Hellfire Abodian – Warlock Leveling Build for Diablo 4 (Season 13)

Build Introduction

This is your melee up front Warlock bad boy playstyle approach. This is further emphasized with the use of Metamorphosis changing out entire skill-bar and gives access to all Archfiend skills. As well as a unique basic attack that generates Wrath and Dominance!

Recommended World Tier to start in: Hard

Quantity over quality is the road to success in leveling. Stay at difficulty level where Elites and Seasonal content pose little threat and can be killed quickly – this nets the most experience. Move up through World Tiers only when you no longer struggle in Helltides and Seasonal content in the next tier.

Check the Leveling Guide Overview for a comparison of Warlock starter builds on Icy Veins.

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Quick Navigation

Allocation of Skill Points

Follow the points allocation order for the complete 83-point build. 14 skill points are locked behind the Season Rank System.

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Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Hellion StingRampageMetamorphosisTyrant’s GraspNether Step

Skill-tree will be updated post-launch with all the correct information in our tool when its ready!

To prepare for what happens after level 70, head over to our Warlock Builds page to choose your weapon! If you don’t yet meet the requirements, follow this post-70 progression strategy to push up to Torment II/III while farming gear for your endgame build of choice.

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Class Mechanic – Soul Shards

Soul shards is the Warlocks unique class mechanic allowing you to bind yourself to a Soul shard Greater Demon that will fight beside you. They come with a variety of different effects as well as on-use-abilities to help you on the battlefield.

Below you’ll find the recommended Soul Shard Demon to bind for this build:

• Vanguard Shard – Grants the Summon Abodian that lets you mount him and drag enemies chained behind you and when you dismount him he will turn around and slam the ground with a massive AoE damage.
• Hellguard Fragment – Abodian gets increased cast and movement speed and cleaves on his attacks. He also erupts Brimstones dealing tons of damage during the Command Abodian skill use.

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Gear, Stats, Gems and Runes

Always prioritize the highest base damage possible when upgrading your weapon. Attack Speed and Movement Speed are highly valued for this builds progression.

Make sure you keep an eye for the Legendary Aspects to research through salvaging. An Amulet is recommended for early imprinting important Aspects, since it provides a +50% bonus effect and is replaced less often than weapons. Check dedicated in-depth Aspect and Codex of Power guide for more information.

For this build particulary we’re mostly looking for Cremators Aspect for the best offensive scaling.

Imprinting aspects costs Veiled Crystal, which are easily acquired in Helltides or from salvaging Rare gear and above. Prioritize salvaging gear for materials and aspects over selling it during leveling.

The table below lists the Legendary Aspects you should be looking for:

Aspect Name	Legendary Aspect Power	Source
Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant [20 – 30%] Damage Reduction for 4 seconds.	Dry Steppes (Campaign)
Heavenly Strength	By wielding a 2h weapon you gain #% damage reduction.	??
Aspect of Peril	Increases Vulnerable damage.	??
Cremators	While you have 4 or more Overpower, your Fire Skill Casts deal x% increased damage.	??
Malevolance	You gain Overpower for each # Wrath you gain while at Maximum Wrath	??

Priority order for Offensive Legendary Aspects on your 2-handed weapon (200% effect) and amulet (150% effect) is listed below:

1. Cremators
2. Aspect of Peril

A general rule of thumb would be to put any sort of movement speed increasing aspect on your amulet to further enhance your progression speed.

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Stats Priority and Tempering Affixes

Keep in mind that Tempering Affixes are unlocked by Tempering Manuals you find as you progress. Be sure to check our Tempering guide for more details about this topic.

One of the regular affixes on gear piece can be re-rolled repeatedly until desired outcome. This is covered in our Occultist guide for more details.

There are not many modifiers worth bothering with during the leveling stage, but for this particular build, always apply whenever possible:

• Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life
• ?? – Increased Attack Speed temper on your weapons
• Natural Motion – Movement Speed

Generally, you will be looking for the following stats in descending order of priority:

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
2H Weapon (Sword)	1. Weapon Damage 2. Vulnerable Damage 3. Willpower	?? – Attack Speed Temper
Helm	1. Maximum Life 2. Total Armor 3. + Wrath Generation	Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life
Chest	1. Maximum Life 2. Total Armor 3. + Wrath Generation	Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Vulnerable Damage 3. Willpower	?? – Demonology Damage
Pants	1. Maximum Life 2. Total Armor 3. + Wrath Generation	Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Willpower 3. Maximum Life	Natural Motion – Movement Speed
Amulet	1. Movement Speed 2. Attack Speed 3. Willpower	Natural Motion – Movement Speed
Rings	1. Attack Speed 2. Vulnerable Damage or All Damage 3. Any resistances	Worldly Stability – Resource Generation

Anathema of the Primes – This is by far the best unique in the game for the build as it makes all your Archfiend Demon skills cost Wrath instead of Dominance.

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Gems and Runewords

Generally, we don’t recommend socketing items until level 45+ due to material cost and the fact that you’ll be replacing your gear too frequently, especially weapon.

Weapon	Armor	Jewelry
Ruby for increased Fire damage.	Runeword and Sapphire for increased Willpower.	Diamond for All Resistances or Skull for increased physical damage reduction.

When it comes to Runewords, the most beneficial combinations are:

Runeword	Priority	Comments
Angu + Que	Very High	Let’s you automtically cast Earthen Bulwark for barrier generation.
Nagu + Jah	High	Replaces your evade skill with a teleport ability instead.

You get runes back for free when salvaging items or the Jeweler can extract them for you.

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Lord of Hatred (Season 13)

Season 13 does not offer any specific seasonal mechanic due to the release of the Lord of Hatred expansion. Instead we’re getting a ton of new features such as the Warlock and Paladin class, War Plans, Talismans, Horadric Cube, Echoing Hatred, and reworked skill-trees!

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Talismans

The Lord of Hatred expansion introduces Talismans as a new character progression system. You get to equip a Seal and place Charms into its slots for a massive power boost. The recommended setup for the Demon Summoner Warlock build is listed below:

• Seal – Prioritize any seal that provides the most amount of Charm slots as you’re leveling.
• Charms – Anything that increases your experience or movement speed should be the highest priority here. Attack speed is of third highest priority.

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Mercenaries

Mercenaries are unlocked during the main questline in the Vessel of Hatred expansion. Follow this guide on how to acquire each Mercenary and benefits they provide.

The recommendation for this build is to hire Raheir as soon as possible due to the damage multipliers he brings to the table. Below you’ll find the list of his skills you want to use:

• Ground Slam
• Raheir’s Aegis
• Bastion
• Inspiration

Use the Reinforcement slot to level up all your remaining mercenaries to get Pale Marks and all possible caches for extra loot:

• Aldkin: Cast Haunt when the player use any skill in combat.
• Varyana : Cast Bloodthirst or Shockwave when the player casts any skill in combat.
• Subo: Cast Wire Trap when the player casts any skill in combat.

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Build Mechanics

We use Hellion Sting as our main Wrath generator enabling us to use the prime damage dealing ability Blazing Scream early. This changes later when we unlock Metamorphosis. For the most part, you’ll find yourself in Metamorphosis state with the exception of popping out to cast Blazing Scream for massive damage output.

When you use Metamorphosis it will change your entire skill bar and grant you access to all the Archfiend skills. Additionally, each Archfiend skill has an extra effect thanks to the Vanguard Soul Shard.

Rotation and Playstyle

Before Metamorphosis rotation:

1. Hellion Sting – Mainly used to generate Wrath.
2. Blazing Scream – As your main damage dealing Wrath spender.
3. Rampage– When you have enough Dominace this will be your primary damage dealing ability over Blazing Scream, can be used as a burst damage as well.
4. Nether Step – Only used as a mobility skill.
5. Abodian – Used to group enemies up.

After Metamorphosis rotation:

1. Blazing Scream – As your main damage dealing Wrath spender.
2. Metamorphosis – Transforms you into a demon form and your entire skill-bar to have all Archfiend abilities.
3. Demonic Claw – New unique basic attack in Meta form to generate both Wrath and Dominance.
4. Rampage– Your main damage source when you have enough Dominance to cast it. Also acts as a mobility skill.
5. Infernal Breath – Used to maintain the orbiting spell from your Vanguard Soul Shard.
6. Tyrant’s Grasp – Helps group enemies up by pulling them close to you.
7. Profane Sentinel – Mainly used to apply Vulnerable on the enemies for more damage scaling.

Murmuring Obols Gambling

Murmuring Obols gambling at the Purveyor of Curiosities is a great alternative way to find Legendary Aspects or specific-slot Uniques required to start playing your build. The most efficient Murmuring Obols farming methods can be found here.

Check out the new gambling optimization tool guide from Icy Veins to maximize your chances.

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Season Updates

Since the Warlock is a brand new class coming to the world of Sanctuary. there are no changes to be mentioned.

For a complete overview of Season 13, including the mechanics and theme, new leveling activity, and other changes coming, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.

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Post-Leveling Strategy

This guide is designed to get you to level 70 in a smooth and enjoyable way. Once there, you’ll want to look at a proper endgame-designed build guide and start making required preparations. Make sure you pick one of our recommended ones!

Preparations for an endgame build usually take some time to acquire the required gear and often result in your character reaching level 70 and unlocking the Paragon Board well before you’re done.

One of the sneaky ways to get some easy gear is to open Baleful Chests in the Fields of Hatred. This method is especially effective right after ascending into Torment tiers to get first Ancestral Legendary weapon, which makes a world difference. Results may vary, depending on PvP activity and other players farming the chests too, but rewards usually worth the time spent. If other players activity bothers you, its always worth to try change server layer by relogging or adjusting cross-play settings.

To open Baleful Chests, you must be Bloodmarked (PvP enabled) via the Emote Wheel (default bind ‘E’ for PC or ‘D-Pad Up’ for controller). Locations of Baleful Chests can be found on third-party interactive maps, and routes can be planned accordingly – something like this:

If luck isn’t on your side and endgame prep takes longer than expected, this build’s progression should still comfortably handle Torment III content and even go a bit further.

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Changelog

April 27th, 2006: Guide Added