Path of Exile 2 – Infernalist Witch Will Melt Everything in Seconds

Infernalist Witch Build Guide

By Lilith.

The main strategy is letting Arsonists clear campaign areas very efficiently on their own. I use Skeletal Warriors summoned from the scepter to absorb damage, supported by the Meat Shield skill. When there’s no immediate danger, I repeatedly cast Flame Wall with Spell Range Support, which I’ve bound to right-click. Against stronger enemies, I use Flammability and Pain Offering to help my minions deal more damage. For boss fights, the strategy is simple – just move in a circular pattern while your minions quickly defeat the boss.

Playstyle

• Spam RMB (Flame Wall).
• Vs bosses, cast Flammability + Pain Offering, then spam Flame Wall.
• You’re perfectly fine just letting your minions do the work though.
• I’ve walked through maps just letting Arsonists kill every pack in 2-3 seconds,
• and vs dangerous bosses (playtesting for HC) I’ve been walking in circles, letting minions melt the boss quickly.

Did the SRS hotfix kill this build?

It does not apply to this build, because it only affects fire spells triggered by effects. Our Flame Wall is cast manually.

Showcase

Showcase vs Jamanra:

Showcase Minions Only vs Rattlecage:

Showcase Map Progression:

Gear

Keep your gear up to date. Merchants restock at every level up.

Here is how:

• Pick up every white, blue and yellow gearpiece.
• Use all the good gear that dropped and that you can buy from merchants in your current act.
• Buy all the current level whites from merchants for gear pieces you need.
• Bench every gearpiece with slots (buy the ones you see merchants have!)
• Disenchant blue and yellows you don’t need. Sell all the whites you don’t need and don’t need to craft.
• Buy as many random gearpieces you can from Finn / Alva. They might turn out amazing. If they are bad, disenchant them.

How to craft better gear:

• Use a transmutation orb on all relevant white gear pieces. Bad affix: Disenchant. Good affix: proceed with b.
  • (If Ring, you can use both transmutation + augmentation right away, hoping for 2 ele res)
• Use an augmentation orb on it and turn it blue (magic). Bad affix: Disenchant. Good affix: proceed with c.
• Use a regal orb on it (regal orbs are very rare and should only be used with 2 great affixes) to turn it yellow (rare).
• If you got another good affix, you can commit to it and use exalted orbs to increase its affixes.
• Artificer Orb it (Head, Gloves, Boots = 1 slot; chest = 2 slot) and drop a Fire / Ice / Electric resistance rune on it to help with elemental resistances.

Affix ranges depend on item level. A low level ring might give you 5-10% Lightning res, a higher level item would have 25-30%.

Affixes

• You always want to get your Fire, Ice, Electric resistances as high as possible. Grab all the Chaos res you can as well. Max is 75%.
• Ideally you want 1 ele res on chest, head, boots, gloves and 2 ele res on each ring.
• As a minion witch, I love seeing +1 to Minion / Fire level skills, followed by +% Spirit, +% allies in your presence damage, +% Spell damage, +% Energy Shield.

Spirit

• Fight The King in The Mist (Act 1) and Ignagduk (Act 3) for +30 Spirit each.
• Otherwise, only from affixes.

Passives

Commit to minion damage nodes early, and then branch out. Minion damage is your priority.

• You will also need accuracy.
• For this reason, I went up via Power of Death, then took all the blue nodes on the Growing Swarm cluster, then pathed to the Fear of Death Cluster, taking Gravedigger and Relentless Fallen on the way as well.
• Then I went to Lord of Horrors + Bringer of Order.

Skills

• Contagion + Energy Drain (Pierce, Controlled Destruction) until you obtain Raging Spirits in Freythorn, Act 1.
• From then on, spam Flame Wall (automatically procs Raging Spirits).
• I am using Flame Wall with Arcane Tempo (cast speed) + Fortress (more AoE = more Raging Spirits).
• Put damage / attack speed increasing Support gems on your Raging Spirits.
• I liked Skeletal Arsonist best. It fits the fire theme, synergises with the Flammability Curse, and just generally melts maps.

The game has been a breeze from start until now.

Passive Tree Plans

• I have posted what I consider the “core” path. You can do multiple things from here.
• Personally I am planning to path to Ingenuity + Patient Barrier, then get Adverse Growth, Regenerative Flesh, Entropic Incantation, Vile Mending, Arcane Blossom, Insightfulness.
• For the build to work, you’ll need Beidat’s Gaze and Beidat’s Will in the 3rd and 4th ascendancy slots. Then get two key passive skills: Mind over Matter and Eldritch Battery.
• The main idea is to get high Energy Shield and mana regeneration. You’ll then convert your Energy Shield to mana using Eldritch Battery, and use your mana pool to absorb damage instead of life using Mind over Matter.
• From this point, you have two good options. You can remove life nodes from your skill tree, or get the Lasting Incantation passive. Both choices work well, so pick whichever you prefer.

Support Gems

• Flame Wall (lv 3 Skill Gem): Arcane Tempo for maximum spam. Fortress for more AoE => more SRS. Inspiration because Mana.
• Summon Raging Spirits (lv 1 Spirit Gem): pack a bunch of fire damage increase supports on them, such as Fire Infusion + Feeding Frenzy (lv 2) + Immolate (lv 3) + Fire Mastery (lv 3) + Elemental Focus (lv 3). Probably in this order.
• Martial Tempo is a good placeholder.
• Skeletal Warriors (from Sceptre): Meat Shield for survivability. They solely exist as meat shields (and as fodder for Pain Offering).
• Skeletal Arsonist: Magnified Effect (more AoE = hit enemies multiple times) + Scattershot (even more AoE) + Martial Tempo (Scattershot reduces our speed; this is to balance that out).
• You can take Fire Penetration (lv 2) + Minion Mastery (lv 3) afterwards.
• Pain Offering (lv 5 Skill Gem): Elemental Army + Persistence to make it last longer and die less quickly. Ablation (lv 3) to make the “Offering” buff even stronger.
• Flammability (lv 7 Skill Gem): Ritualistic Curse (lv 2) seems to be the only relevant support here.
• Hellhound (Ascendancy): [PRIO!] Fire Exposure (lv 3) is the most important support, and you want it on the dog, who can best afflict it.
• Ruthless + Maim (lv 2) for CC, Culling Strike (lv 3) as an execute. Splinter (lv 2) to increase hound’s damage.
• I have a Skeletal Cleric (lv 52 + 119 INT + lv 13 Skill Gem) with Ingenuity (lv 2) because I want my minions to be revived faster.
• You can put Font of Mana on Pain Fffering / Flammability, as both of them have a high mana cost.