I call my second warlock jimmybrando for two reasons. One is because I wanted to use Brand for it. The other is because just like Marlon Brando, he can look cool as hell, but when he decides to prebuff with some butter, watch the hell out because things are going to hurt. I’m sorry for everyone who didn’t know that reference and chooses to look it up, and feel ashamed for writing it. But if it gets you to read the “Brandolock” guide, then I guess it’s somewhat ok.

Back in the long ago, I loved playing bowazons. My first character ever was a pikeazon, and that’s the softest place in my heart (and I think trying to make that work the inspiration for my lifelong goal of avoiding using the typical builds/gear that “everyone” uses - hence going for Blood Boil when everyone else was running ES/fire/abyss). But I think the playstyle of bows just worked for me. You didn’t have to do a whole lot, just run around and shoot things and watch loot pop on the screen - the simple pleasures in life that allow for the maximum dopamine hits possible. If you got hit, you had ways to mitigate that, but the knowledge you were a glass cannon kept you definitely avoiding getting hit - adding to the excitement.

But ever since synergies were added, monsters buffed, and the changes were made to how guided arrow pierced, things just haven’t been fun for bowazons. I will still make them, and play them for a while, but they just aren’t fun anymore. They don’t do what they’re supposed to do as effectively as they’re supposed to be able to do them, and they require incredibly hyper-specific and expensive gear that leaves little room for deviation and playing around with build ideas, which just isn’t interesting to me.

After living in tyranny for the 23 years since that change (with gaps of many years sporadically in between), the pre-1.09 bowazon is back, in all its glory.

It’s just a warlock now.

Previous guide: Blood Boil Guide


I: Skills:

Demon:

• 1 - Summon Goatman - prereq
  
• 10 - Demonic Mastery - this gets you three summons
  
• 1-X - Blood Oath - makes you and your demons into the tanks you need them to be to survive even with iffy resists
  
• 1 - Death Mark - one point wonder, this skill has tremendous functionality when you want to position your summons
  
• 1 - Summon Tainted - prereq
  
• 1 - Summon Defiler - one point wonder, but you must get to 15 soft points here. My build does, your variation might not!
  
• 0 - Bind Demon - completely unnecessary for this build
  
• 20 - Consume - damage synergy and core buff

Eldritch:

• 20 - Hex: Bane - the foundation of the damage of this build
  
• 20 - Hex: Purge - damage synergy
  
• 1 - Levitation Mastery - prereq
  
• 1 - Cleave - prereq
  
• 1 - Echoing Strike - prereq
  
• 1 - Blade Warp - prereq, can also be used as a pre-Enigma “teleport”
  
• 1 - Psychic Ward - prereq, can also be used as a pre-buff for difficult fights
  
• 1 - Eldritch Blast - prereq
  
• 20 - Mirrored Blades - main attack, as well as being a damage synergy for Hex: Bane

Chaos:

• 1 - Sigil: Lethargy - one point wonder
  
• 1 - Sigil: Rancor - prereq
  
• 1 - Sigil: Death - one point wonder

II: Gear:

Before we start, a basic explanation of how mirrored blades works. It splits your attacks into five attacks, buffs the damage, attack rating, and speed of those attacks. With a melee weapon (don’t use an eth one if it can break), you basically do 5x attack damage to your single targets. With a ranged weapon, it splits your arrows into 5 arrows, each doing your attack’s damage. If all 5 hit the same target, the target takes the 5x damage. If they hit individual targets, each one soaks the damage of the attack on its own.

Unlike echoing strike, which splits your damage among the 10 shards, mirrored blades delivers equal damage from each of the five blades. Further:
-Hex: Bane delivers full damage for each blade (instead of 1/10th damage for echoing strike)
-Chance to cast and crushing blow each work for mirrored blades (not for echoing strike)

Now, what Hex: Bane does is adds magic damage to your arrows. On its own, that’s a nice boost to a skill like echoing strike. But when you fully synergize it, with the three synergies that each add 35% damage to the skill, you really get into some serious numbers. Bumping the skill up a level then adds exponential damage over what the weapon does on its own. On the character screen, this looks like ~9k-12k damage per mirrored blade of straight magic damage, unaffected by the weapon you choose to deliver it with. So while there are bigger and bulker ways to use this skill, your only concern needs to be how can that 12k magic damage per hit be delivered as fast as possible, with every point of -enemy resist or % magic damage enhancing that even more.



This is the crux of the build. The two options I will talk about have this in mind, as well as a couple of other options that people prefer (but I don’t for this specific build).


Weapon: Brand demon crossbow (key stats: fires explosive arrows, ctc bone spears, ctc amplify damage when struck, 260-340% enhanced damage, knockback, deadly strike, +% attack rating, prevent monster heal) OR Demon Machine demon crossbow (upgraded from chu-ko-nu) (key stats: fires explosive arrows, 66% pierce, +66 max damage, lots of attack rating, socketable)

I prefer Brand for a few reasons, but Demon Machine is incredibly viable and, to some, the better option.

They both have a few things in common. They utilize the incredibly fast demon crossbow (but there are other base options, that I’ll go into later), which means your hex will be delivered as fast as possible without having to add IAS. As a tradeoff, they provide little in the way of physical damage, which means you don’t need to play around with prioritizing things that enhance that. And they both fire explosive arrows.

What the explosions do is add a some fire damage (more with Brand than Demon Machine, and these can help with minion packs) but really they MAKE YOUR ATTACKS GUARANTEED TO HIT. When lots of the explosions happen at once, they can provide a nice little damage boost, but there’s no comparison between items that rely on attack rating and items that guarantee that every one of your max frame, split equally five ways, massive damage bolts hit your target.

#1 reason to prefer Demon Machine: Pierce.

It’s a really enticing thing to know that you can pierce your attacks on this. It enhances the build greatly when a monster who gets an explosive arrow hit of 10k magic damage have that same arrow pass through and explode on another monster. This is especially helpful when fighting difficult heralds (especially when they’re behind a doorway or obstruction). But in reality, TZ 96 mobs in P8 just melt to this build, even without the pierce, partly because of how the defilers buff and spread the damage. Many monsters will die without being hit by a single arrow, because your double defilers have linked them to the ones you actually hit.

Other reasons to prefer Demon Machine: affordability, socketability.

The second reason isn’t as big of a one because of the lack (as of now) of a Rainbow Facet alternative for magic damage means that the really only interesting thing to put in the weapon is a Shael rune (I guess you could put things like Ber/Lo in there, but I don’t know if there’s a lot of real benefit to that) to free up a piece of gear to drop some IAS.

The real reason to use a Demon Machine, in my opinion, is that it costs nothing compared to the Jah/Lo/Mal/Gul from the Brand. If that’s your priority, then please use that and adjust your gear slightly to accommodate that.

Reasons to prefer Brand: Knockback, fun amp procs for the mercenary, bonespears that may or may not carry Hex: Bane on them (things die too fast for me to really tell). I notice I do more damage when I use Brand vs. Demon Machine, and I think it’s fun to use a runeword that legitimately has no other real use in the game.

There are actual, by the numbers reasons to use Brand. First, the explosive arrows are significantly higher level on Brand than on Demon Machine. If you fire your 5 arrows into a pack of 14 mobs, all 5 will hit, all 5 will explode, and many of those 5 will pierce and explode again. The explosions do a few hundred each, and that adds up. A monster that’s hit by 5 Brand explosions just took 2500 fire damage (CHECK THIS), and that means that pack of 14 mobs just took 35k damage just from the explosions of your one arrow shot, assuming none pierced and before the defilers spread that damage. Any fire damage your character has will increase this damage substantially. So while the explosions don’t seem like much, it starts to add up.

The bone spears also proc 100% of the time, meaning monsters across your screen take that damage. Basically, you have tons of hex damage, but the Brand adds what seems like small amounts of damage, but in ways that stack and add up very quickly to help clear screens.

I will talk about other possibilities, like Mist and Buriza, later on when discussing build variants. But just know that there are reasons I prefer Brand/Demon Machine to them, though many guides will recommend those instead.


Helmet: Hellwarden’s Will (key stats: +1 all skills, 20% FCR, 20% IAS, up to 6 MAEK, up to -8% enemy magic resist and -8% enemy fire resist) with a Guardian’s Light jewel

I feel that this helm will soon be just the default for many builds that utilize IAS, because just the simple fact that there is 20% FCR and 20% IAS on the same item can open up other slots. The fact that everything else on the hat seems perfectly designed for this build makes it absolutely best in slot for me.

With how little magic immunity exists in this game, every point of -enemy magic resist is basically 1% additional damage to your arrows (again, arrows that deliver equal damage across all 5 shots and can pierce). So this is basically a helmet that gives you the minimal IAS you may need, FCR you’re hurting for in this build, the +skill, substantial amount of MAEK, and then a gross amount of damage to your hex in the form of +10% damage and -18% enemy magic resist. Unless the character is immune, this likely ends up being more than the aggregate 28% damage increase. But wait! There is also up to -8% enemy fire resist, which bumps your explosions up by 8% per hit. Just a tremendous option.

There are potential variants that can use other hats. Shako is a classic, and we all know what that adds to the table. A 2/20/2 circlet (or even 3/20/2 if you want) will help you add resists to the build through via the extra socket (and potential extra added resist if you have a rare 2/20/2 with all resist), but those are way better used by being sold to other warlocks.


Helmet: Enigma

I’ll save the explanation.


Gloves: Horizon’s Hold (key stats: 140-270 fire damage, 10% crushing blow, dexterity, life, attack rating, 30% IAS and 20 dexterity from 2 piece set bonus)

Gloves: Horizon’s Legacy (key stats: cannot be frozen, magic resist, strength, dexterity, 10% extra FRW and 20 dexterity from 2 piece set bonus)

I’ll keep these together for a couple of reasons. For the default build, you do not need this 30% IAS. Demon crossbows attack so fast, that this is not needed to hit the fastest possible mirrored blades attacks. This IAS becomes crucial in other variants, but really it’s just the default stats on these that make them, in my opinion, best in slot.

As noted earlier, mirrored blades can proc crushing blow. Having 10% is nice against t5 heralds that can get hit 5 times by your same shot. Also as noted earlier, fire damage buffs not just the arrow shots, but also the explosions from Brand, so that 140-270 fire damage is now being added to the 5 explosions you launch per shot as well as the 5 bolts themselves (enhanced by the -8% fire damage in Hellwarden’s, too!).

For the boots, you have -45% magic resist from your sunder, and this mitigates 1/2 to 2/3 of that loss. The key stat is the CBF, though, which frees you from having to use a Raven Frost (something that gives no benefit because of your lack of needing attack rating with Brand, remember). The fact that using the two piece gives you up to 50 dexterity means that you won’t need any to equip your bow.

I think the boots are mandatory for the build, and wouldn’t swap them for anything because of the CBF/magic resist. The gloves, you can move around. I think they’re BIS, but if you wanted to use a Lava Gout (20% IAS, fire damage, ctc enchant) because you don’t have an outside source of enchant, that’s fine. Blood gloves with crushing blow and resists, or rare gloves with resists can cover you if you feel you need the extra resists (I don’t personally worry about them, but some people do). For some variants, using slower weapons, you pretty much have to use 2 piece Horazon’s, so it’s good to know they’re amazing even without the 30% IAS.


Belt: Razortail (key stats: 33% pierce and dexterity) OR Arachnid’s Mesh (key stats: +1 all skills, 20% FCR, with some slow and max mana) OR Gheed’s Wager (key stats: up to 20% FCR, FHR, and FRW, to go with up to -7% enemy magic resist and up to 15 all resist)

This is 100% a personal preference, so I’ll outline the pros for each. There’s a specific circumstance where you will definitely want one over the other two, but in reality for 95% of encounters, there isn’t a wrong choice in my opinion. Others will read build guides and disagree with me on principle, but I’ve run these all a lot and I don’t really notice when losing the key stats on each in favor of the key stats of other pieces.

Reasons to use Razortail: You have a Brand and want some pierce. That’s pretty much it. Now, this build, because of it’s TREMENDOUS damage output, rarely finds itself needing the pierce. If there’s a huge pack of mobs, they’re getting hit by thousands of damage in explosions, bone spears, and defiler spread even if they aren’t in the front row, and whatever isn’t wiped out by the first volley is usually cremated by the second. The only time I want to have some pierce is when fighting tougher heralds that are in the middle of a pack of higher HP/fire/magic resist minions, because I want to clear out those minions as fast as possible and objectively the arrows themselves do most of that damage. So having some of the arrows pierce to hit the herald while the minions are in front, and also have the back minions take the most damage possible, that’s important. If you’re planning to spend a game farming heralds, wear a Razortail. If you aren’t and just want to clear tombs or bosses, you can likely get away with one of the other options and be fine.

Reasons to use Arachnid’s Mesh: You want to hit the next FCR breakpoint and prefer the +skill for some prebuffing purposes. Again, pretty much it. If you use a Demon Machine and don’t care about the difference between 100% and 66% pierce (you won’t care), then here’s an option. The +1 skills benefits everything from your hex damage, to the length of your consume, to the size of your sigil, to the DR/resist from oath. If you’re doing a demon variant, you might want to prefer this item. The 20% FCR is the biggest add, because it brings you from the 30% FCR breakpoint to the 48%, and that’s a big deal in a lot of cases. I play at the 30% and don’t miss the 48%, but others might disagree and that’s fine!

Reasons to use Gheed’s Wager: You want to hit the next FCR breakpoint and prefer the increased damage, resists, FRW, and FHR to the skill point. This item has it all, and if it had any pierce on it it would be broken beyond belief. As noted in the Hellwarden’s section, the -% enemy magic resist is a straight 1% damage increase for each percentage, and 7% adds up nicely. This build also hurts badly for resists, and this provides a reasonable amount. You only really need 8% FCR from the belt, so save your money and get a low FCR roll that prioritizes the resists and -% enemy magic resist.

I use a Razortail most of the time, because I like to just clear games and the pierce helps with that. But a Demon Machine version of this would probably prefer Gheed’s Wager, and a variant that uses a bound demon would likely prefer Arachnid’s Mesh. But they’re all great!


Amulet: Mara’s Kaliedoscope (key stats: +2 all skills, 5 attributes, 20-30 all resist)

This one is easy for me. I’m a glass cannon that is made of pretty strong stuff, but even I don’t want to have negative resists. Mara’s gets me to the ~20 resist all range with some charms, and that’s what I’m prioritizing here. IAS is not needed from the amulet slot.

If you want to, you can push for FCR here to get up to the 48% breakpoint, and honestly I will likely end up doing this. A crafted amulet with 8% might allow you to get +2 warlock skills and a ton of resists for a lot cheaper than any 10%+ FCR amulet would cost. It would come at the cost of life from BO (if you use a CTA for yourself), but it’s a worthy goal. I just want max resists and don’t really worry about the FCR because I honestly don’t notice it much on this character. It’s possible to get up to 75% FCR using a Gheed’s/Arach and a crazy 15%+ FCR amulet, but again, not missed in my opinion.


Ring #1: Opalvein (key stats: +3-5% magic damage, all resist, LAEK and MAEK)
Ring #2: Sling (key stats: 10% FCR, some mana and MF, and TOWN PORTAL)

I’ll just copy most of what I put in my Blood Boil guide for this section:

“I can't begin to describe how happy it makes for me to never have to carry TP scrolls. Raise your hand if this is you: You carry a torch, tome of identify, and tome of town portals with you, and hate that you have 3 things that take up two vertical slots in your inventory, but only two of them fit with the 2x2 size of the cube. So you either need to drop a skiller/Gheeds in favor of more small charms, or you live in tyranny your whole life to have to keep TP scrolls on your belt. Really fun when running A2 and you need to go find Drognan in the middle of your run.

I bring a BO/hork barb with me in games, and so I end up casting a decent amount of portals. Every time I cast a Sling TP, it makes me so happy. So now, if I'm using a 2/20 super expensive circlet, I'm going to have 135% FCR, because I'm using the damn Sling forever on my mains. No double SOJs for this guy.”

Sling gives -3-5% enemy magic resist and 10% FCR, Opalvein gives +3-5% magic damage and 10% FCR (with all resist and MAEK). Just use these and you’ll do more damage and be happy. You can also use double Opalveins if you hate your inventory and are a sadist, or mix in a SOJ, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. I’m using a Sling.


Inventory:

• Rows 1-2: Torch and Tome of Identify over the cube
  
• Row 3: Renewed Black Cleft sunder (I prefer +damage over -enemy resist here, because the +damage works like Enchant does: it applies when I prebuff with Hex: Bane, and is again applied when I attack with magic damage) and the Annihilus (there’s an argument to, if you use enchant, to use a fire sunder here. I don’t think it’s necessary)
  
• Rows 4-8 grand charms:
  -If you want MF, use a Gheeds and a combination of skillers/life and resist GCs
  -If you want survival, sacrifice a skiller or two and use resist GCs
  -If you want to be awesome like jimmybrando, run with 5 skillers (if they have life, great, if not you’re still awesome)
  
• Rows 4-8 small charms: all resist/cherry-picked resist charms

III: Stats Summary and Current Gear:

Gear Summary (unbuffed, without small charms accounted for):

• Weapon: Brand demon crossbow (perfect 355% ed in a superior base - no one was buying these, easy to get a trophy)
  
• Helm: Hellwarden’s Will (-18% enemy magic resist, -8% enemy fire resist, 10% magic skill damage, 6 MAEK, with the Guardian’s Light jewel)
  
• Armor: Enigma mage plate
  
• Gloves: Horazon’s Hold (15 dex/40 life)
  
• Belt: Razortail
  
• Boots: Horazon’s Legacy (15 str/15 dex/2x% magic resist)
  
• Amulet: Mara’s Kaleidoscope (30 all resist)
  
• Ring 1: Opalvein (5% magic, 6 all resist, 3 MAEK)
  
• Ring 2: Sling (-5% enemy magic resist)
  
• Sunder: Renewed Black Cleft (15% magic damage, attributes, life, magic find)
  
• Torch: 15/19
  
• Annihilus: 19/18/10
  
• Weapon Swap: Void with +15% magic damage, working on getting one with consume on it, and maybe defiler. Ondals and Obsession are easy alternatives here.
  
• Off-Hand swap: Ars dul’Mephistos (random)

Stats Summary (just self-buffed with consume, no BO or small charms accounted for):

• 30% FCR breakpoint (can swap to 48% with an amulet change, or if you tele with the offhand swap you hit higher breakpoints easily)
  
• 20-30 resist all
  
• 8% damage reduction from gear (Enigma)
  
• ~3200 unbuffed life (averaging 35 life on 5 eldritch skillers, with a consumed Defiler)
  
• ~300 mana unbuffed
  
• +30% magic damage unbuffed (Guardian’s Light, Renewed Black Cleft, Opalvein), 50% with a consumed Defiler
  
• -23% enemy magic resistance unbuffed (Hellwarden’s, Guardian’s Light, Sling), -38% with a consumed Defiler, with -8% enemy fire resistance
  
• ~170% magic find before small charms
  
• Level 40, fully synergized Hex: Bane
  
• 33% pierce
  
• 100% chance to cast bone spears that hit for 350 a pop and 100% pierce
  
• Exploding arrows that splash for 300-450 with every hit
  
• Bolts that shoot 5 at a time and drop 16k-20k damage with each hit (over 90% of which is straight magic damage with few immunes) while being guaranteed to hit
  
• 2 Defilers that each add an extra 50% of all damage I output and apply it to the 10 monsters they have linked together. If a monster is linked to one hit by a 20k arrow with 5 explosions and a bone spear, they’re probably dead even without being hit by my arrows (especially if they got hit by bone spears/explosions themselves)
  
• Constant regen from Insight/MAEK from Opalvein/Hellwarden’s

What if you add a level 52 Enchant to the operation? For science?

• Those exploding arrows? They do 6k splash damage each hit now. If you shoot your bolts into a pack of 10 mobs that’s tight together, even without any pierce you just did 30k+ damage just from explosions to each monster in the pack.
  
• Your regular bolts? They also do 6k more fire damage now. You can officially go full roneye and prioritize -enemy fire resist now (I still think this version is more fun).
  
• Every monster you hit now gets a bolt to the face of 21k-25k, hit by a likely 5+ explosions of 6k on their own, with two defilers linking their damage together (don’t forget those bone spears!) while you clear the whole screen with one or two shots.

IV: Mercenary:

Mercenary: Act 2 Prayer/Might/Thorns/Holy Freeze

The mercenary has really one key function in herald hunting, and that’s to stay alive and provide a target for the attacks. Meditation aura is nice, and the damage he does can sometimes help, but in reality he just soaks damage for you.

Holy Freeze is most helpful for the build, but I like to hork my heralds so I don’t use that. If you don’t care about that, it’s the best by far. Prayer can add some regen, and it’s what I currently use just to use.

Might can help your damage a tiny bit, but it’s really just to help his a little bit for some added damage on bosses/heralds that might be magic resistant. Maxroll will tell you that Blessed Aim is helpful, but again, you don’t need attack rating.

Thorns is the one I’m excited to test out, because none of the auras are really super helpful here outside of holy freeze, so why not reflect some herald damage back to them?

I haven’t tried to run much without Insight yet, but if I did, I would maybe swap to an A5 mercenary and play around with some different builds, or consider using a Reaper’s Toll for a bound demon build. But that’s not today.


Weapon: Insight Thresher/Great Poleaxe/Giant Thresher

Basically just to give you the aura so you can kill everything in sight without thinking about your own mana pool ever. Some other nice things on this, like crit and high damage, but I don’t really need it much. Just need the mana sometimes.

I will test to see if I don’t need the aura and try a Reaper’s Toll, as my own amp rarely procs (as I am rarely hit). That also opens up other build ideas for the merc.


Armor: Guardian Angel (ethereal, upgraded, with a Protector’s Stone jewel)

I used to pray at the altar of Treachery. Then 3.2 changes happened, heralds smacked a lot harder, and it’s time to get Haseen some real resists. This armor now does two things: It gives him 90% to all resists, and it gives him a chance to proc fade like Treachery does (and all the resists and DR that accompany that).


Helmet: Crown of Ages OR Bulwark ethereal spired helm

We have the resist cap and fade proc covered by the Guardian Angel, all that is missing now is DR, life leech, and enough all resists to keep us at max against conviction aura/before fade procs. Bulwark gives 2 out of 3, with leech, DR, and a massive amount of life replenish to go with it, but no extra resists. Crown of Ages gives 2 out of 3 with the extra resists and DR, but no leech. I’m starting to lean toward leech being unnecessary, and plan to run with the COA to maximize the DR and add CBF to the equation. I don’t think CBF is 100% essential here, because I don’t need him to leech to survive, but herald thorns are the real killer here and I think to mitigate that having a faded mercenary with a Ber/Cham COA is the way to go. I’ll add more here after I test it further.

V: Playstyle (hex/build choices):

Hex: Bane vs. Hex: Purge

Bane and Purge is the core choice you have to make. I have very clearly made the choice for Hex: Bane, but there are reasons to sometimes take Purge, and while the playstyle and damage delivery methods are different, in 90% of encounters the impact is similar.

Bane acts like Enchant does for Sorceresses. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see there eventually be a weapon/runeword that either procs or has Hex: Bane charges as a core part of its functionality. Something like a 5 os staff runeword that has IAS and class nonspecific Mirrored Blades as a skill. Clear difference is that instead of one synergy and Fire Mastery to boost it, there are three synergies, and it can only be used to hex your own weapon with magic damage.

But that damage is a TON. Fully synergized, the amount of magic damage this can add to your bolts/arrows rivals any damage output skill in the game. I think this skill received little notice in 3.1 for a few reasons. One, physical ES didn’t need the help from any hexes, so people didn’t touch them for the most part. Two, Hex: Bane damage is split between the ten echoes from Echoing Strike, so if your hex is adding 5k damage, it only amounts to 500 per echo. Three, there were other really fun and viable builds, like Blood Boil, Abyss, and Apocalypse that made it so people didn’t need to dig too far into the Eldritch tree.

But the difference is, for Mirrored Blades, the damage is NOT split evenly, rather each of the five hits from Mirrored Blades delivers the full amount of Bane damage. So because it hits five times for full damage, Hex: Bane does ten times more damage per hit on Mirrored Blades than it did for anyone who ever used it for Echoing Strike. Bonking a mob with a stick delivers all of that damage to that single target, deleting them. Shooting with an arrow allows for single target or spread, and safe ranges.

Hex: Purge works VERY differently, and it’s sort of complicated (compared to Bane). It is not an enchant to your weapon at all, and as such doesn’t show up in your damage screen. What it does is, when a monster gets hit, it gets hexed. Then, each time it’s hit, it has a (high) chance of erupting and taking damage that ends up feeling similar to the damage of Bane. Having enemies be hexed also allows for Eldritch Blast (another skill that seems complicated as well - in its most simple terms it’s Holy Fire for magic, that only works on enemies that have been hexed and runs out in 45 seconds) to tick.

The biggest drawbacks are, first, that it relies on explosions. Like any explosion skill, it is very lacking in single target DPS. Another is that you kind of need Eldritch Blast (because it does an incredible amount of damage and makes sense to use as its a Purge synergy) and that is such an annoying skill to use because it falls off so quickly. Someday I will experiment with an EB auradin-style build and write it up, but that day isn’t today, and the idea of dropping 20 hard points into Psychic Ward to bring the duration of Eldritch Blast from 42 seconds to 82 is on the level of maxing Death Mark to add 20% crushing blow to Goatmen. If this were like a Paladin aura that drains a ton of mana/second but stays on when cast, I think it would potentially be viable.

The advantages are that it adds the EB dps if you use that skill, but the biggest reason to do it is the 30% IAS boost when active. That opens up weapon choices and builds that may be interesting to many people, and I will go over them later.

Another advantage is the amount of hard points needed. Hex: Bane is 80 points to max and synergize, and there isn’t much left for build diversity left over. With Purge you just max two other skills for 60 points total, and the leftover allows for some potentially interesting variants that I will go over later. What is nice about both is that the synergies also make sense as secondary skills, as Bane requires Consume and Mirrored Blades, both super nice things to max, while Purge requires Eldritch Blast to be maxed, which is the secondary skill for the build.

Bane just has so much screen-clearing DPS that I have a hard time using Purge, or wanting to. When something works so well, why mess with it?


Demon Slots

The build has 3 demon slots due to the 10 hard points in Demonic Mastery

• Slot 1: Defiler
  
• Slot 2: Defiler
  
• Slot 3: Defiler (consumed)

Pretty simple. Even in 3.1, before the changes to hard points for demon count and bound demons, I was running the triple Defiler setup. The build does so much damage, that monsters will die without even being hit by arrows/explosions due to being bound to a monster I hit by the double defilers, and as we prioritize magic damage, consuming one is paramount. The lack of magic resists in the game makes both the +damage and -enemy resist have maximum impact in most encounters, so while it isn’t truly a 35% damage boost, it can certainly feel like that.


Buffs
At the beginning of each game I do the following:

Swap to the 15% Void (ideally +Consume/+Defiler, but really a plain 15% is fine)/Meph book
BC/BO
Cast 3 Defilers
BC/BO again
Consume
Hex: Bane
Swap to Brand

I don’t change any gear out (not needed, even unoptimized this build straight up spanks).

With my BO/hork barb, I have about 6500 life (with only one skiller with life - again, I haven’t optimized this yet because it’s so so good), +65% magic skill damage, and -38% enemy magic resist.

That’s really it. Every 10 minutes or so, I refresh the BC/BO, then cast/consume one Defiler, then refresh the hex.


VI: Playstyle (strategy):

Play it like a telebowa, with a little variety. Even though we only have ~20 all resists on the high end, we are tanks. Blood Oath soaks so much damage for us, and we are rarely the target - Haseen is (as well as the Defilers).

Except for the first day of the new patch against a soul T5 herald pack I wasn’t ready for that was mixed in with harpies/another mob with concentration, I have never died with this build, or come particularly close to dying. That doesn’t mean it’s invincible, and I would not build it like this for HC, for SC it’s a tremendously satisfying experience that can run ladders on easily obtainable gear (once you have an Enigma).

85% of enemies/packs in the game: Telestomp in, and start firing arrows indiscriminately. Usually one or two connections with the pack wraps things up, time to move on.

Packs that might hit hard and have high HP (think Moon Lord, Urdar, Venom Lord): Telestomp in and run back a few yards. They’ll target Haseen, who is functionally immortal (as much as a mercenary can be), and you just dump a few arrows into the pack until they’re gone. As they say, “Haseen ‘em but I don’t believe ‘em!”

Packs that might hit hard and have low HP (think souls and harpies):
Teleport near them and fire a couple of arrows into them. One or two connections, with the damage spread from the Defilers, will likely clear the screen of all of these mobs. You will also likely get these arrows off before they have a chance to fire at you.

Dolls:
Going through Durance/Flayer Dungeon I will teleport carefully into each room and then run back a couple of yards without attacking. If I see no dolls, I’ll fire away. If I do, I’ll let Haseen take them if I’m close and run back a bit more, or fire carefully.

Bosses in P8:
Stand there and shoot. They melt.

Heralds in P8 (Patch 3.2):
Cast Sigil: Lethargy on the purple lightning, aiming it so that any mob that spawns has to run through it. I like clearing P8 TZ 96 games in Extra Fast (faster the mobs run the faster they die, right?) and this means even the most dangerous mobs find themselves getting slowed while I realize how to approach the pack.

For most packs, I just start firing away. Some Heralds will die in 10 or so shots. This is where pierce really shines, because it helps you hit the Herald while targeting the minions, and vice versa. But it’s not a big enough deal because what Brand lacks in pierce, it makes up for in knockback, which keeps the enemies at a safe distance (and the Bone Spears help with this too). Remember, you hit 100% of your targets, so 100% of them get Bane damage, 100% of them explode, 100% of them proc a Bone Spear, and 33% of them have their bolts fly through to the next one.

The delay before Heralds show up is nice, because it lets me make sure the surrounding packs are clear so there are never aura combos that make the Heralds scary.

Some Heralds do make me adjust my playstyle.

T5 souls can be frightening, and I should probably carry a Wisp when clearing those areas for these encounters. If my merc is alive, I’m alive. The right soul Herald pack can put my merc in a dangerous situation, however, and if he dies before I realize it I can get in hot water. Just pop rejuvs for both of you if you need, and fire away. They will die fast so just hang in there, and bail if your merc dies.

T5 harpies add the amp damage that can make you and your merc vulnerable. Treat them like souls, hang in and pump a few arrows while you keep your merc alive, and the fight will be over soon.

T5 Moon Lords, Venom Lords, etc have really high HP and can hit hard, but Haseen is built to sit there and take it. This is one of the only times I’ll switch to Sigil: Death and potentially sacrifice horking the Herald/minions. Once you trigger an explosion, they really start to drop, and then when you have 3-4 left you can switch back to Lethargy easily.

Magic resistant T5 heralds are really the ones that can take a while if I’m not enchanting myself, so I make sure to use Sigil: Death here and everything is fine, if it takes a bit longer.

There is some content that isn’t really worth farming with this build, even though it clears everything. City of the Damned can be kind of annoying because of the walls/chasms making it harder to target things that you feel like you should be able to. Same with LK, there’s so many houses and walls that it just takes time to avoid them. Maggot Lair, same thing with the tunnels/walls. Damage-wise, nothing is particularly hard to kill or dangerous, so go nuts.

VII: Build Variants:

If you use my default build, there isn’t a lot you need to change if you elect to use a Demon Machine (upgraded) vs a Brand demon crossbow. The belts can swap if you want the +skill or more damage. It’s pretty budget friendly with a Demon Machine, so there aren’t really many reasons to post a budget setup. But if the jewelry is hard to get early ladder, just go with a random 2/10 amulet and get some FCR rings with resists, and you’ll have similar numbers with a little less damage.

That brings me to the most popular variant, which is to use Mist with either Purge or Bane.

Mist demon crossbow offers a lot of quality. Resists on a build that lacks in them. +3 skills. 100% pierce. Concentration aura. Life/IAS. All great things.

Here’s why I don’t like Mist:

• Your arrows don’t explode. That means they can miss, and missed bolts have 0% pierce, not 100%. They also don’t add damage from an enchant or splash, and make little use of the extra fire damage relative to the two options I went over.
  
• They freeze enemies, which limits you if you hork. I understand Heralds drop less loot than before, but I’ve still horked great things from them in 3.2.
  
• Conc aura is kind of wasted on this specific build (unless you shift your build around to make use of it, which I will talk about). You do such little physical damage, that Concentration aura maybe adds 300-500 damage to each of your arrows, so 1500-2500 damage total for the five hits (obviously more to any enemies behind them). Even if you clip every mob in a 20 pack with pierce (which wouldn’t happen), that’s 6000-10000 damage spread across 20 mobs for each shot, which pales in comparison to the explosion data (noted from the weapon choice section).
  
• I feel less accurate with Mist. I’m not an eagle eye sniper by any means, I just like teleporting into things, launching some arrows, and expecting some of them to hit. I feel with Mist there seems to be less margin for error, that the “arrow box” is smaller and as a result monsters that I hit with Brand bolts don’t get hit by Mist bolts. This could be totally anecdotal and completely inaccurate, but it feels that way.

This is like the opposite of the Obsession vs. Mang Song’s debate from my 3.1 Blood Boil guide. In that case, I go with the QOL of Obsession 1000% of the time over the potential for increased damage with Mang Song’s. That’s mostly because there were benefits to Obsession that completely, in my mind, offset Mang Song’s. In this case, both weapons don’t need added IAS to hit as fast as possible (whereas BB Mang Song’s needed you to swap gear for FCR), and the added benefits from Mist (Conc, 100% pierce) don’t actually mean much for this build like they do for bowazons.

That being said, there’s arguments to be made for its use, and I’ll post how I would build if I was using Mist (based on the similar philosophies outlined in the 7000 words I’ve already written on the subject) below.

Buriza colossus crossbow, even with a Shael rune for 100% weapon IAS, is still a little too slow to make Hex: Bane work. It brings the best element of the Mist (100% pierce) with the worst (freeze), and adds a very healthy amount of physical damage. 1000 extra max physical damage over the Brand is very nice (though its the same minimum damage - laughable!), it can’t get to the maximum frames for MB with Hex: Bane without a source of Fanaticism (which if it comes from a demon means you need to be building for that and sacrificing Bane damage and if it comes from a merc it means you need to be also sacrificing Insight), or you switch to Purge. You can also do a combination of those things for some potentially interesting things. As with the Mist, I will outline all of these options, and how I would build them, below.

DISCLAIMER: Don’t knock my guide because of the variations below. Someone else probably has a better Hex: Purge build. I just think all of them, including the ones I’m listing below, suck compared to what I have outlined in the 7000+ words I’ve already written above. I’m telling you, if you do what I have outlined above, you will be very happy and it will ruin Amazons for you forever. But if you want to use Mist and/or Hex: Purge, here it is…

Variant 1: Demon/Physical build - Hex: Purge with a Mist colossus crossbow and bound demon

Demon:

• 1 - Summon Goatman
  
• 10 - Demonic Mastery
  
• 1-X - Blood Oath
  
• 1 - Death Mark
  
• 1 - Summon Tainted
  
• 1 - Summon Defiler
  
• 1 - Engorge
  
• 9 - Bind Demon
  
• 1-X - Consume

Eldritch:

• 20 - Hex: Bane
  
• 20 - Hex: Purge
  
• 1 - Levitation Mastery
  
• 1 - Cleave
  
• 1 - Echoing Strike
  
• 1 - Blade Warp
  
• 1 - Psychic Ward
  
• 20 - Eldritch Blast
  
• 5 - Mirrored Blades

- need to get to 20 soft points

Chaos:

• 1 - Sigil: Lethargy
  
• 1 - Sigil: Rancor
  
• 1 - Sigil: Death

Gear Summary:

• Weapon: Mist colossus crossbow
  
• Helm: Hellwarden’s Will (high -enemy magic resist, with Guardian’s Light jewel)
  
• Armor: Enigma mage plate
  
• Gloves: Horazon’s Hold
  
• Belt: Gheed’s Wager (18+% FCR)
  
• Boots: Horazon’s Legacy
  
• Amulet: Atma’s Scarab
  
• Ring 1: Raven Frost
  
• Ring 2: Sling
  
• Sunder: Renewed Black Cleft (15% magic damage)
  
• Weapon Swap: Void (15% magic damage, +3 Hex: Purge, +X to Eldritch Blast - Consume and Bind Demon are also useful)
  
• Off-Hand swap: Ars dul’Mephistos (random)

Mercenary: Act 2 Blessed Aim

• Infinity
  
• Crown of Ages (Ber/Cham)
  
• Guardian Angel (ethereal, Protector’s Stone)

Demon Slots:

• Dark Lancer (TZ 96 P8 - fanaticism aura)
  
• Defiler
  
• Defiler - consumed

Notes:

• This build makes use of Concentration aura from the Mist through using the heavier, much higher damage colossus crossbow, as well as having it buff a bound demon’s damage as well as your mercenary.
  
• Atma’s Scarab provides somewhat consistent Amplify Damage. You can also use a Reaper’s with Decrepify if you don’t want to use Atma’s, in which case just use a Mara’s and reallocate 2 skill points into Blood Oath from Bind Demon. I don’t love having to keep the same demon all the time and like the flexibility to unsummon them for souls dances, but if you’re ok playing in cursed TZ games 100% of the time, you can use your demon for amp.
  
• Needs Hex: Purge and Fanaticism to get to the max frames, so no Hex: Bane.
  
• Raven Frost (instead of Opalvein), with Blessed Aim mercenary using Infinity to get you to high enough levels of hit chance. The idea is that you’ll do enough physical to leech appropriately, but you’ll still struggle for mana on teleports. You can drop the Infinity for a damage producing weapon, but you will lose hit chance and I don’t think that’s worth it.
  
• Every 42 seconds, you should go to your weapon swap and re-cast Eldritch Blast. If this isn’t fun for you, then just cast it with the Mist (+3 skills are better than none!), or just ignore this entire section and use a Brand/Demon Machine with Hex: Bane because this is a massive source of your damage (12k per tick against hexed enemies). You will also have to re-buff Consume every few minutes.
  
• ~3k physical damage per arrow is nice. Drop that ~30-40% against stone skin mobs. This, you will note, is a lot less than the damage that Hex: Bane gives to your arrows, and less than the combined explosions give to packs from explosive arrows, but you are allowed to choose!
  
• That being said, your Hex: Purge explosions will seem similar in clearing to the Bane build, if a little clunkier because of how the skill works by needing to be applied by your shots first before they can explode.
  
• Your lancer will do a LOT of damage, and very much help you against single target packs that you will struggle to do damage against. But…
  
• ...losing out on the linked damage from your extra defiler negates much, if not all of that benefit in most fights.
  
• You can do this with a demon crossbow, and many people will prefer it. I’ll outline that below.
  
• You can also do this with a Buriza, socketed with whatever. You’ll do a similar amount of physical damage, be able to drop IAS from your build, and get Concentration on your demon instead of Fanaticism. The +3 skills and resists from Mist make that still a better choice, but one you can make if you happen to want something else.[/b]

Variant 2: Demon build (Less Damage, More Survivability) - Hex: Bane with a Mist demon crossbow and bound demon

Demon:

• 1 - Summon Goatman
  
• 10 - Demonic Mastery
  
• 1-X - Blood Oath
  
• 1 - Death Mark
  
• 1 - Summon Tainted
  
• 1 - Summon Defiler
  
• 1 - Engorge
  
• 1 - Bind Demon
  
• 20 - Consume

Eldritch:

• 20 - Hex: Bane
  
• 1-X - Hex: Purge
  
• 1 - Levitation Mastery
  
• 1 - Cleave
  
• 1 - Echoing Strike
  
• 1 - Blade Warp
  
• 1 - Psychic Ward
  
• 20 - Eldritch Blast
  
• 1-X - Mirrored Blades

- need to get to 20 soft points

Chaos:

• 1 - Sigil: Lethargy
  
• 1 - Sigil: Rancor
  
• 1 - Sigil: Death

Gear Summary:

• Weapon: Mist demon crossbow
  
• Helm: Hellwarden’s Will (high -enemy magic resist, with Guardian’s Light jewel)
  
• Armor: Enigma mage plate
  
• Gloves: Magefist
  
• Belt: Gheed’s Wager (15%+ FCR)
  
• Boots: Horazon’s Legacy
  
• Amulet: Amulet with +2 skills, 10% FCR, and all resist
  
• Ring 1: Raven Frost
  
• Ring 2: Sling
  
• Sunder: Renewed Black Cleft (15% magic damage)
  
• Weapon Swap: Void (15% magic damage, +3 Bind Demon)
  
• Off-Hand swap: Ars dul’Mephistos (random)

Mercenary: Act 2 Blessed Aim

• Insight
  
• Crown of Ages (Ber/Cham)
  
• Guardian Angel (ethereal, Protector’s Stone)

Demon Slots:

• Dark Lancer (TZ 96 P8 - holy freeze aura, from a cursed TZ)
  
• Defiler
  
• Defiler - consumed

Notes:

• You have Concentration that benefits your mercenary and your demon. It really still doesn’t do much for you, even when amp procs, but it at least is doing something.
  
• The advantage to this build is that by using a demon crossbow, you don’t need any IAS on gear and can focus on things like resists and/or FCR (but not damage, because you’ve already made the choice to do a lot less damage than the other builds above).
  
• We’re back to having to hunt demons in cursed TZ games unless you want to use an Atma’s (which you shouldn’t, because you should be focused on maximizing magic damage like in my original guide and not trying to make a demon work, but it’s your FG/time!), which means if you ever wanted to switch it up or unbind your demon for something like a souls dance, you’ll need to do so in a cursed game.
  
• Enough Blood Oath to give you max DR, and close to max resists with Mara’s/Gheed’s/Mist.
  
• You will miss a lot of your arrows with this build, which is why the swap to a Raven Frost (and now we get double CBF with Horazon’s boots!), but that’s fine I guess.
  
• 75% FCR is easy with the glove swap because you don’t need the added IAS anymore.

Variant 3: Eldritch Blast - Hex: Purge with a Mist colossus crossbow, no demon

Demon:

• 1 - Summon Goatman
  
• 10 - Demonic Mastery
  
• 1 - Blood Oath
  
• 1 - Death Mark
  
• 1 - Summon Tainted
  
• 1 - Summon Defiler
  
• 1 - Consume

Eldritch:

• 20 - Hex: Bane
  
• 20 - Hex: Purge
  
• 1 - Levitation Mastery
  
• 1 - Cleave
  
• 1 - Echoing Strike
  
• 1-X - Blade Warp
  
• 1 - Psychic Ward
  
• 20 - Eldritch Blast
  
• 1-X - Mirrored Blades

- need to get to 20 soft points

Chaos:

• 1 - Sigil: Lethargy
  
• 1 - Sigil: Rancor
  
• 1 - Sigil: Death

Gear Summary:

• Weapon: Mist colossus crossbow
  
• Helm: Hellwarden’s Will (high -enemy magic resist, with Guardian’s Light jewel)
  
• Armor: Enigma mage plate
  
• Gloves: Horazon’s Hold
  
• Belt: Gheed’s Wager (random)
  
• Boots: Horazon’s Legacy
  
• Amulet: Highlord’s Wrath
  
• Ring 1: Raven Frost
  
• Ring 2: Sling
  
• Sunder: Renewed Black Cleft (15% magic damage)
  
• Torch: 20/xx
  
• Annihilus: 20/xx/x
  
• Weapon Swap: Void (15% magic damage, +3 Hex: Purge, +X to Eldritch Blast)
  
• Off-Hand swap: Ars dul’Mephistos (random)

Mercenary: Act 2 Blessed Aim

• The Reaper’s Toll (ethereal - Shael)
  
• Crown of Ages (Ber/Cham)
  
• Guardian Angel (ethereal, Protector’s Stone)

Demon Slots:

• Defiler
  
• Defiler
  
• Defiler - consumed

Notes:

• Still no explosive arrows.
  
• Decrepify from your mercenary helps your physical damage, and the regular Hex: Purge explosions give the regular loads of magic damage. If you want more physical damage at the cost of chance to hit (I wouldn’t), you can swap to an A5 bash mercenary with an eth Dreadfang.
  
• This build doesn’t make great use of the Concentration aura, rather it uses the 100% pierce to put Purge on as many monsters as possible, and a maxed damage Eldritch Blast to act as a Holy Fire-ish aura damage of 22k straight magic damage per tick.
  
• There is very little gear flexibility, but if you want to use a Lawbringer/Mania on an A5 Frenzy merc to bring Decrepify in as an alternative to A2, then you can do that and it allows for a little bit of IAS removal. But this build relies on enemies being hexed to get Eldritch Blast damage and then explode from Purge, and if you’re missing them then they’re not taking much damage at all. It still might be best to use Infinity on an A2 merc because of this, but then you lose Decrepify.
  
• I’ve tried a variation on this with max Tainted/Blood Boil synergy, with even a little charm/gear swap for prebuff. It sucks, but I want to keep trying because I feel like there’s something there.

Variant 4: Worst of Both Worlds (or: The Budget Version That’s Worse Than the Cheaper Budget Version) - Buriza, no demon

Demon:

• 1 - Summon Goatman
  
• 10 - Demonic Mastery
  
• 1-X - Blood Oath
  
• 1 - Death Mark
  
• 1 - Summon Tainted
  
• 1 - Summon Defiler
  
• 20 - Consume

Eldritch:

• 20 - Hex: Bane
  
• 20 - Hex: Purge
  
• 1 - Levitation Mastery
  
• 1 - Cleave
  
• 1 - Echoing Strike
  
• 1 - Blade Warp
  
• 1 - Psychic Ward
  
• 1 - Eldritch Blast
  
• 20 - Mirrored Blades

Chaos:

• 1 - Sigil: Lethargy
  
• 1 - Sigil: Rancor
  
• 1 - Sigil: Death

Gear Summary:

• Weapon: Buriza (upgraded to colossus crossbow - Shael)
  
• Helm: Hellwarden’s Will (high -enemy magic resist, with Guardian’s Light jewel)
  
• Armor: Enigma mage plate
  
• Gloves: Horazon’s Hold
  
• Belt: Gheed’s Wager (random)
  
• Boots: Horazon’s Legacy
  
• Amulet: Atma’s Scarab
  
• Ring 1: Raven Frost
  
• Ring 2: Sling
  
• Sunder: Renewed Black Cleft (15% magic damage)
  
• Torch: 20/xx
  
• Annihilus: 20/xx/x
  
• Weapon Swap: Void (15% magic damage)
  
• Off-Hand swap: Ars dul’Mephistos (random)

Mercenary: Act 5 Frenzy

• Grief (phase blade)
  
• Mania (cryptic sword - ethereal)
  
• Crown of Ages (Ber/Cham)
  
• Guardian Angel (ethereal, Protector’s Stone)

Demon Slots:

• Defiler
  
• Defiler
  
• Defiler - consumed

Notes:

• Still no explosive arrows. Notice a trend?
  
• Lots of physical damage from amp, and lots of magic damage from Bane. So that’s good!
  
• You can still deliver Bane at max frames and an Atma’s by having your mercenary provide the level 1 Fantaticism aura from Mania. If I was forced to choose between this build and one with a Mist and Hex: Purge, I still think this is an easier damage dealer.
  
• You don’t have the resists, skills, and Concentration from Mist. You don’t have explosive arrows from Brand/Demon Machine. You need to have a mercenary run fanat from Mania to attack fast enough. I can really only see this if you, for some reason, want to use a big crossbow instead of a little one.

Thanks!

If anyone would like to see it in action, I can do the enchanted and not enchanted versions in a TZ P8 game on SCNL and would be happy to show it off in any zone.

This is what I’ve been playing with better gear optimization than your build. Hex bane build.

Mist Demon Bow
Hellwardens with Jewel
Enigma
2x Opalvein Magic Damage
Gheeds Wager
Horazon Boots
Dual Leech Crushing Blow Crafted Gloves
2/15 ammy with resist
CTA/Spirit
Insight/Cure/Coh on Merc

Hits 75 fcr bp, max resist without charms, and dual leech crushing blow. If you drop the gloves (I wouldn’t) you can use fcr gloves and your cta spirit swap is 125 fcr bp

Check the new mirrored blades eIas calc, you don’t need any ias with demon xbow. I haven’t tried brand or explosive arrows yet but am interested in testing it out…

This post was edited by ahyp on Jun 24 2026 08:06pm

this isn't exactly true. there's 2 components to exploding arrow:
1) the arrow itself, which does hitcheck; furthermore pierce requires a successful hitcheck as well
2) the explosion from each impact, which does not require hitcheck.

ref:
https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/index.php/Exploding_Arrow

Since the magic dmg from bane is presumably added only to the arrow and not the explosion, you want successful hit checks. added fire dmg like enchant is added to both the arrow and explosion, so it really pays to get decent attack rating.

I guess the ITD from Brand kind of evens out with the massive flat bonus from demon machine, but ITD doesn't work vs bosses/elites. For me, I highly value the 100% pierce from demon machine + razortail.



You can also socket nef into demon machine

I feel like the maxroll one still worked, it just doesn't show the added IAS from the skill so if you add it manually, it worked. When referring to Brand/Demon Machine: "They utilize the incredibly fast demon crossbow (but there are other base options, that I’ll go into later), which means your hex will be delivered as fast as possible without having to add IAS."

As for your build, I imagine it slaps. But you've never tried explosive arrows, and I promise you it's the end all be all on this. Mist arrows miss, and they seem to have a smaller hit box anecdotally. Explosive arrows never miss and spread dps like wildfire. Concentration on a demon crossbow is a few hundred damage per arrow, only to the enemies hit by that arrow. Brand explosions are that few hundred but splashed to every enemy, so if there's 20 enemies in a cluster and 10 of them are hit by the arrows, that's ~5000 damage to each of those 20 enemies. Enchant that Brand? Watch out...