Warlock best bind demon

Eowia wrote: 3 hours ago

I think Smith from the act4 - if he has cursed you can triple your damage!

I tried to farm mine for around 45 min :/

Smith is act 1,

Hephasto the Armorer is act 4

Alright so..following today's TZ rotation and my own curiosity, I went ahead and did some lancer testing.

Spoiler alert:
The damage really is nuts. But...
Managed to snatch her out of lvl-capped frigid just now. Cursed, fana, the whole (offensive) package. And higher level than what you'd get in

Matron's Den.
Simply put, anything she touches just blows up.

I definitely get the appeal for a defiler build as she'd absolutely shine in that. Link 10, she touches one, all 10 go poof.

However, for other builds, there is a very significant downside to lancers. Two in fact. And one I fear is unavoidable. The other can be eliminated or at least mitigated but will need some serious RNG luck (or dedicated speccing so...back to demon/defilers).

First and foremost, coming from Heph and the like, these things are fragile AF. Heph can literally facetank dclone and take 0 dmg. She on the other hand gets wrecked even by normal diablo. As is, they definitely require a fair bit of babysitting and healing. For the most part, against normal packs, that doesn't matter much as they all die instantly anyways and hence don't hurt her. But against bosses, she's a pain to keep alive.
This could be mitigated by e.g. rolling Stone skin and such but you'll really need some RNG luck on your unique spawns to ever get that alongside cursed and then the right aura.
It helps that you can semi-force one of them via the TZ's base affix but even then the rest remains pure dumb luck.

What's far worse though and what I fear cannot be countered is the lancer AI. They hesitate. A lot. And take little breaks. A lot. Like..A LOT!
Again for a defiler build, that doesn't matter much as you only need that first quick hit each time. But beyond that, looking at different builds where she jumps at multiple targets or looking at boss fights, the hesitation and pauses really stand out. Heph is worlds ahead of lancers in that regard.
Thanks to

Jab, the lancer does have higher dmg output when she does hit but overall, thanks to the constant hesitation, it actually probably just about evens out. And she's just an infinitely worse tank, both due to the fragility and due to the constant hesitation before engaging a new target.

I did also try this with the

Dark Wood lancers earlier. Again a 99 perfect affix roll. The general downside to them is that they don't have

Jab but even so, they still also suffer from the same constant hesitation and pausing. Seems to be a general lancer thing.
Fun side experience with those though is that the

Dark Wood one was so "good" that she literally broke the game. After snatching her up, the other lancers left in the zone simply couldn't hurt her anymore. Or me. Or my merc. They kept attacking all 3 of us but never landed a single hit. Meanwhile, both her and my merc just stood idle and didn't bother engaging them and her aura still affected the other lancers. T'was..interesting. Was limited to that game and zone though so no general "lancer protection" by having one.

Long story short:
Insane dmg.
Would recommend for defiler builds.
For other builds...well, I went back to Heph.