Build Introduction
This is your actual full on “true” Summoner Warlock build where we focus entirely on the damage output of our minions whilst standing safely behind our army. If you’re looking for a true summoner feel to your Warlock, this is the build for you.
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Curious how this build fares in various content types? Take a look at our build tier lists.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- True Summoner gameplay
- Great survivability & Damage
- Can start leveling with it and stay throughout all endgame
- Requires set-up for biggest burst damage
Build Requirements
This build doesn’t have any specific required aspects or unique to perform very well in the end-game.
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
Sigil of Summons
Sigil of Subversion
Fiend of Abaddon
Wall of Agony
BombardmentFollow 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 Warlock’s 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:
- Legion Shard – Grants Summon Ae’grom skill which will spawn Lesser Demons consistently on the battlefield. Casting a Greater Demon Skill increases Lesser Demon Cast Speed by25% and Cooldown Rate by 20% for 10 seconds. When 200 of your Lesser Demons die, your next Greater Demon Skill Cast has no Dominance Cost.
- Spawn Fragment – Ae’grom now passively spawns Vile Child Lesser Demon every 1 second. Summoning a Greater Demon increases this spawn rate by 50% for 4 seconds, up to 150%. Additional stacks do not refresh this duration. Command Ae’grom no longer spews Vile Children and instead causes all of your Lesser Demons to explode, dealing 113% damage.
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 | Aegrom’s Schism | Allows you to summon 2x Ae’grom Greater Demons! |
| Gloves | n/a | Peril | Making an enemy Vulnerable increases the damage you do to them by #%, up to #% |
| Pants |  Neo + Prid | Heavenly Strength | By wielding a 2h weapon you gain #% damage reduction. |
| Boots | n/a | Malevolance | You gain Overpower for each # Wrath you gain while at Maximum Wrath |
| Weapon 2H (Mace) |  Royal Skull | Overwhelming 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 |  Aspect of Reanimation | Your Summons gain increased damage while alive, up to x [60 – 90%] after 10 seconds. |
| Ring | or Royal Skull | Calamity | Hex increases your critical strike chance. |
| Ring | or Royal Skull | Hellbent Commander | You deal x% increased summon damage. |
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 Aegrom’s Schism | * 1. Willpower 2. Maximum Life 3. Total Armor 4. Any Resistance | ?? – Fire Resistance |
| Gloves | * 1. Critical Strike Multiplier 2. Willpower 3. All Damage 4. Maximum Life | ?? – Critical Strike Damage Multiplier |
| 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 Multiplier 2. Willpower 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Vulnerable Damage | ?? – Critical Strike Damage Multiplier |
| Ring | * 1. Critical Strike Damage Multiplier 2. Willpower 3. Vulnerable Damage 4. All Damage | ?? – Critical Strike Damage Multiplier |
| Weapon 2H (Sword) | * 1. Weapon Damage 2. Willpower 3. All Damage 4. Maximum Life 5. Critical Strike Damage | ?? – Critical Strike Damage Multiplier |
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 Skull 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. |
| Neo + Prid | Deal damage after not taking any damage for 2 seconds to gain massive Offering. Prid invokes the Warlocks Dark Prison ability tethering enemies together. |
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 – A 6 Charm slot Seal with Critical Striuke Multiplier or any damage multiplier is best here. The best set to aim for is called “Chains of Horazon” (5 pieces)
- Charms – Demonology Ranks and any defensive stats or All Stats works wonders for you. Make sure you get 5 of them to be of the same set as your Seal and the last charm should be of “Morlu Fleshward” 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
The main objective is to get as many Tortured Wretch’s out on the field as possible. To do this we need to generate Dominance which we do with Command Fallen. Metamorphosis helps with our Dominance cost and the rest of our abilities are mainly there for scaling damage output. Build is extremely straight simple and easy as we just want to spam out Tortured Wretch.
Rotation and Playstyle
Metamorphosis – Cast whenever it falls off. Provides survivability and damage scaling but most importantly reduces Dominance cost.
Tortured Wretch – Our main ability we want to spam at all times possible, it taunts enemies and deals tons of damage.- Sigil of Subversion – Applies Hex. Use whenever it’s ready to slow enemies and give us a movement speed buff as well as Shadowform.
- Sigil of Summons – Gives our Lesser Demons a damage boost and helps us keep demons actively rolling for the Paragon legendary node “Fathomless” (Each demon summoned within 6 seconds gives 15x damage multiplier up to 105x)
- Command Ae’grom – He should be summoned at all times as he constantly summons minions. His command ability explodes the Lesser Demons for a decent increase of damage output.
Command Fallen Whenever you run out of Dominance and have casted the above skills this is your to-go-to spam to get things back up to repeat the “rotation”.
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.
