Sacrifice: Offerings are skills that provide bonuses to the abilities of your minions while active. With Mistress of Sacrifice allocated, these bonuses will also apply to you, at a lower value. For summoner builds not seeking to deal damage themselves and letting the minions to the work, Bone OfferingBone OfferingMinion, Spell, Duration
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (16-33) Mana
Cast Time: 1.00 secRequires Level 12Consumes a corpse, granting all of your minions the power to block both attacks and spells. The skill consumes other nearby corpses, increasing the duration for each corpse consumed.Base duration is 5.00 seconds
Additional 1.00 seconds Base Duration per extra corpse Consumed
Grants Minions +(25-35)% Chance to Block Attack Damage
Grants Minions +(25-34)% Chance to Block Spell Damage
Grants Minions 4% of Life Regenerated per Second if they have Blocked recently

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
(0.5-10)% increased Effect of OfferingPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket. is a popular choice as block can be hard to come by as a Witch.

Mindless Aggression: Self-explanatory, most minion builds will want these stats.

Bone Barrier: The Bone Barrier skill can be helpful keeping both you and your minions alive.

Commander of Darkness: Allows auras from your skills to provide further bonuses to your minions, and supplies a substantial amount of elemental resistances to both yourself and your minions.

Unnatural Strength: The Unholy Might buff grants a large percentage of physical damage to be gained as extra chaos damage. This may be especially effective with minions that deal a high amount of physical damage.

Common skills include anything with the minion tag. However, golem gems are generally less popular as Elementalist provides a lot of support for those skills.

Necromancer - Corpses

For a Necromancer Corpse-scaling character, the following Notable nodes may be favourable to allocate.

Plaguebringer: This node combines both the Corpse archetype and the minion archetype, so it may be favourable to allocate for either character.

Corpse Pact: This node grants attack and cast speed per corpse consumed recently. May be effective on builds whose damage scales off of either stat and has the ability of quickly consuming corpses.

Essence Glutton: This node provides large amounts of mana and energy shield recovery when corpses are nearby or consumed.

Corpse builds generally require a way to generate corpses beyond killing enemies, especially for boss encounters. This includes skills like DesecrateDesecrateSpell, AoE, Duration, Chaos
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (11-26) Mana
Cast Time: 0.60 secRequires Level 16Desecrates the ground, summoning corpses and dealing chaos damage to all enemies in the area. The corpses will be chosen from the monsters in the current area and any Spectres that have existed in this instance.Deals (8.2-294) Base Chaos Damage per second
Base duration is 4.00 seconds
Spawns 5 corpses
Spawns corpses up to Level (20-100)
Maximum of 10 corpses allowed

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
(1-20)% increased Cast SpeedPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket., UnearthUnearthSpell, Projectile, AoE, Physical
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (4-10) Mana
Cast Time: 0.30 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 6.00%
Effectiveness of Added Damage: 140%Requires Level 10Fires a projectile that will pierce through enemies to impact the ground at the targeted location, creating a Bone Archer corpse where it lands.Deals (15-607) to (22-911) Physical Damage
Projectiles Pierce all Targets
Spawns corpses with Level (12-80)
Maximum of 10 corpses allowed

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Corpses Spawned have (1-20)% increased Maximum LifePlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket. and the unique item CorpsewalkerCorpsewalker
Carnal BootsEvasion: (178-257)
Energy Shield: (36-52)Requires Level 55, 52 Dex, 52 IntTriggers Level 20 Corpse Walk when Equipped
(80-120)% increased Evasion and Energy Shield
25% increased Movement Speed
For each nearby corpse, 1% increased Movement Speed
For each nearby corpse, Regenerate 8.00 Life per secondEvery glorious conquest
stands astride innocent bones.. For dealing damage, damage-dealing skills involving corpses include: Detonate DeadDetonate DeadSpell, AoE, Fire
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (5-20) Mana
Cast Time: 0.60 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 6.00%
Effectiveness of Added Damage: 160%
AoE Radius: 22Requires Level 4Targets a corpse, and deals spell damage to enemies around the corpse, as well as causing the corpse to explode, dealing fire damage. The explosion is not affected by modifiers to spell damage and cannot be reflected.Deals (15-798) to (22-1197) Fire Damage
Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to (6-7.9)% of the corpse's Maximum Life
Base radius is (2.2-2.6) metres

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
(0.75-15)% chance to detonate an additional corpsePlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket., CremationCremationSpell, AoE, Fire, Duration, Projectile, Orb
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (11-20) Mana
Cast Time: 0.60 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 5.00%Requires Level 28A targeted corpse explodes, dealing area damage and turning into a volcanic geyser, which will repeatedly unleash projectiles sequentially over the surrounding area for a duration. The explosion of the corpse is not affected by modifiers to spell damage, and cannot be reflected.Fires Projectiles every 1.0 seconds
Base duration is 8.00 seconds
Deals (49-434) to (74-651) Fire Damage
Fires 4 Projectiles
Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to (4-5)% of the corpse's Maximum Life
Maximum of 3 Geysers at a time
+(0-0.3) metres to radius

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Fires Projectiles (0.5-10)% fasterPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket., Volatile DeadVolatile DeadSpell, AoE, Fire
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (9-26) Mana
Cast Time: 0.80 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 5.00%
Effectiveness of Added Damage: 170%Requires Level 12Corpses near the targeted location explode, dealing damage in a small area and creating an orb which moves towards nearby enemies before dealing spell damage in a larger area. The explosion of the corpse is not affected by modifiers to spell damage, and cannot be reflected.Deals (20-753) to (30-1129) Fire Damage
Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to (3-4)% of the corpse's Maximum Life
Consumes up to 3 corpses
Base radius is 2 metres
Base explosion radius is 1.5 metres
Maximum of 60 Orbs at a time

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
(2-40)% increased Orb Movement SpeedPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket., and BodyswapBodyswapMovement, Spell, AoE, Fire, Travel
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (8-23) Mana
Cast Time: 0.70 sec
Critical Strike Chance: 6.00%Requires Level 10Violently destroys your body and recreates it at the location of a targeted enemy or corpse, dealing spell damage in an area at both locations. If there is no specific target, it will prioritise corpses over enemies. If targeting a corpse, the corpse will also explode, dealing damage around it that is not affected by modifiers to spell damage, and cannot be reflected. This spell cannot be repeated.This Spell deals (3-210) to (5-315), plus 4% of your maximum Life, as base Fire Damage
Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to (6-7.9)% of the corpse's Maximum Life
+(0-0.2) metres to radius
200% more Area of Effect if Consuming a corpse

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Deals +(0.2-4)% of your maximum Life, as base Fire DamagePlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket..

Elementalist

As an Elementalist, Witches have two archetypes defined by their Ascendancy. They are golem builds and ignite builds. The remaining nodes are generic elemental support nodes, but do not encourage any specific archetypes.

Elementalist - Golems

Liege of the Primordial, Elemancer: These nodes are pretty self-explanatory. Golems are a type of minion that, along with attacking, provide their user with buffs. These nodes increase the effects of said buffs, and allows for more golems to be summoned, granting more buffs.

Some builds not interested in dealing damage with golems may take these nodes just for the buffs. Archetypical skill gems include anything that involves golems.

Elementalist - Ignite

Shaper of Flames: Usually, only hits that deal fire damage can ignite, and even then only if they are a critical strike or the player has stacked sources of chance to ignite. Shaper of Flames enables any hit of any damage type (even cold, lightning, physical and chaos) to ignite, and bypasses the need to crit or find % chance to ignite. However, it is generally more favourable to do the igniting with mostly fire damage, as then it is affected by the more damage multiplier.

One of the most flexible archetypes in the game, technically any skill that hits can work.

Elementalist - Generic

Bastion of Elements: An incredibly versatile defensive option, especially for builds with low hit pools. (Life + Energy Shield). Also mitigates all reflected damage, if that is needed.

Shaper of Storms, Shaper of Winter: Allows any type of hit to apply shock or chill. Counterintuitively, it is more common builds who do not deal damage of the respective element to use this notable, even though they end up missing out on the extra bonuses. This is because lightning and cold builds inherently have access to shock and chill respectively, while the others do not. Unlike ignite, it is far more restricting to scale your damage directly off of shock or chill, as both are non-damaging ailments.