People keep talking about the Mercenary buffs in 0.4, but the Witch is where the real shock is right now, especially if you're leaning into Lich. I rerolled last week and pushed to the mid-90s, and it honestly feels like the game's playing cleaner than it used to. The quiet change is minion behavior: they don't just face-tank ground effects or all dogpile the same target anymore. They spread, swap targets fast, and fights stop turning into that awkward mess where you're yelling at your screen. If you're gearing up and looking at poe2 materials to smooth out the early bumps, you'll notice the build "comes online" sooner than most Witch setups.
Why the AI Change Matters
You feel it most in dense T16s. Before, you'd drop minions and then spend half the map babysitting them—pulling back, re-summoning, trying to drag them out of hazard zones. Now you can actually move like a normal character. You'll kite a rare, your army fans out, and the room doesn't turn into a single clump getting erased by one AoE. It's not flashy in patch notes, but in play it's massive. Mapping gets calmer. Less stutter-steps, fewer "wait, why are they stuck again." moments, and way more time just clearing.
My Swap to Skeleton Swarm
I started with a classic Spectre setup, and it worked, but it felt stiff once the league got sweaty. On Friday I pivoted into a hybrid Skeleton swarm and it clicked immediately. Skeletons in the 6-link with Multistrike and Feeding Frenzy is the core, and yeah, Feeding Frenzy is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Without it, your damage windows feel late and your minions hesitate. In the helm, I keep utility Spectres with Deathmark so I can point at a chunky rare or boss add and say, "that one, now." The big spike came from Echoes of the Abyss—chaos conversion on crit turns boss phases into something you can actually control instead of endure.
Staying Alive While Your Army Works
The funny part is how safe it feels for something that's clearly overtuned. I took Unyielding Command early for the minion life multiplier, because dead minions means you're next. With around 5k life and a couple thousand ES, plus Bone Offering pushing block, the build has that steady, boring resilience you want for hard content. Uber fights stop being a panic check. Even blight-ravaged maps become repeatable. It's not the fastest screen-wipe compared to a Sorceress sprinting through layouts, but it's consistent, and consistency prints loot.
Gear Pressure and the Shortcut Temptation
Prices are rough right now. Coming Calamity is sitting in that "do I really want to do this." range, and minion pieces aren't exactly getting cheaper. I've been funding upgrades through Delirium mirrors and whatever else drops, but I get why some people don't want the week-long grind. If someone does choose to speed things up by buying currency or items, the key is not doing anything sketchy and sticking to well-known shops; that's where a site like U4GM gets mentioned a lot, since it's built around quick delivery and a straightforward storefront, and it lets people get back to actually playing instead of staring at trade tabs.
