Path of Exile 2: Best Witch Minion Build Guide

Path of Exile 2 shines because of its extensive build customization, allowing players to create powerful characters tailored to their playstyle. Among the many classes, the Witch stands out as a top choice for those who enjoy commanding an army of minions to decimate enemies effortlessly.

If you’re looking to play as a Witch and dominate Wraeclast with swarms of undead skeletons, zombies, and other minions, this guide provides everything you need to build and optimize your character from the first level to the endgame. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced player, this Witch Minion Build will help you master summoning and clear hordes of enemies with ease.

Witch Class Overview in PoE 2

The Witch in Path of Exile 2 is the ultimate Necromancer class, focusing on summoning minions like skeletal warriors, archers, bombers, and witches to serve as distractions and damage dealers while helping clear enemies and defeat bosses. However, playing a Witch comes with challenges, especially in the early game, as minions are fragile and often die quickly, leaving you vulnerable if you rely on them too much. As a Witch, you must balance your minions’ utility with your own damage and survivability, particularly since many bosses ignore minions and target you directly. Summoning minions requires Spirit, a resource that determines how many minions you can summon. Early in the game, Spirit is limited, so you’ll need to focus on your own skills to deal with enemies effectively. Among the Ascendancies available, the Infernalist is the best choice for minion builds, offering Spirit scaling through Beidat’s Will and granting access to the Loyal Hellhound, which redirects damage and ignites enemies. The Bloodmage Ascendancy, on the other hand, performs poorly in both the campaign and endgame and lacks synergy with minion-focused playstyles. The Witch also has access to both Occult abilities and Sorceress spells, providing versatility in combat. While minions are weak early on, proper scaling of Spirit and strategic use of skills make the Witch a rewarding and powerful choice, especially when leveraging the strengths of the Infernalist Ascendancy.

Witch Minion Build Leveling Guide In Path of Exile 2

The Witch class in Path of Exile 2 is rewarding but challenging, especially if you’re building around minions. Without proper skill choices and leveling strategies, your damage against bosses can fall off quickly. To help you progress smoothly, here’s a detailed leveling guide to optimize your Witch Minion Build across each Act and into the endgame.

Stage 1

Stage 1 is the most difficult part of the campaign for this build, as minions are weak early on, and you’ll need to mix Sorceress and Occult abilities to maintain damage. Here’s how to proceed:
• Unearth: Unlock this skill with your first Uncut Skill Gem. Unearth deals solid damage and summons additional minions, supplementing your skeleton army.
• Skeletal Sniper: Prioritize this skill for its Gas Arrow, which provides excellent damage and is essential for boss fights.
• Flame Wall: Unlock Flame Wall to synergize with the Gas Arrow from Skeletal Snipers. Drop Gas Arrows and ignite them with Flame Wall to clear mobs and deal burst damage against bosses.
• Contagion: This optional Chaos damage skill acts as a debuff, making it useful against tankier bosses. Consider adding it for faster boss kills.

Continue with these abilities until you unlock a Level 5 Uncut Skill Gem, which will give you access to:
• Bonestorm: This skill becomes your main damage source. Be mindful that it requires charging, and dodging interrupts its effect.
• After defeating the King of the Mists, use the Uncut Spirit Gem reward to unlock Raging Spirits. Set Raging Spirits to auto-cast by right-clicking it in the skill menu. Pair this with Flame Wall for a significant damage boost.

Stage 2

Stage 2 is all about refining your existing setup and preparing for Ascendancy. Focus on the following:
• Flammability: Replace Contagion with Flammability to enhance Flame Wall’s damage output.
• Infernalist Ascendancy: Complete the Trial of Sekhemas to unlock Infernalist. Use your first two Ascendancy points to unlock the Loyal Hellhound, which provides damage redirection and additional Ignite damage.

Stage 3

By Stage 3, your build will start transitioning into its more powerful forms:
• Unlock Additional Gem Slots: Use a Lesser Jeweller’s Orb to add a third gem slot to Raging Spirits, and link it with Feeding Frenzy (available from Skeletal Snipers).
• Skeletal Arsonist: Replace Skeletal Snipers with Skeletal Arsonists for improved damage. Unlock a third slot for Arsonists and link it with Martial Tempo and Feeding Frenzy.
• Fire Penetration Support: Add this to Raging Spirits to enhance their damage against high-resistance enemies.

Cruel Mode: Transitioning to Endgame

Cruel Mode is where the real challenge begins, and your build must evolve to handle tougher enemies. Focus on the following upgrades:
• Skeletal Storm Mage: Unlock this skill to apply Shock on enemies, increasing the damage they take. This becomes viable now due to improved Spirit reserves.
• Skeletal Cleric: These minions resurrect fallen allies and heal them, providing sustain for your army.
• Skill Upgrades for Raging Spirits: Replace Fire Penetration with Immolate for bonus fire damage and add Elemental Focus for even greater damage scaling.
• Feeding Frenzy: Continue using this support on Skeletal Arsonists to further boost their effectiveness.

Passive Skill Tree: Prioritize Minion Nodes

The Passive Skill Tree should focus heavily on minion-related nodes. Use the search bar at the top right of the tree to locate relevant nodes and highlight them for allocation. Prioritize the following:
• Minion Health: Increases the survivability of your army.
• Reduced Revive Timers: Shorter revive times allow you to maintain your army even in challenging boss fights.
• Primary Attributes: Focus on Intelligence to scale your Witch’s abilities, with some points allocated to Strength and Dexterity based on gear requirements.

This leveling guide ensures your Witch Minion Build remains effective from Act 1 to the endgame. By carefully selecting skills, supports, and passives, you’ll overcome early challenges and develop a powerful army of minions capable of clearing any content Path of Exile 2 has to offer.

Endgame Overview Of Witch Minion Build In PoE 2

After leveling your Witch Minion Build, it’s time to transition into the endgame. Here’s a complete breakdown of the essential components your character should focus on to dominate challenging content with an optimized minion army.

Key Skills

Your build will revolve around a combination of offensive and supportive minion skills:
• Flame Wall with Raging Spirits: Provides consistent AoE and single-target damage through synergized Ignite mechanics.
• Loyal Hellhound: A durable minion that redirects damage and applies Ignite to nearby enemies for additional utility.
• Unearth: Summons explosive corpses and minions to bolster your damage output.
• Skeletal Arsonist: Delivers high fire damage and supports burst damage scenarios.
• Skeletal Storm Mage: Applies Shock to enemies, increasing their damage taken, making it crucial for endgame fights.
• Skeletal Cleric: Resurrects fallen minions and heals your army, ensuring survivability in prolonged battles.
• Flammability: Weakens enemy Fire resistance, amplifying the damage of your minion abilities.
• Bone Blast: Deals significant burst damage, ideal for taking down bosses.

Key Passive Nodes

Your Passive Tree should enhance minion survivability, damage, and utility. Key nodes to prioritize include:
• Power of the Dead: Boosts minion damage while enhancing their utility.
• Crystalline Flesh: Improves defensive capabilities by reducing elemental damage taken by your minions.
• Restless Dead: Increases minion attack and cast speed, improving overall damage output.
• Lord of Horrors: Amplifies elemental and Chaos damage dealt by your minions.
• Gravedigger: Reduces revive timers for your minions, making your army easier to sustain in battle.
• Relentless Fallen: Enhances damage against weakened enemies, perfect for boss encounters.
• Living Death: Provides substantial bonuses to minion health and regeneration, ensuring they survive longer in combat.
• Regenerative Flesh: Improves your minion’s life regeneration, further boosting survivability.

Key Items and Stats

For gear and stats, prioritize items that enhance your minions’ damage and survivability while supporting your own defenses and utility:
• Wand with Bone Blast Skill: A wand that grants or amplifies Bone Blast, significantly improving your damage output against bosses.
• Rattling Sceptre with Minion Skills: Increases the effectiveness of your minions’ abilities and damage.
• Ally Damage Buffs: Look for items or skills that increase the damage of your allies to enhance your minion army’s offensive potential.
• Elemental Resistances: Ensure both you and your minions have adequate resistance to Fire, Cold, and Lightning damage for survivability.
• Spirit Boosts: Equip armor pieces that provide additional Spirit to summon more minions and maintain a stronger army.
• Life Regeneration: Prioritize gear with Life regeneration to sustain yourself during prolonged battles.

This endgame build combines powerful skills, optimized passives, and key gear to maximize your Witch’s potential. With these components in place, your minion army will become a formidable force capable of clearing maps and taking down endgame bosses with ease.

How To Play Witch Minion Build

Playing a Witch Minion build in Path of Exile 2 is straightforward if you understand the role of your minions and how to optimize their effectiveness. Your minions will spawn automatically, allowing you to focus on using your skills to support and enhance their performance. Use Raging Spirits to deal significant damage to bosses while keeping Unearth handy for summoning smaller minions to distract and weaken groups of enemies. These smaller minions act as excellent distractions, drawing enemy attention away from you.

To maximize your damage, apply Flammability to enemies, reducing their fire resistance and amplifying the effects of your minions’ and skills’ fire-based attacks. Pair this with Flame Wall, which you can continuously cast to create zones of high damage over time. For boss encounters, utilize the Bone Blast ability from your wand to deliver heavy burst damage.

As a Witch, maintaining distance is critical, as your character remains fragile even in the late game. Prioritize keeping your health topped up at all times, as a single powerful hit can often be fatal. Avoid pushing too far ahead—let your minions lead the charge. Their role is to tank incoming damage and create space for you to deal consistent damage from a safe distance.

The essence of playing a Necromancer-style build is patience and positioning. Rushing into danger defeats the purpose of summoning minions to tank and deal damage on your behalf. Let them absorb hits and provide opportunities for you to safely apply your skills and maximize damage output. By staying cautious and playing around your minions’ strengths, you’ll excel at handling even the toughest encounters in Wraeclast.

Conclusion

The Witch Minion Build in Path of Exile 2 offers an engaging and powerful playstyle, combining strategic minion management with impactful spellcasting. While the early game presents challenges due to fragile minions, proper leveling, skill selection, and Spirit scaling can transform the Witch into a formidable force capable of dominating both mobs and bosses. By leveraging key skills like Raging Spirits, Flame Wall, and Bone Blast, and optimizing your gear and passive tree for minion health, damage, and utility, you can create a balanced and highly effective build. Whether you’re summoning a horde of undead or using your spells to amplify their damage, the Witch Minion Build rewards patience, strategy, and smart positioning, making it a top-tier choice for summoner enthusiasts in Path of Exile 2.