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 falling 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...

EDIT: Currently what I have and I could even remove some points here and there and Lister would still be a killing machine. Also, my items are really not optimized, you would freak out if I showed you what I wear.

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

@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.

.

fredkid wrote: 9 hours ago

You can maximize the Bound Demon damage
With

Demonic Mastery

Bind Demon

Death Mark

I should have given more info on current build, in fact that's what I did and even there, Lister was being so strong that I could save skills there also. I edit first post to add current tree.

mikelessar wrote: 9 hours ago

You can go Might on merc and

Holy Freeze on Cursed Lister

Wait, Lister can spawn cursed for amp damage and have

Holy Freeze aura? If so I would go Might on merc exactly like you said, wow.

Schnorki wrote: 8 hours ago

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.

I have a

Cham I was wondering what to do with it but if I want HF from merc I think I would make Ice on A1 merc to be different. I just need to find a a

Jah.

DasNarf wrote: 8 hours ago

telestomp them with your demon from behind a wall

I do that all the time,

Teleport them clear the place while I take a sip not worrying, he was unkillable.

DasNarf wrote: 8 hours ago

Getting killed as a Warlock hits hard

It's more how to get Lister back because I'm weak without him so I need to go get Hephasto then do

Baal waves to catch him and hope he have all the package.

At level 20 of

Bind Demon, the following skills are added:

Aura Enchanted;
Spectral Hit;
Extra Strong;
Extra Fast

So, from the possible options we have left:

Cursed; (

Amplify Damage)
Stone Skin; (+50% physical resistance)

Magic Resistant; (+40 more resistance to Fire/Lightning/Cold only if it is below 100%)
Cold/Lightning/Fire Enchanted; (+66-100% elemental damage of the demon's physical damage)

Mana Burn; (useless against enemies)
Multi-Shot; (only for monsters who have a ranged attack)
Teleporting (an annoying skill that teleports a monster to a random spot, like

The Oculus)

Demon-Catcher build:

Malevolent

Diadem +3DemSkill;
Malevolent Amulet +3DemSkill;
Enigma +2Skill +1 to

Teleport;

Mang Song's Lesson +5Skill;
Spirit

Monarch +2Skill;
x2

The Stone of Jordan /

Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band +1Skill;

Arachnid Mesh +1Skill;

Wraithstep +1DemSkill;
x9 Fiendish Grand Charm +1DemSkill;
any wlock

Hellfire Torch +3Skill;

Annihilus +1Skill;

Battle Command +1Skill;
Skill Shrine +2Skill;

In total, we have 36 level of each skill in the demon branch.

Demonic Mastery: +900AR, +360% dmg, +36% FRW;

Blood Oath: +1275% to life, +74% AllRes, +11% PhysDmgRedu;

Bind Demon: +615% dmg; +1022dmg.

With this build, you just need to find a lvl99 TZ-demon with Cursed and Stone Skin and try to get the desired aura (

Fanaticism for

Echoing Strike or

Conviction for

Apocalypse etc). After that, you can change your gear and go back to your main build without respec.

It's also worth checking whether the demon retains the amount of health it has at 8ppl.

Oops, looks like I opened the editor in the wrong thread. Okay, let this message stay here too.