Fireball Blood Mage Build Guide
If you like massive cold and frost explosions, projectiles flying all over the screen, and using your own life to cast spells then the endgame version of Fireball Blood Mage Witch is for you. This build quickly spends then recovers life, leading to a fast-paced endgame play style. Shattering and shocking monsters while littering the screen with Fireballs.
This build places Frost Wall down and shatters them with Fireballs, exploding the crystals, all while raining Archmage empowered Comets on bosses.
Scaling into the endgame, you utilize Archmage along with Crimson Power to scale your mana and life total to extremely high levels. Atziri's Disdain allows you to use Eldritch Battery, and still retain a decent amount of energy shield. With Blueflame Bracers you convert your Fireballs to deal cold damage, allowing them to freeze and with Archmage it allows them to shock!
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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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 Fireball Blood Mage leveling guide.
Skills
- Fireball is the main skill used in this build. It shoots out a projectile that explodes when it hits an enemy or obstacle. Upon exploding it creates smaller projectiles that also fan out. Combined with the Wildshards support, 20% of the time it fires 8 projectiles in a circle, all of which explode and cause even more projectiles to fire out. With this support, you want to play a more point-blank play style, so you can shotgun them more often. Which leads to the next main skill gem, Frost Wall.
- Frost Wall works in combination with Fireball, you place this skill down first, and then shoot the Fireball into it. This causes it to explode, dealing massive cold damage and also allowing the Fireball to shotgun and shoot out projectiles everywhere.
- Once you have Crimson Power and Eldritch Battery, Archmage becomes a core part of this builds scaling into endgame. Archmage grants you extra lightning damage per 100 mana, adding a ton of damage. Crimson Power gives life based on the energy shield total from your body armor, combined with Eldritch Battery, this then converts that energy shield into mana.
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- Cast on Freeze is another important part of the puzzle. The Blueflame Bracers convert your fire damage into cold damage, this allows Fireball to freeze. With some investment into freeze buildup on the tree, such as Climate Change, Fireball generates a large amount of energy while mapping. Fireball naturally hits a ton of monsters and explodes causing it to rapidly generate Cast on Freeze Comet.
Boss Fights
- Cast on Shock is a different trigger gem that is used instead of Cast on Freeze, specifically for bosses. This is only needed for pinnacle bosses, or early gear levels for map bosses. Cast on Shock only works once you have Archmage. Archmage allows Fireball to shock, however, it doesn't work very well for mapping. On bosses it generates far more energy than Cast on Freeze, triggering many more Comet. Keep in mind that shock chance is based on your damage dealt, so the more damage, the higher the chance to shock. You may need to invest into shock chance on the tree and/or jewels if you have low damage.
- Eye of Winter is only used for boss fights. This gem is to help proc Sanguimancy, as well as a good source of extra damage from critical weakness and cold exposure. You open with this until the boss is debuffed with 10% increased critical strike chance.
- Flame Wall is another gem that works in combination. When Fireball passes through the Flame Wall, it allows it to ignite and also adds fire damage. Ideally you place this down on bosses along with Frost Wall, before shooting the Fireball. With the Fortress support gem, this causes Flame Wall to become a circle of fire and makes it much easier to play with Wildshards. This also enables the passive point Echoing Flames.
Skill Rotation
- Eye of Winter on the boss until the debuff reaches 10 stacks.
- Drop Flame Wall on top of the boss.
- Drop multiple Frost Walls on top of the boss.
- Explode them with Fireball.
- Drop Frost Wall on the enemies.
- Fireball to explode the Frost Walls.
Skill Leveling Priority
Passives
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- Once you get Heavy Frost, you ignore enemy resistances while enemies are frozen. This is nice for bosses especially or tanky rares. It adds a lot of value to the Freeze Buildup stat.
- If you ever have any mana issues, try taking Deep Trance, this reduces life and mana costs.
Ascendancy
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- You takeSanguimancy and Vitality Siphon at the same time. Sanguimancy is required to take other Blood Mage nodes, it causes all spells to cost life as well as mana. This is a major downside, however, it does also provide a ton of recovery with Life Remnants. These spawn after killing monsters and critically hitting bosses. They grant health globes that heal and overflow your life, up to double your normal maximum. Health globes can spawn when killing Frost Walls, this makes standing on top of your Frost Walls when blowing them up with Fireball even better.
- Vitality Siphon grants spell leech, currently the only source of it in the game. This grants a ton of extra recovery, making it very nice for bossing especially.
- Grasping Wounds is taken third, this prevents 25% of damage from hits, causing the life to be lost over 4 seconds instead. This is great paired with Vitality Siphon, and makes it MUCH less likely for you to be 1-shot.
- Crimson Power is taken last, this grants you life equal to your body armor's energy shield. This works really well in combination with Eldritch Battery, Atziri's Disdain, and Archmage.
Gearing
Offensive Scaling
- All Spell Skill Gem levels provide the biggest damage increase, however it also increases both mana and life cost. Scaling gems too fast with low life and mana causes you to struggle with costs.
- Spell damage and Elemental damage increases scale all your damage.
- Every 100 maximum mana grants you extra lightning damage from Archmage.
- Shock Magnitude causes your shocks to increase damage taken on the target by more than the normal 20%.
- Spell Critical Strike increases your damage and also causes more Life Remnants to proc on bosses.
- Cast Speed makes the character feel much better to play.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance to cap your Resistances
- Resistances to scale your elemental defenses into the endgame.
- +# to Maximum Life.
- A shield with a high % Block Chance.
- A body armour with high energy shield once you have Crimson Power. Before you have it, Cloak of Flame is a nice option.
- Atziri's Disdain grants you % energy shield based on your maximum life, making it a great addition with Crimson Power.
- If you are still struggling check out our Survival Guide for additional useful information!
Here's how you should gear your Fireball Blood Mage. Sorted mostly in order of importance
- Look for Weapons with the following stats:
- +All to Spell Skill Gems
- +% Spell Damage
- +# to Maximum Mana
- +% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
- +% Critical Strike Chance to Spells
- +% Cast Speed
- +% Shock Chance (on low damage)
- Gain % damage as extra element is lower priority with Archmage, but it is still good damage.
- Expert Keth Raiment is the ideal body armour base, as it has mana regeneration implicit.
- #% increased Energy Shield and +# to Energy Shield - Focus heavily on this
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Spirit (When trying to fit extra reservations)
- Shield helps a ton with fixes resistances for the many unique items in the build.
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- #% increased Block Chance
- #% additional Physical Damage Reduction
- #% increased Armour and +# to Armour
- #% increased Energy Shield and +# to Energy Shield
- +# to Strength
- Use Atziri's Disdain. This grants you Energy Shield based on your Maximum Life, even after you have Eldritch Battery.
- Use Blueflame Bracers. This allows Fireball to freeze.
- +#% to Movement Speed
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Maximum Mana
- #% increased Energy Shield and +# to Energy Shield
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- Use Snakepit in the left ring slot. This causes your Fireballs to fork instead of exploding instantly, basically, it adds a ton of projectiles. For indoor maps this item works without any changes. But in outdoor maps you need to make sure you are using Frost Wall to properly shotgun monsters.
- If you don't yet have Snakepit look for a rare with the similar stats as your right ring.
Right Ring
- +# to all Attributes and other attributes you may need
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Maximum Mana
- +% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
- +% Cast Speed
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- For min-max Breach Rings with Attribute Quality are very strong
- Notable unique mentions: Ventor's Gamble
- +# to Spirit this is required in order to fit in Archmage and later Grim Feast. You need 190 spirit total. Archmage and Cast on Freeze require 160, you can play without Grim Feast but it feels a lot better to have it.
- +All to Spell Skill Gems - this could be VERY expensive, and not required by any means.
- +% increased Maximum Mana
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Maximum Mana
- +# to all Attributes and other attributes you may need
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- #% increased Energy Shield and +# to Energy Shield
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- Instill Mana Blessing for extra maximum mana and damage, or if you are having mana issues Mental Toughness can be good.
- +# to all Attributes and other attributes you may need
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Maximum Mana
- Additional Charm Slot (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
Recover Life and Mana on kill are VERY important for this build! Without having at least one of each of these you run into a ton of sustain issues.
Generic % damage increases on the passive tree are fairly rare. Jewels are a great way to alleviate that problem by having multiple damage stats on them at once, granting a large boost in damage.
This build allocates at least 6 Jewel sockets which provide an excellent way to further customize your build. Specifically look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
- Recover #% of Life on Kill
- Recover #% of Mana on Kill
- #% increased Spell Damage
- #% increased Elemental Damage
- #% Freeze Buildup
- #% Magnitude of Shock
- #% Spell Critical Strike Chance
- #% Maximum Energy Shield
Atlas Passives
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- Early on Waystones found have a % chance to be a higher tier, is good for progression. Make sure you use your highest waystones on bosses.
- This build excels at doing Breach and Ritual specifically, though it can do all mechanics very well!
- Deadly Evolution should only be taken once you have very endgame gear. It makes rare monsters and unique monsters significantly stronger, but they drop way more loot.
Learn about the endgame activities available to you in Path of Exile 2 with our guide!
FAQ
Once you have a body armour with around 400-500 energy shield and Crimson Power, you can take Eldritch Battery and switch to Archmage. Keep in mind you can always drop Vitality Siphon for Crimson Power if you find a good body armour early on and swap it back later.
If you ever have issues with Frost Walls not dying in a single Fireball, make sure you use Icicle on Frost Wall and you can also take Shattered Crystal passive if it still a problem.
Since this build uses a lot of unique items, Chaos Resistance is hard to come by. With this in mind, the best Runes/Soul Cores to use are Soul Core of Tacati.
190 Spirit is the end-game, early on you might only be able to reach 160, if that is the case, you drop Grim Feast. Spirit comes on a lot of gear, such as Amulet, Body Armour, Corruption implicit on Helmet, certain Unique Jewels such as Grand Spectrum or Against the Darkness, the Unique Shield Oaksworn, and Ventor's Gamble.
Shock is based on the amount of hit damage, so the more gear you have the more you shock. If you need to, you can grab some %shock nodes on the tree such as Drenched. Shocking is important for Cast on Shock single target, but you also need to have the sustain as well.
If you follow the build guide the attribute you need the most for your skills is intelligence. Pick it on your passive tree while traveling though the highway nodes and this should be enough to use all of you skills. If you want to equip some equipment that requires small amounts of strength or dexterity respec some of the attribute points. Make sure to still keep enough to be able to use all of you abilities. Using items with very high strength and dexterity is not recommended. Ingenuity provides 25 Intelligence and solves intelligence pressure on your build.
Make sure you have a decent %block shield and Recover #% of Life on Kill
Recover #% of Mana on Kill on jewels. Cloak of Flame helps a lot before you get a massive health boost from Crimson Power.
- Relic: 15% increased Mana Recovery from Flasks
- Venom Drought: 25% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
- Cruel Relic: 15% increased Life Recovery from Flasks
- Cruel Venom Drought: +% 10 Chaos Resistance
NOTE: These bonuses are minor, if you picked something different for the Venom Draught, don't worry too much!
Video
Summary
- The Fireball Blood Mage uses life to cast devasting Fireballs to blow up Frost Walls causing Archmage empowered Comets to fall from above.
- Very fast paced gameplay with health being used as a resource and overflowing constantly while killing monsters.
- Freezing with Blueflame Bracers, shocking with Archmage, and igniting with Flame Wall, you make use of every element.
- This very tanky Witch is perfect for a melee/ranged play style, while still dealing a lot of damage.
- Massive health and energy shield pool with the use of Crimson Power and Atziri's Disdain, any high density league mechanic becomes easier rather than harder with Grim Feast and Life Remnants backing you up!