PTR Feedback, My final thoughts

PTR Feedback
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I did a lot of PTR tests, and while I never played the ES build on live servers, I did attempt to create an ES build and test it. As someone not biased by the huge damage drop, and as someone trying out the class for the first time on PTR post-nerfs, this is my honest opinion about Warlock in general:

Warlock is still an elite class, among the best for all content. It is not gutted into uselessness by the nerfs. But while I do think nerfs are healthy for the game, and live Warlock is by far overpowered, I think the nerfs they did are not good for the game. Warlock does not feel weaker, it feels worse and less logical. It has actually been destroyed in a different way.

The signature spell, Bind Demon, is overnerfed. It is no longer able to compete with basic summons from other classes. It cannot tank anything, its curse does not proc, and even with a good aura there is no one in your summon army to benefit from it. My Druid’s summoned Grizzly is a better tank than a Stoneskinned Terror zone Lister the Tormentor, and guess what , I can resummon it instantly at no cost when it gets low on health. A pure summoner Warlock will not even invest in Bind Demon because they are far better off running around with 3 Tainted, which is only good because it is broken due to a scaling bug.

To play summoner Warlock, one has to invest into the Eldritch tree to grab Mirrored Blades, put on melee weapon, and take on the role of a tank personally. That is the only way to play summoner Warlock, other than abusing the Tainted bug.

Other builds will just invest the minimum requirement and pick any random demon to act as a glorified aura stick, less useful than your own Act 2 mercenary, equally squishy or squishier, and dealing less damage.

Echoing Strike is kind of okay. If geared properly with high-end BiS items, it is even very good, comparable to or better than Hammerdin. But ES Warlock’s high health single-target damage sucks, even with Mirrored Blades.

I did not test Fire Warlock much. I do like the build because it reminds me a lot of the Sorcerer from Diablo 1. I played a lot more with the summoner build. The little bit of Fire Warlock I tried out on live servers seemed okay to me, somewhat weak against fire-immune enemies and not very efficient against bosses, so I do not think that needs to be nerfed too much if any.

I am not advocating Warlock buffs, but do not destroy its identity. Why would a Warlock who is investing 90% of his skill points into the Demon tree avoid using its two level 30 skills, Bind Demon and Consume, because they are too weak or have no use for him?

If you are about to nerf Demon, then make it resummonable so I can recast it like any Druid or Necro summon out there.

If you are afraid to give ES build reliable curse proc, why not think about what happens to summoner Warlock when his minions lose 100% damage from Amplify no longer proccing, on top of a 50% damage loss from the nerf to Sigil Lethargy?

Why not leave the damage bonus on Lethargy, but make it apply only to your summoned demons and not players?

Why not nerf curse proc for other builds, but allow summoner Warlock to scale proc chance with dedicated summoning spells like Death Mark or others, or simply give more flat damage bonus to Bind Demon or Death Trap?

Why destroy one build and the signature spell of a class just to keep in check bugged and broken builds that do not even need Demon to function properly?

I know this because I cleared P8 Hell with only two Defilers.

I am not crying because they broke my boy (even though I am a little). I still made a very powerful summoner build on PTR that is stronger than any Druid, Necro, or even Hammerdin out there,one-shotting P8 and destroying Ubers in seconds. But I did so by multiclassing into the Eldritch tree and taking the mantle of frontliner myself. I also had to abandon the Cursed Demon and find a Stoneskinned one just so it could survive as an off-tank and aura stick while I personally proc curse with Reaper’s Toll.
here is a video where it first fights Ubers and after that goes P8 chaos sanctuary, this is just prototype , surely it can be far better when optimised:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R45dRuCOfg

This is still fun and more than reliable, probably even better than it should be, but I do not think this is how it is supposed to be.

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Ok Joe Lich, I can appreciate a post that actually backs up claims with video evidence. You also knew what you were doing with your build and took down ubers fairly easily, not smiter easily, but mirrored blades still does work.

I agree with your points. Bind Demon got busted by the nerfs. It was busted op before though so hopefully they find the middle ground.

My biggest problem with ES and MB is that blizz is trying this hybrid melee/caster thing that makes no sense. They really need to pick how it scales based on the existing rules of the game, either melee (ias + AR + durability loss + all on hit effects) or casting (FCR + no durability loss + no on hit effects).

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Of course, and here is another video comparing how a maxed-out Bind Demon with maxed-out Bloodoath and Demonic Mastery (skill lvl 50+) fares against ubers. This is Lister the Tormentor with Stone Skin/Fanaticism, captured in a Terror Zone. The other competitor is a regular summoner druid with all points in the summoning tree. Both characters have very similar equipment.

https://youtu.be/Cpt_Ibbz0tw

Don’t you agree that making the summoner warlock at least equal to the summoner druid would not break the game?

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thats not a summoner build thats some hybrid build you made. Thats the reason summon builds gets nerfed because people make their hybrid builds and call it a summoner build.

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I know it is hybrid, and I explained why I made it that way. Because demons cant tank, I have to. They also cant proc curse, I have to do that aswell

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Thats not a summoner build. Happy blizzard made some of the changes so real summon warlocks dont get nerfed, because folks like you make your wacky hybrid builds and call it a summoner, then blizzard has to nerf the real summon warlocks. And for the people on forum asking why you need hard points into the summon tree, its because of guys like you.

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Bro, a real summoner warlock is not viable. Your demon can’t tank. I played a pure summoner on live and on PTR, and it just doesn’t work anymore because of what Blizzard changed. Your bound demon can’t tank, it gets one-shot whenever you encounter stronger enemies. If there are no corpses around, you can’t even heal it.

Your best bet is that the demon survives the first hit, you see its health dropping, and you immediately teleport away (hopefully you have Enigma) and run through a town portal to heal in town. If it dies, you’re basically bricked, you can’t continue for hours until you find the correct demon again.

It’s the worst summoner build out there right now. They changed it in a way that makes it better not to invest in Bind Demon at all and instead go with 3x Summon Tainted. I tried different demons and different setups, and nothing works.

You have to tank yourself. Mirrored Blades draws aggro from enemies, and if you spam it, they’ll target you instead of your demon. That’s the only way to play summoner now.

How is this my fault? Everyone played the overpowered Echoing Strike build and cried for nerfs to everything without even thinking about pure summoner warlock and what would happen to that build.

What they need to do is either buff demon tankiness or make them resummonable, because the way it is now is just stupid. At this point, investing a single point in the Eldritch tree is stronger than investing 100 skill points in the summoning tree. It’s completely dumb.

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just read your post i would probably agree with 90 percent of it. I played the ptr and tried all the warlock summoner builds. Did ubers/dclone mini ubers etc. They messed up by even allowing players to go into the summon tree all those abilities that came with binded demon would have not been op if they were only for SUMMONER WARLOCKS ONLY. SO because echo strikes was op now summoner warlocks are gonna get the massive nerf hammer. They could have fixed it by making it that you need 20 hard points into bind demon and demonic mastery to get any auras. So if people wanted the benefits they would have to make a warlock summoner.

The reason you need hard points for the warlock for the summoner tree , is because unlike other classes the warlock summoner tree is to powerfull as one point wonders. Because the abilites dont scale well. The changes they made on the ptr will now make it that only warlock pure summoners will use binded demon now, because without maxed blood oath along with demonic mastery, and bind demon, your binded demons will not be able to tank or function well with ubers,mini ubers, ancients etc i had a lvl 96 liser and lvl 50 blood oath along with binded demon skill and demonic mastery and the the lister died to uber meph in 3-4 hits the lister lasted about 3 seconds. I decided that it wasnt even worth it to have a binded demon if your doing end game content like ubers,uber ancients, mini ubers. The max ceiling for binded demon seems to be dclone and hell difficutly players 1-4. After the patch goes live around may 25, 2026 , i might just respec and not even use binded demon. Ill use infinty on my act 2 merc and call it a day, and have 3 tained, if i make a goatmen more type build ill use mania runeword on my act 2 merc so the minion have lvl 1 fantism and a lvl 20-24 might aura from the merc,

Btw the goatmen are not that good i tried to do ubers and they struggled badly they just dont do enough physical damage, to outheal the massive health regen of the uber bosses. The only way they would be better is if blizzard made it so each point into demonic mastery gave them 1 percent deadly strike and attack rating percent, along with buffing their damage by 75 percent.

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Yes, I agree. Demon skills don’t scale well. Goatmen are trash and not worth investing into. Death Mark is also much better as a one-point wonder than investing in it. You gain nothing from maxing out Death Mark and Goatmen, they are still trash.

This makes every other build invest a single point in the demon tree and get almost all the benefits of a dedicated summoner. Meanwhile, a dedicated summoner gains nothing from investing heavily in its own tree.

I also tested this in Uber Tristram with stone-skinned, fanaticism Terror Zone Lister the Tormentor with maxed out Bind Demon, Blood Oath and Demonic Mastery, and he died in two hits from Uber Mephisto. The first hit took him down to 5% health, and the second hit killed him.

I compared this with a full summoner druid, who can tank Uber Mephisto with no issues. If the Grizzly dies, you simply resummon it.
Here is a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpt_Ibbz0tw

This balancing is stupid and not balanced. It feels like they balanced the entire class around the Echoing Strike build. If you look on YouTube, all these streamers are only talking about the ES build and how, after PTR, everything is fine and the game is balanced. They never even tried to play a summoner, I guess.

There is only one streamer, I think Ginger Master Gamer or something like that, who said that demons are bad now and the changes are not good for the summoning tree.

Hopefully someone will listen and make these changes more logical. They should make scaling in the demon tree better and stronger with heavy investment, and weaker with low investment. Other builds only need demons as an aura stick and to spread curses, they don’t need them to tank or deal damage. Summoners do need demons to tank and deal damage, and right now, they simply can’t do it.

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As a person who has a summoner, walrock,druid,necro all skills lvl 50-54. I agree basically they can;t balance the warlock and the demon summoner tree, because the abilities scale so bad summoner warlocks barely get a major boost over folks who are 1 point wondering the demonic tree. They cant buff the demonic tree else echo strikes or other non-summoner warlock builds will be op, so the pure warlock summoners have to suffer.

And the reason these streamers and utubers are saying its all fine is because warlock summoners are not popular, because summoners in most games are not as flashy and fun. I would bet, only 20 or percent of warlocks play summoner builds. To these streamers its about money and views, so in their minds summoner warlocks dont matter, because its not popular. Basically 75 percent of all the videos i see from streamers are about ES, and if es if fine or good that means the warlock is fine. Balancing the whole class around one build Es is insane, even more so its a melee build, when the warlock builds are mostly caster types.

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Maybe the new weaker Bind should be resummonable like all other class pets except IG. Like now that cursed is nerfed and the auras are rebalanced, we don’t need to keep the trade off of it being a perma death pet.

You bind to “set” your demon and then can summon it back from hell when it dies (not even death can save you from me!)

That might even make it worthwhile to actually bind demons for their Consume effects too

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In my opinion the demon skill tree isn’t well designed. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that a summoner can only have a maximum of three demons and the role of defilers. The goatmen are too weak due to their low number and aren’t worth it as a sole investment. If you take Bind Demon - which you should do anyway for a physical summoner build - it’s better to pair it with two defilers instead.

This makes using goatmen and skilling into the skill pretty pointless. It would be better if, as a summoner, defilers didn’t count toward the summon cap, and you could always summon a certain number of them (1–2), allowing you to have two goatmen, one-two defilers, and one bound demon.

Death Mark is also a strange skill. It’s great as a one-point wonder, but not worth maxing because the damage increase is far too small. This leaves summoners in the odd situation of being fully specced very quickly, without being able to meaningfully improve their build with the remaining points.

With the tainted build, you can at least go for Blood Boil, which makes sense due to the synergy. But even that isn’t ideal, since you’d actually want Amp Curse while using Blood Boil, which in turn makes you want Bind Demon - and defilers would probably be the better choice here as well. Once i realized this, the Blood Boil synergy for Summon Tainted just felt wrong.

Kind of absurd that you basically always want defilers, yet at the same time only invest a single point in the summon defiler skill.

So overall, testing the tainted build felt somewhat unsatisfying.

I think the demon skill tree needs a little overhaul, just buffing/weaken numbers like HP of bind demons won’t change the design flaws.

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Hmm, I like all what you suggested. Making defilers not count toward the demon limit but instead limiting their number by hard points in the Defiler skill itself, buffing flat damage on DeathMark (significantly), and making demons resummonable would solve everything. Maybe give Summoner Warlock something useful from the Consume spell? Let’s say if you invest 10 points in Blood Oath, the Consume buff applies to the bound demon as well but at 50% efficiency; if you invest 20, then it’s 100%. So the demon can get crushing blow, enhanced damage, health buff, and movement speed buff if someone is dedicated to the summoning tree. Engorge skill is worth investing only 1 point, its either 1 click full heal or nothing if no corpses. Why not make 50% of healing effect instantanous and 50% as a heal over time so if you invest in engorge your demon actually can sustain some damage if under the effect.

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