Depends on the modifiers of the herald

your merc can tank the herald ? or u have to tp round reposition , hit and run

what do you recommend then? 6x facet cs, 4x facet shield where you teleport twice and being oom

cmon
spirit
griffon new jewel
eni or viper rbf

same build that's been used for 20 years

you did not even check the link bro xd it has griffon with new jwl, it has spirit, there is eni.. bruuuuuuuuuuuuu

blood boil >
anyway

An all-in glass cannon lightning build (not the hoto/spirit of OP) has about the same pierce and DPS as blood boil does when you include defiler buff, and without defiler its about 2/3 of the DPS but in an obviously much better un-aimed giant aoe around you. And when you can have 25k swap-on-enter gear demon (~18k without) and that's not only multiplied by defiler but also becomes splash aoe damage, that actually deals a whole bunch more dps than lightning even if its only hitting every 23 fpa (but 3x hits for spearwomen)

The OP's low pierce 105 build for example hits 22.3k lightning at 8 fpa. If a monster isn't immune or a 75 resist venom lord then -40% pierce and conviction is enough to get them to -100 and deal 44.6k. While against immunes it deals 14k. But more damage-focused builds should have way more pierce and get into the ~20k vs immune range. Meanwhile blood boil goes up to around 12.9k damage in 4.8k phys + 8.1k fire, with amp, sigil, conviction & 55% pierce, but also 56% defiler bonus. So against punching bag nonimmunes its up to 25.8k before defiler, 40.3k with defiler, and even against a 50% dr fire immune it can be 15k before defiler, 23.4k with. And that's not including the demon whacking its 18-25k phys at 23 fpa or a spearwoman is probably closer to avg 15 fpa, dunno jab frequency.

When it comes to density clearing there's just an invaluable advantage to having a spell that requires no aiming and hits in every direction with a huge aoe. That's the advantage of Nova, but its only ~60% of the aoe of blood boil. Lightning hits for more focused damage in a line that can't hit whole screens at once and misses targets and leaves you surrounded on sides, and you can't tank big packs like heralds like any warlock can for free. BB is like the dps of lightning in an aoe nearly twice that of nova. ES is in a similar boat to lightning for AoE, yeah its a bit conical and persistent but less wide / less range, and its advantage is really just in killing those P8 TZ96 T5 heralds with their 3000% hp because all the other builds- lightning, nova, es, fire, etc- have plenty sufficient DPS for any P8 packs or content but start to slow down against baal/ubers/heralds even if they can kill them.

this topic is not about gheylock.
we're tryna have some fun here
not gonna put down our pants because "it is 10% more efficient and oh wow new class"

yeah well it also has oculus tal orb mosers gerkes gull dagger treachery skullder coh eschuta jmod

The topic is directly about comparing it to the gheylock and debating how the builds stack up against each other. The op and replies compared and contrasted ES and fire warlocks, but in truth a blood boil build is the higher bar

send your boil build then! (there is another topic in discussion about it now)

light soso crescent moon crystal sword, fcr ring, fcr 10 2 soso amulet to get 117fcr, seems bit better in p8 tz tombs

This post was edited by UncleBens1650 on Apr 6 2026 12:54pm