I do not want to make it “serious business” so I post it here, and not in the “builds” section, but OMG, do I’m having a blast with this guy right now.
Edit: also beware of walls and walls of text incoming, turned out I’m bad at explaining stuff in short manner. TLDR: 2w dancing melee warlocks are super-duper-omega fun to play at Veteran, and possibly later. Have a go with it if you will. Use Riftstone and Blessed Steel.
Long time ago while playing TQ:IT I decided to try something werid, and went for melee Elementalist (Earth+Storm). Guy died pretty easy, but playing him was a total blast, I named him Explosion, and that was pretty much what was happening around him all the time. Was easily my most fun to play build for TQ.
So I decided to try and do something along these lines in GD. I planned for dualwielding melee Warlock, focused on aether, chaos, and elemental (focus on fire) damages. For Devotions I grew weary of constant trying to go for 1-2 Tier 3 making sacrifices on the way, so I decided that I just take as many things that I want in T1-T2 route. 50 Arcanist / 40 Occultist, 45/15/30 attribute spread (P/C/S).
First 25 levels (2w relic requirement) were strange. I found myself pretty squishy, so instead of meleeing my enemies I put fire and ice components into my second weapon set (pistol+mage off-hand), and made them Lmb and Rmb. Energy regen on arcanist allowed for pretty long shooting before running out, and in was fun, but not what I had in mind. I started having doubts. And then... after killing Warden and doing Hallowed Hill — [b]BOOM[/b]
Level 25 came. I crafted two Omens. I crafted Riftstone and inserted it in the first one. I crafted Wrathstone… and discovered it was an aura. I decided to sacrifice raw aether damage for now, and crafted Blessed Steel, solotted it in second Omen and made it my LMB. I never played Nightblades or dualwieldies before, so it was a pretty big and pleasant surprise that both Chaos and Sacred strikes added off-hand weapon damage to them. I put Aetherfire from Imp devotion on Blessed Strike (it checked twice of 51% to proc, worked pretty often and if target was dead after BS worked on another nearby target). I went out to a field to test it…
Everyone started dying. Press 1 to Chaos Strike, find something not dead and lmb it with Blessed strike. Aetherfire would probably go off and confuse someone if I'm lucky. Freeze approaches with Olexra, put Curse of Frailty on them, retrace a bit. Cut the possible pursuers off with transmuted Calidor's. Look at the time — Chaos Strike is probably off the cooldown now — and here we go again! If I'm feeling daring — put Sigil of Consumption on the ground below me. If unsure of safety = Mirror before going in. Later on I put Bat Twin Fangs power on CoF, helped with healing while running away after going melee.
The damage of 1-2 Chaos->Blessed Strike pair was so overwhelming it destroyed most heroes in one combo when I just started using it. I was feeling like a god, and laughed in disbelief (It grew a bit more normal later on, as enemy HP pools got up, but always stayed on the "very strong" side). Then I discovered that I still wasn't immortal, and if enemies did manage to put a strike or to at me I felt it very heavily. So I was killing stuff quickly, but could die very quickly too If I'm not careful. First one to kill me was Kilrian. He died, but I took that extra long second to get out of his purple deathfield after Mirror turned off, and I died alongside him :).
So… time passed. I learned to keep my CC resists high (mainly stun, slow and trap, freeze is left to 14% from Mavien’s sphere and Hoarfrost Ointment) and movespeed higher (120+ is good 130+ is best). I learned that I lack HP direly and started to look for Flat and % hp boosting gear. Tried to keep resistances arguably high too, especially since I was doing almost every damage type, and could miss out reflect mob/have Nulification on cooldown.
Tried to keep DA and OA up, favoring the OA. My attack speed keep changing, as I found myself not often attacking standing in one place, but need hits to be fast enough to counter approaching enemies. And faster animation is more pleasant to the eyes/ give more chances to proc Soulsteal on my current main weapon. I picked up Magi (=bloody pox) and Rhowan’s Crown (= CoF) devotions. I swapped Aehterfire to Chaos Strike and Fangs to Blessed Strike. Made sure to always have some source of health drain on hand, although now have a feeling that this might have been not that much needed. Switched my mind from having 50 Arcanist/40 Occultist and Reckless Power as my ultimate to 40 Arcanist/50 Occultist and taking Possession (still a bit unhappy since I have Possession on other char, but I strongly felt the need for at least some survivability up close). Aehter was kinda moved back in the second row of damage, and I started to add more Cold, Lightning, Vitality and even Acid than I expected. As of now my char does little physical, bleed and poison damages (with 0 trauma), and everything else is somehow ended up in the list :). Cold and Lighting actually ended up higher than chaos, vit, and aehter, lol. For now, anyway. Guess I focused Elemental a bit too much.
I died three more times. One to Sister What-s Her Name, the Skybreaker due to lacking stun res at the moment. Two to Rashalga, the Mad-Mad Queen. One of these was my fuckup with the Mirror, I spammed buttons so fast that my Chaos Strike took precedence and I rushed in to melee her, sure of my staying power :D . Took her down in the end though, after few circles around her lair :). Was lvl 47 by then. Upgraded my relic to lvl 50 version, grieved about loss of pierce resist, but was much more happier with addition of slow and trap resists. I left my ranged options in second weapon slot, kept upgrading those items, and put improved version of "ammo" components in them. Tooltip for Greater Fireball constantly showing bigger dps than Blessed Strike, but with this guy dps stat is a bit decieving, he turned out to be burst-DoT-and-retreat->repeat :). Also I grabbed raven and hound, to keep me company (1-pointers), and buff me (Storm Spirit and Hellfire — 1-pointers for now, maybe more later). They turned out to be ok, Hound periodically dies (no shit, Sherlock, without any +pet skills, heh) but distracts some of the opposition and still lives on much longer than I anticipated (probably due to Blood of Dreeg). Raven is mostly safe, except for the freak AoE. I scratched Sigil and Destruction, needed too much points in them to be effective and put one point in Trozan and Frozen Core instead.
When I got to the Plains of Strife, a large open-space area filled with packs of monsters I laughed maniacally while dashing around and leaving carnage in my wake. Blood of Dreeg is up, Chaos Strike -> Blessed Strike -> Olexra -> CoF+Pox -> Some default attacks maybe seeing some rifletroll targeting me, Chaos Strike to him -> Flesh Hulks incoming, Trozan them then Calidor, put CoF+Pox, Olexra out of cooldown now, Mirror will save my ass if needed... Oh, took a bit of damage — renew the Blood of Dreeg! ...Who is that targeting ME now... come on, sucker! Chaos Strike -> Blessed strike 1-2 combo... were you a hero? A mage hero, huh? Low hp pool is not cool for your health :p. Enemy archmage thinking he's safe with mirror. Doesn't block freeze! And have some Nulification on top! Oh.. by the way what's happened to few groups of that guys under CoF and Pox I left behind while Chaos Striking to new and new targets? *Looking at volcanoes and vortexes covering the battlefield alongside the bodies of the fallen* Oh... yeah :rolleyes:.
Seriously, I was freaking shouting from all the fun I was having, like a much much younger me. So. Damn. AWESOME. This constant in-out combat, these explosions and fireshows, freezing the flow of the fight, interrupting and controlling my enemies. Hit the like a truck, but constantly having to be on guard, as everything is still much of a threat if it pins me down in melee for longer time than needed. I danced around mobs like a cloud of butterflies and stung them like a million of bees, all while having the most fun time with any Diablo-like up to this point. And for that possibility I’m deeply grateful to Crate.
Now I did everything on Veteran except the Log fight. I was afraid only of three things, Bastion of Chaos, Port Valbury and Edge of Madness. Every time I'm starting to have doubts with this char or fear something he proves me wrong, tho. He was having much easier time in Bastion and Port than expected, tho I made sure to retreat back every now and then, took extra care looking up to my health and resists (swapping a few faction auguments around) and was more conservative in Chaos Striking new group before properly finishing up first. When I first thought up this char I was thinking: "That guy might be fun, but will surely stuggle in late Elite or in Ultimate in the end, cause of low life, and devotion procs reaching max level and stop scaling alongside my +% damage.". Now I'm not so sure, heh, he constantly proves my fears wrong, as was said.
For those wondering about gear — I put two chars, battlemage and conjurer, through the Ultimate, got some recipes. Never used the gear/materials I got with them on my new pair, this guy + melee/totems 2h Elementalist. Swap the gear they find between those 2, have shared components stash found by them. Elementalist went on to Elite and finished act 1 already, before that tried Aspirant Crucible, and quit on level 110 feeling the pressure increased too strongly :). Wonder how Warlock performs. Compared to my other characters his enemy clearing speed is amazing, with conjurer on second place, and elementalist on third (my battlemage can tank, tho! Heh). Wiped out Van Bubble and his sidekicks in around 1-1.5 minutes, I think, for example. Half of Aether Obelisk lifetime is their "getting floaty" mid-hp animation, if I focus on one. Survived the Flames. Did this, and did that... :) On tankiness side of things only my conjurer feels pain more than warlock, but conjurer have vines and pet wall in addition to CoF (although he surely lacks Olexra+Trozan and Mirror). Conj have more pets and they are better at getting aggro, plus he just stays on the edge of battlefield, with just a bit of closing in to drop healing totem. Between those four I surely never was more involved in gameplay, required to constantly choose where to move, what to kill and what to cast in reaction to shifting combat flow.
Anyway, I called this guy “The Infinity” thinking mainly of all the different procs, skills and damage types he will be using, but now I’m thinking about infinite fun when looking over his name. If you haven’t tried dualwielded “melee” warlock — be sure to give it a roll, you’ll have a blast! At least in Veteran, heh.
devs please don’t nerf him 