So I'm retiring a Witch early because, as it turns out, Slumber Hexing all the melee brutes isn't exactly riveting gameplay, even if it is really powerful.
But our last encounter with said character was just a total beatdown - for them!
Our level 7 party consists of:
•Your stereotypical Invulnerable Rager Barbarian
•A ranged-focused Hunter with a "big cat" companion.
•A Sun/Healing Cleric of Sarenrae
•A rather vanilla Unchained Rogue
•And a Paladin focusing around shield and "aid other" techniques.
Our BBEG was a Night Hag riding around on an Undead Nightmare, with quite a few Black Skeletons serving as fodder.
It was quite a fun fight, and the party managed quite nicely (and with more than a few Str penalties thrown around... those darn skeles!) to overcome in the end, but wow! Never have I felt more useless as a character!
The Hag's SR never even mattered, as it was either flat-out immune to my effects, or it's save bonuses were strong enough to make the rolls almost an after-thought! And since most of what a Witch has to offer is SoS/D effects, my options were incredibly limited.
How do people overcome this? Monsters designed to be a real challenge tend to have all the defenses they need to ignore targeted spellcasters. What's a Witch to do?
(Mostly just curious to see what peoples' responses are - I'm bringing in a Admixture Evoker "God" Wizard in place of the Witch; no more uselessness here, although it IS rather boring knowing that there is only one viable avenue to play a character. :/ )
If your party's willing to support you with no-save debuffs (with the possible exception of the rogue it doesn't look like they'd be set up for this, true) then high save bonuses may be more beatable.
Making sure that you have a spell or two which buffs your friends (not the witches best thing, but they have a few) can help if you can't otherwise contribute.
Frost Fall + Rime Spell entangles anyone not immune/resistant to cold, whether or not they make the save.
Always prepare some reliable spells for battles against resistant creatures. From the witch list:
Glitterdust: no SR, most creatures can be blinded, also helps against invisibility.
Summon Monster spells
Buffs: Enlarge Person, Heroism, etc.
Healing spells
Hexes that help your allies are good too.