In most end game builds they ignore adding more than 1 point to this skill in lieu of adding slightly more damage from other skills. However, Blood Oath is very powerful and makes you tougher, right? So in early game builds and single player offline builds that start very squishy, should you max this out early, even at the expense of some added damage?

Obviously we still want to max out our main skill and its immediate bonus skills, but I was thinking that the hex skills don't do that much for echoing strike builds, so instead of maxing out hex, should I max out blood oath if I keep dying too much on single player d2r warlock?

Is it true that only hard skill point count towards the damage reduce shared with demon, so this gets capped at 43% instead of the possible 91% that the screen might show if you have a bunch of +skills gear?

you should always be maxing it. not sure what kind of "end game builds" you've been seeing

Anyone saying to max out a hex for echoing strike is an idiot lol. Blood Oath is a much better point investment.

Yes, only hard points add to the damage share (43% cap).

maxroll gg build guides didnt list maxing it on any of them

focusing just on dmg i think, assuming you didnt need it and wanted max dmg

but ya, i think i should max it for sure.

maxroll guides are written by some random blogger who picked up the game 3 months ago. shit even reddit is probably a better source of game info

Also don’t follow their gear guide. Insight or Obsession are the only two options, and solely dependent on playstyle and if you’re on HC or not.

Get your core skill + synergies first
Then max blood oath, no matter the build you should have room for it unless you messed and wasted points in other skills that are way worse for your overall effectiveness.

You need dmg first ofc, this is pvm, you want to kill stuff, else being just a tank is kinda useless.

But yeah, only hard points count for the dmg shared, up to 43%.
This is applied after all other dmg modifiers.
This is by far the single best defensive skill in the game.

Examples, with 20 hard points:

At -100res, instead of taking 200% dmg you take 114%.

At 0res, instead of taking 100% dmg you take 57%.

At 75res, instead of taking 25% dmg you take 14.25%.
This is the equivalent of gaining +10.75 max res AND res. But better still cuz if your res gets lowered you still get this linearly scaling dmg reduction as shown above.

At 50DR, instead of taking 50% dmg you take 28.5%.
This is the equivalent of saying that even if you have 50%DR, the skill still gives you the equivalent of +28.5 max phys res AND 28.5%DR that also scales up to the equivalent of getting 64.5%DR if you are suddenly affected by amp down to -50DR. Or the equivalent of turning -100DR from amp into just -35.5 in this case when you have 50 base DR.

Yes it’s always a final 43% dmg reduction… but I’m writing those examples to put into perspective how good it is compared to normal res/dr.

And it also comes with much tankier demons.
Not so relevant for bind demon (still, useful for long runs if he does not have life regen). But it also greatly helps your defilers survive.

Something else to consider…
Gaining so much tankyness from a skill doesn’t mean you need to use it as a defensive purpose.
It can simply allow you to either use more flexible/offensive items, or even dump more points in str.
Think about it… levitation mastery gives 4ed per points. 19x4=76ed.
Getting +43% tankyness could allow you to dump some ~300 pts in str (cuz you also get a portion of your life from gear) and gain ~300ed while still maintaining as much effective hp, with just the equivalent of 3-4x more dmg increase compared to using those points in a skill that only seems more offensive but is not.

You should only add 1 point to hexes. They suck for echoing strike. You are even good without them. I went with last one because of -33% enemy damage.

are there any build guides posted on jsp yet for warlock?

A few people have posted guides. I can’t find the one I shared once but some basically covered 90 percent of it in his post above. Max echoing and synergies and then blood oath. One point in demon tree and max blood oath. One point in sigil lethargy. Get demon mastery to 20 with skills. Spend the remainder as you see fit to shore up what your build is missing. Get an insight and spirit. Build gear out to max resistances and get 125fcr.

You can afford to experiment here.