Build Introduction
One of the most unique Warlock builds. It’s heavily focusing on enabling all of our Sigil skills to ramp up the damage output of the Apocalypse skill decimating entire screens in seconds!
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Curious how this build fares in various content types? Take a look at our build tier lists.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Screen wide clear!
- Insane burst damage
- Awesome visuals
- Can be a bit confusing to understand at first
- Somewhat squishy
Build Requirements
Rite of the Nameless talisman set (5 pieces) are required to perform properly. The build can be played prior to this but getting this set sorted is at the top of your priority list! It summons ALL of your sigils when you cast a Sigil ability.
Quick Navigation
Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Tortured Wretch
Sigil of Subversion
Blazing Scream
Dark Prison
ApocalypseFollow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 83-point build. 14 skill points are locked behind the Season Rank System.
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:
- Ritualist Shard – Grants Summon Vollach skill increasing your Occult skill damage per stacks of Overpower. With at least 4 stacks of Overpower Occult Abyss skills apply 1 additional Hex to enemies on hit, and Occult Hellfire Skills have 30% chance to grant Volatility for 4 seconds when Cast.
- Scorching Fragment – Occult Hellfire Skills are always empowered and consume 4% of your Maximum Life. Volatility can now stack up to 3 times, increasing the damage of empowered Skills by x10% and the Life they consume by 1% per stack. Command Vollach also siphons its life to Fortify you for 8% of your Maximum Life and cuases Vollach to pay 10=% of Life Costs instead while you’ve siphoned its power.
Gear, Gems and Stats
The following sections cover the important systems that are essential to improving the power of your character in the endgame of Diablo 4.
Legendary Aspects
Each aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each aspect in the assigned slot. Aspects placement is planned with potential Unique and Mythic Unique gear upgrades in mind for easiest and cheapest transition. Obol gambling is a great way to try to obtain specific slot Legendary Aspects and even Uniques early. For exact Runewords suggestions, see here.
| Gear Slot | Gems | Aspect / Unique | Legendary Aspect / Unique Power |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helm |  Royal Sapphire |  Heir of Perdition | Succumb to hatred and earn Mother’s Favor, increasing your damage dealt by x80%. Slaughter enemies to briefly steal Mother’s Favor from surrounding allies. |
| Chest |  Nagu +  Que |  Undying Aspect | When you cast a Skill, you heal for #% Life. Double this bonus while below 50% Life. |
| Gloves | n/a |  Aspect of Inner Calm | While standing still, deal up to x [50 – 75%] increased damage. |
| Pants |  Poc +  Mot | Bane-Link | When you slow an enemy they also become Vulnerable. |
| Boots | n/a | Malevolance | You gain Overpower for each # Wrath you gain while at Maximum Wrath |
| Weapon 2H (Mace) |  Royal Ruby | Overhwhelming Aspect | Each hit against Elite enemies deals x% increased damage but requires and consumes 4 stacks of Overpower. No stacks are consumed if the enemy is hexed. |
| Amulet (50% Scaling) |  or  Royal Skull | Cremator’s | While you have 4 or more Overpower, your Fire Skill Casts deal x% increased damage. |
| Ring | or Royal Skull | Calamity | Hex increases your critical strike chance. |
| Ring | or Royal Skull | Peril | Making an enemy Vulnerable increases the damage you do to them by #%, up to #% |
Affixes and Tempering Priority
- Affixes on gear are sorted in priority descending order.
- Bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrade. If multiple affixes marked – any selected is acceptable for case by case gear.
- Affixes marked by multiple “*” – indicate desirability of obtaining them as Greater Affix originally or with lucky Tempering.
Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.
| Slot | Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
|---|---|---|
| HelmetHeir of Perdition | * 1. Critical Strike Chance | ?? – Physical Resistance |
| Chest | * 1. Willpower 2. Maximum Life 3. Total Armor 4. Any Resistances | ?? – Sigil Duration |
| Gloves | * 1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Willpower 3. All damage multiplier or Attack Speed 4. Maximum Life | ?? – Critical Strike Damage |
| Pants | * 1. Willpower 2. Maximum Life 3. Total Armor 4. Lightning Resistance | ?? – Fire Resistance |
| Boots | * 1. Willpower 2. Maximum Life 3. Movement Speed 4. Poison Resistance |  Natural Motion – Movement Speed |
| Amulet | * 1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Willpower 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Vulnerable Damage | ?? – Resource Generation |
| Ring | * 1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Willpower 3. Vulnerable damage 4. All damage | ?? – Critical Strike Damage |
| Ring | * 1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Willpower 3. Vulnerable damage 4. All damage | ?? – Resource Generation |
| Weapon 2H (Mace) | * 1. Weapon Damage 2. Willpower 3. All Damage 4. Maximum Life 5. Critical Strike Damage | ?? – Critical Strike Damage |
For the dedicated page on Gear Systems and Itemization Overview, check the guide here.
Ancestral and Mythic Uniques
See below for information on useful Uniques and how to integrate them into this build:
| Unique | Category | Synergy | Source |
| Heir of Perdition | Mythic Best in Slot | – Extra large Critical Strike Chance affix – Extra large Lucky Hit affix – Sizeable damage multiplier from Unique Aspect | How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide |
Gems and Runewords
See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems and Runewords to socket into your gear.
| Weapon Gems | Armor Gems | Jewelry Gems |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Ruby for increased damage. |  Runeword or Royal Sapphire for increased Willpower. | Royal Diamond or Royal Skull for resistances or armor as needed. |
| Runeword Combination | Effect |
| Nagu + Que | Maintain at least 1 active summon for 5 seconds to gain offering for each summon up to 5. Invoke the druids  Earthen Bulwark to generate a barrier. |
| Poc + Mot | Spend 5% of your maximum resource to generate offering. Gain a Shadow from the Rogues  Dark Shroud reducing incoming damage taken. |
Paragon Board
Below you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board set-up for this build in detail!
It is imperative to level up all Glyphs to level 15 first to increase activation radius and then to level 46 to unlock secondary damage multiplier. More about paragon glyphs and how to level them, here.
Some paragon points are locked behind the Season Rank System.
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!
For a complete overview of Season 12, mechanics and theme, new leveling activity, and other changes coming, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.
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 – 6 charm slot seal with Critical Strike Multiplier is the best but any damage providing one will suffice. The best set to aim for is called “Rite of the Nameless” (5 pieces)
- Charms – Occult or Hellfire Skill ranks and any Defensive for affixes or All Stats works great here. Make sure you get 5 of them to be of the same set as your Seal and the last charm should be of “Scepter of Three” for optimal Talismans.
Mercenaries
During the Vessel of Hatred campaign, you will unlock Mercenaries to assist you. While you can choose freely early on, we recommend Raheir as your main merc:
For the reinforcement, stick with Varyana, utilizing her 
Bloodlust to trigger when any Skill is cast in combat.
Rotation and Build Mechanics
Tortured Wretch taunts all enemies and when you cast a Sigil all your Sigils will be placed in that one cast. This provides you with a massive damage output buff. By casting Blazing Scream you ramp up stacks of increased damage for Apocalypse. Once you hit 100 stacks you simply click that one button to explode your entire screen to turn enemies into loot.
Rotation and Playstyle
- Summon Vollach – Keep him on cooldown for the Wrath generation (or when needed!)
- Tortured Wretch – Initial cast to taunt enemies to avoid having them zerg you.
- Sigil of Subversion – With our Talisman set completed this will cast all your Sigils in 1 cast, provides Shadowform as well as Hexing the enemies.
- Dark Prison – Traps enemies in a circle, by using the second charge it will pull things in but best not to use it for the pull effect. Enemies will run into the Tortured Wretch and get trapped so put Prison on top of the Wretch. We are also Fortified by this skill and applies Vulnerable thanks to our Aspect.
- Blazing Scream – The Demonic Sigil will mimic the casts once the ritual completes as a nice added damage boost. Mostly this is your spam ability till you have enough stacks for Apocalypse.
- Apocalypse – Everytime Blazing Scream hits an enemy you gain a stack ramping up the damage for Apocalypse so optimally you’ll cast this at 100 stacks whilst in tight corridors you might want to cast it sooner. Playing the build will give you the feel for when the time is right.
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, mechanics and theme, new leveling activity, and other changes coming, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.
Obol Gambling
Obol gambling is a great way to improve chances of finding Legendary Aspects or specific slot Uniques missing from your build. Most efficient obols farming methods can be found here. Check out the new tool guide from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below.
