Warlock best bind demon

Eowia wrote: 1 day 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.

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.

I had a non tz heph with cursed and

Conviction. I'm running

Blood Boil so this combo makes the most sense.

Barracks was terrorized and I hit lvl 91, so I thought it's time to get a lvl 12

Conviction aura. I created and left games until the tz zone affix was cursed. Bound

The Smith only to find out the cursed affix didn't carry over. So super uniques don't get the tz affix? What a painful way to find out.

(deleted)

chucktaylur wrote: 1 day ago

I had a non tz heph with cursed and

Conviction. I'm running

Blood Boil so this combo makes the most sense.

Barracks was terrorized and I hit lvl 91, so I thought it's time to get a lvl 12

Conviction aura. I created and left games until the tz zone affix was cursed. Bound

The Smith only to find out the cursed affix didn't carry over. So super uniques don't get the tz affix? What a painful way to find out.

Champions, uniques and super-uniques don't get the terrorized affix and you can see none have it even before binding. Only applies to normal enemies. For most intents and purposes you should be fine binding a random cursed demon and rolling the aura on it from lvl 20

Bind Demon. Just don't go ubering with him.

Queegon wrote: 1 day ago

chucktaylur wrote: 1 day ago

I had a non tz heph with cursed and

Conviction. I'm running

Blood Boil so this combo makes the most sense.

Barracks was terrorized and I hit lvl 91, so I thought it's time to get a lvl 12

Conviction aura. I created and left games until the tz zone affix was cursed. Bound

The Smith only to find out the cursed affix didn't carry over. So super uniques don't get the tz affix? What a painful way to find out.

Champions, uniques and super-uniques don't get the terrorized affix and you can see none have it even before binding. Only applies to normal enemies. For most intents and purposes you should be fine binding a random cursed demon and rolling the aura on it from lvl 20

Bind Demon. Just don't go ubering with him.

I believe minions don't get the TZ affix either.

No one gets the TZ affix, I would say.

Is it possible to bind the

Herald? I have tried twice now, with the

Herald being a fart away from Death but it just wont capture. Compared to hephasto; one attempt while its at full hp and its always caught which is weird as it should be like 23% or something chance to even capture.

Skaijuice wrote: 2 weeks ago

simply set your LMB or RMB to Unsummon

Or set on

Consume. but be careful!

Having watched this thread and trying some of the recommended demons, i have to emphasize that guest monster A5

Blunderbore unique remains my favourite for the

Abyss/

Miasma Chain warlock build.
Having him with cursed and fanatism aura is useful, but not that necessary on magic warlock, so getting one is usualy a matter of 4-5 games looking in

Frigid Highlands and

Pit of Acheron.
Although his elemental resists are not that great, 75% phys res helps a lot and i've never seen one dying from monsters, yet.
Only drawback is telelock (minion not able to move after tele if you stand still), which can be mittigated by moving a bit.

Abyss warlock's overall damage pales compared with Echoing

Blade build, but is usualy more than enough for casual monsters. Boss- and Heralds-fights are a bit tedious, tho, and this is where crushing blow from the

Blunderbore realy shines, as i stated earlier. He also eats those annoying magical immune

Greater Mummy

Are there more friends of the

Blunderbore for abysslock? I'm pondering what attributes the ideal base monster should have.