Overview
Here’s a guide to a poison warlock. In my opinion, this is the best warlock build at the moment when you take into consideration damage, safety, and clear speed. The gameplay is extremely smooth thanks to warp, and nothing can survive being near you. You can play it as either long range or close range as well!
Introduction
The poison warlock. Most people take one look at the poison tree and are like “oh these skills suck, low damage, damage over time is so slow and stupid, poison not viable huehuehue”.
Welp, they’re not wrong, it does suck. Luckily for us, there is a set called Plague Mage that adds a VERY good bonus to a skill called Infection, which totally changes the damage output of the poison warlock. With one set, you can go from Zero to Hero! In my opinion, this is the best Warlock end game build and easiest warlock build to play.
This guide will basically focus on what the build is, the playstyle/mechanics, what skills I use and why, and also the equipment used. It will be very straight to the point. Note that this is an end game build, so good equipment is required for the full effect.
PROS:
-Very mobile build
-High damage
-Very fast clear speeds
-Probably the safest warlock build
-Fun to play
CONS:
-Can’t insta-kill bosses at high level anomaly (1000+)
To get an an idea of what this build looks like in action, here is a short video:
Playstyle
You will be using one skill for damage: Infection. With this build, his skill has 2 ways to be applied: Cloak of infection and Flesh Rot.
The playstyle is simple, you just use cloak of infection, and teleport around to kill things. If you want long range, you can use Flesh Rot, which will immediately proc Infection. Enemies will take 30m-40m damage PER SECOND (for 20 seconds in my case) until they die. Usually, they don’t even last 1 second. The beauty of the DOT effect is that because enemies don’t die right away when you teleport on them, the exploding ones don’t start their timer, which gives you plenty of time to warp away before they die and explode.
As for increase damage vs bosses, you cause use Flesh Rot’s Passive (Misery), and Curse of Doom:
Here is why this is a good defensive build:
1. One of the main reasons this build is good is because Infection is a DOT (damage over time). Meaning, you do NOT need to stack Critical Hit % or Critical Hit Damage. This means you are free to build up Resists % and HP.
2. Furthermore, with the equipment build I chose, you’re sitting at 3500+ Heatlh Per Second, and 585 Mana Per Second.
3. As for Total Health, I’m usually at 25-26k health thanks to Ritual of Souls.
4. You also have perma 35% evasion (using warp grants you 15% more evasion and you use it all the time.
5. Shields are always up thanks to Frozen Veil and warping. The shield grants you 45% of your max HP as a shield, so it’s usually 10k HP+ shields. Warping also heals you thanks to Soul Feast.
6. Resists are maxed.
Equipment
Here is the list of equipment I used and their enhancements. I’m am 3 pieces of the Plague Mage Refinement set to boost Infection’s damage. The rest of the items I have are mainly for defensive purposes. You DO NOT need to be worried bout getting slowed, or sitting on spike traps, or getting pulled, thanks to warp and regeneration ability. For most of the enchants, you will want Effect Duration and Cooldown Reduction.
Here is a summary of how everything synergizes:
Plague Mage’s Helm – Set item for infection boost
Health Injector – Just in case you’re about to die, restores 3000 HP instantly
Amulet of Despair – 20% more damage on slowed enemies. Curse of Doom will apply slow.
Plague Mage’s Spellbook – Set item for infection boost
Royal Armor – Converts 200% Life on hit into Regeneration
Plague Mage’s Staff – Set item for infection boost
Pathmaker’s – Converts movespeed into Regeneration %
Ring of Titans – Knockback % is now converted into Damage %
Stats:
Helmet: Plague Mage’s Helm.
Accessory: Health Injector – Any accessory is fine, but this one heals you when you’re about to die.
Amulet: Amulet of Despair – Any frost skill (curse of doom) will slow enemies down and in turn, this deals more damage. Not that you ever need it though, considering you do massive damage already.
Spellbook: Plague Mage’s Spellbook
Armor: Royal Armor – Regeneration is required, because with Infection, you can’t proc Life on Hit anyway.
Weapon: Plague Mage’s Staff
Boots: Pathmaker’s – More regeneration FTW.
Ring: Ring of Titans – For Damage!
Skills and Mastery
Corrupter Tree:
Max out the evasion skill, plus Infection Tree. 1 point into Flesh Rot, but max it’s passives. Then you will want Cloak of Infection as your ultimate.
Lich Tree:
You want enough points to max Curse of Doom. Max warp and the passives, get Frozen Core for Cooldown Reduction, and max Frozen Veil.
Demonologist Tree:
No much here. Blood Rite for more souls (which will grant you healing, shields, damage, hp), and max Demon Heart for more HP.
Reaper Tree:
Max the skills for HP, Life on Hit, max Ritual of Souls and Soul Rip.
Masteries:
Here are the masteries I have. Notable is that I maxed Rapid Infections for more attack speed. It counts as cast speed, and just makes warp much smoother imo.
Closing
Overall a very fun build to play. I was surprised at how fast I was clearing Anomalies with this build compared to my frost warlock build. It plays much smoother as well. The only thing that makes me sad is that you cannot insta-kill a boss at high levels. Other than that, this is probably my favorite warlock build at the moment. Hope you enjoy it as well if you plan to make it.
Questions/Comments/Suggestions? Feel free to post!