Explosive Shot Witchhunter Build Guide
Early Access
The Explosive Shot Witchhunter Build Guide couples screen-wide explosions with astonishing single target. Send Explosive Shots flying across the screen, detonating every monster pack with ease, while demolishing Bosses with Shockburst Rounds.
This build utilizes Explosive Shot's huge Area of Effect damage to proc Herald of Thunder, Herald of Ice and Herald of Ash, clearing entire screens. To offset this Skill's lacking single target damage, you swap to Shockburst Rounds with the press of a button and takes care of Bosses or tanky Rares.
Shockburst Rounds require a Lightning Ailment (Shock or Electrocute) to proc its pulse, which is your main source of single target damage. This is where The Three Dragons comes into play. This Unique Helmet makes Explosive Shot contribute to Shock instead of Ignite, which fully solves Shockburst Rounds' pulse requirement. Additionally you now also Freeze with your Shockburst Rounds, making bosses easier on top!
Note: You do not need resistances on any specific item, just get the required total resistances amongst all gear combined. You need to cap your Resistances at 75% unless otherwise specified in the guide!
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Unique requiredThis build requires the Unique Helmet The Three Dragons to function. Buy The Three Dragons Unique Helm on the trading website if you do not want to find it yourself.
Early Access
Path of Exile 2 is currently in early access, this means rapid development including frequent changes to builds as there are balance fixes and we learn more. Pin this page to be notified of any updates.
Leveling Guide
This guide assumes you are at least level 68 and have completed Act 3 Cruel, to learn more about the leveling process check out our Grenade Mercenary Leveling Guide – Witchhunter and Gemling Legionnaire.
Skills
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
- Explosive Shot is your main ability for screen-wide clear. Furthermore, it acts as an enabler for your main single target ability.
- Shockburst Rounds is used to destroy Bosses and tanky Rares that survive your Explosive Shot. Your target must first be afflicted by a Lightning Ailment (Shock or Electrocute). By using The Three Dragons your Explosive Shot provides the necessary Shock instead of igniting.
- Emergency Reload lets you instantly reload your currently equipped bolts while increasing that magazine's damage.
- Voltaic Mark is used on Bosses, making them more susceptible to being Shocked, while also increasing its effect.
- Herald of Thunder causes Lightning Bolts to strike after killing a shocked Enemy, further increasing your already strong AoE damage.
- Herald of Ice causes an explosion when killing frozen enemies. Freezing is possible due to using The Three Dragons, making Herald of Thunder's Lightning Damage contribute to Freeze buildup.
- Herald of Ash provides additional damage based on monster overkill.
- Overwhelming Presence reduces the enemies' Elemental Ailment Threshold, making it easier for you to apply Shock and Freeze.
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- Wind Dancer provides more Evasion Rating per active stage, stacking up to 4 stages at 20% quality. This tremendously increases your overall chance to Evade, but resets when you get hit. When this happens, monsters are also knocked back.
- Sorcery Ward is a Witchhunter Ascendancy Skill that gets added when allocated with Ascendancy points. Sorcery Ward passively provides a barrier which takes Elemental Damage from Hits for your until depleted. The barrier recharges to full value after a short time.
How does Shock work?
- Due to The Three Dragons, your Explosive Shot now has a chance to shock instead of igniting.
- The probability of shocking a target takes the enemy's Ailment Threshold as well as your hit's damage into consideration.
- Overwhelming Presence greatly helps you shock your enemies.
- On top of that, Shock also increases the amount of damage your target takes by up to 20%. The Shock 1-20% damage range depends on the amount of damage your hit has dealt. This can also be increased by increasing "Shock Magnitude".
- You can check if your Explosive Shot has shocked a target by paying attention to its health bar at the top of the screen (see green circled icon).
- Shocked targets also have fine blue sparks around them (see green squared sparks).
Skill Rotation
Single Target
Clear
- Start your Boss fight by applying Voltaic Mark to increase your chance to Shock and its effect. The better your gear becomes, the less likely you need to use Voltaic Mark.
- Fire Explosive Shots until your target is shocked.
- Load your Shockburst Rounds.
- (When off cooldown) Use Emergency Reload to buff your Shockburst Rounds.
- Shoot Shockburst Rounds until your Shock on the Boss wears off.
- Restart at point 1.
- Explosive Shot's big area of effect takes care of your clear.
- Herald of Thunder, Herald of Ice and Herald of Ash improve your AoE damage even further.
- If you encounter a beefy rare with tons of defensive mods, it can be better to default to your Single Target rotation.
Skill Leveling Priority
Passives
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
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- The Overwhelm cluster provides tons of damage for your crossbow skills.
- Adrenaline Rush speeds up map clear tremendously.
- Instant Reload keeps downtime between Explosive Shots to a minimum.
- Emboldened Avatar helps with applying your important Elemental Ailments.
- Lightning Rod makes your non-critical hits Lucky. Lucky means, that the value is rolled twice and the higher one is chosen.
- Giantslayer provides incredible value against Rares and Uniques.
- Polymathy and the attributes cluster help solve all your Attributes issues.
- Beastial Skin tremendously increases the amount of Evasion Rating your Body Armour provides. Make sure you use something similar to this Expert Serpentscale Coat to make the most out of this node.
- Falcon Technique increases your Attack Speed by 1% per 15 Dexterity your character has.
Ascendancy
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
How to Ascend
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- Pitiless Killer instantly kills enemies if their life reaches a certain threshold. Cull has different thresholds, depending on monster rarity:
- Normal: 30%
- Magic: 20%
- Rare: 10%
- Unique: 5%
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner's Decimating Strike removes between 5% and 30% of an enemy's health pool before your first attack gets calculated.
- Obsessive Rituals adds Sorcery Ward to your skills, an Elemental Damage Barrier at the cost of 50% less Armour and Evasion Rating. The Barrier then absorbs Elemental Damage, up to 30% of your Armour and Evasion Rating.
- Ceremonial Ablution buffs the effect and recovery of Sorcery Ward.
- When fighting Pinnacle Bosses, you can choose to replace Pitiless Killer and Judge, Jury, and Executioner with Witchbane and No Mercy.
- Witchbane contributes tons of safety to fights by allowing you to break the enemy's Concentration. Enemies have less Cooldown Recovery Rate the lower their Concentration is, scaling down to 50% less Cooldown Recovery Rate when Concentration is 0%.
- No Mercy provides up to 30% more damage to Enemies, based on their missing Concentration.
Gearing
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
Offensive Scaling
- Your Crossbow is your main damage scaler. An Expert Forlorn Crossbow provides the highest DPS out of all currently available Crossbows.
- To maximize the scaling of the base DPS value, you want to add the following affixes to your Crossbow:
- +#% increased Physical Damage
- +#% increased Physical Damage / +# Accuracy Rating
- + adds # to # Physical Damage
- +#% increased Attack Speed
- +# to Level of all Projectile Skills
- The following stats are not ideal, but also increase your Crossbow's overall damage:
- + adds # to # Fire / Cold / Lightning Damage
- +#% increased Elemental Damage with Attacks
- +#% Critical Hit Chance
- +#% Critical Damage Bonus
- You can try to self craft your Expert Forlorn Crossbow by using the following Essences:
- Essence of Torment
- Essence of Battle
- It is probably cheaper to buy a good Crossbow off the trading site!
- You can also find "+ adds # to # Physical Damage" on Gloves and Rings, while "+#% increased Attack Speed" is also present on Gloves.
- Amulets affix pool also includes "+# to Level of all Projectile Skills". This makes an Amulet expensive really fast.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance to cap your Resistances.
- +#% increased Evasion Rating.
- +# to Evasion Rating.
- +# to Maximum Life.
- Sources of +#% to Maximum Fire, Cold and Lightning Resistances to scale your elemental defenses into the endgame.
- +# to Strength for additional maximum life.
- If you are still struggling, check out our Survival Guide for additional useful information!
Here's how you should gear your Explosive Shot Witchhunter. Sorted mostly in order of importance:
Crossbow
- +#% increased Physical Damage
- +#% increased Physical Damage / +# Accuracy Rating
- + adds # to # Physical Damage
- +#% increased Attack Speed
- + adds # to # Fire / Cold / Lightning Damage
- +#% increased Elemental Damage with Attacks
- Leech #% of Physical Attack Damage dealt as Mana
- +# to Level of all Projectile Skills
- Loads an additional Bolt (mostly for Explosive Shot)
- +# to Strength for additional maximum Life
- +# to Attributes (if needed)
Currently the Expert Forlorn Crossbow is the highest DPS Crossbow base in the game.
Helmet (you need The Three Dragons)
Body Armour
Gloves
Boots
Belt
Rings
Amulet
Jewels
Atlas Passives
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
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- In the main Atlas you make sure that you never run out of Waystones, while also increasing Magic Pack Size and Rare Monster number as well as difficulty.
- Breach provides incredible Monster and Rare density with Monsters that mostly run towards you. Since Explosive Shot and your Heralds deal extremely well with tons of Monsters, you can farm Breaches very well.
Endgame Activities
Learn about the endgame activities available to you in Path of Exile 2 with our guide!
FAQ
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
I dont have The Three Dragons, can I still play this build?
No. Follow this Grenade Mercenary Leveling Guide – Witchhunter and Gemling Legionnaire until you can afford the Helmet.
I dont have 150 Spirit, can I still play this build?
I struggle with my attributes, what should I do?
I keep dying! Is there any way to solve my defense?
What bonuses should I choose from Relics in Act 2 and Venom Drought in Act 3?
What is next for the build?
Video
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
Summary
Explosive Shot Witchhunter
- Explosive Shot is an incredible AoE ability that is coupled with Herald of Thunder, Herald of Ice, Herald of Ash to annihilate screens of enemies with (mostly) one bullet!
- Shockburst Rounds is your single target Skill. To unlock Shockburst Rounds' incredible single target, your target must be afflicted by a Lightning Ailment.
- The Three Dragons is required for this build to function, as it makes your Explosive Shot shock, unlocking Shockburst Rounds' full single target potential.