Path of Exile 2's Rise of the Abyssals league is filled with twisted caverns, lumbering horrors, and enough chaos to keep even the most hardened exiles wide-eyed-but nothing in this league delivers raw, cinematic destruction quite like the Witch Infernalist exploding-minion build. After hundreds of hours in ARPGs, experimenting with every spell, strike, and gimmick imaginable, this is the build that genuinely rekindled that first-time PoE spark. It's loud, it's messy, and POE2 Currency it's explosively satisfying in a way few playstyles ever manage to capture.
 
Imagine your screen filled with skeletal arsonists flinging volatile firebombs that detonate into chain reactions. Picture raging spirits swarming bosses like a cloud of enraged hornets, each hit triggering another wave of combustive carnage. Add spectres that blink in and vaporize packs with eldritch detonations. The result? A personal army of living explosives reducing the league's tentacled nightmares to mulch. It feels less like playing an ARPG and more like directing an undead demolition crew in real time-except you're always the one walking away from the blast.
 
This build isn't just strong; it's a spectacle.
 
Why the Infernalist Dominates Rise of the Abyssals
 
Rise of the Abyssals is stacked with cluster-packed encounters, dense spawns, and high-risk, high-reward map mods. It's a league designed to overwhelm. Minion builds, particularly fire-explosion variants, thrive in exactly these scenarios. They multiply your damage output, handle multiple fronts at once, and let you stay mobile instead of face-tanking horrors that spit poison, chaos, and abyssal sludge.
 
The Witch's Infernalist ascendancy pushes this to the extreme. It transforms your character into a pyromaniac necromancer with demonic flair. Key accelerants-like Unholy Might granting hefty bonus chaos damage and persistent Offering uptime-supercharge your minions until they feel like an unstoppable inferno. You're not babysitting minions or juggling clunky micromanagement. You cast your crew, juice them with buffs, and let their suicidal enthusiasm handle everything else.
 
By the early campaign, the build already feels mischievously strong. Gas arrow skeletons explode in toxic blooms, clearing corridors with minimal gear. As you scale into mapping, fire-bomb skeletons become homing missiles of destruction, and raging spirits add constant pressure on every enemy within proximity. Endgame? You're clearing invitations before some builds could even finish summoning all their minions. Uber bosses get melted under a swarm of on-death pops, overlapping explosions, and ignite stacks that tick like a time bomb.
 
It's one of those rare builds that keeps getting better the longer you play it.
 
Explosions Everywhere: How the Core Loop Works
 
The magic is in the synergy. This Infernalist version stacks explosive minion types with on-death procs, ignite scaling, and Offering uptime. Packs vanish because your minions essentially detonate twice-once on hit, once on death-creating cascading blasts that leapfrog from monster to monster.
 
The gameplay loop is beautifully simple:
 
Summon your explosive skeletons and raging spirits.
 
Cast Offering to supercharge attack speed, cast speed, and damage.
 
Drop a curse or exposure if needed.
 
Watch as every enemy on screen evaporates in a chain of detonations.
 
The lack of friction is part of the charm. Many minion builds rely on brittle AI or slow ramping mechanics. This one doesn't. It rewards aggression, rapid movement, and fluid pacing-fitting perfectly into Rise of the Abyssals' relentless encounter design.
 
Defensively, you're not a glass cannon either. With a strong block setup, decent life, and some layers of damage conversion, you can survive stray projectiles or tentacle slams without panicking. And since your minions draw aggro naturally, you're rarely the target anyway.
 
Ladder-Proven Power With Room for Personal Flair
 
Another point in this build's favor: it's wildly popular yet flexible. The poe.ninja ladders have been full of explosive minion Infernalists since the first week of the league, and the build continues to sit comfortably among top-performing variants in both softcore and hardcore.
 
But unlike many "meta” builds, this one gives you room to personalize your approach.
 
You can:
 
Lean into ignite stacking for huge boss damage.
 
Focus on minion-on-death explosions to chain clear maps.
 
Add spectres tailored to your style-burst nukers, support casters, or bruisers.
 
Optimize for speed or shift to tankier setups without losing identity.
 
It's a build that grows with you rather than boxing you into a rigid template.
 
Perfect League Fit for New and Veteran Players
 
Path of Exile 2 has already earned a reputation for smoother movement, more readable combat, and clearer build development. This Infernalist setup benefits enormously from those improvements. Minion AI feels more focused, explosion chains are more visually distinct, and boss arenas give you room to maneuver while your minions swarm from all angles.
 
For new players, it's approachable. You don't need mirror-tier gear to start enjoying the build. For veterans, it scales into absurdity with investment-you can chase perfect offerings, high-tier abyssal jewels, crafted helms with minion explosion multipliers, and more.
 
And in Rise of the Abyssals, where every delve and confrontation feels like an ambush, having twenty or thirty bombs-on-legs launching themselves into battle just feels correct.
 
Final Thoughts: Join the Mayhem
 
If you're burned out on spell slingers or exhausted from playing melee builds that require frame-perfect dodges, the Infernalist exploding-minion Witch is a breath of fiery, sulfur-scented air. It's one of the rare builds that delivers both mechanical strength and Path of Exile 2 Currency sale pure fun every minute you're playing it.
 
From early campaign all the way through endgame, this build turns Path of Exile 2 into a nonstop cinematic explosion reel. It's fast. It's chaotic. It's absurd. And it absolutely thrives in Rise of the Abyssals.