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Apr 6 2026 07:53pm
Very nice guide and very well written
How would you compare ES to Blood boil in terms of clear speed for p8 tz games?


Well that was my original point about all those bosses- they're all a question of 'why are you doing this', baal included. BB has enough damage to kill P1 baal easily in a solo game, and easily kill P8 baal with allies in a baal game. It can't do it well solo in a P8 game, but why do it in the first place? And ubers / uber ancients aren't something you do in a normal pvm loop, you make a dedicated build for it. If you wanted to clear 50 sets of torches, it would be faster to just use 2x tokens and respec your lock to ES and back. But why do it in the first place?

Heralds are a part of that normal pvm loop, and I think BB has plenty of damage for them. The extra speed zooming around getting ire makes up for the few seconds ES might save on the tankiest tier 5 heralds.


Uhh, cause the guy is asking about p8 tz games? Implies solo p8 clear speed, because who cares about the clear speed if you’re just part of an 8 person party? Just try to keep up with the guy clearing everything solo lol.

So p8 Baal is part of the question he’s asking.

This post was edited by FoldersUnite on Apr 6 2026 07:54pm
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Apr 6 2026 08:50pm
Uhh, cause the guy is asking about p8 tz games? Implies solo p8 clear speed, because who cares about the clear speed if you’re just part of an 8 person party? Just try to keep up with the guy clearing everything solo lol.

So p8 Baal is part of the question he’s asking.


People host public TZ P8 games all the time. They're the most common pub game now. Which still begs the question of why you'd ever bother killing baal in such a game solo. You can just, not do throne, not do baal. People divide up areas, and throne/baal are slow and low reward compared to the rest, WSK is way better, you basically only bother with act bosses for statues and pub p8 tz is hardly an efficient way to get them.

Its one boss in the whole game, only too high hp in p8, and with very little reason to kill him in the first place because it would be inefficient even with 10 quintillion dps due to the numerous delays
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Apr 7 2026 05:19am
Disagree with insight, aside from my first 99 lock (who used insight weapon) - I haven't needed insight on an ES or BB lock on their journeys to 99. Siphon and a little mana leech is all that was needed to keep the blue bulb full. Occasional use of a mana pot if in an area with tons of skeletons like stony tomb or something, but even then, there were usually enough zombies to leech from.

Lumping ubers in with heralds and baal seems disingenuous (unless I'm misunderstanding your point), as ubers aren't part of a regular whole game clear (unless you get amazingly lucky with statues I suppose) - it would be every third game at the absolute luckiest, if you get a key from each boss on each game (unless you get triple key drops 3 times...then I guess you can do it in 1 game).

Furthermore, while ubers with BB is possible, and kind of fun using their summons against them, echoing makes easy work of them very quickly. Uber ancients with BB is brutal...would be faster to grush up a new ES warlock and take them down with the new char once you put on some basic equipment lol. In both cases, BB and ES, nothing more is needed for safety than the usual pre-buff and swap out some mf pieces for res/absorb gear (ie nagel for ravenfrost).

If you factor in all these other expanded content, then echoing is much better and faster, but again, if you're just clearing certain high density, low hp areas, BB has the edge.

But most importantly, at the end of the day, both are good builds! Still might want an echo lock or smiter for ubers/ancients though lol


Last line of the guide: "Uber Ancients: Get an ES lock to do it for you"

It's just so rough trying to single target one and not others. Just a terribly inefficient and ineffective fight for a BB lock, and not worth doing. Just wear full Horazon's and an obsession with a lvl 80 ES lock and do it safely, might level up another one just to get back to doing stuff like that.

I don't think p8 Baal is that big of a deal. It takes longer, but it's not awful and I've never felt any risk as BB in doing it. I boil until the demon is at 25% health, let him/the merc attack while the demon regens, then repeat a couple of times and he's dead. I think infinity on the merc very much helps in that fight.
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Apr 7 2026 07:18am
Done both to 99, similarly end game geared. BB has the edge for high density low hp areas like tombs or act 1 caves and the like. Echo is much faster for T5 heralds and act bosses (biggest difference is baal). If you're full clearing a game, because of the heralds and act bosses, echoing is faster overall imo. If you're just crushing tombs and flayer jungle and the like and then making ng BB has the edge imo.


BB's tooltip tricked me i was thinking of a blast radius 20+ which supposed to hit the whole screen but no, i would say only 9-11 yards radius. its disappointing but with max damage max -res gear, still pretty fast for clearing 8ppl game
im using lv 56 blood boil with 60 fire penetration, lv 13 ; -90res conviction terror zone 8ppl lister + AMP curse 10K fire damage +6k physical blood boil
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Apr 7 2026 12:11pm
BB's tooltip tricked me i was thinking of a blast radius 20+ which supposed to hit the whole screen but no, i would say only 9-11 yards radius. its disappointing but with max damage max -res gear, still pretty fast for clearing 8ppl game
im using lv 56 blood boil with 60 fire penetration, lv 13 ; -90res conviction terror zone 8ppl lister + AMP curse 10K fire damage +6k physical blood boil


You must have to constantly engorge using lister. Highly recommend getting a non super unique that can regen its health.
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Apr 7 2026 12:25pm
BB's tooltip tricked me i was thinking of a blast radius 20+ which supposed to hit the whole screen but no, i would say only 9-11 yards radius. its disappointing but with max damage max -res gear, still pretty fast for clearing 8ppl game
im using lv 56 blood boil with 60 fire penetration, lv 13 ; -90res conviction terror zone 8ppl lister + AMP curse 10K fire damage +6k physical blood boil


I am pretty sure they simply listed diameter as radius, so its half the listed value. 20.6 display -> 10.3 actual, which tracks with it being bigger than nova
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Apr 7 2026 02:48pm
what am I missing? I have demonic mastery 20+ and I do not use consume or have consume applied

I can have
heph + goatman + defiler
heph + defiler + defiler
heph + goatman + goatman
---
but defiler and tainted, tainted always dies after 5 seconds?
and cannot have 2x tainted

I can have them in town, when I leave town one dies :o


This post was edited by UncleBens1650 on Apr 7 2026 03:05pm
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Apr 7 2026 03:08pm
what am I missing? I have demonic mastery 20+ and I do not use consume or have consume applied

I can have
heph + goatman + defiler
heph + defiler + defiler
heph + goatman + goatman
---
but defiler and tainted, tainted always dies after 5 seconds?
and cannot have 2x tainted

I can have them in town, when I leave town one dies :o


are you wearing flickering flame?
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Apr 7 2026 03:12pm
are you wearing flickering flame?


the fire aura is causing issues?

two goatman feels good, they charge themselves no need to mark

3 demons seem better AOE than 2 demons and consume?

This post was edited by UncleBens1650 on Apr 7 2026 03:19pm
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Apr 7 2026 03:26pm
what am I missing? I have demonic mastery 20+ and I do not use consume or have consume applied

I can have
heph + goatman + defiler
heph + defiler + defiler
heph + goatman + goatman
---
but defiler and tainted, tainted always dies after 5 seconds?
and cannot have 2x tainted

I can have them in town, when I leave town one dies :o


Quote
Key point about consuming the Tainted: Tainteds of a high enough level (which ours are) give a resist fire aura that clashes with your aura from Flickering Flame. If the aura hits him, any summoned demons (but not your Urdar) will die. If you’re casting in town, this isn’t an issue. If you’re in the zones, just summon him far away from you and this isn’t a problem, because you’ll consume him before he gets close enough to you for it to be an issue. This is also good practice so you don’t accidentally consume your Urdar, which is definitely something I’ve done before.


The fire aura causes the issues. The good thing is you don't want to use a tainted demon, you want to consume him for +20% fire damage and -15% enemy fire resist, which is a heck of a lot more impactful than anything the demon can do themselves.

Bound demon, defiler, and consumed tainted is legitimately the only thing you should consider for your summons. For bosses, I can see summoning a goat instead of the defiler, but your tainted should always be consumed.
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