Pathfinder: WoTR- Party Member Ember Fire Witch Build 

Greetings! Two corrections on this video, neither of which negatively impact the build. 1. Typically Oracles take curses not Witches. Ember takes a curse specifically because she is a Stigmatized Witch. 2. The -4 penalty that Ember takes ONLY applies to weapon attacks not spells. My apologies I completely misread that. Since this build focuses on hexes and buffing until around level 14 it is not really impacted by that information. If you wanted to take Spell Penetration (Mythic) earlier than just know that your blasts will absolutely be effective from the get go. As always thank you for all the feedback!

Ember's Blackened curse doesn't actually apply to spells, it only applies to WEAPON attack rolls. If you check her attack line with something like Scorching Ray the -4 penalty is not present because it's not a weapon, it's a spell. Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot are actually amazing feats for her because she's hitting touch AC and Precise Shot lets her ignore the penalty for firing in to melee, and with 16 dex that's plenty good enough to hit a lot of targets touch ACs. Ember actually makes a fantastic blaster because of her blackened curse. It gives her all the good blasting spells, you can take a mythic ability to just ignore fire resistances and immunities and there's some fantastic rings in the game to support that. She's probably the best blaster companion in the game because of the support items. Also at SL5 a geeat spell for Ember is Mind Fog because it makes hitting will DCs easier, even against higher will save enemies. Slumber Hex alone makes Mind Fog worth it Nenio really makes a better support bot being a wizard and being able to prepare her spells rather than being a spontaneous caster and being locked in. You can change out spells if you know you won't need buffs in an area rather than being stuck with them.

I really like this video format. The video is well organized and you do a good job explaining your choices (hexes for example) without rambling on or getting bogged down. I also appreciate how your builds are intended to honor the intent/themes beyond the character, rather than doing an ultra min-maxed build with dips into five different classes. Thanks, and I'm looking forward to seeing more content like this.

This was great!! I think I’m beginning to understand. I’ll be bingeing your vids all this weekend brother 👍🏾

The scorched error is an easy one to make. This is a great summary of the build!

Discovered your channel from some random comment. I enjoy your videos and enthusiasm for the game. Keep it up!

Bro THANK YOU for making a spreadsheet for your builds. Best pathfinder youtuber hands down bro fr

I love your way of explaining things. This game is so complicated and you make it so much easier to understand

Great stuff. Even for experienced players it can be a little daunting to come up with a decent build for all of the various companions, but you've got us covered!

I always watch your videos just to hear your Fantastic pronunciation :D Great video, keep up the great work!

Thanks for this one. Please stay awsome.

You realy like that Game - i do too. great video and you have a very informed community bringing small failures up. Go on like you do, you allways do a great job and i love to watch all your vids. Because that game is worth it. I watch your vids for that game from the beginning and there was no bad one.

Small thing: only the stigmatized witch gets a curse, otherwise it's a feature from the oracle class. Good video though, love your content

Dayum I love your channel!

Man that Ember looks busted as hell. Awesome guide my dude!

Using basically this build for a teiflng sorcerer right now. Seems like it's going to be so good with all the items that give bonus to fire.

Red Salamander Ring from the cleric in Act 2's camp, Ring of Pyromania from the jewlery trader in Drezen. Ember now gets every fire spell you want, pyromania ring adds damage and spell pen, combine with ascendant element fire for good times

Loving the thumbnail!

As you using Mage armor, bracers should be ones found in Blackwater- free storm spells, making not necessary to take them on lvlup

I realize this is a late point, hope you see it. One thing I do is take Mystic feat Expanded Arsenal at 2nd level. It allows you to take a second magic school and applies all bonuses from you feats and mystic feats to the new school ( Spell focus, Mystic spell focus,) etc. to the second school. You can take Necromancy Spells to give you more spells option, since you can use the ring for fire spells.

For the grand Hex, Regenerative Sinew can be very nice. As an off healer, being able to heal ability damage is nice.

Currently rebuilding ember to take down playful dead. This sure came in handy

Protective luck is a very good early pick. Evil eye is nice, but I always take this at level 2 on Camellia, and between sleep and vulnerability, Ember has enough offensive hexes. Protective luckwill make your tank MUCH harder to hit otherwise. Its not very effective if the enemy can easily hit the character, but it essential squares the chance of the enemy hitting you, which means if its already low, it becomes really low. If they have a 1/2 chance to hit, its now a 1/4 chance to hit, if they have a 1/5 chance to hit, its now a 1/25 chance to hit, if they had a 1/20 chance to hit, its now a 1/400 chance to hit. It also means if they land in the threat range (commonly this is the case if they arent likely to hit in the first place), their confirmation role is also affected. Also, its effective against packs, whereas the offensive hexes only affect one target at a time. Where you can make the enemies focus your tank for most or all of your attacks, this remains very potent throughout the game, and it lasts multiple rounds at higher levels, so you can maintain 100% uptime and cast plenty of other spells. Edit: just playing with it now, it appears even natural 20s are forced to be rerolled. I dont know if this is a patch or I misremember, but protective luck is amazingly good for tanks. Annoyingly, you cannot set it to autocast.

AGONY YOU FOOL!

Spell level 5 I like to get mind fog on ember. Especially if you also have Nenio on your team. They become a fantastic duo.

While I'm not a fan of the Stigmatised Witch archetype itself, Ember is a great character. I built my Hexcrafter Magus around working with how I build Ember

I ended up making her a fire witch too with fire ascendant and it works pretty well except for when you run into dragons and greater demons which are essentially immune to fire spells. Making her a negative energy caster / AOE cursebot with a minor in fire works much better IMO. By that I mean still using stuff like Hellfire Ray and Volcanic Storm but prioritizing something like Plague Storm or advanced Inflict Wounds. Give her metamagic abilities so she can bolster them or maximize

The problem with stuff like Evil Eye, there are SO many things immune to mind-affecting especially later in the game. It becomes virtually useless past act 2.

problem with chain lightning and stormbolts is that demons (most common enemy by far) are immune to electricity so it's useless unless you take the mythic feat which removes elemental resist/immunity. But that sort of requires you to go all in on one element.

If I have it right, the reason Hellfire ray shows up like that is the ring is giving you a level 6 slot, but her blackened curse is what's also giving it at level 7. I could be wrong! I've been meaning to test this theory with a Fire based trickster build >_> Hellfire ray completely normal spell so you have it in level 5, 6 and 7 slots! It's a dumb idea I know, but something to ponder.

Hope YOU are having an absolutely fantastic day :D

Just to laugh at myself : though I took the Mythic feat to make fire bypass DR, I somehow took Lighting Bolt as a level 3 spell... which demons are immune to (for some mystical reason that boggles my mind :P). Mistakes were made.

Level 12+ once you used all of your pure caster feat you might want to pick metamagic feat (empowered and selective mostly) and pick mythic metamagic selective just for the sake of being able to cast lvl 7 to 9 spells without blowing up your whole team and mind fogging everyone, I did not check the exact witch spell list but phantasmal web+mind fog (can be done in a single round with a quicken rod) is a great way to control mass of enemies and wave of exhaustion is a must, also don't bother with banshee wail as it is a huge bait since soulreaver is a potent lvl 8 spell similar to banshee wail and also caster level can't be stacked above 21 (23 if your pc is a lich but then he'll prob be the main spellcaster so who cares about others, also spellcap is odd as I can cast chain lightning with 25d6 at caster level 22 as a lich instead of expected 20d6 cap) on non pc so you don't care about not capping at caster level 20, worthwhile lvl 9 tends to be mind blank, inspire heroism, polar midnight and tsunami, foresight is meh since +2 won't change anything and displacement+mirror image exist to save you from insane bab opponent and mitigate your flat footed time-frame. Honestly if foresight was a level 7 or 8 or just the opponent version (which goes up to +8 AC for some reason) it would be worth picking Also avoid archmage armor since it won't change anything is she start getting attacked and if you want to save her you'll prefer using seamantle (lvl 8 spell) that gives you +8ac and displacement against non magical attack So for your newly freed mythic rank consider picking expanded magical arsenal for illusion school or necromancy since most damaging spell are necromancy and evocation Another potent option is picking another mythic metamagic feat to reduce empower to +1 spell level instead of +2 Imo sorcerous reflex as low value since it's a single level 7 quicken spell at best and at that point you should have quicken rod for level 6 spells, destructive dispel sounds better especially since you pick greater dispel magic and bosses tends to stack buff like there is no tomorrow

Without channelling, restoration or mass heal, I think it would hard for her to ever be a better healer than Daeran, but some of the hexes are great, and she has a nice mix of offensive, defense and crowd control. My biggest issue with witches is the lack of haste. She would be fine as your arcane caster but for this, but haste is such a mandatory buff, unless you have something like an air kineticist or get it through your mythic spellbook, taking another arcane caster feels decidedly non optional.

I mostly use her to sleep what can be slept, weaken all the immunities so I can nuke em to hell and back, heal a little and toss some buffs around. Honestly if all you do is use her as a hex machine, that's very useful. especially the vulnerability hex. Man what a good thing that is in this game with all the demons devils and undead messing with me all over the place. All she needs to do is stare a little and just like that I got a free round of nuking to do. Love it!

One mistake I made was keeping Ember on hexes for too long. There aren't nearly as many ways to boost her hex DC as there are to boost spell DCs, so her offensive hexes just didn't keep up at higher levels. Evil Eye with Cackle still worked, but I needed to either transition to the buff hexes or focus on spells at higher levels. And, as a spontaneous caster with all the Abundant Casting abilities, she get's a TON of blasting potential. I don't like taking the spontaneous casters as your main buffer, just because with Enduring Spells, you only need to cast that buff spell once a day, and there may easily be 3-4 buffs at a single spell level that you want up. That's perfect for spell slots, but quickly becomes the ONLY spells you can take for a spontaneous caster.

So I’m not exactly sure where to put this, but I wanted to throw it out there for a two-handed str build with the legend mythic path. Using the rowdy rogue archetype and another martial class (barbarian or mutagen warrior are front runners). This all hindges on the vital strike and it’s mythic upgrade. The potential of this seems astonishing considering I dealt a 430 damage crit on my level 12 cavalier with vital strike. I can only imagine what the above build could possibly do.

I'm pretty sure that ranged touch attacks suffer a -4 to hit penalty without precise shot, so the feat choice owlcat gave really isn't that awful.. this time. I also don't think her blackened penalty effects ranged touch attacks(scorching/hellfire ray). I think the companions this time around are better designed overall, probably because they're not being forced into taking stats they don't need to fill an advisory role.

Here's one for you: The Kindred Raised Half-Elf gets a +2 Charisma AND another +2 to any stat (this is a mistake) so it is the ONLY race that can start with a 22 stat! Huge for charisma based casters and also characters such as oracles and paladins that can get other benefits related to charisma.

Wail is the very definition of Awesome But Impractical. If you're playing a pure caster, there's no way you'd want to run them into the middle of the enemies just to cast it.

The Precise Shot at least makes Hellfire Ray not get a -4 into a group of combatants. Which is always nice.

Only the Stigmatize witch takes a curse your probably thinking Oracle

So I’m probably really stupid, but is there a character creator app of menu somewhere? Do I have to retrain to see everything. I’d like to have all the options in front of me so I can look at everything at the same time and backwards map out my build. Hard to do from level 1. Would rather start at level 20 and map it out backwards.

I`ve seen several builds for Ember and Carmelia. No one picks up Protective Luck (early). I wonder why? It has helped me a lot in several encounters.

Unfortunately in the mid-game the energy drain that will commonly affect your backline comes from those accursed random encounters that often take place at a time when your enduring spells doesn't really help you keep Death Ward up constantly on the world map. Or it will happen right as your characters suffer from fatigue *and* the enduring Death Ward lapses. It's like the game *knows* when you'll be vulnerable and then pops a world map random encounter where you _start off_ with multiple party members getting level drained. The most annoying encounters.

Almost everything in the game is immune to Electricity. So Stormbolts and Chain Lightning suffer. Since you don’t even want the final Grand Hex, I recommend putting a 1 level dip into Crossblooded Sorcerer. Take Dragonic Red and Fire Elemental. Besides buffing all your fire spells, it also allows you to turn all your spells into Fire spells. Then get Ascendant Element Fire and now you can use Stormbolts and Chain Lightning and any other energy spell against any enemy and just ignore resistances and immunities.

What about a dip in crossblooded sorcerer to get the undead and serpentine bloodline so you can sleep and evil eye vermin and undead?

I ranged touch attacks are not weapon attacks. If blackened is affecting your ranged touch attack spells you have a pretty serious bug.

Couple of notes. Hellfire at level 7 is from the Blackened Curse I believe. Death Ward morale bonus to saves is fairly pointless. Its true purpose in life is to make you immune to energy drain (negative levels) and negative energy effects. Hexes wise, for me I found Restless Slumber to be bugged, and waking enemies up on the next turn. Was that patched already? If not, its a bad choice. Otherwise an okay choice. Iceplant... yeah, kinda pointless really. Have you considered Aura of Purity instead? (makes you immune to clouds, i.e. cloudkill or mind fog) Spells: Lvl2: Scare is useful in Act 1, really falls off after that. False Life, I disagree with recommending this one as Daeran can provide temp hp via mysteries, and the amount of temp hp is kinda pointless for a spell slot (where you can use scorching ray instead). Boneshaker is... not as good as scorching ray but its guranteed damage (or half if they succeed the fort save). Have you considered adding Glitterdust here? With heighten thats a solid debuff. Lvl3: I'd avoid Deep Slumber, falls off really quick. Personally I'd avoid Heroism on a spontaneous caster and fill up Nenio or Woljiff with Heroism as its completely replaced by Heroism Greater. Unfortunately there aren't a whole lot of good picks at the 3rd level for witches, so its kinda a wash. Lot of things (like remove curse) have niche uses but aren't frequently used or must haves save heroism in the early game. Lvl4: I'd stay away from Ice Storm. Basically everything you'll be fighting is either highly resistant to elemental damage, or flat out immune to it. False Life Greater... you should have other better options for Temp hp. Here I'd suggest picking up Enervation. Its a ray spell (so touch attacks, as are scorching and hellfire) and a strong debuff. And you might want to consider grabbing some summons. They're great for wasting enemies turns. Lvl5: Break Enchantment dispels friendly effects (like haste or death ward) so be careful of using it. Cave Fangs is completely bugged and busted. Great damage spell though. Baleful Polymorph doesn't run off Evocation DCs so you're going to have trouble landing it. Cloudkill... you want a way to prevent clouds from affecting you and your party. Have you considered adding in Mind Fog here? Great debuff spell. Lvl6: Raise Dead is the one I'd swap here. A scroll is cheaper than a diamond and there are a good number of raise dead scrolls throughout the game. Hellfire Ray. Get it. You can drop the salamander ring when you do. Scorching is from blackened, fire snake you get from blackened, you get 2 copies of hellfire. The only thing you miss is fire storm. And level 6 means you can apply more metamagics to it. Lvl7: If you scribe Legendary Proportions scrolls you don't need the dinosaur bones component. Otherwise not really worth getting as you'll get like 4 casts of it. Chain Lightning is BAD if you don't have ascendant lightning. Demons are IMMUNE TO ELECTRICITY. If you really want it, use the bracers from blackwater which give you chain lightning for free. Heal is also a near-mandatory spell for me personally. Its just so efficient. Lvl8: Stormbolts is BAD. Demons are IMMUNE TO ELECTRICITY. You'll get more use outta rift of ruin or prediction of failure. Horrid Wilting ain't great either. Amazing against treants or mandragoras. Both of which you encounter before you'll have this spell on ember. Lvl9: Foresight, Mind Blank Communal, Heroic Invocation. All great spells. Feats wise. What are you trying to do with Ember? Spell Focus Evocation and Elemental Focus are only good for spells (fire spells) which have a saving throw. Ray spells don't have a saving throw. Are you spamming Fireball, Controlled Fireball, and Firestorm? If you're making an AoE spamming blaster then these are fine. But it won't be as effective at killing demons as running a single target blaster focused build. Also I find Improved Initiative to be a waste personally. Usually its prebuff or die on core. But eh. Combat Casting is a poor choice. Don't let Ember get surrounded. A surrounded caster is a dead caster. Here are some suggestions. Metamagics (bolster, empower). Arcane Focus (elven specific +2 spell pen), weapon focus ray. You can also grab dazzling and shatter defenses to make the rays more likely to land. For your mythics. Ascendant element is something which should be earlier in your build. Somewhere in the first 2 abilities. I go abundant, spell pen, then ascendant personally. But Ember doesn't come online as a blaster until you have ascendant. School Mastery is something worth picking up. Boosted caster level = more damage (earlier in the game) Sorcerous Reflex can be useful. Last Stand is a godsend Favorite Metamagics are excellent. Favorite something like Selective and toss it on Polar Midnight (with cold ascendant) and thats a long-lasting fields of attribute drain and elemental damage which doesn't affect your party memebers. Selective increases the cost by 0 with favorite. Addendum: Please, for the love of god. USE YOUR RODS. I spotted like 6 in your inventory. One of which looked like the Devouring Lust. Another which looked with the Grandmaster Rod. Those are hella strong.

Hello and thanks for the content Open question to the wotr community Priir to my question, i should say I am fairly new to crpg and d&d in general I got my hands on pf wotr recently and still going through act 1,enjoying a lot I have however watched a lot of videos for game mecanics and builds and something is bothering me for, even in min max ones, it seems sometimes feats or spells are deemed unworthy because they become irrelevant eventually ... But I am puzzled since it seems you have the opportunity to rebuild or retrain Why dont I find build advice that go up to, say, act2 to then rebuild differently? Hope that makes sense Thanks for reading

Ooooh shi. I forsee another change to my party composition lol

A few days ago due to her kind nature I simply forgot that she's a pyromaniac spell-wise and not a healer and took her instead of the count.

I love how the creepers in discord always try to find a way to "mama bear" ember like shes this perfect cinnamon. I also wonder what else ember is capable of. When cross classing out of witch

Here's how I built her to be a Hellfire Ray walking cannon: Take sorcerer 2x fire dmg dragon bloodline. Rest into witch. Pump RANGED attack bonuses, and take critical for Ray spells. Max evocation school focus. Max spell pen. Take ascendant element: fire. Take fire dmg ring from the priest in drezen. Take anything that gives dmg to ray attacks.

I thought the ray spells weren’t affected by the Blackened curse. Still better than Daeran’s though

Spells do not count as weapon attacks; at least in tabletop. Not sure why it would be different in Wrath

Are you sure the penalty applies to spells? I was under the impression that it only applies to weapons

I got her that 60k staff to give her Burning Arc at will and using it as a basic attack

Feel like I must be doing something wrong with Ember. I've pumped up all her penetration, evocation, fire, yet her hellfire ray hits like a wet noodle on most enemies in the last act. Like 18, 18, 18, 18, or 12, 12, 12, 12 or something.

Evil eye is how I beat that stupid elemental on core. Not a bad move at all

I feel like ember (and witch in general) is WAY stronger in turn based mode than in RTwP

Perception is sooooo important! I generally have at least 3 of my 6 party members maxxed out on it. Great video! But I keep things simple; I switch her ASAP to ranger and give her a bow and a Mammoth to ride, and just let her go.

Ok. But how do I build Ember as 2h scimitar fighter? The only true Ember build.

The witch class is a mystic theurge at lv 1

Spell penetration. Greater spell penetration. Mythic spell penetration. Elven racial. Elven racial feat. Ember has failed to overcome [enemy] spell resistance. 🤬

1:58 respec mod is your friend

I don't like to use her as a damage dealer, her character is to "childish" (not meant in a bad way) and playful. It pains me to have her cast any damage spells thinking of what happened to her caused by Hulrun. I load her up with buffs and heals and let her autocast Slumber all the time and heal the party after the fight with all her healing spells. I always try to keep any harm away from her, she is like the child i don't have. 😉😊

Ember is extremely versatile, however she doesn't do any one thing better the other party member. So on harder difficulties its harder for me to use a party slot on her when that slot could go to some one who is better at their particular job in the party. Currently I have as a fire specialized arcane trickster.

basically all demons late game are immune to electric tho..

and meny meny demons heaw fire resistance

Lol I make her into an enchanted battle sion

It is so annoying to fast forward through spells when you want to see fits... On some other videos those were separated parts of te vid and that's right idea.

Well she cant heal so

Yea t his guide needs more time in the oven you said so many wrong things, only stigmatized witches take a curse, and blackened only affects weapons not spells it doesnt affect scorching ray

Too much empty talk.

I used to build Ember more of a crowd-control and hex buffer for my team. But when I realized so many enemies have immunities, I just went full fire