Reign of the Warlock came out a few months ago and had a ton of success, bringing back older players of the game while welcoming an entirely new crop of people as well. While it overall performed nicely with loads of new features including stackable materials tabs, loot filters, a new class, and more, it was not without faults.
One of the big issues brought about in the new patch was the presence of a few bugs and balance issues surrounding the new class. Most notably, Echoing Strike and Bind Demon seemed to bring power to the class and game that had damage numbers reaching heights never seen before. After a PTR a few weeks ago, the developers were able to come up with Patch 3.2 to address these issues alongside the release of Season 14.
For a full list of the patch notes, check the link highlighted here.
Now before we dive into the meat of the changes and what is notable, I just want to say as someone who has played this game for about 40,000 hours that I really think the developers are doing a great job. No new class is going to be perfect from the start and the Warlock was no exception, but these changes really feel like they are making him a hero that fits into the world of Diablo 2 rather than Diablo 3 or 4 like it was on launch. Additionally, while the old version of your Echoing Strike build probably will be struggling, he is still S-tier if built a little bit differently. Follow one of the guides on this site if you’re looking for a little bit of guidance in fixing him back up.
Patch 3.2 Highlights
Warlock
- Warlocks can now only equip a two-hand weapon in one hand if the other hand is using a grimoire.
- This is a pretty big change but one that seemed necessary. Being able to pair Spirit or Phoenix with 2-handed weapons gave too much power while not allowing for the class to have any weaknesses. Luckily, some of the best combos for the Warlock include a 2-hander and a book so even though it does nerf a few builds down, this is not as big of a nerf as people may first think.
Chaos
- Sigil: Lethargy – Removed the Damage Taken stat.
- Another slight nerf but not a skill killer. Being able to slow monsters in an area is extremely powerful, especially for various bosses in the game. This skill will still be a 1 point wonder on a majority of Warlock builds.
- Ring of Fire/Flame Wave – slight damage reductions
- Fire was already possibly the best build in the game for leveling and endgame with proper gear. This ever so slightly reduces the damage but does not really change anything as a Fire Warlock can still clear Cows as fast as a Lightning Javazon. Still an S-tier build.
- Magic Skills – Bug fixes and removed casting delay from chains
- There were a decent number of changes for the Magic Warlock but in the end I would say he ended up being a bit stronger than he was before and a lot more fun to play. He used to be very clunky and a lot of skills were bugged, causing confusion about how it was supposed to work. Now, it is very smooth and capable of soloing players 8 bosses and zones.
- Echoing Strike
- Fixed an issue where damage bonuses were combining multiplicatively instead of additively.
- This was one of the biggest bugs causing the power boost of the class. Because of a simple multiplicative bonus, damage was reaching up towards the hundreds of thousands, rather than barely touching the tens of thousands. While this change does at first ruin many of the current builds, with a quick respec to follow one of our guides your Warlock should be back to crushing players 8 mobs in no time.
- Fixed an issue where Echoing Strike would always hit.
- Echoing Strike was always meant to use Attack Rating but there was a bug at first, causing it to always hit. Now, making sure to stack up attack rating actually has some use.
- Fixed an issue where damage bonuses were combining multiplicatively instead of additively.
- Summon Tainted – Fixed an issue where the damage synergy from Blood Boil did not apply.
- A massive boost to this skill, bringing the damage from barely noticeable to one of the best builds in the game. Check out the latest Blood Boil guide for a fun new way to play.
- Bind Demon
- Now requires a base skill point investment to bind demons elite demons.
- Level 10: Champions
- Level 15: Uniques
- Level 20: Super Uniques
- Added a cap to max health which varies by each demon.
- Synergy for chance to bind from Death Mark reduced from 1% to 0.5%.
- Reverted to pre-PTR value
- Introduced max health cap which varies by each demon.
- Further increased the health cap that was seen on PTR
- The overall chance to bind a Demon has been reduced.
- Chance to Bind Demon now starts at 20% (was previously 10%) and diminish (dm vs ln) leading toward 56% (was previously 25%)
- Reduced the Cursed modifier’s chance to cast Amplify Damage from 75% to 5%.
- Demons with the Aura Enchanted modifier now always replace their auras with new auras when bound. These new auras map directly to one of the old auras.
- Might to Concentration
- Holy Fire to Vigor
- Blessed Aim to Thorns
- Holy Freeze to Holy Freeze
- Conviction to Fanaticism
- Fanaticism to Fanaticism
- Holy Shock to Vigor
- Overall, Bind Demon has been changed up a lot. Instead of it just being a 1 point wonder all of the time, builds need to consider if they want to sacrifice some points elsewhere to build into a bindable demon. And while conviction is gone, there are still plenty of good auras including Fanaticism and Concentration.
- Now requires a base skill point investment to bind demons elite demons.
- Demonic Mastery – Reduced the amount of skill points needed to get 2 demons from 10 points to 5 points and the amount to get 3 demons from 20 points to 10 points.
- While it is harder to get a powerful bound demon now, mastery has been reduced to a lower amount of hard points meaning many builds will place 5 or 10
Terror Zones
- The increased chance to drop a Latent Sunder Charm from Heralds now starts at Tier 1 instead of Tier 4.
- Heralds at Tier 3 and 4 have twice the increased chance to drop a Latent Sunder Charm. Heralds at Tier 5 have three times the increased chance.
- Latent Sunder Charms can drop from any monster, Terrorized and non-Terrorized, using Magic Find.
- Heralds now spawn and hunt players upon killing any monster in a Terror Zone. The chance for a Herald to hunt you is increased with each monster killed within the same Terrorized Zone.
- Reduced the difficulty of Heralds above Tier 1.
- Health bonus per Tier reduced 500% to 250% (starts at 1000%).
- Damage bonus per Tier reduced from 50% to 25% (starts at 50%).
- Overall this is helpful changes for players. Sunders are much more common, Shards are more common, and Heralds spawn rates have been increased while their difficulty has been lowered. Plenty of good changes as not many classes were able to kill Heralds before and Sunders were almost non-existent in the previous Season.
Colossal Ancients
- Colossal Ancient Statues now drop from non-Terrorized act bosses at a reduced rate.
- Colossal Barbarian summons continuously spawn, up to a cap of 5.
- Increased the Magic Resistance of each Colossal from 50% to 75%.
- Increased the damage of Talic’s Whirlwind.
- Increased the damage of Talic’s Fire Twisters.
- Increased the damage of Korlic’s Cold Fissure.
- Increased the damage of Madawc’s Thunderstorm.
- This was all a necessary change as the Colossal Ancients were a breeze before this patch. This is no longer and if your hero is not prepared, be prepared to die a lot. Stacking resistances will be very important for this fight now.
