A little over a week into Diablo 2’s first expansion in 25 years and people have already figured out how to break the new warlock class. By most accounts, warlocks are easily the strongest class in the game for how easy it is to put together a devastating build, but YouTuber Coooley wanted something better than big damage numbers: immortality.
They figured it out, and were surprised that it’s more straightforward to achieve than it might seem. Blizzard pitched the class as a summoner who studied the dark art of controlling demons—not just plain old undead, like the necromancer. And it turns out, the Bind Demon skill that lets you adopt an enemy as a pet is the lynchpin for the immortal setup.
Warlocks have a skill called Blood Oath that redirects a percentage of the damage you take to your pet demon. It starts at a low percentage, but you can wear enough gear with bonus skill points to raise it up to 99%. Coooley noticed how absurdly high it could go and decided to make a build that raises it up just enough to stay alive against the toughest monsters in the game.
Coooley recommends getting Blood Oath up to 89%. The rest of the damage that actually hits you can be mitigated by the Treachery unique item and all of its elemental resistances. Coooley also uses The Rising Sun unique amulet to make all the fire damage they take heal them, effectively nullifying the tiny amounts of damage that actually touch their warlock.
With the warlock defenses solved, that only leaves the poor demon who will be taking the brunt of all the damage. The solution is laughably simple: There are demons in the game who are basically immune to all types of damage. All you have to do is go recruit one and then watch as it shrugs off hits that would crush mere mortals.
While the damage output may be low, Coooley’s warlock build can hold its ground against any enemy in the game, including the expansion’s new bosses. They tossed on one of the best weapons in the game, Malice, to be able to actually kill anything in a reasonable amount of time, but if you have a lot of patience, anything can work.
Blizzard hasn’t dropped any nerfs on the warlock just yet, but I imagine this build won’t be possible for long. Coooley has a version you can put together quickly with much worse gear than they showed in the video, so you’ve got some time to try it out before it’s gone.
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