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May 21 2026 08:01pm
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/3e4geb0w



The best taintlock setup is now the best S tier above ES or other slower builds. The solution to the issue of tainted being weak to immunes, and bind demon having weaker boss DPS, was to simply combine both: Use 2x summon tainted and 1x bound demon with amp.
So now we've got the best of both worlds.

Skills:
  • 20 Summon Tainted
  • 20 Blood Boil
  • 20 Blood Oath
  • 20 Engorge
  • 20 Demonic Mastery
  • 1 Bind Demon
  • 0 Consume (can get it from Baalos anyway, if you ever did cast it)
  • 1 Hex Siphon
  • 1 Sigil Lethargy


DPS setup:
  • Mang Song's Lesson (Defender's Fire)
  • Enigma
  • Ars Tor'Baalos (Facet)
  • +3 Demon / 20 FCR / 2x socket magic circlet (2x Facet)
  • +2 Warlock / 15 FCR crafted amulet
  • Magefist
  • 2x Opalvein
  • Arachs
  • Resist Boots
  • Fire sunder, torch, anni, life/res scs, skillers in desired open inventory/cube amount
  • CTA+Spirit swap (eth monarch)
  • A2 prayer or might merc with infinity, cure and either CoH or greyform/skin of the flayed one + protector's stone


Swap gear to prebuff (optional):
  • 2x Sojs
  • +3 ammy
  • Extra skillers to fill inventory
  • +6 tome (measured wrath is an easy +4 substitute)
  • +6 dagger (just use the +5 mang song unless you're nuts)


The critical setup is to bind a trash mob white venom lord in a P8 TZ96 game, in a 'cursed' TZ. Then simply roll him until he's holy freeze + cursed. This only needs +19 skills from items and 1 soft point into the skill, no need for a unique/superunique. While multiple shots and lightning enchanted would be nice, they aren't worth the skill points needed, and even 1 point demon is not only effectively immortal, but could be hitting for 15-20k physical.

Summon tainted with this setup hit about 26k fireballs without prebuff, about 36k with prebuff. You lose 1/3 of their damage by using a bound demon of course, but this is very important to help the kill speed vs fire immunes. Amp damage alone winds up being +70% or so DPS against fire immunes. For contrast, consuming a tainted might only give ~10% dps vs non-immunes, ~27% vs immunes. While significant, and with the nice QoL of max life and movespeed, consume simply isn't worth it compared to the power of 2x tainted, nor the necessary amp vs fire immunes. And since the bound demon itself can attack for a big chunk, it also helps kill immunes.
I've tested setups with 3x tainted, or no tainted and 1 consume 1 bind 1 defiler, or 2x tainted defiler, or so on.
The 2T1B is definitely the superior taintlock setup, and has none of the weaknesses. You can kill bosses, even ubers or immune heralds, something pure boil/bind struggles without corpses. You can clear immunes quickly, something pure tainted struggles.


This build should be something you can work towards with poverty gear pre-enigma. I ran P8 chaos games last ladder with a boil lock by just shopping a tele staff and recharging it every game, burning through my farmed gold. With some blade warps its not too tough. It will be more crucial for a non-infinity build to have the amp merc, because if all you have is basic sunder no conviction, tainted will only hit immunes for 5% damage: you NEED to be killing them with amp+boil. Leaf staff or something better like ondals, authority armor, measured wrath, any +1-3 helm/ammy options, magefist, are all pretty easily obtainable gear that would put you online.
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May 21 2026 08:42pm
Bringing the heat as always my guy. We appreciate you! :thumbsup:

Noob question, as my googling was unclear, but how how to reroll for the aura as you mentioned?

Any suggestions for HC version or mostly the same?
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May 21 2026 09:12pm
Bringing the heatas always my guy. We appreciate you! :thumbsup:
Noob question, as my googling was unclear, but how how to reroll for the aura as you mentioned?
Any suggestions for HC version or mostly the same?


As long as you have just 1 point bind demon and +19 skills from gear, which should be pretty easy with this setup, you will get aura enchanted on every white trash mob you bind
So all you need to do is find a game with cursed affix, then terrorize act 4 and go bind non-unique, non-champion, non-minion venom lords in chaos one by one until you get holy freeze aura. You need to damage them a tiny bit, then just hold the key (while making sure your merc doesn't kill them, and they don't kill you). preferably a P8 game, but honestly the life is so astronomically high that even a P1 venom lord should be able to tank anything without dying now, even ubers.

All megademons in TZ will have the same level, speed, %dr, and HP. The act 4 variants go 110/120/130% fire resist, venom lords slightly higher, but other resists the same, though they do have higher level inferno and higher ai parameters (maybe some extra range and more aggressive? Idk). So venom lords are preferable. The act 5 variants have slightly lower base damage, and instead of 50dr/0mr/130fr/75lr/50cr/75pr, they have 50dr/20mr/145fr/33lr/0cr/50pr, which frankly is worse resists. Remember with the +77% all resists from blood oath, your act 4 venom lord is immune to fire/cold/light/poison, and that means it won't be slowed by cold or disable its regen from poison.
Uber variant has higher stats and those straight immunities but it doesn't matter because it can't be terrorize

For hardcore, another consideration gear-wise is to go the route of sacrificing blood boil fire damage for survivability. You aren't so heavily reliant on +% / -% fire damage on this build because you mostly want tainted to kill non-immunes, blood boil physical to kill immunes, and the max damage of mang song / opalveins / etc is just to improve kill speed. You could instead use an obsession build, which can use sojs and maras. Its not the biggest difference, but I've seen some people using it. More % life, more resists, more mf, etc, and you're really just sacrificing +% / -% fire damage to blood boil.
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May 21 2026 09:14pm
Very nice.
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May 21 2026 09:16pm
One other variant someone recommended and can work, is to gain some QoL and lose some DPS by using self-wield infinity, which frees up an insight 3x prayer merc.
This means you get meditation aura when in normal teleporting gameplay, and get to keep conviction aura even when your merc dies.
But you're forced down to 75% fcr, lose at least +3 skills (lose mang song -5, but recoup +2 from sojs) and a significant amount of +/-% fire from facet slot & opalveins
I really don't think a 75% fcr build is viable so I'd stick with 125%, merc infinity and self-wield a mang songs
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May 21 2026 09:33pm
0/10 mana potting
2/10 no loot filter
1/10 couldn't even clear chaos LOL


that thing sucks.

Forgot to mention the only magic find you were wearing is enigma haha. 96 magic find. :wacko: dogshit.

This post was edited by BusinessProfessional on May 21 2026 09:34pm
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May 21 2026 11:03pm
0/10 mana potting
2/10 no loot filter
1/10 couldn't even clear chaos LOL


that thing sucks.

Forgot to mention the only magic find you were wearing is enigma haha. 96 magic find. :wacko: dogshit.


9/10 review. writing this down.
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May 22 2026 04:55am
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/3e4geb0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2j1i1YM6qI

The best taintlock setup is now the best S tier above ES or other slower builds. The solution to the issue of tainted being weak to immunes, and bind demon having weaker boss DPS, was to simply combine both: Use 2x summon tainted and 1x bound demon with amp.
So now we've got the best of both worlds.

Skills:
  • 20 Summon Tainted
  • 20 Blood Boil
  • 20 Blood Oath
  • 20 Engorge
  • 20 Demonic Mastery
  • 1 Bind Demon
  • 0 Consume (can get it from Baalos anyway, if you ever did cast it)
  • 1 Hex Siphon
  • 1 Sigil Lethargy


DPS setup:
  • Mang Song's Lesson (Defender's Fire)
  • Enigma
  • Ars Tor'Baalos (Facet)
  • +3 Demon / 20 FCR / 2x socket magic circlet (2x Facet)
  • +2 Warlock / 15 FCR crafted amulet
  • Magefist
  • 2x Opalvein
  • Arachs
  • Resist Boots
  • Fire sunder, torch, anni, life/res scs, skillers in desired open inventory/cube amount
  • CTA+Spirit swap (eth monarch)
  • A2 prayer or might merc with infinity, cure and either CoH or greyform/skin of the flayed one + protector's stone


Swap gear to prebuff (optional):
  • 2x Sojs
  • +3 ammy
  • Extra skillers to fill inventory
  • +6 tome (measured wrath is an easy +4 substitute)
  • +6 dagger (just use the +5 mang song unless you're nuts)


The critical setup is to bind a trash mob white venom lord in a P8 TZ96 game, in a 'cursed' TZ. Then simply roll him until he's holy freeze + cursed. This only needs +19 skills from items and 1 soft point into the skill, no need for a unique/superunique. While multiple shots and lightning enchanted would be nice, they aren't worth the skill points needed, and even 1 point demon is not only effectively immortal, but could be hitting for 15-20k physical.

Summon tainted with this setup hit about 26k fireballs without prebuff, about 36k with prebuff. You lose 1/3 of their damage by using a bound demon of course, but this is very important to help the kill speed vs fire immunes. Amp damage alone winds up being +70% or so DPS against fire immunes. For contrast, consuming a tainted might only give ~10% dps vs non-immunes, ~27% vs immunes. While significant, and with the nice QoL of max life and movespeed, consume simply isn't worth it compared to the power of 2x tainted, nor the necessary amp vs fire immunes. And since the bound demon itself can attack for a big chunk, it also helps kill immunes.
I've tested setups with 3x tainted, or no tainted and 1 consume 1 bind 1 defiler, or 2x tainted defiler, or so on.
The 2T1B is definitely the superior taintlock setup, and has none of the weaknesses. You can kill bosses, even ubers or immune heralds, something pure boil/bind struggles without corpses. You can clear immunes quickly, something pure tainted struggles.


This build should be something you can work towards with poverty gear pre-enigma. I ran P8 chaos games last ladder with a boil lock by just shopping a tele staff and recharging it every game, burning through my farmed gold. With some blade warps its not too tough. It will be more crucial for a non-infinity build to have the amp merc, because if all you have is basic sunder no conviction, tainted will only hit immunes for 5% damage: you NEED to be killing them with amp+boil. Leaf staff or something better like ondals, authority armor, measured wrath, any +1-3 helm/ammy options, magefist, are all pretty easily obtainable gear that would put you online.


Very nice. I may run this once my blizz sorc gets enigma
Member
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May 22 2026 05:47am
Would this do well super budget, say with a obedience, some junk/free facets crystal sword and only enigma? 75 fcr?

edit: something relatively cheap like this to start the char off once I earned enough to get enigma?
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/o8r70y03

This post was edited by ahyp on May 22 2026 06:10am
Member
Posts: 50,655
Joined: Jan 20 2010
Gold: 5,866.00
May 22 2026 06:10am
Would this do well super budget, say with a obedience, some junk/free facets crystal sword and only enigma? 75 fcr?


For a budget setup, I'd recommend some early progression like;
leaf staff -> ondals
measured wrath tome
authority armor
any +3 circlet / ammy
magefists
tele staff on swap
And then try to fill in arachs

Its possible to use a dreadfang merc and 3x tainted setup, but insight and 2x tainted + tz cursed holy freeze venom will probably be more easily achievable and more QoL, since dreadfang merc won't be cheap and might die enough to be a hassle and you won't have the infinite tanking of the venom lord.
There's also a tradeoff where if you max blood oath last, you can get the full fire damage on tainted and full physical on blood boil + amp, but you'll lack that free EHP on yourself and your demons- it should still be high enough after +skills that you can max it last
so you'd be pumping blood oath in your level 80s to 97
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