Warlock - alternatives for the future nerfed Cursed Bind Demon and Sigil Lethargy

Hi

Currently i'm playing a pure Summoner Warlock and using
Cursed

Bind Demon with

Fanaticism
Act 2 Merc with Might and Pride/

Concentration

With the Cursed and

Sigil Lethargy nerfs in the next patch
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article ... oming-soon

-

Bind Demon
Reduced the Cursed modifier’s chance to cast

Amplify Damage from 75% to 5%.

- Sigil: Lethargy
Removed the Damage Taken stat.

I would probably need another source of curse....

Some options I think of

O1 - Cursed

Bind Demon with

Holy Freeze (a little more triggers, but not much more, as the aura pulse has only 1 chance to trigger independently of how much monster are affected...) | I lose

Fanaticism

O2 - Act 2 Merc with Might and

The Reaper's Toll | 33% Chance To Cast Level 1

Decrepify On Striking | I lose

Concentration

O3 - Act 5 Merc

Stun with

Dreadfang | 33% Chance to cast level 3

Amplify Damage on striking | I lose Might and

Concentration

O4 - Act 5 Merc

Frenzy with double Lawbringer | 20% Chance To Cast Level 15

Decrepify On Striking I lose Might and

Concentration

I'm think in trying O2 or O1 + O2

fredkid wrote: 7 hours ago

O1 - Cursed

Bind Demon with

Holy Freeze (a little more triggers, but not much more, as the aura pulse has only 1 chance to trigger independently of how much monster are affected...) | I lose

Fanaticism

Cursed Multiple Shots

Fanaticism

Megademon with

Inferno striking 8 times per second (24 with multiple shots). No damage dealing, all

Amplify Damage application. You're welcome.

For Eldritch builds seems like a good option
But, in my case my

Bind Demon is my main source of damage...., so I need a melee focused one...
Maybe change my

Vile Mother for a

Corrupt Rogue Spearwoman with

Jab for the extra hits

Queegon wrote: 7 hours ago

fredkid wrote: 7 hours ago

O1 - Cursed

Bind Demon with

Holy Freeze (a little more triggers, but not much more, as the aura pulse has only 1 chance to trigger independently of how much monster are affected...) | I lose

Fanaticism

Cursed Multiple Shots

Fanaticism

Megademon with

Inferno striking 8 times per second (24 with multiple shots). No damage dealing, all

Amplify Damage application. You're welcome.

You are not pure summoner. You are 1/3 binder now.

Pure summoner spends 60 points (

Goatman, mastery,

Blood Oath )
You have enough points to put in Hex:Bane and Mirror Blades to kill immune Mobs.
Or add points into boil +

Engorge and blow up your Goatmans when they are in close combat.
Access to lvl 30

Enchant (40+ with other gear) make a your goats killing machines .
Take that

Dreadfang in your own hands (+ Horazon set) and curse Mobs around you with

Cleave or

Mirrored Blades .
Very viable build. Use

Sigil Death instead of Lethargy.

But boiling I like most.

My Pure Summoner point distribution is

Bind Demon 20

Demonic Mastery 20

Death Mark 20

Sigil Lethargy 20

Blood Oath with the rest (L89 now)

With the nerfs, I'm thinking in respec to

Blood Boil build, if my

Bind Demon is not able to do his job anymore...

dionisy_cn wrote: 6 hours ago

You are not pure summoner. You are 1/3 binder now.

Pure summoner spends 60 points (

Goatman, mastery,

Blood Oath )
You have enough points to put in Hex:Bane and Mirror Blades to kill immune Mobs.
Or add points into boil +

Engorge and blow up your Goatmans when they are in close combat.
Access to lvl 30

Enchant (40+ with other gear) make a your goats killing machines .
Take that

Dreadfang in your own hands (+ Horazon set) and curse Mobs around you with

Cleave or

Mirrored Blades .
Very viable build. Use

Sigil Death instead of Lethargy.

But boiling I like most.

Do

Enchant from Horazon's Splendor makes a huge difference for

Summon Goatman?
(i'm not even using them right now... I started with 1

Summon Goatman and 1

Summon Defiler, but its being faster to farm with 2

Summon Defiler and I change to 2

Summon Goatman only vs bosses)

dionisy_cn wrote: 6 hours ago

Access to lvl 30

Enchant (40+ with other gear) make a your goats killing machines .

fredkid wrote: 6 hours ago

Do

Enchant from Horazon's Splendor makes a huge difference for

Summon Goatman?
(i'm not even using them right now... I started with 1

Summon Goatman and 1

Summon Defiler, but its being faster to farm with 2

Summon Defiler and I change to 2

Summon Goatman only vs bosses)

dionisy_cn wrote: 6 hours ago

Access to lvl 30

Enchant (40+ with other gear) make a your goats killing machines .

It gives them second type of damage + huge bonus to attack rating.

On the endgame build you can have Infinity that will decrease enemy defense. Personally I like

Tainted more.
Let's see how all this changes are in real game.
If you want Amplify earlier then try Hell Temptess . Their damage is no good but they curse a lot .
Since Blizz told health pool will be not needed too much, there is a chance those Temptess ES will be good with mastery + bold Oath. If no -it will be 3*

Tainted for me. with easy achievable -30-70 to fire resist ( set 3 pc, Obedience,

Consume) they sure will deliver good damage. at least till late Nightmare on new ladder.

Engorge + boil + Lawbringer on your merc and you can do Hell .

If it is off ladder you are talking about, then all depends on the gear you have. I prefer more active playstyle then just sit and wait for Summons to kill everything.

fredkid wrote: 6 hours ago

Do

Enchant from Horazon's Splendor makes a huge difference for

Summon Goatman?
(i'm not even using them right now... I started with 1

Summon Goatman and 1

Summon Defiler, but its being faster to farm with 2

Summon Defiler and I change to 2

Summon Goatman only vs bosses)

dionisy_cn wrote: 6 hours ago

Access to lvl 30

Enchant (40+ with other gear) make a your goats killing machines .

Would be an interesting experimental build, enchanting goats with a high level

Enchant. Starting at 30, you could easily get to Lvl 43

Enchant with plus skills.

Edit: looks like Lvl 20 unsynergized

Enchant adds a piddly ~100 fire damage, so wouldn't expect much from Lvl 43--you'd gain more from swapping out Horazon set for plus skills equip for higher

Bind Demon.

fredkid wrote: 6 hours ago

My Pure Summoner point distribution is

Bind Demon 20

Demonic Mastery 20

Death Mark 20

Sigil Lethargy 20

Blood Oath with the rest (L89 now)

With the nerfs, I'm thinking in respec to

Blood Boil build, if my

Bind Demon is not able to do his job anymore...

dionisy_cn wrote: 6 hours ago

You are not pure summoner. You are 1/3 binder now.

Pure summoner spends 60 points (

Goatman, mastery,

Blood Oath )
You have enough points to put in Hex:Bane and Mirror Blades to kill immune Mobs.
Or add points into boil +

Engorge and blow up your Goatmans when they are in close combat.
Access to lvl 30

Enchant (40+ with other gear) make a your goats killing machines .
Take that

Dreadfang in your own hands (+ Horazon set) and curse Mobs around you with

Cleave or

Mirrored Blades .
Very viable build. Use

Sigil Death instead of Lethargy.

But boiling I like most.

I switched to boiling with max

Bind Demon, max

Demonic Mastery, and max

Blood Oath, dropping points from

Summon Goatman and

Death Mark (not really that much damage gain from mark on bound demon) for max

Blood Boil and

Engorge.

Idea was to just give the demons a bit of a boost (run mostly Lister + 2 defilers, but switch to goats for bosses), but boil just clears so much faster I end up just marking and boiling or just teleporting right into packs and boiling. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So I guess I'm more of a boiler now, although my

Bind Demon is level 42.

fredkid wrote: 6 hours ago

Bind Demon 20

Demonic Mastery 20

Death Mark 20

Sigil Lethargy 20

Blood Oath with the rest (L89 now)

Having two Defilers makes a difference.

Why do you have more than one point in Lethargy? I have one point in all Sigils. They are all useful. Death is great for cows and Rancor is great for shooters.

The "Damage taken +x%" from

Sigil Lethargy is if fact "-x% Physical Resist"
And each level is more 1% (no diminishing returns )

ceving wrote: 3 hours ago

Why do you have more than one point in Lethargy?

fredkid wrote: 3 hours ago

The "Damage taken +x%" from

Sigil Lethargy is if fact "-x% Physical Resist"
And each level is more 1% (no diminishing returns )

Is it enough to break anything?

It is addictive with

Amplify Damage -100% Physical Resist
Mine

Sigil Lethargy is L39 (-58% Physical Resist)

so, without

Bone Break, I can break up to 130 Physical Resist, without Sigil I could break just up to 119... (both 1/5 effective for breaking)

With

Bone Break, Immunes have -5% resist with just

Amplify Damage and -63% with both (both 100% effective with sunder charm)

With non immunes, with 0% physical resist,

Amplify Damage alone put the monster at -100% (the minimum possible), but many monster have some physical resist and a considerable amount of monster have 50+% resist in Hell so more than -100% resist is still useful

ceving wrote: 3 hours ago

fredkid wrote: 3 hours ago

The "Damage taken +x%" from

Sigil Lethargy is if fact "-x% Physical Resist"
And each level is more 1% (no diminishing returns )

Is it enough to break anything?

fredkid wrote: 2 hours ago

Mine

Sigil Lethargy is L39 (-58% Physical Resist)

But having two Defilers multiplies by 10 which is 1000% more damage.

O6 : A5

Frenzy barb with Last Wish + Mania or

Dreadfang gives you might aura +

Fanaticism (only lvl1 so he needs to be close to your summons) or

Amplify Damage.

You lost only lose

Concentration.

I just consumed my

Conviction Hep and decided to go after TZ (shard)

Bremm Sparkfist. This particular TZ spawn is physically immune, has

Fanaticism, and casts

Hydra, but if you prefer he can also spawn with

Conviction. Here's a quick family photo.

Last Wish's

Life Tap override other curses... (I thought about Lawbringer + Last Wish before remember that)

Dreadfang is two hand,

Frenzy Merc cannot use

As only a Aura carrier Might 17 x 19+ is not a big loss, but

Fanaticism 1 x

Concentration 16+ is a huge loss (the short range is a problem, specially because

Death Mark does not teleport Merc...)

Tornado_OLO wrote: 1 hour ago

O6 : A5

Frenzy barb with Last Wish + Mania or

Dreadfang gives you might aura +

Fanaticism (only lvl1 so he needs to be close to your summons) or

Amplify Damage.

You lost only lose

Concentration.

Bremm Sparkfist (and other monster with spell or range attack) generally have a bad AI for builds that want the Demon punching all the time

As a quick replacement for a lost Demon, as i have

Bind Demon 20+, I prefer to bind a regular monster in a TZ as I can guarantee an non-

Bind Demon affix of choice (generally cursed), and can keep binding until get the desired aura (sometime you have to wait the TZ rotation for an area with good targets... but is generally way faster than try to bind a cursed unique with the right aura...)

mhlg wrote: 1 hour ago

I just consumed my

Conviction Hep and decided to go after TZ (shard)

Bremm Sparkfist. This particular TZ spawn is physically immune, has

Fanaticism, and casts

Hydra, but if you prefer he can also spawn with

Conviction. Here's a quick family photo.

bremm 2.jpg

fredkid wrote: 51 minutes ago

Bremm Sparkfist (and other monster with spell or range attack) generally have a bad AI for builds that want the Demon punching all the time

As a quick replacement for a lost Demon, as i have

Bind Demon 20+, I prefer to bind a regular monster in a TZ as I can guarantee an non-

Bind Demon affix of choice (generally cursed), and can keep binding until get the desired aura (sometime you have to wait the TZ rotation for an area with good targets... but is generally way faster than try to bind a cursed unique with the right aura...)

mhlg wrote: 1 hour ago

I just consumed my

Conviction Hep and decided to go after TZ (shard)

Bremm Sparkfist. This particular TZ spawn is physically immune, has

Fanaticism, and casts

Hydra, but if you prefer he can also spawn with

Conviction. Here's a quick family photo.

bremm 2.jpg

The way I generally do it is open a game, go after the demon of consideration, and if he has the aura I want, I waypoint back to town, pop a Shard, and then return and bind him with little or no opposition. If he doesn't have the aura I want, then I exit and start a new game, and repeat until I get the one I want, before using a shard. This way I always get the desired aura and make good use of my shards. I've bound every version of Hephastop, and with

Conviction twice (my

Bind Demon is level 24). By the way, a firelock is largely a ranged attacker.

fredkid wrote: 1 hour ago

As only a Aura carrier Might 17 x 19+ is not a big loss, but

Fanaticism 1 x

Concentration 16+ is a huge loss (the short range is a problem, specially because

Death Mark does not

Teleport Merc...)

You can not have

Fanaticism +

Concentration but you can have

Concentration + might aura or might aura +

Fanaticism or double might aura.