Now that the final changes/nerfs for next season are set, What do you think will be strong builds for warlock for season 14?

-pure fire lock still looks super solid

- blood boil radius increased to 7 yards (from 4 on ptr), the broken tainted synergy got a nerf but it’s not fully gutted, looks like a super solid build, too

- miasma chains can be spammed and are now capped at 10 chains (from 5 on ptr). Chains also stay when you teleport/bladewarp, making a 125 fcr magic build look realy strong now

- mirrored blades bowlock is almost the same.

- echoing strike buffed again. The bug making skill damage multiplicative instead of additive is fixed, making it loose a lot of damage. But eth weapons can be used again and skill damage multiplier is buffed from 75% to 90%.

- bound demon is a lot worse. But holy frost + amp will still proc. Especially if you can get light enchanted, too. All the light bolts+ every aoe frost proc can proc amp. Making it still realy good if you can spend the points on it.

- cleave lock has always be slept on and remains pretty unchanged.


Not sure bout echoing strike. But since the damage is additive and base weapon scaling is increased, big eth weapons may outdamage + skills again

What do you guys think? Wich build will you try first?

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 10 2026 12:29am

Chains sounds really good. They still break on walls though right? Thinking like tombs and stuff would be hard but chaos would be great

Yeah it’s pretty area dependend . But still not as wonky as hammers for me . Guess you can play around this by pulling stuff where you need it with abyss . Overall it looks much better than before

Especially since you can make use of 125 fcr now outside of teleport

Magic looks like the biggest winner of the patch imo

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 10 2026 12:36am

Going for a hex purge magic build that spreads the curse via echoing strike (no points in there though). Together with 2x defiler (+1 consumed) and -magic res gear this slaps. Been testing it for the last days on nl, good thing is that hex purge and eldritch blast don't need ar.

This sounds realy good actualy!

Been trying out a cleave lock recently , just made a detailed post about it, if you want to check it out:

https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=109253682&f=148

Since both hex and blast are synergy’s to cleave , this may be very strong. Cleave can reach pretty crazy damage numbers, while reaching enough ar to hit and 75fcr with great + skills and all the - enemy res gear! Only thing missing to boost magic further would be void

But a pure magic ES build with void sounds great, too…

I just feel like I‘ll miss so much potential from merc basicly beeing useless with this ES build. Also no leech at all makes it much more fragile than the phys ES build from before.

How would you build it? What’s your merc gonna be ? Just insight for mana ?? Maybe some abyss hybrid possible?

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 10 2026 05:46am

It's basically max hex purge and all synergies, enough demon mastery to have 3 demons and then rest into consume. Super high life, dr, 2 defilers who link enemies so the magic explosions from hex go to whole screen. I didn't think of this myself, there was a post and I wanted to test it, but so far loving it.

Hellwarden with guardians light -18mres
Meph book -20 mres
Obsession eth archon
Rest you can run mara, sojs, arach etc. Don't even need fcr on gloves and still 125 fcr. 86 fhr bp. Like 5 k life, max res, and don't need to be close up like in melee

With consumed defiler (another -10 mres) and sunder it's like -58mres and super fast, multiple projectiles. Merc is just qol, insight and survivability

This post was edited by mastery_chief on May 10 2026 06:15am

Sounds realy realy good actualy …. Could even switch to hex bane for bosses/single target ….

Would definitly try to get a void in there but obsession as defensive option slaps of course. But void adds 15% magic damage.

Anyone knows if eld blast/ hex + skills can spawn on daggers?
You could get a +3 hex / + 3 blast void base. That sounds kinda crazy…. + 5 skills and 15% damage on void.

With 125 fcr and just one skillpoint for ES this could actualy be pretty crazy with magic sunder + jewel .

Thanks for the idea m8! Will definitly check it out . AOE seems awesome but what about single target dps ??

I'd assume hex works on any weapon type. For sure the void option is a more aggressive one, I just like obsession's defense and max life, clears tz96 p8 well enough like this. Single target is a bit slower than "old" physical es, but still good enough. I usually run Diablo p8 solo in baal games and it takes like 7 seconds max.

This post was edited by mastery_chief on May 10 2026 06:38am

Nice! Better single target than I thought.

Yeah hex works on any weapon but daggers spawn warlock skills. So if you can get a + 3 hex/blast dagger base for void you can get +5 skills and 15% damage from void , wich is significant more than obsession. For defense obsession is unbeaten of course!

Thanks a lot for the idea gonna try for sure ‚

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 10 2026 06:46am

Ah got your question wrong in the last post quick search in the forum and hex purge and also eldritch blast do spawn on bases