PoE 2 Witch - Overview, Skills, and Ascendancies

Path of Exile 2 is releasing the Witch, one of 6 returning classes from PoE 1. While the Witch is returning, there are some notable differences from the new look Witch and the old.

Firstly, the Sorceress is a new class that will be inheriting the “elemental spellcaster” portion of the Witch from PoE 1. With the Sorceress now in the game, the new Witch class will focus on things like Chaos Damage and Summons.

In this guide, I’ll be covering everything we know about the Witch class and how it works. Let’s jump right in.

The Witch class is a returning class with the Intelligence (INT) attribute. Technically the Witch doesn’t “have” the INT attribute, but she starts at the top portion of the passive skill tree. This area has a lot of INT nodes, things like Spell Damage, Minion Damage, Energy Shield, and more.

The Witch will be class specializing in occult magic, using skills that summon an undead army or deal chaos damage with poisons and contagion.

There are many quality of life and balance changes coming to Path of Exile 2 that affect the Summon playstyle. Let’s briefly cover some notable changes.

Spirit

Previously, in PoE 1, minion skills used to have inherent limitations on how many could be summoned. In PoE 2, the Spirit mechanic is now your resource for summoning Minions.

Spirit is a new resource that you reserve for effects such as auras or in the Witch’s case, summoning minions. As you level up, obtain better gear, do quests, and more, you’ll have a larger pool of Spirit to summon a larger army.

In the image above, you’ll see your Spirit bar just above the mana bar.

Sceptre Weapon

The Sceptre will be the Witch’s signature weapon. These weapons provide a skill themselves and also grant the wielder more Spirit. When you’re just starting out at level 1 or 2, a Sceptre will be your main way to get your army up and running.

In this image we see this early game Sceptre provide the Skeletal Warrior Minion skill and 100 Spirit. This Skeletal Warrior skill won’t require any Spirit, similar to how Wands have Fireball skills that don’t cost mana for the Sorceress.

As the game progresses, Sceptres will likely have bigger base Spirit amounts and higher level summoning Skills. You might be able to craft modifiers that increase the Spirit on the Sceptre as well.

Auto Revive

In PoE 2, most Summon Skills will auto revive. This provides a huge quality of life as you don’t need to continuously resummon your minions.

Some Skills summon temporary minions, and in this case, these won’t revive upon death.

Commands

Lastly, PoE 2 is introducing Commands. This allows you to control the AI of your summons to a degree. You can get them to move to specific location, attack a certain enemy, or even open a door.

Some Summon Skills also have unique skill effects that you can activate with a command. We’ll touch on this more down below.

Here is a screenshot from the recent Gamescom playtest showcases the different Occult Skill Gems. While not directly tied to the Witch, these are the skill gems most Witch builds will be using.

I’ll also provide some short descriptions on some of the Skill Gems we see used in the Witch gameplay showcase:

• Contagion

  • Infect a target, dealing damage over time. If the target dies, the Contagion spreads to nearby enemies and increases the damage.

• Skeletal Warrior

• Skeletal Sniper

  • Reserve Spirit to summon a Skeletal Sniper. Can also be commanded to shoot a gas arrow, dealing damage over time in an area.

• Unearth

  • Launch spikes from the ground in a cone in front of you. If this kills a monster or hits the corpse of a monster, this creates a temporary Bone Construct to fight alongside you.

• Essence Drain

  • Fires a bolt that hits an enemy and deals higher single target damage over time. If a monster is infected with Contagion, Essence Drain will also spread to nearby enemies upon killing them.

• Skeletal Arsonist

  • Reserve Spirit to summon a Skeletal Arsonist. Can be commanded to detonate low health minions.

• Bone Cage

• Raise Zombie

  • Requires a corpse to summon a Zombie. Does not revive. (Meant for tanking damage)

• Skeletal Frost Mage

• Pain Offering

• Bonestorm

• Detonate Dead

• Vulnerability

• Profane Ritual

• Despair

• Skeletal Reaver

• Dark Effigy

• Bone Offering

• Skeletal Storm Mage

• Hexblast

• Skeletal Brute

• Skeletal Cleric

• Power Offering

Overall, the Witch isn’t too much different from PoE 1, but there’s a lot of quality of life changes and some unique additions. Being able to auto revive makes the gameplay a lot smoother, as you don’t need to constantly resummon your army.

Instead, you’ll be using your manual inputs to cast other spells, poisoning enemies, debuffing enemies, commanding your army, etc.

As you progress through the game, you’ll gain more Spirit, allowing for a larger army, or maybe even a smaller army with stronger summons.

You can spec into a lot of Minion damage nodes on the Passive Tree to let your army do all the work while you focus on utility skills with your character.

Lastly, while not teased, it’s very likely that a “self-cast” Witch will work as well. This style of build doesn’t focus on summons and instead uses things like Contagion or Essence Drain to deal massive damage over time.

PoE 2 will eventually have three Ascendancy Classes for every Class. However, at the start of Early Access, only two will be available per class.

For the Witch, you can choose the Infernalist, who can replace her Mana with "Infernal Flame," transform into a Demon, and summon a Loyal Hellhound. You can also choose the Blood Mage, using your life as a resource to buff the damage of your army.

Infernalist

[See Infernalist Ascendancy Page]

The Infernalist has a ton of passives that empower your character or army. You can summon a Loyal Hellhound to tank some of your damage, replace your Mana bar with "Infernal Flame," and more.

One passive will even allow you and your entire Minion Army to Ignite enemies with any damage type.

Blood Mage

[See Blood Mage Ascendancy Page]

The Blood Mage is all about using your Life as a resource. You can stack your Life up to boost the Crit of your Spells, you can leech Life based on the damage of your Spells, and more.

If you want to be more defensive, you can take a passive that gives you extra maximum Life based on the Energy Shield of your Body Armour.

This wraps up everything we know about the Witch class in Path of Exile 2.

The Witch class is highly anticipated in PoE 2 due to the many quality of life changes and new additions. While summon builds are fairly popular in PoE 1, the style is not for everyone.

With PoE 2, the Witch class is taking up a new identity and going all in on the Occult magic. With an army that grows larger and stronger as you level up, the Witch is undoubtedly going to be a popular class for many.

You can let your minions do the work while you keep your character safe, making this class a likely pick for Hardcore gamers.