While the Witch Hunter Ascendancy in Path of Exile 2 is known for its overwhelming damage output, it also offers strong defensive capabilities that allow players to survive in challenging encounters. One of the key aspects of the Witch Hunter's survivability is its emphasis on evasion, mobility, and Read More avoidance. These defensive features make the Witch Hunter an agile and elusive class, able to dodge incoming attacks while dishing out massive damage from a distance.

Evasion and Mobility: Core Defensive Mechanics

Evasion is one of the primary defensive mechanics in the Witch Hunter Ascendancy. By investing in evasion nodes, players can significantly reduce the number of attacks that land, making the Witch Hunter a highly evasive character. Evasion works hand-in-hand with the Witch Hunter's agility and speed, allowing them to avoid incoming damage while positioning themselves to deal damage from afar.

The passive abilities that enhance evasion include:

Evasive Maneuver: This passive ability grants a flat bonus to evasion and increases the chances of avoiding hits. When combined with high evasion gear, this ability ensures that the Witch Hunter can evade the majority of physical attacks.

Agility: This node increases movement speed and evasion rating, making the Witch Hunter incredibly nimble on the battlefield. With this node, the Witch Hunter can move in and out of combat with ease, dodging enemy attacks and repositioning for optimal damage.

Shifting Shadows: A unique ability for the Witch Hunter, Shifting Shadows increases evasion while out of combat, allowing players to easily dodge incoming attacks before a fight even begins. This ability encourages hit-and-run tactics, where the Witch Hunter can strike quickly and then disappear into the shadows.

Avoiding Damage: Energy Shield and Resistances

While evasion is crucial, the Witch Hunter also benefits from an increased focus on energy shield and resistances. The Ascendancy offers various passive abilities that enhance these defensive stats, ensuring the Witch Hunter can survive even when enemies land a hit.

Energy Shield Mastery: This ability increases the Witch Hunter's energy shield pool, providing a buffer against damage. This makes the Witch Hunter less reliant on life leech and more able to absorb incoming hits without suffering severe consequences.

Resistant Strikes: This passive increases elemental resistances and allows the Witch Hunter to avoid elemental debuffs, such as burning or freezing. This helps mitigate the damage from elemental attacks, which is particularly useful when facing enemies that deal high elemental damage.

Using Traps and Mines for Crowd Control

The Witch Hunter also uses traps and mines to control the battlefield and avoid direct confrontations with enemies. By setting up traps that disorient or immobilize enemies, the Witch Hunter can avoid taking damage altogether while still dealing substantial damage.

The passive ability Tactical Prowess significantly reduces the cooldown of traps, allowing players to deploy them more rapidly. This creates more opportunities to control crowds and keep enemies at bay.

Conclusion

The Witch Hunter Ascendancy excels not only at dealing damage but also at staying alive through evasion, energy shield, and resistances. The combination of these defensive capabilities, along with the ability to control the battlefield with traps and mines, ensures that the Witch Hunter can survive even the toughest battles. With the right passive abilities and gear, the Witch Hunter can avoid taking damage while still being a major force in combat.