Has anyone theory crafted or tried the echoing strike warlock build after patch 3.2?

Looking at the patch notes, the important changes are:
- attack rating is needed to hit
- two hand weapons can only be used with grimoires
- cursed demons will be much less effective (the build may struggle with physical immune monsters now with cheap gear)
- sigil: lethargy no longer has a damage modifier, potentially increasing difficulties in dealing with physical immune monsters
- the demon tree requires more skill points - 10 hard points in demonic mastery is needed for 3 demons, hard points in bind demon will be required (10 [champion], 15 [unique] or 20 [super unique])

These changes make me wonder about the following things:
- will echoing strike still be viable with starter gear?
- will it still be (one of) the most powerful build(s) in the game?
- how relevant is attack rating? echoing strike grants a fairly large percentage bonus to attack rating, how much base attack rating will be needed?
- what is the optimal demon now?
- which gear adjustments will be necessary? (reapers/ dreadfang merc? attack rating gear? ...)

So far, I came to the conclusion, that echoing strike will probably still be fairly powerful.

Key gear pieces will probably be:
- eth insight (fcr, damage, crit, 180-250% attack rating)
- ars dul'mephistos (only endgame option, clear best in slot)
- reapers or dreadfang merc

Still op

Java is the key

-no
-yes
-not that relevant, you get lot of ar from hex
-fanat
-more dmg focused than before, in current patch you can use 0 skillers and still delete everything at 1 hit in p8 tz

might conc merc still better

This post was edited by DevilPK on May 19 2026 04:46am

Now with the update out a couple of days, is there any new wisdom to the topic?

I am debating which char/ build to make for the new season.
I want a strong allrounder to clear full terrorized acts, farm specific tzs and kill act bosses efficiently.

Is echoing strike still the answer?
Which tweaks are necessary? Or what is the current best build?

Generally people find that hex purge is the easiest build for new ladder with echoing strikes and it can clear efficiently, but its boss damage is ass

This post was edited by Goomshill on May 25 2026 09:23am

just copy my build player 8 diablo gunned down in 6 seconds, everything else will get delete just the way it was before the nerf because purge just that good lol. only boss will take a bit longer and you might have to full juv when life gets low as you have no meaningful way to gain life back. build has over 9000 ar build in with bless aim merc and 1x raven meaning you will get 80%+ hitting everything and 100% eruption rate fully geared from purge (95% if you cant afford godly rare void).

https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/uucnd903