A Deep Dive Into Witch Class Gameplay In Path Of Exile 2

Every time Path of Exile 2 releases a new patch, the lengthy and detailed patch notes can be overwhelming, so you're likely to only focus on the more appealing parts or simply search for summaries.

In fact, even if you consume time reading all the update details, you'll still discover some new changes after entering the game. Perhaps because they were difficult to categorize or added later, they weren't included in the patch notes.

This situation occurred again after the release of The Last of the Druids, specifically with a recovery tech bug fix and its chain reaction, which has a significant impact on your PoE 2 combat experience.

Below, we will detail this change and its specific application and further implications in the game.

What is recovery tech?

In PoE 2, recovery tech primarily refers to the special effect provided by the unique item Sacrosanctum Corvus Mantle, which allows you to convert or apply your character's life regeneration to energy shield.

More specifically, when this gear is equipped, it stores life regeneration, and then applies the total life regeneration to your energy shield. Furthermore, recovery tech requires stacking passive skill tree nodes to fully function.

This significantly increases your recovery capabilities, as life regeneration nodes are easy to obtain, and you can stack them with special nodes to more efficiently maintain your energy shield, improving your defense and survivability during combat.

It's important to note that the game's existing life regeneration speed modifiers do not affect energy shield regeneration.

What was the bug with recovery tech before?

This bug was actually related to the game's block and damage mitigation mechanics. Theoretically, successfully blocking an attack in combat should completely prevent the incoming damage.

However, before the fix in patch 0.4.0, there was a bug where blocked damage was not counted towards any damage mitigation mechanics.

For example, assuming you have unlocked Made to Last passive tree node, you would also need to have a modifier that allows a portion of the blocked damage to affect yourself for the blocked damage to be counted towards damage mitigation.

After the bug fix, when you block enemy attacks using the default blocking mechanism, all blocked damage will be counted towards damage mitigation. This means that every time an attack is blocked, life recovery from other sources will increase.

Impact of the bug fix on Svalinn Crucible Tower Shield

This item is a unique shield in the game that, when equipped, grants you Raise Shield and Cast on Block skills, and increases your armor value by 150-200%, reducing damage taken when blocking attacks by 15-20% - although the block chance depends on luck.

Now that the recovery tech bug has been fixed, this gear has been enhanced, allowing for even greater damage reduction from blocked attacks. This means you have a chance to simultaneously gain lucky blocks, thus increasing your effective block chance.

On average, you will take less damage throughout the fight and can utilize the recovery tech to gain more recovery from blocked damage. You can also choose to buy PoE 2 currency to roll lucky modifiers on this gear, bringing the final effective block rate to 75%.

This is because this modifier performs two block chance checks, and if you invest more resources in the passive skill tree, you can increase the block rate even further, as there are many maximum block chance bonus nodes in the passive skill tree.

More damage reduction methods

In addition to unlocking Made to Last node, you can also obtain the ancient Soul Core Guatelitzi's Thesis, added in patch 0.4.0. If you socket this item into your chest armor, it converts 10% of physical damage to life.

When stacked with Made to Last, the final conversion rate can be increased to 15%, resulting in an amazing amount of life recovery, which can be further enhanced through corruption.

Alternatively, you can combine the recovery tech with another chest armor, Wandering Reliquary, which provides an additional 50% conversion of physical damage to life.

However, it's important to note that you usually won't have enough life to withstand fatal blows that penetrate your block, and if you use Wandering Reliquary, you cannot simultaneously use Sacrosanctum Corvus Mantle.

Therefore, the final choice of which gear to use to activate the recovery tech and stack other bonuses depends mainly on your specific situation and needs. The bug has been fixed, so you can enjoy the combat without worry.

It's worth noting that the new patch also introduced the new keystone passive mechanism, Scarred Faith. If you choose to stack energy shields, you can also benefit from this. Therefore, the fix for the recovery tech bug is likely based on the addition of this mechanism.

Although this passive prevents you from recharging or recovering energy shields, as compensation, you will convert 5% of the physical damage taken into energy shields, based on the energy value of the monster attacking you.

Therefore, you can actually combine Scarred Faith with Made to Last node and Sacrosanctum Corvus Mantle to enhance your life recovery against weaker monsters.

While the new gameplay brings excitement and more build crafting possibilities, seemingly insignificant changes like the recovery tech bug fix, which affect the overall combat experience, have a more profound significance for the stable operation of Path of Exile 2.

Although the controversy surrounding Temple of Atziri league mechanism has not yet subsided, overall, Path of Exile 2 is always committed to providing you with a better gaming experience, so let's be a little more understanding.

Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 has been out for almost a month, and the gameplay of various builds has become relatively stable. The addition of Druid has expanded the talent tree and weapon types, bringing many changes to the league.

Here, we don't focus on damage changes in mainstream builds, but rather on their various defensive configurations, and the impact of combining the new Druid class and its shapeshifting abilities.

Talent Tree

Patch 0.4 made significant adjustments to the left side of the talent tree, introducing many new options. At the same time, the new Druid class and brand-new shapeshifting abilities also appeared. Blocks remain an important defensive measure on this side of the talent tree.

However, the use of shields has noticeably decreased in builds using this talent tree, including warrior melee builds using two-handed hammers with shields, and spellcaster or summoner builds using staves and shields. This may be due to the new weapon Talisman, which cannot be used simultaneously with a shield.

However, not all of these builds require a heavy investment in passive block chance on the talent tree, as some primarily utilize active Block. This is especially useful for summoner builds, as the character can benefit from active defense while summons deal damage.

Shield Wall Builds

The shield remains popular, partly because Shield Wall builds were the most popular progression choice for Warrior players in patch 0.4.0, with nearly half of Warrior players choosing Shield Wall after Ascendancies.

This change is even more pronounced when comparing data from the 0.3 and 0.4 patch Hardcore SSF League. Among level 90+ characters, the percentage using Shield Wall builds has surged from only 4% in 0.3 to 17% in 0.4.

This makes Titan the second most popular Ascension Class in Hardcore, second only to the newly added Discrete of Varashta. Without this new Ascension, Shield Wall Titan might very well have dominated Hardcore League.

Disciple of Varashta Builds

Disciple of Varashta is a powerful and interesting Ascendancy class, dominating HCSSF league, ranking second in Hardcore Trade league, and performing quite well in Softcore league, as well. This is partly due to its excellent defensive capabilities.

A key talent of Disciple of Varashta, The Fourth Teaching, increases Energy Shield recharge rate by 40% when your Energy Shield is at or below 35% of its maximum value. Therefore, the higher your Energy Shield cap, the more you benefit from this talent.

In Hardcore league, all Disciple of Varashta builds above level 90 utilize this talent, and the situation is similar in Softcore league, with only a very small number of players not using it.

Using this talent, combined with skills such as Nascent Hope Thawing Charm or Convalescence, makes Energy Shield regeneration much more reliable. When you take significant damage enough to drastically reduce your health, you can force a charge, enjoying the accelerated regeneration and ensuring you return to a safe state.

Rasha's Apostle also has another related talent, Sacred Rituals, which also significantly boosts defense. It adds an extra 60% of your current energy shield to your armor, granting additional physical resistance.

These two significant talents, combined with Chaos Inoculation passive, make Disciple of Varashta builds incredibly tanky in patch 0.4.0.

Energy Shield Builds

Disciple of Varashta was also one of the major factors driving the surge in Chaos Inoculation builds in patch 0.4. Another factor is that the energy shield system itself remains very strong compared to simply stacking maximum health.

Despite nerfs to many aspects in patch 0.4.0, energy shields remained largely unscathed in version 0.4. Disciple of Varashta has a perfect talent pool to utilize this system, especially in hardcore environments.

Talisman Builds

Talismans and shields occupy the same weapon slot, so they cannot be used simultaneously. Shields are the defensive guarantee for Warrior builds, so how does Druid build survive in Patch 0.4?

Many Druid builds employ a hybrid defense of life and energy shields, due to the significant number of energy shield and armor hybrid talent circles in the new talent tree area.

Furthermore, many Talisman builds utilize the new Lord of the Wilds passive, allowing them to equip a Talisman while simultaneously using a non-unique Sceptre.

This grants them a Purity resistance aura, which not only alleviates the pressure of equipping resistance affixes but also allows these builds to use a large number of Reservation Support Gems for free.

Pathfinder Builds

Pathfinder underwent one of the biggest changes in Patch 0.4, making it extremely popular. Thanks to its Ascendancy passive Path Seeker, it can reach areas further down the talent tree than any other class.

However, one of the most useful aspects of Pathfinder Ascendancy is its focus on mobility. It prevents you from being slowed, reduces movement penalties for skill usage, and, in version 0.4, adds protection against severe stuns while sprinting.

This effect is also extremely powerful defensively. Maps with Chilled Ground or Temporal Chains affixes are very dangerous, and the ability to freely navigate these maps is a huge advantage of Pathfinder.

Self-Chill Builds

One of the strongest defenses in Path of Exile 2 is speed. It allows attacks or spells to be so fast that nothing can hit or catch you. This is precisely what Self-Chill builds aim for.

Combining Asphyxia's Wrath Broadhead Quiver with Sierran Inheritance Marabout Garb grants you significant damage reduction. Therefore, not only will you be incredibly fast, making you difficult for enemies to hit, but even if you are hit, the damage will be minimal.

If you feel that your build frequently crashes unexpectedly, you may be overlooking the best defenses available, so methods above may offer some insights.

Today, we'll be sharing a powerful and versatile summoner build for Path of Exile 3.27: Arakaali's Fang Occultist. It excels at fast mapping and challenging high-difficulty bosses, and with sufficient investment, can even handle Uber-level content.

Notably, this build has significant room for improvement. Even the entry-level version is sufficient to complete the campaign without difficulty; and if you're willing to invest more PoE currency, it offers over 35 million DoT DPS and 1300 Energy Shield, making it a reliable choice for challenging most Atlas and Pinnacle Bosses.

Here, we'll focus on showcasing the ultimate version of this Arakaali's Fang build, including the equipment and skill tree setup required, as well as the final cost. Let's take a look!

How it works?

First, in Path of Exile 3.27, Arakaali's Fang Occultist is a poison-based summoner build that uses a unique dagger to summon damage-immune spiders. Damage is boosted through Minion Damage over Time Multiplier, Minion Attack Speed, and flat chaos/physical damage from Abyss Jewels.

The core mechanic involves using Desecrate, Divine Ire, and Writhing Jar to quickly summon up to 40 spiders. These spiders apply powerful poison effects, making it a powerful but gear-intensive build suitable for endgame boss fights and map farming.

How to increase Minion Attack Speed & DoT Multiplier?

Since the minions summoned by Arakaali's Fang are based on poison damage, the faster their attack speed, the faster they can stack poison, resulting in higher damage. Therefore, Minion Attack Speed is a crucial attribute for this build.

Most of the attack speed increase comes from specific passive skill nodes on three Large Cluster Jewels (such as Spiritual Command) and Increased Effect modifiers that boost minion attack speed. These modifiers can amplify the base attack speed bonus of small nodes, increasing it from 3% to 4%. 

Furthermore, these Cluster Jewels can create new passive tree branches, allowing players to gain multiple small nodes with attack speed bonuses, significantly increasing minion attack speed, especially when combined with Call to the Slaughter passive.

Because we use a large number of small nodes surrounding three Large Cluster Jewels in this build, all these bonuses stack up to provide a significant DPS increase.

Another major source of minion attack speed comes from rings, and this attack speed is further boosted by Accelerating Catalyst.

Since this build is based on poison damage, Minion DoT Multi is also a very important stat, and a large amount of DoT Multi comes from Amanamu's Gaze Ghastly Eye Jewel. However, you need to equip at least 5 Jewels to get the maximum DoT benefit, three socketed in the skill tree and two in equipment.

Abyss Jewels

Speaking of Abyss Jewels, I must remind you that the added flat physical and chaos damage modifiers are very useful, so try to choose the highest tier modifiers you can afford.

Another important note is that Minion Attack Speed modifier can also be found on Abyss Jewels, but they become very expensive if they also have added flat damage modifiers. You can choose whether to add them based on your needs.

The final boost for this build comes from the unique Elegant Hubris Timeless Jewel, which provides us with three 80% increased minion damage nodes. Two of these nodes can be activated through the unique Impossible Escape Jewel with the Minion Instability variant. We chose not to activate the other node because it would require too many skill points. Nevertheless, all these settings allow this skill's DoT damage to exceed the cap.

How to stack Energy Shield regen?

Next, this build has over 1300 Energy Shield regeneration. How is this achieved?

First, our chest and helmet provide some life regeneration, and the three Large Cluster Jewels provide even more life regeneration. And because of the 35% Increased Effect modifiers, all the small nodes also provide a significant amount of life regeneration.

Another factor is the unique Rational Doctrine Jewel, which provides permanent Consecrated Ground, providing an additional 5% life regeneration.

Finally, when mapping, Cinderswallow Urn we wear also provides an additional 3% life regeneration. All of this life recovery will be converted into energy shield recovery through Zealot's Oath.

Gear

For Arakaali's Fang Occultist build in PoE 3.27, we need to focus on minion attack speed, poison damage bonuses, survivability, and key unique items to ensure continuous spider summoning. Balancing defensive and utility gems is also crucial for both mapping and boss fights. Here is our gear setup for your reference:

• Weapon: Arakaali's Fang Fiend Dagger
• Helmet: The Dark Monarch
• Amulet: Impresence
• Shield: The Square
• Boots: Paladin Boots
• Gloves: Paladin Gloves
• Body Armour: Sacred Chainmail
• Belt: Darkness Enthroned
• Rings: Miracle Twirl & Rage Spiral
• Flasks: Quicksilver, Quartz, Granite Flask, Cinderswallow Urn & The Writhing Jar

Passive Tree

For Passive Tree setup, our focus is on minion damage, attack speed, life/energy shield, and curses. We recommend using a large number of Cluster Jewels with Increased Effect and Minion Attack Speed modifiers for significant boosts, along with the key unique jewels Rational Doctrine and Amanamu's Gaze, and further customization and enhancement using Tattoos and Runegrafts.

Additionally, prioritize nodes near Witch/Occultist area and move towards the upper right, acquiring minion clusters, while also investing in life/energy shield to improve survivability and increasing curse effectiveness to enhance the power of Profane Bloom explosions.

Finally, the total cost for all upgrades in this build was approximately 130 Divine Orbs, with Timeless Jewel being the most expensive investment, but absolutely worth it! However, everyone's spending will certainly vary; you can remove or replace equipment as needed, entirely depending on your situation. Have fun!

Amidst the hype surrounding Druid, some older classes might be overlooked, but some of them can actually provide a great Path of Exile 2 experience thanks to other optimizations brought by patch 0.4.0, such as Mercenary.

This is mainly due to the new patch's enhancements to grenade-based skills and builds, and Mercenary happens to be the primary class for crossbows and elemental grenades.

More importantly, the update now allows crossbows to accumulate Rage through Eternal Rage skill, with each point increasing attack damage by 1%. You can then add other effective bonuses.

Based on this, we will introduce how Mercenary can level up through the campaign stages consisting of multiple acts using grenade-based skills and builds.

Act 1

According to the system and storyline, you will first land on the coast, where you can find your first crossbow, and Fragmentation Rounds and Frostbolt skills - use the latter to freeze enemies, then detonate them with the former.

This way, you can gain a large damage bonus through the increased damage to frozen targets. If the enemies are still alive, continue to bombard them with the subsequently unlocked Explosive Grenades.

Next, continue forward to obtain Multishot support gem and attach it to Explosive Grenades, and ideally obtain a gem that increases attack range to improve the character's overall damage.

With this configuration, you can charge all the way to Rust King boss, then unlock Flash Grenade to replace Explosive Grenades, and use its physical damage to clear enemies.

Note that for passive skills, as a mercenary, you need to fully upgrade all projectile damage, and also spec into Volatile Catalyst to gain enough grenades to deal with enemies by increasing cooldown recovery speed.

Based on this, continue to upgrade your crossbow and consume PoE 2 currency to craft your crossbow and other gear, ensuring higher damage output to deal with the boss Count Geonor.

Act 2

In this act, you will obtain Explosive Shot to detonate your grenades, and equip Double Barrel III, making reloading easier and more efficient. You will then fire three arrows instead of one, meaning more explosions.

Additionally, you will obtain Oil Grenade, which applies an exposed effect, reducing total elemental resistance by 20%, and creates an oil slick on the ground that you can ignite to deal greater area damage to enemies.

Importantly, starting from Act 2 you can choose an Ascendancy, and we recommend Tactician. This reduces the mana consume of sustained buffs and adds a stun effect to all projectile damage, immobilizing affected enemies.

If you acquire some Spirit Gems, be sure to equip Wind Dancer. It helps you quickly traverse areas and knocks back your opponents when you are hit. You can even equip a Life Leech support skill with it.

Act 3

Upon entering Act 3 and obtaining your first Jeweller's Orb, use it on Explosive Grenades to add Elemental Armament, dealing more damage to enemies and making it easier to add Mirage Archer skill.

This allows you to create a phantom when you perform a dodge roll, which will fire specific projectile skills. Based on this, you can also equip Voltaic Grenade to stack additional electrical effects to paralyze enemies.

It's worth noting that if you reached at least level 33 in Act 2, you can switch your crossbow to Cannonade Crossbow, as it provides additional projectile skills. If you only reach this level after entering Act 3, remember to go back to the previous act to find it.

At this stage, you also need to allocate passive skill points to nodes that increase AoE damage, armor, and evasion rating, allowing you to enter Act 4 in a stronger state.

Act 4

As a transitional act, if you don't want to consume time on extra experimentation, it's recommended that you continue using Explosive Shot and various grenade skills in Act 4.

However, in terms of passive skill point allocation, you can invest more in Weapon Set 1 & 2 skill points to gain increased attack speed, number of shots, and reload speed. Additionally, the range and elemental damage of grenades will also increase.

Interludes

As a transitional part connecting the campaign and the endgame, after entering Interludes, you will first unlock Rage mechanism to provide further assistance to your leveling.

Later, when you reach level 58, you can equip Eternal Rage to maintain a constant enraged state. Furthermore, during Interlude 3, you will gain additional spirit, bringing your total spirit points to 108.

This allows you to add and use support gems with greater freedom, resulting in approximately a 65% chance for your grenades to explode twice, dealing more damage.

If you're using a crossbow specifically designed for pure physical damage with Flash Grenade, you can also utilize Brutality skill. Don't forget to unlock Battle Trance in the passive skill tree for extra Rage.

Next, unlock Blazing Arms node to deal more fire damage and higher attack damage. By stacking more rage, you can expect to gain approximately 44% increased fire damage in total.

As you continue fighting and leveling up to around level 79 with this configuration and method, you'll be able to unlock a more valuable crossbow.

Afterward, you can craft this crossbow and integrate it with the unlocked gems and other gear to form a more cohesive Mercenary grenade build to tackle more challenging endgame content.

While there are many good leveling methods in Fate of the Vaal league, Mercenary and grenade combination is definitely worth experiencing! If you're planning to play a new character, give this guide a try!