[PC,PS4,Xbox] PoE 3.7 Bane Witch Occultist Starter Build

 

Quick Jump

 

Pros & Cons

Offence

We're using 6L bane as our main damage and clearing skill. We apply 4 curses in total, 2 from bane and 2 from Vixen's Entrapment gloves which trigger automatically when using bane. The bane damage - even with 5L - should be good enough to clear end game maps up to T16. We use spell cascade for map clearing and switch it to controlled destruction when needed (only in guardians and up). Poacher's mark will also give us frenzy charges when mapping, increasing the mapping speed and damage.

In addition to 6L bane, we use 6L ED to boost our single target damage. ED is better than soulrend for us because due to short skill duration soulrend needs investment to duration and cast speed.

Defense

Defensively we're rocking CI with ~ 265% increased ES, Discipline, Vaal Discipline and of course enfeeble + temporal chains with huge added curse effectiveness. Malediction from ascendancy is further providing us 10% damage reduction, and the occultist ES nodes guarantee a nice chunk of ES and regen.

In total, we're gain following from curses

• Bosses have 23% decreased action speed (temporal chains)
• Bosses do 35% decreased damage (enfeeble + malediction)
• Bosses have 25% less movement speed (Hinder)

The above is applicable to bosses such as Shaper, normal map mobs are nerfed even further! You can gain additional curse effectiveness by getting some quality to bane.

Imagine that the boss has to run you down (-48% movement speed), then starts attacking (-23% attack speed) and then hits (-35% damage). The curse setup makes the build super safe!

 

Skill Tree 

Ascendancy: Wicked Ward -> Vile Bastion -> Profane Bloom > Malediction

Bandit: Kill All

Passive Tree & PoB Link

LVL 95 Finalized tree WITH Wicked Ward (Recommeded): https://pastebin.com/SWg77EUg

LVL 95 Finalized tree WITHOUT Wicked Ward: https://pastebin.com/SYHmfm5x

Older:

LVL 70 Tree - just after switching to CI: https://pastebin.com/LpZMRjzH

LVL 67 Tree - just before switching to CI: https://pastebin.com/2Aq3eFds

LVL 42 Tree - leveling: https://pastebin.com/yUnd23LB

 

 

 

 

 

Gems Setup

These are listed in order of importance. Omit the last gems in the list until you have 6L

Bane > Despair > Efficacy > Spell Cascade (swap to controlled destruction for bosses) > Temporal Chains > Swift Affliction

Essence Drain > Efficacy > Controlled > Swift Affliction > Void Manipulation > Empower OR Decay

Movement: Flame Dash - Faster Casting > Arcane Surge (lvl 5) 

Spell Totem > Wither > Multiple Totems Support > Faster Casting

Vaal Discipline > Vaal Righteous Fire > Increased Duration

Enfeeble > Poachers Mark (In Vixens Entrapment)

 

Gear

For a more detailed selection of gear, please refer to the PoB Link. The gear selected in the PoB is not mandatory if it is not stated. It is recommended that the player check the affix of the gear and make a better choice.

 

Leveling

When to take CI ?

It is hard to decide when it is time to ditch the HP pool and go CI. Everyone has their own comfort point regarding the amount of ES before making the respec. However, my rule of thumb is that AT MINIMUM 5.5K ES is needed. Due to the high monster density in new content, I would recommend ~6K. Note that you should start with wand + shield setup to get more ES, and only switch to staff when you have enough ES without a shield.

ZiggyD has made excellent video about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54FSnl_X274

Leveling gear

This helmet is definitely recommended. Adds a nice chunk of damage (bane is affected by the +2 level of curse gems) and has decent ES pool. Put your bane setup here until you get 5-link piece of gear.