ES warlocks, how will you adapt after the changes?

Go with the flow i guess. Wont lose any sleep over the changes

If ES efffects

Eth weapons durability, i guess that would be ok as well even though i spent many jahs making/trading for some

Eth 2 handers

At the end of the day, adjust to changes is the best course of action.

But seeing i am enjoying bowalock alot, i dont think i will be missing much… also will try out summoner build now that they buff goats and

Tainted?

Who knows, will wait til next patch goes live to see.

Shadeth wrote: 2 days ago

I am far from rich so I am not sure if I can even do it properly, but I am going to try to see about the Fire spec warlock, I have a HOTO which isn't BIS but it'll do... the bigger problem is getting a Fire sunder charm, and one of those good unique books. Also might need 2

Ber runes to make Infinity after the

Bind Demon nerfs, they won't have

Conviction aura. Ugh.... not looking forward to these changes. I have no Bers

I tried it on the ladder and off ladder. Fire Warlock with old fire sunder + book and 2other pieces from Horazon set (

Boots and gloves do)+ Obedience in hand gives you a lot of -fire resist. And with 1point in Mirror Blades you kill

Baal very fast too. You also can go with full Horazon set.

For documentational purposes I've made a screenshot of my current ES damage. I wonder how high it could go with GG gear.

In any case; 71k - 170k is already ridiculous.

Nosgothy wrote: 2 days ago

[..]
In any case; 71k - 170k is already ridiculous.
[..]

Hardly. It's just fun! Buff warlocks! /sarcasm

Personally, I'm more curious as to how broken (in the "bugged" sense) locks and especially ES locks end up after that patch.
As is, using the PTR to test various approaches, there are plenty variations that still offer excellent damage. What stands out however is that for some reason, they seem to have broken life leech for ES as it either leeches way too little or nothing at all in the vast majority of approaches, compared to the theoretical % leech and physical dmg share.
We shall see.

Schnorki wrote: 2 days ago

Nosgothy wrote: 2 days ago

[..]
In any case; 71k - 170k is already ridiculous.
[..]

Hardly. It's just fun! Buff warlocks! /sarcasm

Personally, I'm more curious as to how broken (in the "bugged" sense) locks and especially ES locks end up after that patch.
As is, using the PTR to test various approaches, there are plenty variations that still offer excellent damage. What stands out however is that for some reason, they seem to have broken life leech for ES as it either leeches way too little or nothing at all in the vast majority of approaches, compared to the theoretical % leech and physical dmg share.
We shall see.

Interesting. IMO turning off life leeching for ES is good way to nerf warlock. Even better than durability loss. You are using imaginary weapons which don't loose durability, but also leech nothing as a drawback.

dionisy_cn wrote: 2 days ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 days ago

Nosgothy wrote: 2 days ago

[..]
In any case; 71k - 170k is already ridiculous.
[..]

Hardly. It's just fun! Buff warlocks! /sarcasm

Personally, I'm more curious as to how broken (in the "bugged" sense) locks and especially ES locks end up after that patch.
As is, using the PTR to test various approaches, there are plenty variations that still offer excellent damage. What stands out however is that for some reason, they seem to have broken life leech for ES as it either leeches way too little or nothing at all in the vast majority of approaches, compared to the theoretical % leech and physical dmg share.
We shall see.

Interesting. IMO turning off life leeching for ES is good way to nerf warlock. Even better than durability loss. You are using imaginary weapons which don't loose durability, but also leech nothing as a drawback.

Don't think it was intentional though. Mana leech still works (for the most part).
But yeah, something's off about it.

I hope they keep no durability loss after all

Echoing Strike, u essentially tossingan ethereal/phantom copy of your equipped weapon, so technically you arent physically hitting directly with it so durability shouldnt apply; means leeching should not work either

after the patch, I wonder if anyone would continue to use non

Eth Insight, I can't remember the last time I need to deal with weapon durability, they are either phaser

Blade or somehow indestructible, this renders Insight very problematic and not worth the hassle

Depends on just how fast it'll lose durability. I'm sure there'll be some folks using it.

Renton212 wrote: 4 days ago

I am on borrowed time.

The day will come when my ethereal weapon becomes a relic. I will look at it from time to time and remember the good times. The near perfect

Protector's Stone socketed within will grow dim and dusty from lack of use...

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I don't intend to abandon my character. I am leaning towards

Mirrored Blades/and boosting

Hex Purge to adapt. I think

Bind Demon will have to go. To be honest I won't miss the

River of Flame hunts for the "right" Hephasto.

I have a Botd, a non

Eth ariocs on standby and I may look at Death to replace my

Eth-Ondals. I'm actually looking forward to new build experiments. Will you stick with ES? tweak? or reroll?

Depends on the patch notes, I might roll another ES Warlock for the new ladder if it still seems good. Or I might go full demon with

Tainted and

Blood Boil, that one seemed completely busted on the PTR. MB +

Cleave +

Hex Purge seems also interesting but it's a more dangerous build, as I'm playing HC SSF only I'd prefer to keep some distance with the enemy if possible.

Whatever they deside, I hope the Warlock comes in line with the other classes. D2R is not meant to be facerolled like this.

Right now everything just melts, even the ubers and ancients.

Am I abusing it? Yes.
Is it stupid? Also yes.

Yeah, no

Conviction Hephy is gonna suck.

My limited experience with PTR allowed me to know that ES Warlock will suck after the patch.

ChaoticShortbus wrote: 23 hours ago

Yeah, no

Conviction Hephy is gonna suck.

Throwing 3 synergized suicidal

Tainted (with 12k fire damage each) over the wall and blowing them with

Blood Boil surely will do less damage without nasty

Conviction-Amplify Hephasto. But I am sure it will be still devastating. Less troubles with keeping Hephasto alive and feeding him, just recast

Tainted when they are out of HP.

The most impact I got out of the PTR was the change to binded demon & auras. My ES Warlock which I did not play that much will survive just fine. My demon with Might will get swapped to one with Fana, my Act1 Merc with Faith will get swapped with Mist, or maybe an Act 2 Might will use Pride. I can live with all this I guess. I primarily used Insight for my weapon anyways and can easily swap to a non-

Eth

Thresher Insight (which thankfully I still have). It won't be the same but the ES Warlock was never a GoTo character for me.

Now the loss of

Conviction on my Flame/

Apocalypse is going to be devastating. This one I will need to run Infinity most likely. So I guess I might have to have Insight as main or on switch maybe, but that would do away with HOTO. If I run Insight, then no more Ondals/Void. With that said I only have 1x Chaos skiller. If I eventually get 4x more I would be at the same level with Insight as I did with Ondals/Void (the Void was only +2 to

Apocalypse).

I was unhappy as hell to see the loss of

Conviction, but worse was seeing how badly they nerfed the demons survivability. This was one area where I saw an impact across all Warlocks. On PTR it was increasingly frustrating to bind a demon (Hephasto or

Baal minion), time consuming, rinse & repeat action. But the survivability was changed to abysmal. Last game I played on PTR i spend most of the time monitoring my demon over my merc. Lost the demon to Heralds quite easily. This was with decked out gear in some ways better than I have on NL. If implemented I just do not see the Warlock as my primary character to farm TZs & bosses anymore.

sbn wrote: 3 hours ago

[..] My demon with Might will get swapped to one with Fana, my Act1 Merc with Faith will get swapped with Mist, or maybe an Act 2 Might will use Pride. [..]

Assuming you're snatching your demon off a max TZ, you're looking at lvl 16 might right now, lvl 14 conc come the changes and lvl 12

Fanaticism for both.

Your Faith merc can offer higher fana than a demon can.
A demon can offer lvl 14 conc while Mist only goes to 12.
Lvl 14 conc offers more ED than lvl 16 might.

So if you're happy with a Faith merc and might demon now, you should be even happier with a Faith merc and conc demon after the changes. That part is a flat out buff. Replacing Faith with Mist would just drop your performance for no reason.

A2 might/Pride and fana demon would be a different story but that's then also a matter of A1 vs. A2 merc preference in general.

sbn wrote: 3 hours ago

[..] So I guess I might have to have Insight as main or on switch maybe [..]

You really don't. A fire lock can get himself more than enough passive regen to have you covered without Insight while still keeping more than enough life. Even more so if you use 3 of the plethora of spare skill points they have to grab hex:siphon for added on-kill regen (entirely optional mind you but adds some free healing, too so might as well).

So this is exactly why I have not touched the Warlock.

When ladder started, we at Diabruhs (check my link) all partied up. One of us played the Warlock. I could tell before we got to Nightmare that he was broken, and not in a good way.

Anyway, I intentionally sidelined him bc I wanted a genuine experience not and IDDQD (some of you will get the reference) cheater class.

Once they fix him, he may be my second class for next ladder season.