They are both great weapons

For hardcore obsession will be the best defensive weapon for sure. If es damage doesn‘t get nerfed hard at least. The res max life are hard to beat and the fcr opens up other slots for more defensive options. It just doesn’t have weapon damage compared to forti

Forti has „the same“ defensive stats just lower ones. It also gives life (flat, not %) , all res and fcr. But it also has a big chunk of actual weapon damage (more than death for example) and also 20% deadly Strike.
It just has all the stats you want on a warlock and gives you 125fcr while keeping highlord and high deadly strike with big weapon damage.

Forti just ticks all the boxes for echoing strike.
But if you kill stuff fast enough with obsesion it is for sure the best defensive option since.

If echoing strike damage stays this broken and your clear is fast enough with obsession, use it. It is the best defensive weapon.

This post was edited by Junglist69 on Feb 20 2026 01:51am

fair fair thank you, all good points and I agree! I think the other reason why I like obsession so much is simply the +4 to all skills which forti doesn't have at all, makes a big difference!

edit: oh and obsession can open up not just other defensive options but also offensive like Phoenix.. easier to use Phoenix with Obsession that it is with forti. Still I do like the new Mephistos book item and might use it anyway regardless. Really all good yea I'm sure they will patch echoing strike a bit, like make it require AR for sure, but otherwise we'll see..

This post was edited by The-Rising on Feb 20 2026 02:31am

Sweet, that pretty much comfirms the Setups I thought about.

I haven‘t thought that + skills are THAT important though. Makes obsession and stuff way closer in damage than I thought.
Actualy didn‘t think of ariocs needle. Realizing that weapon damage is less important and + skills more important than I thought it makes sense though. Huge deadly strike +4 skills and decent damage.

Looking at this though, I think mephisto tome is even better than I thought damage wise compared to phoenix.
Since we have so much of-weapon ED anyway the +2 skills on tome give way more damage than I thought. While still getting 150+ ED itself (with for example 40ed/res jewel). The -20 enemy magic res also does more than I thought, seeing how hex damage is applied 5 times.

This makes you loose even less damage than I thought when going 125fcr.

125 will definitly be smoother for general farming

The only question left to me is: Will they „fix“ the durability thing ? Or is it a feauture? What will be bis then?

Since weapon damage is less important than I thought, is something like a non eth forti still viable?

What would be the best setup if weapons actually used durability?

I guess eth ariocs needle with a Zod, BOTD or death.

This post was edited by Junglist69 on Feb 20 2026 02:48am

To conclude on actual max clearspeed (ignoring defensive stats) it seems to be 125fcr with ariocs:

Eth ariocs with lo rune
Ars Dul mephisto (40ed/res or ancient jewel)
2/20 all Res 2os circlet
Enigma
Mage/to fist
Arach
2x 10fcr Ring, one with dualleech
2/15 + fcr amu (fcr needed depends on tome roll)
Gores? (Not sure since you get so much DS from the weapon alone)

With ariocs needle you can reach 70% deadly strike from the weapon alone, letting you drop highlords without loosing much damage at all.
It may be better to also drop gores for the + skill boots or some Tri Res boots, since we realy need some resist.

With 70% ds + the 30+ crit from your mastery, you almost always proc double damage. any additional deadly strike looses a lot of value here. Highlords is definitly not needed with ariocs, opening the gate to 125fcr without loosing much damage.
But are gores even worth it then? Guess I would try Tri Res Boots there.

This might be the actual fastest clear possible. Good luck getting that 2/20 all Res circlets and amulets though

If they ever fix the durability thing this gets even stronger compared to forti, since you can‘t put forti in eth base anymore.

But you could put an zod into ariocs needle and add gores again, keeping the weapon damage the same and only loosing 5% deadly strike compared to Lo socket.

Since weapon damage is way less important than we thought it may even be better to go non eth ariocs with a Lo still but not sure about the math here.

This post was edited by Junglist69 on Feb 20 2026 04:21am

I saw a video where Eth Areocs Needle out damaged every weapon in the game for Echoing strikes (lots of math)

This post was edited by Worksheet on Feb 20 2026 07:39am

Yeah i have an eth needle w a lo rune in it, def goes to work.

finally just loaded all my gear into d2planner to see

1k more dmg from needle over my ebotd
but i lose 250% dmg undead
30 all stats (effectively 120 stat pts)
-25% target defense
dual leech
yeaah hard pass for me dawg

Yeah ariocs gives nothing but damage. It is the best for actual max damage but not that far from the rest. Would not recommend and rock BOTD over it, too.

But still rather use doom than botd the + 2skills are worth much more than I thought and 20% deadly strike rocks. Also basicly same damage as BOTD . BOTD gives way more quality of life though.

Talking quality of life: For me the Best overall setup by far will be forti for sure.

You only loose some base damage (wich isn‘t as important as we all thought at the start). while still reaching 125fcr with ease while maintaining a 78% chance to crit
The cherry on top: it also gives the best defensive stats with the much needed all res + life.

The Forti Setup isn‘t even expensive, since you only need 20fcr from circlet , since you keep highlords and don‘t need a gg amu.

Until you get a gg circlet just use the new 20fcr runeword.

overall the Forti Setup is the best best package by far: 125fcr (without gg amu) with high base damage, 78% crit and the best defensive stats. For general play this will be the smoothest thing you can do I think.

But there is no wrong weapon
Botd, doom, forti , ariocs needle, obsession all work.
Just death is far weaker than I thought, there is just no reason to run it as long as ariocs needle and Forti exist

For max mf go toombreaver

For hardcore obsession/stormshield/coa etc (damn this is a tanky char )

Guess that’s my final conclusion! Thank you all for participating is this threat

Will try to get the cheap basic stuff and then run insight/new 20 fcr runeword helmet/ spirit to start for an awseome 125 fcr setup and work my way up to forti/Mephisto tome/2 or 3/20 circlet.
Yeah…. Fortitude setup it will be.

Until they nerf/fix durability loss some day

This post was edited by Junglist69 on Feb 20 2026 04:25pm

insight is too good here imo, you hit 125fcr easy w/ shako, arach, spirit, etc. and very high effective DS w/ highlords + 6 crit insight + mastery

self insight + pride merc >>> self fort + insight merc

you can play 75fcr no meditation sure, but i wont

This post was edited by KKIINNGG on Feb 22 2026 01:44pm

Insight is insane for its cost!

But Is meditation actualy needed with endgame gear? You need to run one dualleech ring anyway. The extra 10% fcr do nothing compared to a forti.

And minus the aura insight is just a poor man’s Forti in this case.

To quote the maxroll guide on forti (maxroll is not the law I know, but the math ain’t lying here):

With Mastery Critical Strike Chance and Deadly Strike, you reach 78.3% chance to critically strike. An alternative of Insight reaches 89.35% to critically strike. This would account for a 6% increase in damage while Fortitude has 36% higher base damage. As well as benefitting from 10% more off weapon enhanced damage from Strength.

Damage wise it’s not even close while Forti also gives all res and life for defensiv stats, too.

Since you would run one dualleech ring anyway, meditation aura is just usefull for teleport. Guess even without pride you would still do more damage with Forti. But with a dualleech ring you can just run forti/pride.

Insight is great but it is just a worse Forti in this build…

The only thing it may be able to do compared to Forti is drop highlords for an fcr Amy and run phoenix instead of tome since it has so much initial crit that highlords looses some value.

But phoenix isn‘t even that good. Tome gives 2 skills (much more worth than I thought) -enemy res and also up to 150 ed% (with a jool) only loosing some of weapon ed% wich is already huge in this build and nothing else.
But even that won‘t make up for the 30%+ less base damage.

Also good luck getting any decent resists with insight/phoenix.

If you run insight/highlords ist just the same setup as forti just with like 30% less damage and 30-50 less all res (ed/res or um socket in tome).

With the base damage increase I think Forti without pride would still outdamage insight with pride. But since we need one leech ring anyway I‘m sure you can just run Forti pride, outscaling insight even more.

Insight is awesome for budget and will be my go to untill forti.
But no way it outscales forti.
The 10 extra fcr do nothing, medi is not realy needed and comes damage and defense forti >>> insight.

Edit: since you don‘t need mana leech with medi you could get +1 extra skill using bk ring for only the lifeleech with insight. But that’s literal it. But how to you get any positive resist then? Forti can use gores (or the + 1 boots , canceling the Bk out) since it gets extra resist, not needing Tri res boots and stuff

This post was edited by Junglist69 on Feb 22 2026 10:15pm