Bind Demon - I died so I'll take that opportunity to respec

Like many I guess, I maxed

Blood Boil because of synergies but when I got Lister with 2 Defilers, I wasn't using BB at all because he's so effective rushing on any enemy in sight and killing it with everyone around falliung almost at the same time because of Defilers linking 5+5 (not 10). So with that extra 20 skill points, I was thinking maxing Lethargy would be my best option? Currently using A2 Merc with

Thorns but was thiking switching to

Holy Freeze to minimize chance of tiny speedy dolls to surprise and kill me like just happened. In fact I was in a TZ with Extra Fast malus.

Does that sounds good? I thought of Death Sigil but the Defilers already do a good AoE job so Lethargy around me will prevent anyone from reaching me, except projectiles...

You can maximize the Bound Demon damage
Like here
https://maxroll.gg/d2/guides/summoner-warlock-guide
With

Demonic Mastery

Bind Demon

Death Mark

Sigil Lethargy

About the Act 2 Merc is better to get

Thorns on armor (Bramble) and use Might (or

Holy Freeze), but only of you use Pride as a weapon.
(

Thorns is not that good, but if you merc is using Pride - that have a low damage - instead of Insight or Infinity, Bramble - with

Thorns ended up adding more than Fortitude to your overall damage)

Thorns aura is not worth it in hell. Your Lister is Cursed, right? The amp damage is very important.
You can go Might on merc and

Holy Freeze on Cursed Lister for extra safety and regular amp damage procs.
Or cursed

Fanaticism Lister and

Holy Freeze on Merc

Holy Freeze is indeed great defensively.

However, more often than not, you want that safety off the bat, while still moving/teleporting to places.
For that, having an A2 freeze merc tends to do precious little because at the times where you still need it most, his aura won't yet be active.
If going freeze, I for one would hence either get it on your bound demon or by slapping a Doom on the merc so it is reliably always on.

Other than that, sounds like you're running a simple defiler-chain build so...max out bound demon and merc dmg, done. Coincidentally, Doom is actually a pretty solid dmg choice as well so you can absolutely get might,

Holy Freeze and fana all in one. Just need to make up for the lack of Insight on the merc by handling your own

Teleport mana needs but that shouldn't be much of an issue if you account for it properly.

@Schnorki Dolls are immune against all kinds of freezing (on hell).

If you want more safety, get a

Vile Mother. She spawns 5 additional minions which proved to be a life saver for me several times. Also against high tier Heralds and their army she is one of the best demons to bind. And always make preventive use of

Sigil Lethargy to slow 'em down. But don't expect too much from it, they are fast as fuck, whatever you do.

The best aura against those little shits is Sanctuary (Lawbringer,

Azurewrath) which keeps them at a distance.

Another merc option is a Manic Pixie Dreamgirl (Rogue Scout with Mist, Hustle/Hysteria/Treachery and Delirium).

Confuse them, kill them. The downside is that the curse overrides Amp (which, in fact, may be a good thing because you get more control of when to kill them).

Aside from that, best you can do is telestomp them with your demon from behind a wall. I cleared the whole Durance of Hate yesterday, that trick worked very well, albeit being very slow. Still a place I avoid most of the time. Getting killed as a Warlock hits hard.

Aye. Yet, over decades of personal experience, it has shown itself to be true time and time again: HF also makes doll areas noticeably safer.

In part because it keeps everything else around in check so things don't add up too much.
But in part, seemingly, also because it still affects the doll's AI, making them more likely to go after the source of the HF, rather than yourself, again reducing the "hits on top".

Mind you, that last part especially is anecdotal at best but either way, it just reliably worked out that way for way too long to ignore.

But yes, I should've phrased it more generally (corrected).