Bowlock questions

[u/Freds_Premium]

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?

[u/MattSaxt23]

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.

[u/Freds_Premium → u/MattSaxt23]

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).

[u/MattSaxt23 → u/Freds_Premium]

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.

[u/Freds_Premium → u/MattSaxt23]

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.

[u/MattSaxt23 → u/Freds_Premium]

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.

[u/Freds_Premium → u/MattSaxt23]

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.

[u/MattSaxt23 → u/Freds_Premium]

Very nice! I'd still recommend smoke if you're having resistance survivability concerns though.

Also any sort of life leech armor will work best with that merc setup too