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 Currency 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 promises a monumental evolution of the action RPG genre, introducing a new campaign, revamped skill systems, and a fresh take on character progression. Among the myriad of potential builds, the Witch stands out as a master of the arcane and the undead. For those who relish commanding legions of chilling spectral allies, the Skeletal Frost Mage Witch Infernalist offers a potent and engaging end-game experience, blending raw minion power with devastating cold damage and strategic utility.

The Core Concept: Frozen Phantoms and Strategic Chaos

At its heart, this build revolves around the Summon Skeletal Mage skill. Unlike their melee counterparts, these spectral casters unleash piercing cold projectiles, capable of freezing and shattering hordes of enemies. The "Infernalist" aspect comes into play by leveraging skills or unique items that introduce fire/chaos damage or utility, such as a strong ignite proliferation or a specific curse, providing a unique layer of synergy or crowd control that complements the primary cold damage.

The playstyle is inherently safe: your skeletal mages act as your primary damage dealers and frontline, allowing you to maneuver and cast utility spells from a distance. Survivability is paramount, achieved through layers of defensive mechanics, robust life/energy shield pools, and clever use of movement skills.

Key Skills and Support Gem Synergies

Main Damage Setup (6-Link)

Summon Skeletal Mage: Your bread and butter. These are your primary damage dealers.

Minion Damage Support: Essential for scaling the raw damage of your mages.

Cold Penetration Support: Crucial for overcoming enemy cold resistances, especially against bosses.

Greater Multiple Projectiles Support: Significantly increases the clear speed by allowing your mages to hit more targets.

Controlled Destruction Support: Boosts spell damage at the cost of critical strike chance, which is often less important for minion builds.

Empower Support / Awakened Minion Damage Support: Late-game upgrades that provide substantial damage scaling. Empower boosts the level of your Skeletal Mages, while Awakened Minion Damage offers more potent damage multipliers.

Utility and Defensive Skills

Frostbite: A curse that significantly lowers enemy cold resistance, making them more susceptible to your mages' attacks. Link with Blasphemy Support for an aura effect or Mark on Hit Support for automated application.

Desecrate + Corpse Pact: Desecrate creates corpses, which Corpse Pact consumes to grant your minions a massive attack and cast speed buff. This is a vital damage burst mechanic.

Flame Dash / Frostblink: A movement skill for repositioning and dodging dangerous attacks.

Summon Stone Golem: Provides a small amount of life regeneration and acts as an additional tanky minion.

Determination / Grace: Aura skills for physical damage reduction (Determination) or evasion (Grace), significantly boosting your survivability. Link with Divine Blessing Support for temporary bursts of power or Enlighten Support to reduce mana reservation.

Arcanist Brand + Bone Offering / Spirit Offering: Automatically casts offering spells, consuming corpses to grant powerful defensive or offensive buffs to your minions.

Passive Tree and Ascendancy: The Necromancer's Path

The Witch's Necromancer ascendancy is non-negotiable for this build, offering unparalleled minion scaling and utility. Key points include:

Mistress of Sacrifice: Enhances the effects of your offerings and allows them to apply to you, providing significant defensive or offensive benefits.

Commander of Darkness: Grants an aura that boosts minion damage and attack/cast speed, while also providing elemental resistances to you and nearby allies.

Bone Barrier: A powerful defensive skill that provides a substantial shield and physical damage reduction for your minions.

Essence Glutton: Grants mana recovery on minion death, crucial for sustaining your spells.

On the passive tree, prioritize nodes that grant:

Minion Damage and Minion Life: Found throughout the Witch and Templar starting areas.

Life and Energy Shield: Essential for your own survivability.

Spell Suppression: A crucial defensive layer in Path of Exile 2, reducing incoming spell damage.

Cold Damage and Projectile Damage: To further scale the damage of your Skeletal Mages.

Mana Reservation Efficiency: To run more auras.

Gear and Itemization: Empowering Your Army

Weapon and Off-Hand

Wand/Sceptre: Look for modifiers like "Minions deal X% increased Damage," "Minion Attack and Cast Speed," "+1 to Level of All Minion Skill Gems," and spell damage.

Shield: Prioritize life, energy shield, resistances, and potentially spell suppression. A unique shield like Victario's Charity (if it retains similar functionality in PoE2) can provide powerful minion buffs on block.

Body Armour

A rare body armour with high life, energy shield, and resistances is ideal. Look for prefixes like "Max Life," "Max Energy Shield," and suffixes for elemental resistances.

Unique Body Armours: Depending on PoE2's unique item roster, specific minion-focused uniques might offer game-changing benefits.

Helmet, Gloves, Boots

Focus on capping your elemental resistances (Fire, Cold, Lightning) and maximizing your life/energy shield.

Look for modifiers that grant minion-specific stats, such as "Minions deal X% increased Damage" or "Minion Attack and Cast Speed."

Boots: Prioritize movement speed, life, and resistances.

Rings, Amulet, Belt

Rings and Amulet: Essential for filling out resistances, providing attributes (Strength/Dexterity) if needed, and granting additional life/energy shield. Look for minion damage or cast speed modifiers.

Belt: High life, resistances, and potentially flask recovery rate or duration.

Jewels and Flasks

Jewels: Seek out jewels with "Minions deal X% increased Damage," "Minion Attack and Cast Speed," and defensive modifiers like life or resistances.

Flasks: A combination of life, mana, and utility flasks is crucial. Consider a Granite Flask for physical damage reduction, a Quicksilver Flask for movement speed, and a Diamond Flask for increased critical strike chance (if you invest in minion critical strikes). Ensure your flasks have suffixes that remove ailments (freeze, shock, ignite, poison).

Bandits and Pantheon

Bandits: Generally, Kill All for the 2 Passive Skill Points is the most efficient choice for minion builds, allowing for more flexibility on the tree.

Pantheon:

Major God: Soul of Lunaris for projectile damage reduction and movement speed, or Soul of Solaris for general damage reduction against unique enemies.

Minor God: Soul of Ryslatha for flask charge generation or Soul of Abberath for ignite immunity, depending on the content.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

Safe Playstyle: Your minions tank and deal damage, keeping you out of harm's way.

High Damage Potential: Skeletal Mages, especially with proper scaling, can dish out immense cold damage.

Excellent Clear Speed: GMP and the inherent AoE of cold explosions make clearing maps efficient.

Scalability: The build scales well into the late game with investment in gear and gem levels.

Weaknesses:

Minion AI: While improved, minion AI can sometimes be frustrating, requiring careful positioning.

Gearing Complexity: Optimizing minion gear can be intricate, requiring specific modifiers.

Reliance on Corpses: Corpse Pact requires enemies to die to generate corpses, which can be slow against single targets or in specific boss encounters.

Conclusion

The Path of Exile 2 Skeletal Frost Mage Witch Infernalist offers a compelling and powerful end-game experience for players who enjoy commanding a chilling army. By focusing on minion damage, cold penetration, and strategic utility, you can carve a path of frozen destruction through Wraeclast's most formidable challenges. Adaptability and continuous optimization are key to truly mastering this frosty legion, ensuring your skeletal mages remain a force to be reckoned with in the ever-evolving world of Path of Exile 2.

In the POE 2 game, Players will create characters by selecting from various classes and customizing their skills, attributes, and equipment. Collect powerful weapons, armor,and items to improve their characters. Path of Exile 2 featuring fast-paced combat, character progression, and loot-based mechanics. If you want to quickly improve the character's combat power and get a better gaming experience, you can try to buy cheap POE 2 Currency Orbs,various materials and Items.

The goods on MMOexp are updated daily by the staff with a reasonable and competitive price based on the market trend, offer the safest and cheap POE 2 Currency Orbs for PS/PC/Xbox, 365/24/7 online service and fast delivery. It is a large platform with good service, fast delivery, many items, and is safe and reliable.