I just did max apoc, max flame wave, max ring of fire, max bind demon, enough in mastery for 3 demons (1 consumed), and 1 into psy shield and hex siphon (done at 97) and was lucky enough to be able to run a solo wsk run in a p8 terrorized game and grab a conc + amp 96tz lister. You could honestly get by with Hephasto and I doubt he would really ever die either, even a non-tz Heph. I just really like Lister, he is a good boy pup!

I would at first while leveling get enuf bind demon for 2x, 1 consumed other ur demon, and only bump it a third demon (defiler) after the other skills are maxed or reached. So in order -> max flame wave-> max apoc -> demon mastery @ 2x -> max bind demon -> 1 pt wonders (psy shield/sigils/hex siphon) -> max ring of fire -> finally add the final 5 pts into demonic mastery for the third demon (complete at 97, but with this order of skill pts you should be fine even from the get go)

This post was edited by Gilgameshed on May 25 2026 12:23pm

I did fire warlock respec into blood boil last season, and the most notable hurdle is that it seems so dependent on LOD sunders existing, because latent sunders are a very prohibitive item for leveling otherwise. Now it doesn't appear blizzard is going to change that, so it makes fire locks possible, but blood boil works fine without it on budget gear and it does basically nothing for tainted on its own. With a fire warlock before sunder you're basically relying on merc + bound demon + defiler dps and that's not at all workable for areas with dense fire immunes like skeletons in tombs. But even with my gimpy gear with blood boil dealing less than half its bis damage, I can kill screen of those p8 tz96 fire immunes in 5-6 casts

I think there's a good question of if fire warlocks have a power spike with mid gear where they surpass taintlocks in clear speed, before taintlocks pass them again with endgame gear. And more dependent on the amount of fire immunes and their type- a taintlock can't do chaos anywhere as efficiently as a fire warlock with that sunder and mid gear, but non-immune areas the taintlock kills so fast its just a question of how fast he can teleport. But with full gear setups with infinity/enigma/cta/mang songs/torch/renewed sunder/uber jewels- blood boil zooms circles around fire skills just because they're on a delay and the taintlock is killing like a 3x dps infinity nova sorc.

This post was edited by Goomshill on May 25 2026 12:55pm

this seems to be the case based on what I have seen, but I haven't tried a decked out firelock yet to compare. My demon and merc kill shit so fast its fairly similar tho. Cast apoc, telestomp, ring of fire = dead elite pack. Fairly similar to the bloodboil stomps. The apoc delay would in the long run add extra time, but with the proper playstyle it isn't that much of a loss per pack, and the super strong demon seems to handle heralds faster than bb does.

Feels kind of like apples vs mangoes. Caveat emptor?

How do the blood boil/taint build do against T5 heralds in general? Do they kill them efficiently enough?

I killed p8 tz96 non fire immunes pretty trivially with 2x 20k tainted. Some fire immunes I cant even attempt at t5 with budget gear. Fully geared you can take them, but theres also a question of why bother. Need amp damage for most of the dps vs immunes, but they could even kill a bound demon in most cases so you can't keep up amp and would need to bind a new demon later. I trapped a pack of 15 giga assailants in a cage in palace cellar, but 3.3k phys blood boil vs 25% dr on a 1 million hp target? I could stand there spamming for several minutes to get one item roll at sunder alone with dinky odds

Nicely put, seems not the kind of build for heralds ... Just like nova but situationally better. I have collected most gear pieces for this build on hand, now I just need some time to try it out. Cheers

it does fine once fully geared

i’ve been running p8 tz’s this evening with a javazon friend and they’re struggling more with the t5s than my lock is.

Lol, I had problems with my javazon too with 15ld sunder and -30/23 Griff. Doubt adding an opal and changing to-10lr sunder will make a big difference.

I did try and assemble one with bind demon (LE hells witch with holy freeze) and i am still not sold. Feels clunky i always need to watch out their health.. They do die rather quickly with spamming bloodboil.

My statement still stands, against non-fire immun areas this is excellent, really fast paced and safe. Much better than any ES build for sure.

But for immuns i think you can't beat tha stacked -fire res and the huge -res of apocalypse on the normal firewarlock. It just better suited for that.

I keep testing tho and my gear is far from perfect, i don't have baalos so i use measured wrath and only one skiller.

it is possible to make a good goatman summon build?

wanna try something different