If you're looking to harness the raw power of elemental magic and devastating spells in Path of Exile, the Witch is the class to play. Known for her deep mana pools, spellcasting abilities, and deadly minions, the Witch has always been a top-tier pick for players who enjoy watching their enemies melt, explode, or get cursed into oblivion.
In Path of Exile 3.26: Secrets of the Atlas, the Witch hasn't received major changes to her ascendancy classes, but a wave of new transfigured skill gems and rebalanced support options has shaken up the meta. As a result, some old builds remain strong while others have surged to the top with new setups.
Let's go over the best Witch builds you can play in 3.26. Whether you're just starting a league or pushing deep into Tier 17 maps and pinnacle boss fights, there's something here for everyone.
Explosive Arrow Elementalist
Explosive Arrow Elementalist remains a favorite for a reason—it's reliable, powerful, and great for both early mapping and endgame progression. This build uses Ballista Totems to stack Explosive Arrows on enemies, causing massive ignites that burn everything down.
The Elementalist's ascendancy shines here, especially with Shaper of Flames, which guarantees ignites from all fire damage sources. You can scale fire damage, ignite duration, and fire DoT to amazing levels. Items like Dyadian Dawn, Eye of Malice, and Polaric Devastation amplify your damage significantly, and you don't need expensive gear to get going.
Crafting a bow with +2 support gems and adding a high-ignite quiver takes this build into endgame content easily. It's an excellent choice if you like totems and want a set-it-and-forget-it playstyle.
Caustic Arrow Occultist
Caustic Arrow Occultist is perfect if you want a low-effort build that melts enemies as you walk by. Powered by Death's Oath body armor, this setup revolves around chaos damage over time and the Occultist's ability to reduce enemy chaos resistance through Profane Bloom, Void Beacon, and Withering Presence.
You apply Despair using Blasphemy Support, which curses nearby enemies automatically. You also take advantage of Profane Bloom's corpse explosions to chain-kill packs. While you're firing Caustic Arrows, your Death Aura will be the main killer, applying chaos DoT passively as you move.
This build requires specific gear like Death's Oath and Viridi's Veil, but they're accessible within the first few days of a new league. It's not super tanky, but it gets the job done with style and simplicity.
Ethereal Knives of the Massacre Elementalist
This variant of Ethereal Knives (EK) focuses on massive Ignite damage through full elemental conversion. Ethereal Knives of the Massacre fires out a circle of blades, hitting multiple enemies around you. By converting all physical damage to cold and then to fire, you create a high-damage Ignite setup.
Gloomfang, Obliteration, and Cold-to-Fire Support allow this build to scale chaos and elemental damage together. With Shaper of Flames and Shaper of Storms, your enemies get hit with triple elemental scaling effects, resulting in huge damage over time.
This build is great for league starting and can scale well into endgame with a crafted bow and quiver. However, it's not very tanky, and Taste of Hate's nerfs make it slightly less defensive than before. Still, with careful play and Progenesis flask usage, it's more than viable.
BAMA Necromancer (Blink Arrow / Mirror Arrow)
BAMA stands for Blink Arrow and Mirror Arrow, two Transfigured Gems that summon clones to fire arrows at enemies. This Necromancer build uses these gem variants to summon minions that use Elemental Hit and Rain of Arrows to destroy packs at range.
Combat Focus jewels are used to lock Elemental Hit into lightning damage, making gearing much simpler. You'll also want to summon spectres like Flame Creators and Wretched Defilers to add more DPS to your army.
The BAMA build takes full advantage of minion life scaling, lightning damage, and spectre utility. While the build needs decent gear to truly shine, it's one of the more unique minion setups that feels more like a spellcaster build with a bow than a traditional summoner.
Fire Trap of Blasting Elementalist
Fire Trap of Blasting focuses on single-target damage, making it great for bossing. Unlike regular Fire Trap, this version deals bonus damage to burning enemies but doesn't create a burning ground. To make it work, you'll combo it with Flame Surge (via Arcanist Brand) to apply burning ground, which boosts your trap damage.
Elementalist ascendancy nodes like Shaper of Flames and Bastion of Elements give you both great ignite scaling and survivability. Add Eye of Malice and Legacy of Fury to the mix, and you'll scorch enemies for extra damage.
It's not the fastest mapper, but it clears bosses and tough rares extremely well. It's also budget-friendly, requiring only a few specific uniques and crafted weapons to hit solid damage numbers.
Ice Nova of Frostbolts Occultist
This build is all about style and screen-clearing power. Frostbolt is cast first, then Ice Nova of Frostbolts follows, triggering novas at the projectiles' location instead of around you. This allows for safe, ranged AoE clears.
The Occultist version uses Cast on Crit with Cyclone to proc Ice Nova automatically. Cospri's Malice handles casting Frostbolt, freeing you to spin and win. You'll stack cooldown recovery and attack speed to hit the necessary breakpoints for smooth clearing.
It's a mechanically demanding build that requires careful setup in Path of Building (PoB), but it's one of the most satisfying Witch builds for clearing endgame content and even taking on bosses with style.
Poison Summon Raging Spirit Necromancer
Poison SRS is a league starter favourite that can scale all the way to endgame bosses. Summon Raging Spirit creates flaming skulls that chase enemies and hit them with physical and chaos damage, especially when paired with items like United in Dream and The Covenant.
These minions apply poison and chaos DoT thanks to gear synergies, and with Unnatural Strength from the Necromancer ascendancy, their damage scales even further.
Raise Spectre adds more utility with options like Hulking Miscreation for damage buffs and Wretched Defiler for clear speed. Early survivability is a concern, but with Bone Barrier and a solid shield like Aegis Aurora, the build becomes much tankier.
Death Wish Elementalist
One of the most unique Witch builds in 3.26, this one turns minions into walking bombs using Death Wish from Maw of Mischief. You channel Death Wish to buff minions, then release to make them explode, dealing fire damage based on their maximum life.
Spectres with high life are key here, so using Bitterbind Point is ideal. The explosions deal massive damage and work great for clearing big packs of enemies.
Elementalist's Liege of the Primordial also gives access to multiple golems if you choose to include them. It's a weird but effective build that's gotten even better now that itemized corpses are back in the game.
Summon Holy Relic of Conviction Necromancer
This Transfigured Gem version of Summon Holy Relic no longer heals you but instead blasts enemies with novas whenever you attack. You use Lancing Steel of Spraying to attack rapidly and trigger the nova from the Relics.
You can summon up to three Holy Relics with Geofri's Crest, and increase their nova cast speed using Ashes of the Stars or a level 4 Enhance Support. The faster they cast novas, the higher your damage.
This build needs a bit of investment to hit the best cooldown recovery breakpoints, but once it's set up, you can clear maps and kill bosses quickly and safely. Raise Spectre adds further utility with options like the Forest Warrior or Perfect Warlord.
Hexblast Mines Occultist
Finally, we come to the best Witch build in PoE 3.26: Hexblast Mines Occultist. This build converts Hexblast into a mine skill to bypass its slow cast speed. You lay mines, detonate them, and watch entire packs vanish.
Hexblast deals chaos damage but calculates based on the lowest elemental resistance of enemies, so curses like Flammability and Frostbite still help boost damage. You stack Power and Frenzy Charges using Void Battery, Malachai's Loop, and Ralakesh's Impatience, and push crit chance even higher with Sandstorm Visage.
Raise Spectre adds support via Perfect Dark Marionette, which explodes on death and reduces enemy resistances further. Despite being a mine build, it's fast and extremely satisfying, especially when clearing the Forbidden Sanctum or tackling tough bosses.
Conclusion
The Witch remains one of the most diverse and powerful classes in Path of Exile, and 3.26 is no exception. From deadly ignite setups to chaotic minion armies and spell-triggered explosions, there's no shortage of exciting builds to explore.
Whether you're a seasoned Archnemesis or a first-time Necromancer, these builds offer something fun and effective for every playstyle. Pick the one that matches your goals, and unleash the arcane fury of Wraeclast's most dangerous spellcaster.