Warlock Pure Summoner - 5th Skill to Max: Summon Defiler? Summon Goatman? Blood Oath? Other?

Hi

I'm at L78, playing Warlock "Pure Summoner"
----
I mainly only use buffs/debuffs (

Sigil Lethargy,

Death Mark and

Engorge), while my Act 2 Merc and Minions (

Summon Goatman,

Summon Defiler and

Bind Demon) do all the killing.
----
I like the playstyle, and I have no serious offensive or defensive issues
(I haven't died yet and only get closer to die once - mostly because of slow down... - and can clear areas and kill bosses satisfactorily )

That said, I've already maxed:
-

Bind Demon
-

Demonic Mastery
-

Death Mark
-

Sigil Lethargy

And I'm thinking about the next skill to max.

I want to maintain my current playstyle/build, so I don't want to invest in a direct attack spell (

Blood Boil,

Echoing Strike,

Apocalypse, etc...), not to mention they wouldn't be very effective without the points in their synergies...

I don't think it's worth spending points on:

-

Engorge
Current L22 (35 ias) is already the max ias possible

So I think my options are:

-

Summon Defiler
Shared damage is 54% (L23) and it increases up to 58% (L38) which represents a 7.4% increase in all my AoE damage

-

Summon Goatman
When maxed I will have a 35.5% increase in damage
-- Current damage (L23)

Damage: 2585–3008
Attack Rate: 28 frames (0.89 hits per second)
Damage per Second: 2491

-- Maxed damage (L42)

Damage: 3537–4045
Attack Rate: 28 frames (0.89 hits per second)
Damage per Second: 3376

-

Blood Oath
Since people are saying that the tooltip is wrong and only hard points affect the redirect % bonus, I can go from 5% redirect to 43% redirect !!!

- Another skill?
(At some point I thought about

Hex Bane/

Hex Purge/

Hex Siphon. but they don't help my Minions damage ...)

OBS: numbers from https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner

Personally would go for

Blood Oath max (or as high as possible).
It boosts your demons and buffs yourself aswell in the process.

Consume?

@ lvl 20 lasts 440 sec, and (apparently) you gain the attributes of the consumed demon.

can the defiler or

Goatman spawn with an aura?

1 - As a "Pure Summoner" I don't attack
so I keep the 3 demons alive.
as

Consume bonus only apply to myself not to my minions...
(ex:

Consume my Summon

Goatman will not increase my other minions' physical damage and

Consume my

Summon Tainted or

Summon Defiler will not increase my other minions' fire/magic damage)

2 -

Summon Defiler or Summon

Goatman cannot spawn with auras (and neither have any random properties/abilities, they always spawn with the same properties/abilities)

krathkor wrote: 4 months ago

Consume?

@ lvl 20 lasts 440 sec, and (apparently) you gain the attributes of the consumed demon.

can the defiler or

Goatman spawn with an aura?

What did you end up choosing?

Blood Oath

Afura wrote: 2 months ago

What did you end up choosing?

For pure warlock summon build, i recommend bow as a backup weapon with max in mirror blades, it works wonder and u actually deal pretty good damage as well.

fredkid wrote: 2 months ago

Blood Oath

Good choice

d2rppa69 wrote: 2 months ago

For pure warlock summon build, i recommend bow as a backup weapon with max in mirror blades, it works wonder and u actually deal pretty good damage as well.

Nice. I didn't think about that.

Hi, i want to respec my level 98 WL into summoner this weekend to check it out. Here some questions that came up.

Im not sure what to max out. Mastery,

Bind Demon for damage are safe. I guess deathmark too. Is

Engorge better than bloodoath, like some guides suggest?

I would like to test the bow combo build as well but im not sure where to take the points from. Should i just split the points evenly or are there some breakpoints i need to reach on skills like

Engorge, deathmark, bloodoath or defiler?

Is faster cast rate important for the build besides faster teleporting?
Thx

Bertram The Cursed wrote: 51 minutes ago

Hi, i want to respec my level 98 WL into summoner this weekend to check it out. Here some questions that came up.

Im not sure what to max out. Mastery,

Bind Demon for damage are safe. I guess deathmark too. Is

Engorge better than bloodoath, like some guides suggest?

I would like to test the bow combo build as well but im not sure where to take the points from. Should i just split the points evenly or are there some breakpoints i need to reach on skills like

Engorge, deathmark, bloodoath or defiler?

Is faster cast rate important for the build besides faster teleporting?
Thx

I max

Bind Demon,

Demonic Mastery, and

Death Mark. Also enough points into

Sigil Lethargy to reach level 20 after + skills

Remaining points are completely flexible. Since every other demon tree skill is useless to put points in (besides

Blood Boil and

Consume if your build specs into them). You can max

Blood Oath,

Engorge,

Summon Defiler,

Sigil Lethargy, but they'll all have virtually zero impact on your build's performance.

Blood Oath i guess has the highest impact by a small margin since it'll make your defilers a tiny bit tankier..........but you can just resummon them freely anyway

Max

Sigil Rancor is an option if you want the most possible damage but it also means your demon will take 300% more damage. I assume it gets summed along with all other off-weapon enhanced damage (like from

Concentration/

Fanaticism) because i really hardly noticed a difference in damage. I prefer

Sigil Lethargy

I have 33 pts free on my level 92 warlock just because i have nowhere worthwhile to put them. Sure you can max

Mirrored Blades and self-wield Mist but i prefer the zero apm practically afk playstyle ^^

Sigil Lethargy do not has - physical resistance after last patch , so no much reason to max it...
And without

Sigil Lethargy I think maximizing

Death Mark is not a good idea either...

- Before patch my skill are

Bind Demon 20

Demonic Mastery 20

Death Mark 20

Sigil Lethargy 20

Blood Oath (the rest)
(Pure Summoner Warlock)

- After the patch

Bind Demon 20

Demonic Mastery 20

Sigil Death 1

Sigil Lethargy 1 (just against bosses and

Herald after all minions are killed...)

Blood Boil 20

Blood Oath 20

Engorge (the rest)
(

Blood Boil warlock)

fredkid wrote: 27 minutes ago

Sigil Lethargy do not has - physical resistance after last patch , so no much reason to max it...
And without

Sigil Lethargy I think maximizing

Death Mark is not a good idea either...

- Before patch my skill are

Bind Demon 20

Demonic Mastery 20

Death Mark 20

Sigil Lethargy 20

Blood Oath (the rest)
(Pure Summoner Warlock)

- After the patch

Bind Demon 20

Demonic Mastery 20

Sigil Death 1

Sigil Lethargy 1 (just against bosses and

Herald after all minions are killed...)

Blood Boil 20

Blood Oath 20

Engorge (the rest)
(

Blood Boil warlock)

That sounds good to me.
And for bowlock combo build i would ignore

Blood Boil completly and take the rest of Oath and

Engorge.

Edit: but whats with deathmark. I thought its important to lower the defense of bosses?

fredkid wrote: 27 minutes ago

I think maximizing

Death Mark is not a good idea either

The flat defense reduction is very valuable on bosses (particularly ubers) for pure summoner. It's why i max it

Death Mark +

Inner Sight from act 1 merc = zero defense

Uber Baal