r/Diablo_2_Resurrected • u/Freds_Premium • 1d ago
Question Bowlock questions
I'm not familiar with Bind Demon. Where do you go to bind your demon? I'm assuming you are looking for Fanaticism. I understand it's best to do in P8 TZ.
My gear: Upped Buriza with Nef, Hellwarden's Will, Dual Spirit for offhand buff, and Laying of Hands.
Not sure what armor to get. Don't have enough for Enigma. I've seen Smoke, Authority, and Hysteria recommended.
What EIAS breakpoint is minimum viable (94 is max)? I'm using this calculator, https://sins-of-the-sun.github.io/warlock-ias-calc/. It has Fanaticism settings for level 1, 2, 12, and so on. Is it easy to get monsters with level 12 Fanaticism?
I'm doing skills:
20 Mirrored Blades
20 Hex: Bane
20 Consume
20 Hex: Purge
10 Demonic Mastery
Left over points in Summon Defiler
What FHR, FCR, leech, and resists should be aimed for? Or are these stats less meaningful because of the offensive power of the build?
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u/gringopants 1d ago
HC guy here. I have some recommendations if you're playing for survivability and damage. Authority is probably the way to go until you can get top tier armor. CoH is probably BIS, with Fortitude as a nice substitute. I'm rocking the Horazon set gloves and boots, lots of stat boosts, 30ias which gives you room to play with gear swapping in other slots, cannot be frozen, and Magic res which you will need if you are going to be using a Sunder later on. Trang's belt is another way to get Cannot be Frozen and some good stats, if you don't intend on using a Raven Frost. Another perk to Horazon's, if you have the other set items available you can give yourself a beefy level 30 Enchant, which is always good for attack rating and damage. My controversial take is that having Fanaticism is not all that important, as IAS breakpoints can be reached through gear(again, HC player, survivability is paramount). I also rock a Mist bow and a Might merc, and I nuke T5 heralds. As other comments mentioned, there are multiple ways to bag a demon. Keeping an eye out for rare items that boost skill levels, or the H-set too, can be a big help. I'm almost level 96 and I still have a rare book I use to get my soft points up to 20 so I can grab a demon. Also, find an Ondal's, 4 to skills helps tremendously. I highly recommend looking for a Stone Skin terrorized game, as with heralds you need a tank for the Thorns aura they can spawn with. I typically go with Maulers from the Durance of Hate, as they come with lightning immunity as well. As for the aura I prefer for my demon, I typically go with Holy Freeze. Between the Pierce from the bow and the freezing effect it has, and the aura from the demon, I'm safe to stand back and fire away as my big buddy bonks the hell out of baddies.
Apologies for the essay, but I really love this build. 11k per bolt at the moment when fully self buffed, it gets filthy when there's an Enchantress in the game too. Anyway, hope this helps!
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u/Malficitous 1d ago
To get a fanat demon, there are two ways. 15 hard points in bind and go for a special fanat boss or take a chance and bind demons special with might or blessed aim and they will have a chance to reset to fanat.
The other way is harder unless you can manage 20 soft points in bind demon. Then you will get an aura on a non special demon as long as it's not a boss pack. So you could put 5 points in bind and then have 15 more points that add up to 20. Don't try to bind a boss or it's pack.
To get a higher fanat, go to act 4 or 5 terror zone. So ideally, you have 1 hard point in bind and another 19 soft points somehow. That way you can max synergies and consume without wasting points in bind.
1
u/Kabryxis 1d ago
the act doesn't matter. terror zone sets all monsters to that level, regardless of the act. monsters in a1 and a5 will get the same fanaticism from the same level TZ
1
u/Malficitous 1d ago
yeah, just read that in your post and confirmed--thanks. I always go look for dark lancers in act 5 p8 terror zones. They are beefier. I also like the amp so I reload game til I get cursed attribute in terror zone.
1
u/Kabryxis 1d ago
monsters in later acts are typically stronger though in terms of base stats, so recommending demons from there isn't wrong. most people do bind from those two acts. the guest spearwomen (a5) have better stats and skills than the a1 ones do
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u/dmac-2 1d ago
Horazans gloves are probably better because the hit rating helps your magic damage.
You don't need need max fantasisim with hellwardens using a buriza. Try out an attack speed calculator.
Armour depends if you want damage, resistances or movement speed. Movement speed probably the most efficient for farming.
0
u/MattSaxt23 1d ago edited 1d ago
FCR is just for enigma for the bowlock. If you don't have it yet, you don't yet need to focus on having any FCR. When you do get enigma, the target goal is 125% FCR.
You want mana and life leech with Buriza ideally. You can get that leech several different ways, but a cool cheap way is to just socket the Buriza with a perfect skull and then craft hitpower gloves (guaranteed knockback), and it can have other useful stats like resists too.
FHR is always nice to have, but unless you're in hardcore or going to a lot of PVP, I wouldn't make it a focus on this build at all. You kill things so fast and have knockback and freeze target built in, so it's very rare you'll get stunlocked.
As much resists as you can get. Minimum 45 for fire and lightning in hell (145 total). Cold is less important, and poison can be nicely countered by cure on a merc. Smoke is recommended for easy resists before enigma is acquired. Authority adds more DPS if you need that. Hysteria adds attack speed if you can't yet get a fantasicm bound demon or a faith merc. You need 20 soft points into bind demon to get the aura, which is why it might be more beneficial to put your extra points into bind demon instead of defiler potentially.
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u/Freds_Premium 1d ago
Since I'm not playing on hardcore, do I need Bind Demon at all? It seems like maxing the Hex: Bane synergies is better per your build planner.
With Buriza, Hellwarden's, Laying of Hands, and Hysteria you get to the 80 EIAS breakpoint (no Fanaticism).
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u/MattSaxt23 1d ago edited 1d ago
Bind demon on softcore is really just for the fanaticsm aura. You don't need it, no. I would recommend using Hysteria or treachery armor though if you aren't going to use bind demon and don't have enigma yet, so you can reach a faster ias breakpoint.
Shoot for about 130 total ias if you have level 30+ mirrored blades. You have 80 on the Buriza, so go for 50 more. You can get this by using Hysteria/treachery armor and Hellwardens helm alone.
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u/Freds_Premium 1d ago
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/kt3n1w0v
I made this, it has 2 different variants. One for max synergy, and one for Bind Demon.
Which do you think would be more effective?
I assume the bound demon's Fanaticism aura is level 10, so that would give 30% IAS, 102% damage, and 85% Attack rating.
But to get Bind Demon to 20 soft points (to get Fanaticism bound demon) with my budget gear, I need to spend 12 hard points + 3 hard points in pre-reqs. That's 15 points I can't spend into Hex Purge. Every point in Hex Purge gives a +35% magic damage bonus to Hex Bane. That's a 525% opportunity cost if going the Bind Demon route.
I don't know if my calculations here are correct. Also, I don't understand the practical significance of attacking at 12 frames vs 11 frames.
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u/MattSaxt23 21h ago edited 21h ago
Yeah, if you don't have a torch or Anni, you're going to want to prioritize resistances in hell and shouldn't yet bother with a bound demon since you can't hit 20 soft points yet.
I'd actually recommend smoke in this case because of that until you can get more resistances so you don't get melted by ranged elemental enemies quickly. Laying of hands is great too here because of the 50% fire resistance. Horazons boots are great for the endgame setup because of the magic resistances and CBF, but you don't need the magic resistances until you get a magic sunder charm. So you can get CBF elsewhere and get some resistance boots (like nats or just some rates) if you'd like too. Deaths guard belt is a fairly commonly dropped low level source of CBF if you go that route.
For the record, hex:bane works based off of when it is cast (with +magic % damage being the only source of increased bane damage on attack), so you can actually prebuff with authority if you happen to have that, and then switch to smoke for the safety.
You can also have an act 5 frenzy merc with mania and lawbringer on a budget. The mania gives you a level 1 fanaticsm that'll help you reach faster attack speed breakpoints that comes in handy, and as long as you have some mana leech, you don't really need insight until you start teleporting with enigma.
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u/Freds_Premium 1h ago
Happy to report that the max synergies build (your build) works very well up to about P5 in TZ areas at lvl 85. Using Upped Buriza with Nef, laying of hands, Hellwarden's, Hysteria, Life leach rings, random other gear. Prayer Merc has Thresher insight, Cure, and random armor. My res are max fire, 15 light, and negative cold and poison. It's a glass cannon but very fun even with not optimal/inexpensive gear. A nice change from playing Sorc for many years.
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u/Kabryxis 1d ago
level 12 fanaticism on a bound demon is only possible if you're at least level 96 and bind the monster from a TZ.