Path of Exile 2: The Bone-Chilling Army – Skeletal Frost Mage Witch Infernalist End Game Build Guide

Path of Exile 2 (POE 2) is an action role-playing game (ARPG) developed and published by Grinding Gear Games. It's a direct sequel to Path of Exile, one of the most popular free-to-play ARPGs, known for its deep and complex gameplay systems, vast world-building, and strong focus on player-driven economy and progression. Path of Exile 2 featuring fast-paced combat, character progression, and loot-based mechanics. It emphasizes player skill, choice, and the collection of powerful items while exploring large, interconnected worlds. Players will create characters by selecting from various classes and customizing their skills, attributes, and equipment. Collect powerful weapons, armor, POE 2 Orbs,and items to improve their characters. It will also have a player-driven economy with trading and crafting systems, allowing players to buy and sell items in a robust marketplace.

Path of Exile 2 ushers in a new era of grim fantasy and intricate character building, and for those who revel in commanding legions of the undead, the Skeletal Frost Mage Witch Infernalist build offers a potent and visually striking endgame experience. This guide delves into the core mechanics, essential skills, passive tree progression, and gear considerations to transform your Witch into a chilling commander, freezing and shattering your foes with an army of icy spellcasters.

This build leverages the Witch's natural affinity for minion summoning and combines it with the unique capabilities of the Infernalist Ascendancy to create a formidable force. While the Infernalist often focuses on fire damage or demonic transformation, it also provides crucial support for minion-based playstyles, particularly through its Spirit pool mechanics and defensive nodes. The core idea is to summon a relentless horde of Skeletal Frost Mages that deal devastating cold damage, supported by your own debuffs and utility.

Core Concept and Playstyle: A Distant Commander

The Skeletal Frost Mage Witch Infernalist is a ranged, minion-focused build where your summoned minions do the vast majority of the damage. Your role is to:

1. Summon and Maintain: Keep your army of Skeletal Frost Mages active, re-summoning them as needed.

2. Debuff Enemies: Apply cold resistance reduction and other curses to maximize your minions' damage.

3. Position Safely: Stay at a distance, letting your minions engage and absorb damage while you avoid incoming threats.

4. Utility and Support: Use utility skills like movement abilities and defensive buffs to ensure both your survival and your minions' effectiveness.

The playstyle is generally safe, allowing you to focus on dodging boss mechanics while your icy army chips away at their health.

Essential Skill Gems: Orchestrating the Cold Offensive

The success of this build hinges on a precise combination of active and support skill gems.

Primary Minion Setup:

Skeletal Frost Mage: This is your main damage dealer. These mages cast icy projectiles that deal cold damage, chilling and potentially freezing enemies.

Support Gems:

Wildshards: Increases the number of ice shards your mages cast, boosting AoE and damage.

Scattershot: Further increases projectile count, enhancing clear speed.

Cold Penetration: Reduces enemy cold resistance, significantly increasing damage against all foes, especially bosses.

Arcane Tempo: Boosts your minions' cast speed.

Fork / Pierce: Depending on the weekly Gauntlet layout or specific mapping needs, these can help projectiles hit more targets.

Utility and Support Skills:

Infernal Hound (from Infernalist Ascendancy): This loyal companion ignites enemies and can take a portion of damage for you, providing both offensive and defensive utility.

Support Gems: Loyalty (for damage reduction), Meat Shield (for survivability), Fire Exposure (to further reduce fire resistance on ignited enemies).

Frost Bomb: A crucial debuffing tool. Keep this gem at a low level to reduce mana cost. It reduces enemy Cold Resistance by a significant amount, especially when supported by Strip Away and having quality.

Hypothermia: Another cold resistance debuff, particularly effective against rare and boss monsters.

Eye of Winter: Used to apply Critical Weakness stacks and Cold Exposure, further amplifying minion damage.

Skeletal Cleric: You'll want one or two of these support skeletons to heal your other minions and resurrect fallen skeletons, improving army sustain.

Skeletal Storm Mage: One or two of these can be used to apply the Shock debuff, increasing damage taken by enemies, especially useful against bosses. You can swap these out for more Frost Mages for improved clear speed in maps.

Blink: Your primary movement skill. It allows for instant teleportation, crucial for dodging and repositioning your minions (they'll respawn next to you if you blink far enough).

Aura: Clarity is often used for mana regeneration, though the Infernalist's Pyromantic Pact can replace mana with Infernal Flame, requiring a different approach to resource management.

Passive Skill Tree and Infernalist Ascendancy: The Foundation

The Witch starts in the Intelligence section of the passive tree, providing access to numerous minion damage, spell damage, and Energy Shield nodes.

The Infernalist Ascendancy offers several key notables that synergize with a minion build:

Loyal Hellhound: Grants the Summon Infernal Hound skill, a valuable companion for tanking and igniting.

Beidat's Will: Reserves 25% of your Life to gain +1 to Maximum Spirit per 25 Maximum Life. This is crucial for increasing your total minion count, as Skeletal Frost Mages reserve Spirit.

Altered Flesh: Converts a portion of Cold, Lightning, and Physical damage taken into Fire and Chaos damage. This allows you to focus on stacking maximum Fire Resistance to significantly boost your overall survivability.

Pyromantic Pact: Replaces your Mana with Infernal Flame. While this requires careful management to avoid self-damage when Infernal Flame reaches maximum, it can provide free spell casting.

Seething Body: While on high Infernal Flame, you and allies (your minions) gain a percentage of damage as Fire Damage, providing a significant offensive boost.

Key Passive Tree Clusters:

Minion Damage/Life/Attack and Cast Speed: Prioritize nodes that directly enhance your minions' offensive and defensive capabilities.

Spirit Nodes: Increase your maximum Spirit to summon more minions.

Life/Energy Shield: Crucial defensive layers. Balance between these based on your gear.

Resistances: Cap your elemental resistances (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Chaos) to 75% or higher, especially focusing on overcapping Fire Resistance due to Altered Flesh.

Cast Speed: For faster summoning and debuff application.

Gear: Empowering Your Undead Horde

Your gear choices will heavily influence the build's effectiveness.

Weapons (Wand/Sceptre + Shield): Look for + to Level of All Minion Skills on your weapon. Other desirable stats include Minion Damage, Spell Damage, Cold Damage, Cast Speed, and defensive stats like Energy Shield or Life.

Shield: Prioritize Life, Energy Shield, Resistances, and Block Chance for your own survivability.

Body Armour, Helmet, Gloves, Boots: Focus on Life, Energy Shield, and Resistances. Look for explicit Minion modifiers where possible (e.g., increased minion damage, minion life).

Jewellery (Rings, Amulet): Seek + to Level of All Minion Skills on your Amulet. Rings should provide Life, Resistances, Attributes (Intelligence, Strength) to meet gem requirements, and potentially Minion Damage.

Unique Items: While the build functions without specific uniques, certain ones might become highly desirable for their powerful synergies (e.g., items that grant additional minion types, unique defensive layers, or significant damage multipliers). Keep an eye on the market as the Early Access progresses.

Gameplay Strategy and Tips: Commanding the Battlefield

Maintain Minions: Always keep your Skeletal Frost Mages summoned. Use your Blink skill to reposition them quickly if they get too far from the action.

Debuff Priority: Against tough enemies and bosses, ensure Frost Bomb, Hypothermia, and Eye of Winter are applied to maximize your minions' damage.

Defensive Play: Your minions are your frontline. Stay behind them, constantly moving to avoid telegraphed attacks. Use your Blink skill to escape dangerous situations.

Resource Management: If using Pyromantic Pact, learn to manage your Infernal Flame to avoid self-damage while maintaining high uptime on Seething Body for the damage buff.

Endgame Activities: This build excels at clearing dense maps due to the AoE of Frost Mages. It's also surprisingly strong against bosses, as the combined cold damage and debuffs can melt even the toughest foes.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Safe Playstyle: Minions tank damage, allowing you to focus on dodging.

High Cold Damage: Excellent for freezing and shattering enemies, providing both offense and defense.

Good Clear Speed: Frost Mages' AoE capabilities make mapping efficient.

Scalable: Can achieve very high damage with proper investment.

Cons:

Minion AI: Can sometimes be unpredictable, requiring active repositioning.

Ramp-up Time: Summoning your full army can take a few seconds at the start of an encounter.

Attribute Requirements: May need to balance Intelligence with Strength for certain gear or passive nodes.

Visual Clutter: A screen full of minions and ice shards can sometimes reduce visual clarity.

The Skeletal Frost Mage Witch Infernalist offers a compelling and powerful way to experience Path of Exile 2's endgame. By meticulously building your icy army and mastering the nuances of minion combat, you'll become a chilling force to be reckoned with, leaving a trail of shattered foes across Wraeclast.

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