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PoE 2 Build

LICH Minions Leaguestarter @animeprincess [0.2]

0.2 DotH
presentationWitch
presentationLich
Starter
Creator
By animeprincess
Updated on May 4, 2025
May 4, 2025

Build Overview

BUILD SUMMARY:

This league starter build uses a flexible and reliable minion-focused setup on the Witch base class, designed to thrive in Path of Exile's 2's 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt league. The tree works for any minion type—we will be leveling through the campaign with various Skeletons and Raging Spirits —and is easy to adapt to other minion types in endgame, based on personal preference.

The build prioritizes survivability, clear speed, and ease of gearing, making it perfect for progressing through the campaign and early mapping. Eventually, this build will transition into a powerful Spectre: {0}-focused setup once the necessary gear and gems become available, allowing for high-end content and bossing potential with minimal respec.

Spectres require ingame testing and this guide will be updated and maintained on the fly with relevant info when it becomes available. You will also be able to find the latest info on my Youtube channel which will have daily progression and tips videos, with all the latest tech!

Build Variants

BUDGET SETUP:

The league starter budget variant focuses on easily obtainable unique gear, as well as high priority damage stats on the Sceptre, Amulet, and Helmet. The rest of the gear is generic defensive rares that aim to cap resistances, attributes, and provide as much energy shield and life as possible.

With higher budgets, scaling mana will be a way to increase our damage, but this stat conflicts with energy shield and life rolls. It is totally fine to drop some life in order to get mana instead, if the gear is conveniently priced!

This build is ideal for new players or anyone looking to hit maps quickly without investing much early currency!


ENDGAME HIGH BUDGET:

ENDGAME ENERGY SHIELD SPECTRES - BUILD GUIDE - @animeprincess - PoE 2 Witch Build Guide

Leaguestart Variant

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Equipment

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GEARING STAT PRIORITY:

We want to prioritize as much + Level to Minion Skill gems and Spirit as possible on this build.

Since we are going into a fresh leaguestart, it may be a struggle to find these important stats early on. I am therefore including this following regex code, which you can copy and paste into a vendor's search bar. It will highlight items that contain these important stats. Copy and paste it with the quotes included:

"\d+% i.+mov|^\+.*ills$|spiri"

+ Level to minions skill gems rolls on the helmet, sceptre, and amulet, so make sure you check both the weapon and the armor vendors in each act! + Level to all skill gems rolls on the focus, which will also count as a + level to our minions, and is therefore also useful to us!


BUDGET UNIQUES:

Some powerful uniques we should be keeping an eye out for early on, especially if we get some lucky exalted drops, are Trenchtimbre, Enfolding Dawn. You may notice they have large amounts of the two priority stats we are looking for! These are not necessarily best-in-slot endgame items, but they can be a powerful stopgap early on in the league, especially when on a budget.

Note: a defensive shield with high block chance is very good value, and is what I am currently using instead of Trenchtimbre, which coincidentally is also kind of expensive while making us glass cannon too.

UPGRADE LIFE AND MANA FLASKS

This build is reliant on both the life but also especially the mana flask. The spell weapon vendors sell high level flasks and its important you keep matching your character level with the highest possible life and mana flasks! They are pretty cheap in terms of gold cost. I really like the roll that gives x charges per second, and its worth using your currency if the flask is not magic already,

Leaguestart Variant

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Skill Gems

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 15

Dex 15

Int 30

Unearth

Unearth
supportminioninstabilityplayer

Flame Wall

Flame Wall
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supportspellcascadeplayer

Raging Spirits

Raging Spirits
supportaddedfiredamageplayer
supportfeedingfrenzyplayer

Skeletal Sniper

Skeletal Sniper
supportfasterattackplayer
supportmultipleprojectilesplayer

Pain Offering

Pain Offering
supportmeatshieldplayer

Flammability

Flammability
supportfocusedcurseplayer
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Skeletal Cleric

Skeletal Cleric
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Ember Fusillade

Ember Fusillade
lessdurationsupportplayer

Shield Charge

Shield Charge

SKILL PROGRESSIONS:

Note that currently I have 3 different skill progressions, in the Leaguestart, Act 1 (cruel), and Act 2 (cruel) build tabs. Please follow the instructions below to understand the progression. The latest video on my youtube channel called "How to Level with: LICH MINIONS - PoE 2: Dawn of the Hunt" goes into detail on the skill rotation combo, which is important in order to get the massive damage out of your Skeletal Snipers.

SKILL USAGE:

Rattling Sceptre in act 1 from a vendor in order to get Skeletal Warrior's. These are free minions that do not reserve any spirit, and help with supplementary damage.

Unearth is a self-cast spell we can spam in act 1 for supplementary damage, which also spawns temporary minions. To clear packs in act 1 cast Contagion on a single monster and then kill it with unearth. It will then kill the entire pack.

Skeletal Sniper is our main minion. These snipers give us an active ability called Gas Arrow, which we drop on an enemy and then combo it with Flame Wall, in order to ignite cloud for big dps. You manually cast the gas clouds with an active button, and this is the main damage sourcehere. There is a new level 2 support called 'Commandment' which is worth testing out with snipers. We will get twice as many gas clouds which we will be igniting with flame wall.

After killing King of the Mists in Freythorn, pick up Raging Spirits which we will spawn every time we cast flame wall. However, this is not enough to reach the max limit of 10 Raging Spirits, so we will also be castingEmber Fusillade which can spawn many of them.

Once we unlock Skeletal Cleric , we will summon one of them, in order to heal and revive the rest of our minions.

Pain Offering is used as a dps buff. Make sure to use it on a minion in the back so the offering doesn't get destroyed.


(There's a 2nd set of skill gems in Act1 Cruel section)

Leaguestart Variant

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Passive Tree

main:
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set 1:
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set 2:
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LEVELING PROGRESSION:

The passive tree progression for this build starts by focusing heavily on minion damage nodes (light blue nodes) to maximize early clear speed.

Once core damage nodes such as Power of the Dead, Restless Dead, and Growing Swarm are secured, path into minion life clusters such as Crystalline Flesh, Living Death, Gravedigger, and Necrotized Flesh, as well as the light blue damage nodes just past these life nodes.

We will fill out the tree with Lord of Horrors as well as the Silent Guardian branch.

You can grab the skill effect buff from Chronomancy at any point in time if your damage feels good enough. This is a very underrated 3 point branch. Skill effect duration increases the lifespan of our Raging Spirits as well as our Flame Wall, helping to reduce the button presses.

The energy shield nodes are there to tank us up as we enter maps. If you have somewhat decent ES gear in the campaign and feel you would want more survivability, you can opt to take some of them earlier. This is more of a personal preference based decision, and I personally will only be taking them as I start to enter maps.

ACT 3 FREE LESSER JEWELLER ORB

The very first zone in act 3 (before the encampment) has a guaranteed lesser jeweller orb that we should use on our skeletal snipers. In order to get this reward, you need to clear the Orok Campsite and open the rare chest, which will drop the jeweller orb!

QUEST REWARDS:

venom crypts: 30% increased elemental ailment threshold

venom crypts cruel: 10% chaos res


ASCENDANCY PROGRESSION:

1. Necromantic Conduit

2. Soulless Form

3. Eternal Life

4. Crystalline Phylactery

(details explained in "How it Works" section)


ENDGAME TREE CHANGES:

As we move deeper into endgame maps and get better gear, it will be worth it to drop the unique Trenchtimbre and main-hand our sceptre, so we can offhand a rare shield. We will supplement the shield with 6 passive points around Wide Barrier on the left of our passive tree, picking up all the 5% block chance nodes. This will drastically improve survivability when we need it the most; in difficult endgame maps.

Leaguestart Variant

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Atlas Tree

atlas tree coming soon...

How it Plays

This build relies on our skeletons to output consistent passive damage, however we also have active abilities to scale our damage up when needed!

Pain Offering is an active damage steroid for our mobs

Flame Wall and Ember Fusillade are active abilities that generate our Raging Spirits minions, and also buffs the projectiles that are shot from our Skeletal Sniper's

Flammability is our main curse, and should be applied to strong enemies to amp up our minions damage. It can be cast on regular monsters via Hex Bloom support, which will in turn spread it across the entire screen.

How it Works

ASCENDANCY NOTES:

1. Necromantic Conduit

Necromantic Conduit is a damage buff, which synergizes with the 'Right Hand of Darkness' notable passive skill, in order to dramatically amplify our minions damage. This powerful upside comes with the downside of 5% max mana loss per second. We can grab a bit of mana regen on the tree to help maintain our mana, and will likely have to rely on a mana pot until our 2nd ascendancy point.

2. Soulless Form

Soulless form has been made better with the recent change to Necro Conduit that now affects max mana instead of current mana. We will have an easier time with the mana penalty of necromantic conduit by scaling our life values. This node changes our base mana to be equal to a % of our total life, which results in us having ALOT more base mana. This in turn will mean % mana regen on the tree is much more effective. You will never have mana problems with this allocated. This is great news because of the mana drain from the previous point.

3. Eternal Life

The advantage of having eternal life is now we have the option to lifetap a spell with no penalty. The defensive upside of eternal life kicks in with lots of energy shield gear, which we will not have on leaguestart, but will get eventually.

4. Crystalline Phylactery

This equates to essentially 2 jewel slots, and a good amount of ES on the travel point.


Wildcard option:

Rupture the Soul (we have the option of dropping either Eternal Life or Crystalline Phylactery for this.)

We may be able to automate curses which enable Rupture the Soul, via Spectres. The explosions are going to feel great, but this is up in the air and not a default choice. This is not something I would recommend as a standard / default progression


Feel free to pop in on Twitch to ask me what I ended up doing here, if I have not yet updated this! (twitch.tv/animeprincess)

Video Guide

Table of Contents

  1. Build Overview
  2. Build Variants
  3. Equipment
  4. Skill Gems
  5. Passive Tree
  6. Atlas Tree
  7. How it Plays
  8. How it Works

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