S-TIER | BUILD SORCIÈRE BLEED BOW BLOOD MAGE (@JayTX) | SAISON 5

Build Video

Build Overview

A Witch who shoots a bow, mounted on a Rhoa: this witch bleed bow build by JayTX served as a league starter in Season 5 and finished the league at level 96, with fully optimized gear. The Blood Mage ascendancy isn’t the expected pick for a physical ranged attack, and that’s exactly what makes it work here: the ascendancy’s remnants cover survival while Ice Shot and bleed carry all the offensive work.

The gameplay rests on two layers that reinforce each other. The first is freeze: wielding Sine Aequo builds freeze on every shot, even on pinnacle encounters where other sources fall short, and Herald of Ice detonates frozen corpses across packs. The second is bleed, applied by dedicated tree nodes and relayed by the Rhoa companion through Atalui’s Bloodletting. Around this, Blasphemy and Temporal Chains slow down everything that approaches, and Her Declaration intimidates enemies the moment they enter your presence: 10% more damage taken for them, 10% less damage dealt.

The Rhoa isn’t a minor pet, it’s a mount. You shoot at full speed without ever dismounting. With 80% movement speed from gear alone, then Onslaught, Headhunter and Rite of Passage stacked on maps, the character sits around 150%, a pace few bow builds sustain for this long.

Strengths / Weaknesses

Skill Gem Setup by Step

This build offers 12 progression variants (Leveling, Act 4 Ice Shot Swap, Day 1 (Early Maps), Day 1 (T14+ Weapon Set Swap)), Day 2 (Gear Upgrades), Day 3 (Lavianga + Rite), Day 4 (Headhunter Swap), Day 5 (New Bow), Day 6 (New Amulet), Day 7 (Major Tree Swap, Rakiata), Day 8-9 (Breach Ring Craft), Final Build). Choose a variant, then a step to see the corresponding gem setup.

Leveling Act 4 Ice Shot Swap Day 1 (Early Maps) Day 1 (T14+ Weapon Set Swap)) Day 2 (Gear Upgrades) Day 3 (Lavianga + Rite) Day 4 (Headhunter Swap) Day 5 (New Bow) Day 6 (New Amulet) Day 7 (Major Tree Swap, Rakiata) Day 8-9 (Breach Ring Craft) Final Build

Act 1 Act 2 Act 3-4

Ice Shot Transition

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Set 1

Act 1

5 skills • 12 gemmes

Drain d'essenceEssence Drain

ContagionContagion

Tempête d'ossementsBonestorm

EnchevêtrementEntangle

Présence flétrissanteWithering Presence

Act 2

5 skills • 14 gemmes

Drain d'essenceEssence Drain

ContagionContagion

Tempête d'ossementsBonestorm

Présence flétrissanteWithering Presence

BondissementPounce

Act 3-4

7 skills • 21 gemmes

Drain d'essenceEssence Drain

ContagionContagion

Sombre effigieDark Effigy

Sceau de pouvoirSigil of Power

DésespoirDespair

Trait de chaosChaos Bolt

Présence flétrissanteWithering Presence

Ice Shot Transition

7 skills • 25 gemmes

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Tir d'éliteSnipe

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Tir de fuiteEscape Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Set 1

9 skills • 31 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Tir d'éliteSnipe

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Set 1

9 skills • 34 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Tir d'éliteSnipe

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Set 1

10 skills • 44 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Tir d'éliteSnipe

Tir de glaceIce Shot

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Set 1

10 skills • 44 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Tir d'éliteSnipe

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Set 1

11 skills • 48 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Tir d'éliteSnipe

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Set 1

11 skills • 51 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Tir d'éliteSnipe

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Set 1

11 skills • 51 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

Tir d'éliteSnipe

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Set 1

11 skills • 52 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Tir d'éliteSnipe

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Set 1

11 skills • 52 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Tir d'éliteSnipe

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Set 1

11 skills • 53 gemmes

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Tir à l'arcBow Shot

Reliquats de VieLife Remnants

Tir d'éliteSnipe

Tir de glaceIce Shot

Marque glacialeFreezing Mark

Tornade de flèchesTornado Shot

Héraut de la glaceHerald of Ice

BlasphèmeBlasphemy

Salve glaçanteFreezing Salvo

Monture RhoaRhoa Mount

Recommended Equipment

• Gloves — Sine Aequo: the piece that anchors your defense. Freeze becomes consistent, bosses included. Aim for a 40% roll rather than 50% through corruption. Asenath’s Gentle Touch also works if you’d rather run a different utility on this slot.
• Helmet — Heatshiver: the piece that turns freeze into damage. Hits landed on a frozen target convert a portion of cold damage into fire, turning every frozen enemy into a soft target.
• Amulet — rare +3 projectiles with Spirit: the extra Spirit funds one more aura, in this case Her Declaration. Anoint Heavy Frost if you don’t already have Rakiatas Flow. The craft is deterministic and detailed step by step on the build’s Maxroll page.
• Bow — Obliterator Bow (rare): pierce chance, companion damage, a solid physical roll, and Onslaught. This bow is enough to carry you through the whole game.
• Body Armour — rare energy shield: flat energy shield and as much resistance as possible, nothing fancy needed.
• Boots — rare: resistances and, above all, high movement speed — this is the slot that carries that number.
• Rings — crafted Breach ring: the Breach essences introduced this league add quality to rings. The guide’s example rolls 110 flat lightning damage and 51 cold. The refined version offers an extra 5% quality. The second ring is a Kalandras Touch, which simply duplicates the first one — two Breach rings for the price of one.
• Belt — Headhunter: stealing rare buffs brings more damage and defense than any alternative while mapping.
• Charm — Rite of Passage: allied resistances, skill speed, movement speed, and 20% of damage converted to lightning.
• Quiver — Serrated Quiver (rare): the most underrated slot in the build. This is what carries the chance to fire two extra projectiles while moving — in other words, your clear speed while you’re galloping.
• Flasks — Laviangas Spirits and a life flask: Lavianga’s shows up as early as day 3 in the planner’s progression and never leaves the character after that.
• Secondary Charms — Nascent Hope and an anti-ailment charm: the first covers survival, the second clears the ailments that slip through freeze.
• Jewels — Split Personality, From Nothing, Heart of the Well, plus a rare bleed-focused jewel (bleed chance and bleed effect): the tree’s four jewel sockets, detailed further below.

Gameplay Tips

• Never dismount the Rhoa on the map: the mount is both your movement and your shooting platform. The whole tree build assumes you’re firing while moving.
• Freeze before you burst bosses: Sine Aequo builds up freeze shot after shot. Once the enemy is frozen, Heavy Frost and the rest of the cold setup take off.
• On Heart of the Well jewels, aim for mana on kill first, then at least one damage mod, ideally two. The fourth mod is free: skill speed, attack speed, movement speed, bleed chance, or elemental ailment chance all work.
• Put From Nothing on the Vaal Pact keystone: you instantly pick up a whole cluster of movement speed and bleed nodes in one go.
• Keep Deliberation until you have Rakiatas Flow: that’s exactly the support Rakiatas Flow comes to replace in the Ice Shot setup.

Split Personality: Saving Dozens of Passive Points

This is the end-of-league discovery. Split Personality lets you allocate points from the Ranger’s starting point. In practice, you give up every node in the Witch starting area entirely and start straight from the Ranger’s, an area the tree was already passing through anyway.

The payoff is twofold: dozens of points freed up, and much higher value on the nodes you actually take, since the Ranger area matches the profile of a bow build. The alternative exists on the Monk side (listed as Shadow on the trade site) and produces the same effect: emptying the original starting area to set off from somewhere else.

The Breach Ring: The Most Profitable Craft of the League

Season 5’s Breach essences add quality to rings, and that quality amplifies damage mods. By stacking a Breach essence, a refined base (5% extra quality), and catalysts, you get rings that simply didn’t exist in previous leagues: 110 flat lightning damage and 51 cold on the example shown, with still a free mod left for fire or rarity.

The thing to know: the craft costs around 100 Divine Orbs. On the other hand, these rings sell well above that price, because few players know the recipe yet. JayTX says it outright: if you’re looking to fund your season, this is a craft worth doing in bulk.

Upgrading the Bleed Bow Witch Build

Three upgrades genuinely make a difference. Rakiatas Flow first: slotted into the freeze setup, it gives an almost instant freeze on bosses; slotted into the Ice Shot setup in place of Deliberation, it delivers a direct damage gain. The choice depends on the content you’re farming.

Next, the bow. A mirror-tier item with 200% surpassing and a maxed physical roll remains the heaviest upgrade. A cheaper path exists: switching to a Warmonger Bow, which keeps full range with no projectile range penalty, a real plus for farming Breach.

Finally, the tree. Voices opens up several extra jewel sockets, which you then fill with bleed chance and bleed magnitude, or with movement speed depending on what you’re missing. On the chest slot, a high-energy-shield Zerphi’s Heart gives +1 to all gems, corrupted gems, and six soul cores. Extremely expensive, but the power gap is real.

Playing Without the Rhoa: What You Give Up

A mount-free version works, but only in the endgame, once you already have solid gear. In the early league it doesn’t hold up: the damage nodes tied to the companion provide too much generic value to give up right when the character needs them the most.

If you insist on playing without the Rhoa, the trade-off is clear: you need to grab all the reduced movement speed penalty while using skills that the tree offers, and go through the Vaal Temple for the matching body modification, which adds roughly 18% in total. At that price, mobility becomes comparable again. Raw speed, though, never will be: it’s a deliberate trade between quality of life and clear speed.

Skill Tree