In what ways is the warlock class op?

I don't play warlock but i have seen the skills, items, heard the anecdotes, and seen them decimate legions of monsters with ease.

Is this class really overpowered compared to the rest? Did the D2r designers set out to make a GG class? Or was it poor planning?

I saw a Void weapon with a total plus 8 to a skill!

Most of the set items - each bit tends to have some kind of + skill or a collection of all useful modifiers. What are the trade offs?

Why?!

Your thoughts on any of this?

Aards.

AardvarksAdvance wrote: 9 hours ago

... Did the D2r designers set out to make a GG class? Or was it poor planning?
...

I haven't played the class much yet either but I noticed early that the new expansion was named "Reign of the Warlock" , not "Rise of the Warlock" or similar. So I believe that at least some of the OPness was intentional.

Patch 3.2 already addressed some issues with the Warlock and I expect he'll be balanced even further in future patches.
What differs him a bit from other classes is that pretty much every Warlock build is strong.
Some may still see him as overpowered because of that but in my humble opinion he is not more overpowered than other very strong builds.

Edit: You can also check Maxroll's late game tier list for a build comparison: https://maxroll.gg/d2/tierlists/overall-tier-list

atari wrote: 7 hours ago

Patch 3.2 already addressed some issues with the Warlock and I expect he'll be balanced even further in future patches.
What differs him a bit from other classes is that pretty much every Warlock build is strong.
Some may still see him as overpowered because of that but in my humble opinion he is not more overpowered than other very strong builds.

Yeah and I listened to a decent counter-argument about that re: every build strong. Some classes have 'useless' skills/trees and the devs wanted to avoid making the same mistake. Obviously, balance is critical and one-shotting everything on p8 isn't within the 'essence' of diablo 2!

The Warlock can do everything and his Demon is nearly unkillable, except you gonna

Consume him from time to time by accident and since the patch thats gonna hurt you a bit.

I think they want an easy class to get a new and younger audience to the game. Maybe some of them try out the old classes and gonna love the challenge.

Demons are still op as tanks, magicdamage and

Hex Purge are op.

I start playing as a Zealer two month before ROTW. Couldnt find any runes or significant upgrades and struggled a lot from hell rivers of flames onwards. So i like to farm up with the warlock, though it was to easy. Didnt play the

Abyss/magic build, and like

Cleave as the most gear dependent build the most, which i played right after the patch.

T5 Heralds were so strong after the release, that you really need your +50k damage

Echoing Strike to mess with them from safe distance.

Can't speak for the other builds but

Bind Demon warlock still makes the game feel too easy lol. Even stronger is miasma / demon hybrid

Bind Demon really should have harsher damage scaling. 25-30 pts already 1-shots packs in p1 and it's honestly really hard to feel a difference between my current setup, 40 pts in

Bind Demon /

Demonic Mastery, 5-6

Jah in gear, vs the dual Spirit i started with

Even with the changes to the demon tree and hard points, my warlock has 32 skill points sitting unused because i just have no place i need them. Nearly every demon skill has really sharp diminishing returns, or the return you get is honestly useless. Like I could put 20 pts in

Blood Oath to make my defilers (who i can resummon infinitely) a little tankier, wow!! Or 20 pts in

Engorge to make it last 40 seconds longer! Or 20 pts into

Summon Defiler to get 2% more damage shared!! zzz

In what ways is Warlock OP?

Well I can't really comment on the magic builds because I don't play them.

I believe he has the strongest fire build in the game.

The

Tainted/demon

Blood Boil build is by FAR the strongest summoner (comparing to druid and necro here), and makes P8 a breeze without really maxing out gear.

The

Echoing Strike build has been brought down to a bit above hammerdin levels.

How do these builds compare to other GG builds like javazon, ES

Nova sorc, and hammerdin?

Well, hammerdin is not as strong as any of the three I have listed above, even with the new gear. I tried him out compared to a not-optimized magic ES build and the ES build was coming out on top. Hammerdin is FAR inferior to the

Blood Boil. I do not currently have a fire warlock to test against.

Javazon is probably better at cows than demon or ES, but I don't know that she's better than fire lock, again, I don't have one. Other than cows I'll take the warlock build over javazon.

ES

Nova sorc is better than ES Warlock as far as I can tell. But not against single targets. So ES Warlock would shine against P8 T5 heralds and bosses where the sorc has to skip content or maybe switch to P1 for heralds.

Blood Boil is comparable to

Nova sorc for most things. It's probably slightly slower for most content and faster for bosses and tough heralds. It's also safer for hardcore.

All in all, Warlock has the strongest builds in the game right now. And I should mention one piece that I've been holding back.

I'm comparing

Blood Boil/demon warlock with only 1 skiller and suboptimal gear to a fully geared fully skillered out

Nova, hammerdin, or javazon. So warlock is highly competitive or better with a lot less gear.

kerph wrote: 4 hours ago

Even stronger is miasma / demon hybrid

I'm curious about this build. Do you have a link for it or some kind of video of gameplay?

departure wrote: 1 hour ago

I'm curious about this build. Do you have a link for it or some kind of video of gameplay?

I don't have a link but this was my setup *
Obsession &

Ars Dul'Mephistos (low-rolled one i got for

Ist, socketed w

Um)
+2 warlock/2os/mf

Circlet (socketed w

Guardian's Light &

Perfect Topaz)
Enigma
+2 warlock/9% fcr

Caster Amulet i bought for 6

Ral to hit 125% fcr
Random rare rings / gloves /

Boots

Arachnid Mesh

Hellfire Torch,

Annihilus,

Renewed Bone Break, 3x demon skillers (you can tell i repurposed my demon build)

20 pts to

Bind Demon
20 pts to

Death Mark (needed to reduce

Uber Baal's defense)
10 pts to

Demonic Mastery
1 pt to

Blood Oath
1 pt to

Sigil Lethargy
20 pts to

Miasma Bolt
20 pts to

Miasma Chain
1 pt to

Enhanced Entropy
Remaining pts in

Abyss

This build was for ubers so i was not using

Abyss. If you're using it to farm i would max

Abyss first,

Miasma Bolt last

A1

Freezing Arrow merc (more defense reduction from

Inner Sight)
Mist in superior +3 skills

Matriarchal Bow
Delirium, swap for

Kira's Guardian for ubers
Duress

Demon was a regular white

Blunderbore from cursed tz

Durance of Hate Level 2 (innate lightning immune for

Uber Tristram)

Fanaticism aura (to complement

Concentration from merc's Mist)
Obviously would have been even stronger with a unique w good affixes but even this random one works fine

Merc open wounds from Duress is not needed since miasma prevents ubers from healing.

Guardian Angel/

Shaftstop would be better for her

I only tried it briefly because i didn't like having to click so many buttons but it was noticeably faster, even missing Chaos skillers,

Sling,

Hellwarden's Will etc etc.

Bind Demon is still 1-shotting packs and you get so much more damage from miasma

Maybe i'll make a video on it but even though it's really strong, honestly it's just not my fav playstyle especially with how clunky

Miasma Chain is

kerph wrote: 1 hour ago

departure wrote: 1 hour ago

I'm curious about this build. Do you have a link for it or some kind of video of gameplay?

I don't have a link but this was my setup *
Obsession &

Ars Dul'Mephistos (low-rolled one i got for

Ist, socketed w

Um)
+2 warlock/2os/mf

Circlet (socketed w

Guardian's Light &

Perfect Topaz)
Enigma
+2 warlock/9% fcr

Caster Amulet i bought for 6

Ral to hit 125% fcr
Random rare rings / gloves /

Boots

Arachnid Mesh

Hellfire Torch,

Annihilus,

Renewed Bone Break, 3x demon skillers (you can tell i repurposed my demon build)

20 pts to

Bind Demon
20 pts to

Death Mark (needed to reduce

Uber Baal's defense)
10 pts to

Demonic Mastery
1 pt to

Blood Oath
1 pt to

Sigil Lethargy
20 pts to

Miasma Bolt
20 pts to

Miasma Chain
1 pt to

Enhanced Entropy
Remaining pts in

Abyss

This build was for ubers so i was not using

Abyss. If you're using it to farm i would max

Abyss first,

Miasma Bolt last

A1

Freezing Arrow merc (more defense reduction from

Inner Sight)
Mist in superior +3 skills

Matriarchal Bow
Delirium, swap for

Kira's Guardian for ubers
Duress

Demon was a regular white

Blunderbore from cursed tz

Durance of Hate Level 2 (innate lightning immune for

Uber Tristram)

Fanaticism aura (to complement

Concentration from merc's Mist)
Obviously would have been even stronger with a unique w good affixes but even this random one works fine

Merc open wounds from Duress is not needed since miasma prevents ubers from healing.

Guardian Angel/

Shaftstop would be better for her

I only tried it briefly because i didn't like having to click so many buttons but it was noticeably faster, even missing Chaos skillers,

Sling,

Hellwarden's Will etc etc.

Bind Demon is still 1-shotting packs and you get so much more damage from miasma

Maybe i'll make a video on it but even though it's really strong, honestly it's just not my fav playstyle especially with how clunky

Miasma Chain is

Thanks. I feel like a lot of people on this board are really into the

Abyss warlock demon hybrid. @FerociousTerrier and others seem like you all really like this build, and yet I've never tried it so thanks for giving me the rundown.

I play ES

Nova Sorc and WL

Ring of Fire / apoc. I think the

Ring of Fire WL has a slightly faster clear speed than the ES

Nova Sorc against both mobs and single target and the exact same playestyle. And is even tankier.

Only thing the sorc wins on is one faster TP frame.

That said, I don't think any of the WL builds are just completely OP versus other top builds. But what stands out is there are so many good WL builds. I think that is fine / good. It's like having 4+ good characters in one. If Bliz had only given us one decent build to try we would have lost interest faster. Like they also could have given us 4 new characters with 1 good tree / skillset and the rest shitty, and the effect would have been the same.

departure wrote: 3 hours ago

In what ways is Warlock OP?

Well I can't really comment on the magic builds because I don't play them.

I believe he has the strongest fire build in the game.

The

Tainted/demon

Blood Boil build is by FAR the strongest summoner (comparing to druid and necro here), and makes P8 a breeze without really maxing out gear.

The

Echoing Strike build has been brought down to a bit above hammerdin levels.

How do these builds compare to other GG builds like javazon, ES

Nova sorc, and hammerdin?

Well, hammerdin is not as strong as any of the three I have listed above, even with the new gear. I tried him out compared to a not-optimized magic ES build and the ES build was coming out on top. Hammerdin is FAR inferior to the

Blood Boil. I do not currently have a fire warlock to test against.

Javazon is probably better at cows than demon or ES, but I don't know that she's better than fire lock, again, I don't have one. Other than cows I'll take the warlock build over javazon.

ES

Nova sorc is better than ES Warlock as far as I can tell. But not against single targets. So ES Warlock would shine against P8 T5 heralds and bosses where the sorc has to skip content or maybe switch to P1 for heralds.

Blood Boil is comparable to

Nova sorc for most things. It's probably slightly slower for most content and faster for bosses and tough heralds. It's also safer for hardcore.

All in all, Warlock has the strongest builds in the game right now. And I should mention one piece that I've been holding back.

I'm comparing

Blood Boil/demon warlock with only 1 skiller and suboptimal gear to a fully geared fully skillered out

Nova, hammerdin, or javazon. So warlock is highly competitive or better with a lot less gear.

departure wrote: 1 hour ago

kerph wrote: 4 hours ago

Even stronger is miasma / demon hybrid

I'm curious about this build. Do you have a link for it or some kind of video of gameplay?

I'll have to work on that. This is my primary build right now, and I'm enjoying it. All the benefits of a super tank demon that crushes (with a defiler to spread) and also soemthing for you to do other than kick over pots and urns (with maxed synergy

Abyss/miasma--not bad).

departure wrote: 1 hour ago

kerph wrote: 1 hour ago

departure wrote: 1 hour ago

I'm curious about this build. Do you have a link for it or some kind of video of gameplay?

I don't have a link but this was my setup *
Obsession &

Ars Dul'Mephistos (low-rolled one i got for

Ist, socketed w

Um)
+2 warlock/2os/mf

Circlet (socketed w

Guardian's Light &

Perfect Topaz)
Enigma
+2 warlock/9% fcr

Caster Amulet i bought for 6

Ral to hit 125% fcr
Random rare rings / gloves /

Boots

Arachnid Mesh

Hellfire Torch,

Annihilus,

Renewed Bone Break, 3x demon skillers (you can tell i repurposed my demon build)

20 pts to

Bind Demon
20 pts to

Death Mark (needed to reduce

Uber Baal's defense)
10 pts to

Demonic Mastery
1 pt to

Blood Oath
1 pt to

Sigil Lethargy
20 pts to

Miasma Bolt
20 pts to

Miasma Chain
1 pt to

Enhanced Entropy
Remaining pts in

Abyss

This build was for ubers so i was not using

Abyss. If you're using it to farm i would max

Abyss first,

Miasma Bolt last

A1

Freezing Arrow merc (more defense reduction from

Inner Sight)
Mist in superior +3 skills

Matriarchal Bow
Delirium, swap for

Kira's Guardian for ubers
Duress

Demon was a regular white

Blunderbore from cursed tz

Durance of Hate Level 2 (innate lightning immune for

Uber Tristram)

Fanaticism aura (to complement

Concentration from merc's Mist)
Obviously would have been even stronger with a unique w good affixes but even this random one works fine

Merc open wounds from Duress is not needed since miasma prevents ubers from healing.

Guardian Angel/

Shaftstop would be better for her

I only tried it briefly because i didn't like having to click so many buttons but it was noticeably faster, even missing Chaos skillers,

Sling,

Hellwarden's Will etc etc.

Bind Demon is still 1-shotting packs and you get so much more damage from miasma

Maybe i'll make a video on it but even though it's really strong, honestly it's just not my fav playstyle especially with how clunky

Miasma Chain is

Thanks. I feel like a lot of people on this board are really into the

Abyss warlock demon hybrid. @FerociousTerrier and others seem like you all really like this build, and yet I've never tried it so thanks for giving me the rundown.

Yeah, I just arrived in Copenhagen, so I missed this conversation. I'll post my build later, but it's basically a carbon copy of @kerph 's. I'm starting to get used to chains!