Path of Exile 2: RAGING SPIRITS NERF! Witch Minion Build Is The Next To Take The Nerf Bat!

[@SovereignRPG]

What are you gonna do with your Witch Build?

[@saikikdosntexist]

i made a new class after i saw your first video on the demon form, so i saved the trial on lv 30. so thanks for the headsup!!

[@ryanbowns1517]

@@SovereignRPG reroll since witch is toast after this nerf

[@josephleblanc3884]

Unless you are automating SRS this nerf wont affect you. The flamewall method still works

[@liborpisa1515]

No change for me as i cast fw manually, i still wreck stuff( im only axt VI tho:)

[@SpeedeyFreaks]

Absolutely no idea, I will probably try some form of demon form build again, or just go back to minions and hound. I feel like I screwed myself over when I chose infernalist

[@scottfrancis995]

Apparently they are nerfing the build that constantly resummons the raging spirits for free rather than the spirits themselves so most builds should still work

[@Karol-qu4yj]

ye, popcorn cod will be dead, but still, this build is crazy good, just more flamewall spaming

[@breakthecode4634]

Wrong

[@tylerwest9735]

Its just the auto bombing feature ​@@breakthecode4634

[@Byhythloh]

Feel like they need to remove the cost of respeccing while they are doing such massive tuning changes in EA. Allows players to test more builds, while not destroying the fun.

[@Atticus_Moore]

My character is stuck in act 2 but for me it's a build issue so if I farm for skill gems I should be able to fix it

[@Gomorragh]

@@Atticus_Moore thats a better attitude than what some people to have

[@Atticus_Moore]

@Gomorragh well I'm at the end of act 2 and my skeletons were only level 2 so it was 100% my fault. I used some skill gems and fixed my character. Also deselected the recommended on the support gems and my character feels so much better

[@keithkeith4u]

MOST DEFF

[@Gen_X72]

The situation is simple, now minions don't do meat wall and all skeletons minions skills die so easy, sometimes all of them die and all I have been my fire/srs for survive. if they want to us move to use more skele or making skele better, they need to change the weakness of those skills

[@rdtheskald]

Exactly, atm it feels like just nerfing whatever people make powerful but not buffing whatever people avoid using cause it sucks ass. I love the game difficulty but I found nothing else that can carry me through and still get a challenge, every other skills I tried pairing got me dead stuck unable to progress.

[@robertpowell1743]

They didnt just nerf the interaction they reduced the number of spawns from 10 to 5 thats half ur dmg. Wtf are they doing just spent 30 hrs building around it

[@zeyke5008]

Wrong. From the way I'm reading it, it's 5 spirits PER CAST, CAPPED AT 10. Higher levels it's 6+ per cast, capped at 10, so the cap isn't changed

[@breakthecode4634]

​@zeyke5008 your wrong. The description hasn't been updated yet.

[@zeyke5008]

​@breakthecode4634 I'm literally not wrong. The max amount of spirits will still be 10. Just the amount per cast is capped at 5. Shiver me timbers you have to click flame wall an extra time. Time to send death threats to the devs 😢😢😢

[@breakthecode4634]

@@zeyke5008 I'm misread you comment thinking you meant 10 per cast still. No need to be insufferable. Otherwise you stay an incel.

[@chaostheory3011]

Ah I think I was only getting 6 per cast so that's not the end of the world. Still sucks though because that was basically all witch had going for it.

[@mojo60172]

I can understand getting rid of SRS proccing for free when using Flame wall, but why bring it down to only 5 skulls all levels, that feels dumb to me? At least raise the number by a little each level up?

[@ericy.3083]

It’s for breaking the infinite auto summoning chain

[@ВладиславНемакин-ч2е]

@@ericy.3083 auto-summoning srs now does not take into account fire skills

[@breakthecode4634]

​@@ericy.3083it's removed Regardless of srs amount. It doesn't trigger at all now

[@drowninja2414]

I actually think they are pretty underwhelming as is. Surprised getting nerfed.

[@bartofii]

Sounds like they hit the passively triggering summons automatically

[@gringoboy701]

Probably because you are level 18 in act 2.

[@shatterdreamz2325]

@@gringoboy701 whos fault is that?

[@meatman69420]

@@gringoboy701 dude thinks being unemployed is a flex

[@Kaleidoscopegrows915]

Developers nerfing players that get one shot by a boss

[@lvyper876]

this is bullshit, i spent 3 days trying to level this build up cause it ACTUALLY let me get some distance in the campaign, and now its nerfed, so its not gonna be worth a shit, so we wasted our time??????? most people dont play this game 8-10 hours a day like streamers.......they should give people their full respec for free cause of these changes....

[@dappersloth5697]

Instead of having it autocast you have to cast something like a flame wall yourself. It won't break your build, it will just change it.

[@Jiimgym]

@@dappersloth56972x wall = 10 minions. This was the nerf? I’m clearing fine with 10. So 1 wall does 5.

[@dappersloth5697]

@Jiimgym they just got rid of the upgrade of the gem, which allowed you to spawn 6 at a time totaling 10. Now it is limited to 5 at a time but still 10 spawned. Which something like a flame wall easily spawns. They also disabled the ability to use the activation gem "on minion death" to automatically spawn them without using something like a flame wall. So instead of clicking 0 times you have to click twice. Not much of a nerf and almost every build that is actually good should be able to work around this change.

[@Jiimgym]

@@dappersloth5697 Thanks for the extra information. Seems reasonable tho and its still very fast eitherway. I started with the nerf while I feel very strong with it. Much more relaxing vs my ranger 😅

[@AlecMostovoi]

The devs' best moments will be to troll gamers with nerfs and anxiously wait for the next build that catches their eye. Definitely at this rate these arpgs are made for those who play 10 hours a day and in 2 days the problem is resolved in the build. GGG or Blizz all in the same mindset ("but this is a pre-release.." I guarantee it will always be like this of course) I'm going to take a break from arpgs, a little tired of the cat and mouse game... go back for fps

[@wukongmain2075]

i usually agree with the buff strategy instead of nerfing, but we have to remember this is EA and only days into it. I believe GGG are correct in holding up the nerf hammer and bonking everything down. It shouldn't be long until all the gems are in line with their vision for the game. Once that happens if things start being under utilized i'd be on board with them buffing a bit. But in the short term nerf away.

[@-__Shadow__-]

Sadly SRS wouldn't of become meta if they bothered making a minion ascendency and the other minions actually do decent with support skills. However, it seems minions have been made to take a full "support" role, where they are used for spells, and you as a witch go full ED/Bone, or like fire damage for the demon form. However, SRS is the only "minion" spell that increases damage quite a bit, when you build full minion damage. The inability to create corpses is also.. very rough. So I have no zombies in boss fights most of the time. Right now I'm running Empowered Zombies, SRS, 4 arsonists, and hellhound, with 1-2 skeletons. My SRS does do a bit of damage, but my zombies are my meat shields. _ I was building for minions earlier, and did no damage, my minions died really fast and I was going to quit and switch to sorc another class. I decided I would swap to SRS, and then I could actually finish act 3-> cruel act 3. - It seems you have to go either FULL minions with SRS as your main damage dealer (annoying). or use minions for spell damage (not my kind of thing, might as well not have minions at all). Maybe I'll get to maps and build a sorc, till they add like spectres and other things which may be a better build option. Sadly the limit on spirit is also painful... I guess we stack full life and say who cares about energy shield? which to me is really wierd for a witch.

[@Saphire_Throated_Carpenter_Ant]

I understand this is early access and I knew we weren't getting everything, but I thought the content we were getting was going to be more or less complete. The witch was released to us so unfinished. No spectres, no minions for demon? That messes up so many build options.

[@krispypopnfresh]

No impact for me, clearing just fine. I use multi fireball, fire debuff aura with the node that adds slow, and SRS solely for ignite. Whole room explodes.

[@malcour40]

They are probably nerfing stuff to prevent power creep this early in Early Access

[@impexxable]

The problem is, it's easier for them to just nerf one than to buff everything else. I always say nerfing is not the way. They have some good momentum, and a lot of folks are pissed, especially on Sorc.

[@MrYJX559]

Hopefully, it's not nerfed to the ground.

[@StrongArmEntertainment]

Hopefully you find something better in life to make you happy

[@meatman69420]

@@StrongArmEntertainment ? mentally ill comment

[@jjthe]

​@@StrongArmEntertainmentHopefully you find something in life that makes you happy

[@Murbz]

SRS basically hard carries (non chaos) witch due to other skills having issues on boss, in my opinion. I don't think this change really changes that, but it does mean you have to keep re-summoning them constantly instead of QOL'ing it. I wish i had read this before upgrading my cast on minion death lol.

[@itsyaboi8645]

Is chaos witch strong?

[@malyman316]

Meanwhile ranger can spam poison cloud + tornado and use fire arrow to explode whole room and two shot bosses

[@Tynrova]

That's already been nerfed, too.

[@johnsmith-de3tl]

yea, the summon on minion death is not supposed to work on SRS. the skill says so in the text.

[@SovereignRPG]

Yea I didnt even use that part of it. I knew it would get nerfed eventually so didnt base myself around it

[@Lunabringer]

i don't get it why pick some class and literally run with 7 skills from other classes. What's the point then of picking that class?

[@dinokralj2848]

Better ascendancy? Blood witch have crazy HP recovery

[@Scallers813]

It sounds like they’re just nerfing the auto summoning from the meteors or whatever. Should still be good. Arsonists can auto blow them up u just have to summon them

[@SayonaraGaming]

Game developers across the market need to take a different approach to balancing. Buff the things that are falling behind, rather than nerfing what is good. All that achieves is the creation of an even worse meta.

[@metallicafan416]

Make your own game and do that 👌 if they want THEIR game to play a certain way that's their decision. Diablo 4 has eyes closed builds if you're into easy 😮

[@bennobody1990]

I didn't get it in Act 1 so my dps was extremly shity almost no way to play in act 2 till I got it and man what a relieve

[@minimon4776]

Any ideas why my raging spirits won't have minions when using a fire skill?

[@SovereignRPG]

Might be because you haven't activated or haven't got enough spirit. Or because that specific fire skill doesn't activate raging spirits. 😁

[@ummaaron]

i would also like to swap to a chaos build but aren't ascendancies locked?

[@SovereignRPG]

Ascendancies are locked. But there is not a designated Chaos ascendancy anyway. Both ascendancies do not help but at least ascendancy has some spell damage %

[@kimchu1891]

Damn lots of bugs to fix, bind spectre still not available even tho it was introduced during the livestream, and in their advertised videos; still they feel the need to kill the fun? Instead of bring other builds up? I heard that they dont like minion build from Poe1. I hoped it might be different but damn...

[@Shellw2]

You’re making very resolute statements. I didn’t play the standard srs build, however I did need them to provide a buffer so I could prep corpses for DD. This just made the build extremely slow, so clearing a map takes twice as long now. In combination of the immense gold costs to respec, it’s very demoralizing. It’s great that you didn’t rely on an srs loop, but some did. I hope they will not touch anything that made your build function, because I’m sure you’ll not like it either. Best of luck.

[@hansjansen7157]

Can u also make a "low lvl" build? Like 20ish? I wasnt running srs and now im sad. Stuck in act 2 -.-

[@bobterrwillinger4502]

Nerfs SRS.. Challenging everything remains

[@SovereignRPG]

Haha true

[@RonCreager]

When does warrior get good? Almost level 20 and my friends run circles around me, they clear mobs x10 faster.

[@CoinXO]

Witch has made me not as excited for poe 2. I see people with op builds and talk about it being strong but mine just feels so weak compared to any other class. Pure minion was bad. So trying Arsonists exploding my SRS but that interaction is horrible. Arsonists detonate at 300 hp. My SRS barely make it to that before despawing WITH infernal legion and minion frenzy. So now i'm sat here trying to figure out a way to make myself have fun again and see it's getting a nerf? Alrighty cool

[@cal5365]

its just a nerf so you cant use it in an infinite loop, shich sucks but I dont think they'll touch its power

[@breakthecode4634]

They are over nerfing stuff already before fixing classes that literally dont work...bad look for ggg

[@destruction74]

Maybe, but the minions needs to be buffed then, they die almost instantly in boss fights.

[@SovereignRPG]

With revive quicker and HP nodes taken you can take quite a bit of damage on minions and they can rez in 3 seconds. Plus Cleric makes that even better

[@Ahw1231]

Am I crazy, this build will still be stronger than most WITH the nerf...

[@SovereignRPG]

No you are not crazy. The only thing they got rid of was exploding skulls and autodrop. Something I wasnt even using

[@Ukreefside]

@@SovereignRPGand higher spirit costs for arsonists, so I have now gone from 6 to 4 and lost my frost mage

[@Lliimme]

cast on minion death is dead?, well, rip my build I guess

[@stevent2162]

Cast on minion didn't get nerf, srs did

[@Lliimme]

@@stevent2162 what I mean is, I use cast on minion death to trigger flame wall and with that create a loop of srs summoning that dies and explodes, they said they gonna change how the trigger skills interact with srs, I think it might affect that. (confirmed, not working anymore)

[@stevent2162]

@@Lliimme yeap, got to spam the hell out of keyboard/controller now

[@Lliimme]

@@stevent2162 exactly, that killed gameplay for me, I'm playing minions for a reason 🤣, now I gotta change to a super tanky version of witch or something idk

[@itsbenny5857]

Im a new player to poe2, i started using witch because i like the minion build, but now its been nerf and im near to the end of act2, should i reroll?

[@davidmoore8398]

no they are just taking the automation out

[@pfontanesi]

"you can respec anytime you want" - simply NO - it's way too expensive!!!! - reduce the respec costs to zero so we can play around with builds - thank you devs

[@HehehexDD]

huh? respecting is insanely cheap... are we playing the same game?

[@PhillipPerin]

@HehehexDD At level 42, a respec costs 1,100 gold I have 45 gold right now. That would be all my gold to respec. Thats not cheap.

[@HehehexDD]

@PhillipPerin what are you spending your gold on exactly? every run at level 42 gives you 4-5 thousand gold buddy and that's not counting the euqpment you can sell.

[@HehehexDD]

@@PhillipPerin you gotta be intentionally ignorant if you believe you don't get a shit ton of gold. I'm lv 50 and I get 10k gold a run by opening all chests and selling some of the loot.

[@PhillipPerin]

@HehehexDD intentionally ignorant is a crazy way to say "just playing the game". I'm not stopping to pick everything up and do multiple runs to the shop.

[@elmadogs]

Yeah i come back after realease, switched 3 builds that got nerved already ... And now its 4 😂

[@StrongArmEntertainment]

I just got this dammit. Vex mythoclass all over again

[@adamlewis6475]

Even at half damage its still the best build ive found. Maybe now i can use a 2nd skill and have fun.

[@SovereignRPG]

I use SRS+Flame Wall/Detonate Corpse/Firestorm/Contagion. Just adds to the rotation haha

[@adamlewis6475]

@@SovereignRPG I also tried Detonate Corpse and I thought it was a very fun skill, however, all the SRS spam made it hard to find corpses. I really like the bone storm too, I never actually manage to hit anything with it but it feels good lol

[@PrivateInfo-xe1cl]

I played a summoner for most of the original POE, and this new one feels so blah and clunky. Yeah I know this is EA and things are going to change but man, right now it feels more like work than fun. So slow and awkward.

[@OneMadCat]

The only useful minion build and they nerf it...

[@rdtheskald]

I mean whats this, they goona nerf every build that gets discovered ? I understand nerfing something that woops bosses in 3 seconds but cmon now stop nerfing everything.

[@HehehexDD]

there are a ton of builds that woop bosses in half a second lol. the problem wasn't the damage but the hands free playstyle that was quite literally crashing servers

[@SpeedeyFreaks]

I tried minions/hexer build, its dogshit. Chaos is pain to level up being 50/50 gamble most of the time. Bonemancery builds are lacking in damage and survivability is bad since spells lock/slow you down. In fact I am surprised lightning isn't getting nerfed but raging spirits is getting nerfed instead, considering fire in general is REALLY weak.

[@SovereignRPG]

Its really that bad? I was hoping to get something out of it at a higher level as I can grab more Chaos Nodes.

[@lvyper876]

GGG is ALWAYS nerf happy, they want people to have trouble even getting to maps, whats the purpose in playing if so, why dont they nerf the dam bosses a bit from one shotting you all the damn time????

[@Ply447]

doesn't affect my build, people just overreacting.

[@SovereignRPG]

Actually affected nothing in my build also. Was really expecting more of a nerf tbh. It just stopped something I wasnt even using lol

[@JackFox-v7z]

I dont get why devs do shit like this. Its like it pisses them off that we found something fun and satisfying about the game. It pisses jonathan off that we have an effective build that melts bosses

[@TheGekko135]

Wow that sucks.

[@soulstar4268]

Lol drop a debuff, spam attacks, and run around in circles..... soooo kinda like the bosses.

[@religionlol7323]

Can't have fun at all in games. This build isn't even that good.

[@Neru619]

Welp. This sucks.

[@pedroportela5322]

6:00 srs donsent take agroo

[@dappersloth5697]

They don't take agro but if you place them in front of your skeletons they do soak hits for essentially free. Not the same, but I belive that what he meant.

[@abraduks11]

oh great just nerf everything....

[@metallicafan416]

Gotta push a button twice, horrible nerf 😂

[@opegamin]

This is so fucking stupid. This is exactly what happened to D4. All they did was nerf classes in the beginning.

[@dach829]

Glad respect is a thing

[@Gomorragh]

wow 5 days in and theyre complaining thier build is destroyed, its a joke, other games when doing updates like this would reset the characters back to level 1, again, if people were not doing all these week 1 build guides, it wouldnt be as obvious what builds are working outside of normal parameters

[@keldon_champion]

I won't complain about this at all, one of my biggest complaints about PoE 1 was the automation of builds and im glad if they are nipping that in the butt before it takes hold. PoE2 isn't PoE1 if you want to play PoE1 thats great go play it but PoE2 should be different.

[@SovereignRPG]

Agree with you there. Thats why I never put automation in any build I play. I also find it boring as hell and might as well play a mobile game

[@alias5152]

They can't bring things up to be insane like Raging Spirits because later on when they will bring more stuff into the game.. you want them to be even more crazy? I enjoyed this skill and i got bored of it to be honest.. and it need to be nerfed.. Witch is ok even without it.. and i agree with you they should just remove auto spawning.. or putting limit on it.. or you need to have certain amount of.. xyz to proc more of skulls etc.. that would be cool

[@avestraa]

RIP witch, never comming back from this

[@kxaamos]

This game was released 4 days ago, stop being such a drama queen

[@TonyEdoJr]

nonames like you already crying meanwhile regular minion builds with high lvl skeletons were better ))))

[@dinokralj2848]

So what the f to play now??

[@ryanbowns1517]

I am just starting out was going for raging spirits how bad is the nerf?

[@dinokralj2848]

@ryanbowns1517 it used to summon 10 skulls now only 5 so I guess 50%

[@ryanbowns1517]

@@dinokralj2848 That's a huge nerf

[@liborpisa1515]

​@@ryanbowns1517if i didnt accss YT i would not even notice (act VI :) i dont use auto cast playing without pressing fucking buttons is dumb :)

[@MrPiffy]

​@@ryanbowns1517 5 per cast cap stays unchanged lol just gotta spam more

[@arine9149]

first :)

[@SovereignRPG]

Second!

[@GrandLapika]

@@SovereignRPG Third?!

[@davidmoore8398]

Im playing this build and its not overpowered why are they nerfing this?