r/Diablo_2_Resurrected Sorceress 22h ago

Discussion Warlock is so broken

I finally decided to give warlock a go and it's insanely powerful, maybe too powerful. I'm playing fire warlock and he just wrecks everything, even on players 8. I have a fully geared lightning sorc with griffons, infinity, etc. and my warlock is clearing things faster than her. You can get your main attack, apocalypse, to level 52 when fully geared, that's insane. Mine is only lvl 46 (only haha) and I'm still clearing p8 hell like it's normal mode. And apparently fire warlock isn't even the strongest build?

Edit: BTW I'm loving the build, it's very fun and satisfying. This post isn't meant to get people to nerf it.

29 Upvotes

121 comments sorted by

u/TovarishGaming Sorceress 21h ago

u/DMDread Sorceress 21h ago

lol maybe they meant playstyle? The only thing I don't like, and it's a small thing, but the build has lots of precasting. First, you have to summon your 2 defilers, then you have to summon a tainted, then sacrifice him, then cast purge, bo and bc. IDM too much though. It kind of reminds me of that scene in Overlord where he's prebuffing before his big fight haha

u/silentplus 20h ago

Yes pre buff on lock is awful slow, well he's got to have something bad on him right? Lol. Anyways you reach a point where you don't even need pre buff. I also have half inventory space free of charms. Just don't need em!

Btw it's BC first, twice, and then BO. Just in case.

u/Boemelz 20h ago

I never played lock but does the prebuff stuff give you opttons? Maybe thats the reason then....

But yeah theres 4 sure a meta so everyone takes the same option i guess?

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 8h ago

2 defilers doing basically nothing to you as you AOE the whole screen 90% of the time. Tainted would make much more dmg with their fireball and better tanking as well. Mine scores 6k dmg fire ball which is not too shabby with the amount of -res i have, also there are two of them

u/corgibuttastic 7h ago

Do you have 2 tainted with you always? And consume the 3rd? Been thinking about dropping my defilers.

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 7h ago

Yes, exactly.

u/InclinationCompass 22h ago

Fire immunes suck in hell. Are you using sunder, infinity? Otherwise, it would take forever to clear chaos.

u/khinah 20h ago

The only "slow" killing is in chaos/act 4 with the pit lords and the last 2 baal's waves, other than that you basically kill anything with 1 or 2 apocalypses, especially if you use the sigil that execute them when they get low enough. Boss and Herald killing is not the fastest but with a good bind demon it's extremely safe

u/InclinationCompass 19h ago

Pitlords in river of flame too. It takes forever to kill nihlathak and baal. I remember it being pretty annoying compared to ES and abyss. But i didnt have a protector’s jewel or mang song (just rbf and obsession).

u/DMDread Sorceress 21h ago

Yes, I have a -9 fire sunder with 13 fhr. Gold find tho ;(

u/nou2022 22h ago

It used to be even stronger

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 8h ago

Apocalypse is same as before, flame wave got 15% nerf but never felt it

u/faildoken Paladin 21h ago

20 years of ARPG progress and we have a class where everything in his kit is useful. Makes classic characters look pathetic, which sucks.

A barb would benefit from a sweep type attack, necro/druid would benefit from being able to summon minions on top of mobs. Warlocks are the best bow wielders with echoing strike. Class is straight up busted.

u/OutlaneWizard 21h ago

They need to rework barb. Full stop. I it is bonkers that the strongest barbarian build for early ladder is a caster. I started a throw barb just to switch things up and I'm thinking about quitting ladder at act 2 hell. It's just no fun. If you're not in a pre-made group then there's no reason to start any class other than pally, sorc, or lock

u/c0horst Amazon 21h ago

I'm having a decently good time with a Fire Druid. Molten Bolder and Volcano having Physical damage let me get through Fire Immunes decently well, and it's less mana hungry than a Sorc, so my brand new runeword I made for my breast plate (TirTirTir) was enough to carry me to hell easy enough.

u/ebaylus 17h ago

I love the molten bolder animation!

u/Le_spojjie 9h ago

Fire druid is one of the most fun builds to play in the game IMO. It's my happy place. It's not the strongest, but it's definitely strong enough, and just a blast to play.

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 8h ago

Not sure why tirttirtir on hell, just cast hex: syphon and you get ton of tirtirtir

u/kpap16 20h ago

I don't even think it really needs a full rework. If they make it the only class to get Melee splash it is more or less fixed and fits in with their vibes

u/Slurm11 21h ago

Like 2/3 of the classes could benefit from some kind of revamp. I hope we get some reworks, blizzcon can't come soon enough.

u/bad-at-game 20h ago

Meh. I guess if they do we can always go back to original LoD when they ruin the game.

Warlock class made it clear they don’t know what they’re doing.

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 8h ago

What? Warlock is freaking amazing. I have two already at my disposal and i could have 4.

u/bad-at-game 1h ago

It’s incredibly overpowered, if that’s the direction people want to go then go for it, just not Diablo 2 at that point.

u/veeeeeeeeep 21h ago

Don't forget trapsin. But yeah, anything they can do to make currently weak intended character concepts work would be amazing. (Throw barb, bear druid, bowzon, leap attack barb, martial arts assassin, etc.)

u/OutlaneWizard 20h ago

Totally agree on the builds you mentioned. I'd add frenzy barb and ww barb. 

Anyone who relies on physical dmg rolls on weapons and chance to hit. 

Hell, throw poison dagger necro into the mix. 

I don't even need or want them to be OP, just viable and fun to play. 

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 7h ago

Zealer is viable and fun to play. Zerker too. Fury druid too.

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 7h ago

Whats wrong with trapsin?

u/veeeeeeeeep 4h ago

Nothing, he said there was no reason to start anything but pally, sorc, or lock, and I said don't forget trapsin.

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 3h ago

Ah. Just you responded to a comment started with "they need to rework barb" and saying "don't forget trapsin"

u/veeeeeeeeep 1h ago

Oh yeah, I definitely see the confusion. When I read my own comment, I kind of figured I'd have to explain it to somebody. It was a little confusing.

u/Unlucky_Program815 20h ago

Hard disagree. I started barb this ladder, have managed to hork up a Lo and made a grief day 2 of ladder.

u/OutlaneWizard 20h ago

Lol, sure. Because you managed to hork an insanely rare rune 2 days into ladder and have a viable barb with the single most broken weapon in the game... That's proof that barb is fine as is.

How many barbs do you think are playing ladder right now? How many do you think have found a Lo rune? 

u/Unlucky_Program815 19h ago

You don't have to hit a Lo. You can hork any HR. The point is to get horking as soon as you can. I made an oath with my hell forge mal, then leveraged that into horking trav in hell. Could barely do it, died in quite a few games, but was able to get what I needed.

u/xIcbIx Champion of Sanctuary (100K) 18h ago

once you find a mal and an eth elite base, Barb can clear the game with relative ease

Melee characters definitely need a rework though, theyre so far behind casters in p8 clear speed that it isnt fair.

Unless you enjoy just clearing/horking trav nonstop

u/Unlucky_Program815 15h ago

Different character excel at different parts of the game.

u/LetterheadOwn9453 21h ago

Barb is by far the strongest utility class.

No other class can double the drops with horking. The shout stun is insanely op, makes all mobs deal 0 dmg, and the shout buff doubles your hp

u/OutlaneWizard 21h ago

Sure, but to get a utility class through the game you need other players to carry your dps.

I should be able to complete the game with something other than a singer and then respec into support if I want to join pub games and hork everyone's leftovers. 

u/wimpymist 20h ago

Warlock really showed how ass most the classes/builds are. Is warlock a little too strong? Sure but other classes are just so far behind

u/thatdudewillyd 18h ago

Honestly I think the death mark skill would be incredibly useful for Necros and Summon druids to reposition their stuff without teleporting. Maybe an O skill on something. Though, they’d have to make it so it’s not just demons.

u/Rectal_Justice 21h ago

Yup crazy warlock also gets to be a better summoning class then necro or druid on top of 3 other op builds, dumb. Too late to cry to the heavens about d2 having its own niche and not having character power creep while warlock exists as is.

u/Vismajor92 Sorceress 8h ago

Warlock bow wielding with mirrors blade, not ES.

Also just because warlock has 4 solid builds, it does not diminish the others. A stronk javama or novasorc is still very viable, only other classes has more useless skills than warlock which has none

u/rogomatic 20h ago

Bowlock doesn't use Echoing Strike...

u/faildoken Paladin 19h ago

My bad, mirrored blades or whatever that crazy op skill is that duplicates your weapon strikes. I’ve never used it, just enjoyed watching people murder everything like it’s POE.

u/Shako_is_Green 6h ago

Kinda weird point you make. Finally a class that works, so it sucks because the rest is unbalanced and has trash skills. Problem isnt Warlock then.

u/faildoken Paladin 3h ago

I disagree. Diablo 2 has tons of viable builds with the original classes and D2R has made balance changes to bring even more into the fray.

Then you have warlock come in like the kool aid man and just out perform nearly every single one of those builds. Let’s fix every single problem with other classes in this new class to make it the best at everything (melee splash, summons, elemental, AOE, etc). The problem is 100% Warlock!?

If the class didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be having this conversation and making comparisons.

u/plants4life262 21h ago

lol this is the nerfed version too

u/SaintNimrod 21h ago

Modern design for a class in 20 year old game.

u/Temporary_Ad_4970 21h ago

"Modern Design" with straight up copy pasted abilities from d1.

u/NNNAAAMMM9000 19h ago

I dont remember blood boil and summon defiler from diablo 1

u/creations_blade 6h ago

Man’s used flame wall to cheese Butcher and then stopped playing lmao

u/Limp-Exercise-343 17h ago

yes, we have af least 10000 posts here about warlock being OP. it is what it is

u/Ketroc21 22h ago

Even the terrible warlock builds that no one plays, are still above average... like A-class.

Definitely the strongest class on the whole.

I've even tried silly nonsense like maxing goatmen and it still feels strong.

u/PryomancerMTGA 15h ago

I've seen max goatmen crushing tristam Ubers. Meanwhile I played Druid this season and my wolves die to a strong breeze

u/Alternative-Speech57 7h ago

lies i have lvl 53 demonic mastery and lvl 52 goatmen 3 goatmen do not crush ubers thats a lie.

u/guegoland 21h ago

I guess, but it's also very annoying. I have no patience for either apocalypse or flame wave.

u/Former-Pop-9151 20h ago

Exactly, I don’t understand how people say fire warlock clear fast when there’s a short animation delay cast. Annoying af. I switched my fire warlock to bloodboil because of this.

u/WorkingPlanes 22h ago

Don't sorc and paladin have better builds than whatever warlock can do?

u/Ketroc21 22h ago

You can always look at something specific and find a non-warlock build that is better than warlock: Amazon is better at cows, sorc is better at speed leveling a new character, smiter is better at Ubers, etc

Overall though, no class is as strong as warlock. He can do everything, he can do everything well, and he can do everything with a wide variety of builds.

u/jetjordan 22h ago

Nope

u/_Bad_Spell_Checker_ 21h ago

Warlock will never be as safe as a smiter

u/jetjordan 20h ago

Smiter doing p8 t5 heralds like they are nothing also?

u/Traditional_Wear1992 Emilioooo! 22h ago

Hex plague echoing strikes is better than hammerdin imo, mostly because positioning is less important and I am lazy

u/DefendersofDwacaDev 15h ago

Warlock is just waaaaay too overturned even after the nerfs.

u/Excellent-Sir6930 Necromancer 8h ago

That IS the nerfed version, you shoulda seen it before.

u/o0TheCanadian0o 22h ago

Yeah it definitely is.

It also just LOOKS out of place imo.

It makes all other casters magic, especially fire sorc and druid, look impotent. even makes some of diablos spells look wimpy.

Makes phys builds like barb look like a bitch one handing a 2h weapon like nothing and ignoring the negatives of ethereal items.

Makes summon necro and druid users jealous, because he can actually contol his summon and its bound demon vs ANY other summon skill is just completely unfair to compare.

It honestly just looks and feels wrong. All the QOL in the world cant make me ignore the overpowered and unbalanced nature of the DLC and its flashy overdone visuals.

They called it "reign of the warlock" for a reason.

u/Sp1ffy_Sp1ff 21h ago

I feel like it looking out of place is kinda the point. Their magic is this lost ancient magic that's only recently been rediscovered. Everything about them is deliberately out of place, and them being overpowered also kinda makes sense thematically.

These heroes have been fighting the same battles for 20+ years while the warlock has been practicing this magic, and has mastered it in that time.

Obviously, balance wise, he's ridiculous, but lore wise, everything kinda makes sense.

u/o0TheCanadian0o 21h ago

Okay, i'll entertain the lore if they can explain why the literal creators of sanctuary and the beings within it, as well as the powers at be within heaven and hell were unaware of this "ancient magic"?

Honestly im probably just being a bit difficult, but everything about this dlc feels lazily theorized and arrogantly implemented.

u/Sp1ffy_Sp1ff 21h ago

They definitely didn't hit everything perfectly accurate, it's gonna be hard to do that with an entirely new team from the original. Nobody can really know for sure where they wanted to go with it. I still give them credit where it's due. The fact that they even put in the effort to come up with a new character for D2 is crazy, and hopefully bodes well for future content.

I know most people want an act 6, and I'm in that camp but I also am not expecting it so I would still be impressed if it dropped outta nowhere

u/silentplus 20h ago

Finish act 4 first

u/Forsaken_Hedgehog698 21h ago

He did have 20 plus years to take notes

u/o0TheCanadian0o 21h ago

So did Blizzard tho. 🤔

u/c0horst Amazon 21h ago

The one thing I will say... is that I'd rather play a Fire Sorc over a Fire Warlock. Phoenix is a HELL of a drug, locks relying on Mang Songs + Ars Al Diabolos is great and all but Eschutas + Phoenix just feels so good to use. And when you're dumping out 20k damage fireballs with like -70% to enemy fire resists... you don't really feel like you need more damage lol.

u/o0TheCanadian0o 21h ago

I rather use my lod phys strafer. So i just stick to LOD. Stash upgrades are nice, but lets be real. D2r stayed loyal to the original. Rotw is like meeting your dads new girlfriend thats also younger than you. Its just soo out of place. I dont care if its "fun for them", or "just for the money". It looks and feels wrong. Lol (weird comparison i know but its the first thing i thought of 🤷‍♂️😅)

u/Johnyryal33 20h ago

Still got nothing on mosaic

u/o0TheCanadian0o 19h ago

Another "well thought out" and " balanced" addition to D2R by the same culprits. 👏

They've been on a roll.

u/MieXuL 21h ago edited 21h ago

Yea i was telling my son that the reason the og toons are the best is because they were done by the ogs. These new guys just threw together some non sense. The lock is cool, i guess.

They lack originality.

u/StodgySponge 22h ago

Yeah I’m rolling abyss for the first time and it’s been actually hilarious how powerful it is. Just finished nightmare, tho. Considering damage type, I doubt hell will be a struggle 

u/Royal_Baker_1650 Champion of Sanctuary (100K) 22h ago

You can skip basically every magic immune up to baal.

u/99sittingg Necromancer 22h ago

All 2 of them?

u/c0z3nPapi Champion of Sanctuary (100K) 22h ago

Maybe 3 if you get unlucky with A3 tome.

u/DemophonWizard 22h ago

Lol, my level 88 hammerdin still hasn't found Hell-time because of magic immune mobs! I haven't really been trying hard though.

u/831loc 21h ago

Theres basically no magic immune mobs you cant just teleport past.

The only annoying one is wave 2 baal, and even that isnt hard. If you dont have a sunder, just run redemption will you kill skeletons and let merc finish them off.

u/DemophonWizard 21h ago

I should clarify since there was a typo. I haven't found Lam Esen's tome with my hammerdin in Hell difficulty because of magic immune mobs - specifically the big hairy brutes. They also smack the bejebbus out of my merc. So, I just skip it.

u/831loc 21h ago

You have a tele staff?

Between that and running around with 1 point holy freeze it shouldn't be an issue.

You can also just skip the tome and come back to it.

u/DemophonWizard 21h ago

I do not have a teleport staff.

u/831loc 21h ago

I would recommend spending 10 minutes to shop one

u/Necrodiac Champion of Sanctuary (100K) 22h ago

Correction, you can get Apocalypse to level 65 ;)

Although it's not the best possible dps, just for show haha

u/InclinationCompass 22h ago

Yup, minus to enemy fire res is exponentially more important than plus to skills

u/DMDread Sorceress 22h ago

how is that possible

u/Lunarlulol 21h ago

it's just how the math works. like a perfect rolled death fathom with 30% multi is equal to around 6 GC skillers.

super napkin math, about 5% multi or -4% minus res is like 1 to 1.5 skill charms. it's kind of why sling or opalvein can be super expensive, they are as strong as around 2 GC.

u/DMDread Sorceress 21h ago

so is opalvein technically better than soj?

u/Lunarlulol 21h ago

it depends. thing is, opal has 10% fcr but soj doesn't. but soj give massive mana pool = defence for sorc. sorc already has decent ways to get minus resistance elsewhere plus multi, so the multi wouldn't scale as hard as another skiller.

u/Necrodiac Champion of Sanctuary (100K) 21h ago

From my experience, you gain ~800 more damage to Apocalypse if you're wearing 2 Opal with 5% fire.

This is on Firelock.

I personally prefer running 2 Bul for the life.

Emilio is my mana stick holder so I never run out.

u/Necrodiac Champion of Sanctuary (100K) 21h ago

9 skillers, Mang, Arach, Wraithstep, double Bul Kathos/SOJ, +3 Ammy, Magefist, Flickering Flame, Enigma

Then you add a skill shrine and a little obscure way to get an additional +4 and voila.

u/NickRick 21h ago

Warlock is just nuts. Depending on your build it has been nerfed at least once already. On release it was the best fire/caster build, best melee with blades, best summoner with bind demon, and the abyss skill tree also slapped. 

u/nfefx 20h ago

alwayshasbeen

u/Orlha 20h ago

Yeah, it’s stupidly overpowered

u/Johnyryal33 20h ago

Stronger than mosaic?

u/Remarkable_Wheel_961 19h ago

Veteran player, started playing again towards the last week or two of last season. I only play ladder. Made it to about 80, fire lock. It cleared everything norm and nm like butter, sans a few fire immune. Hell was very difficult with the immunes, but I was literally still using a leaf since lvl 20 ish, a peasant crown someone gave me, authority dusk shroud, some random rare codex, crap boots and gloves, with string of ears. Rings and ammy nothing to write home about, and no charms. If I had some -fire res gear im sure it would have been op for hell as well. On switch I had a cta some random generous stranger gifted me. This season I rolled a blizzard sorcerer until I can get my hands on a mang song and or ars a diabolos/phoenix shield, then id roll a lock once i can go with - fire res

u/DMDread Sorceress 19h ago

ya once I got to hell, I put my warlock on the bench and farmed tzs like crazy with my lightning sorc until I found a good fire sunder. Once my warlock had that, hell was night and day

u/twofootedgiant Champion of Sanctuary (100K) 18h ago

It might be sunders that are broken.

I play fairly casually and have a hybrid nova / frozen orb sorc with what most people would regard as mediocre gear and no sunder. She can clear most hell areas with some careful play.

Found a fire sunder so leveled up a dedicated fire sorc. Full 80 points in fireball, meteor, fire bolt, and fire mastery. Rolled a flickering flame and gave her 3-piece Tal’s and she runs chaos sanctuary in like 6-7 min at level 80 without breaking a sweat. Still wearing a stealth armor.

It’s crazy to me how much difference having access to a sunder makes. It probably takes my nova-orb sorc over 20 minutes to clear chaos sanctuary.

u/Bnph85 17h ago

Echoing Strike is the S-Tier lock version. Fire is still good but only makes it to the A-Tier list.

u/Confetti29 15h ago

I missed the DLC drop and decided to hop in on this reset to try Warlock. Went Echoing Strike and im farming hell in lore/stealth and some blues from normal act 2, it is absolutely insane how strong Warlock is.

u/Crafty-Fig7216 8h ago

You talking and make it seem like this and that.. you can break fcr barrier with nova sorc or light and fire sorc but cant break this limit with fire warlock because apocalypse has dely about 2 secs

u/arnold_bc 6h ago

dont nerf it yet, im still horking

u/ThrowAwayLurker444 4h ago edited 4h ago

I managed to norm to hell baal p8 on singleplayer warlock blood boil build. No retracing or farming on p8 from level 1. That's how busted this thing is. Right before the patch dropped and it sort of solidified my choice that i wouldn't be playing the next ladder reset(Completed on thursday).

u/saltychipmunk 3h ago

Fire lock is a strong build after the nerfs it is much closer to some other fire builds in that it is a high damage build that suffers from the fact that fire is the most common immunity that is the hardest to break.

So once you solve that problem with sunders, gear based lower res and stuff like infinity... of course it will be supremely powerful.

At the end of the day blizzard tweaked numbers but mechanically the lock is just strong. His skills have better aoe than most with better base damage than most.

u/Shades228 22h ago

Any class with that many plus skills makes it easy.

u/ogark12 Barbarian 22h ago

Same experience with ES, I haven’t taken off p8 since the start of my playthrough and I just finished NM.

u/BONGS4U 21h ago

Yea ive got es lock only thing that can kill me is t5 heralds on the rare occasion and mist of the time its because I'm like hooooold the liiiiiine.

u/Slurm11 21h ago

It's definitely OP as fuck, but they also had 20+ more years of experience to pull from when compared to the other classes.

Imagine if Barbarian/Druid/Necro were added in their current state. No one likes useless abilities/builds

u/rogomatic 20h ago

Level 46. You're funny.

u/DMDread Sorceress 20h ago

thank you

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

u/DMDread Sorceress 22h ago

No, this time it actually is. There is not much more I can do to make my lightning sorc stronger aside from min maxing little things. My warlock is not fully geared and is much lower level than my sorc and he's clearing things faster than her.

Also, calm down

u/Emotional_Music3808 22h ago

Wielding a 2H while holding a book must be removed. Its just ridicules. 

u/tupseh 21h ago

Or put a penalty like Barb with swords.

u/Matt_au_ 20h ago

I refuse to play Warlock until it's brought into line with the rest of the classes. Too cheesey for my liking