Build Introduction
The Demon Summoner Warlock leveling build puts a high focus on getting as many minions summoned as possible, making it feel like a true summoner build. Our main spender damage ability comes in the form of 
Dread Claws to consume our minions and increase our damage. If you’re looking for this type of playstyle, this is the guide for you!
Recommended World Tier to start in: Hard
Quantity over quality is the road to success in leveling. Stay at a difficulty level where Elites and Seasonal content pose little threat and can be killed quickly – this nets the most experience. Move up through World Tiers only when you no longer struggle in Helltides and Seasonal content in the next tier.
Check the Leveling Guide Overview for a comparison of Warlock starter builds on Icy Veins.
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Quick Navigation
Allocation of Skill Points
Follow the points allocation order for the complete 83-point build. 14 skill points are locked behind the Season Rank System.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Command FallenDread Claws
Command Ae’grom
Fiend of Abaddon
Nether Step
Sigil of SubversionTo prepare for what happens after level 70, head over to our Warlock Builds page to choose your weapon! If you don’t yet meet the requirements, follow this post-70 progression strategy to push up to Torment II/III while farming gear for your endgame build of choice.
Class Mechanic – Soul Shards
Soul Shards is 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 the
Summon Ae’grom skill, who will fight beside you. His on-use ability allows you to blow lesser demons up for a big surge of damage. - Spawn Fragment – This will make Ae’grom spawn lesser demons consistently for you.
Gear, Stats, Gems and Runes
Always prioritize the highest base damage possible when upgrading your weapon. Attack Speed and Movement Speed are highly valued for this builds progression.
Make sure you keep an eye out for the Legendary Aspects to research through salvaging. An Amulet is recommended for early imprinting important Aspects, since it provides a +50% bonus effect and is replaced less often than weapons. Check out our dedicated in-depth Aspect and Codex of Power guide for more information.
For this build particularly, we’re mostly looking for either 
Aspect of Reanimation or Hellbent Commander Aspect as they scale the damage the best early on.
Imprinting aspects costs 
Veiled Crystal, which is easily acquired in Helltides or from salvaging Rare gear and above. Prioritize salvaging gear for materials and aspects over selling it during leveling.
The table below lists the Legendary Aspects you should be looking for:
| Aspect Name | Legendary Aspect Power | Source |
 Aspect of Might | Basic Skills grant [20 – 30%] Damage Reduction for 4 seconds. | Random Drop |
| Aspect of Heavenly Strength | By wielding a 2h weapon you gain #% damage reduction. | Random Drop |
| Aspect of Calamity | Hex increases your critical strike chance. | Random Drop |
| Aspect of Reanimation | Your Summons gain increased damage while alive, up to x [60 – 90%] after 10 seconds. | Random Drop |
| Hellbent Commander Aspect | Increases the damage dealt by your summons. | Random Drop |
| Blood Boiling Aspect | When your Core Skills Overpower an enemy, you spawn 3 Volatile Blood Drops. Collecting a Volatile Blood Drop causes it to explode, dealing [X] Physical damage around you. Every 20 seconds, your next Skill is guaranteed to Overpower. | Random Drop |
Priority order for Offensive Legendary Aspects on your 2-handed weapon (200% effect) and amulet (150% effect) is listed below:
A general rule of thumb would be to put any sort of movement speed increasing aspect on your amulet to further enhance your progression speed.
Stats Priority and Tempering Affixes
Keep in mind that Tempering Affixes are unlocked by Tempering Manuals you find as you progress. Be sure to check our Tempering guide for more details about this topic.
One of the regular affixes on a gear piece can be re-rolled repeatedly until the desired outcome. This is covered in our Occultist guide for more details.
There are not many modifiers worth bothering with during the leveling stage, but for this particular build, always apply whenever possible:
Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life- Worldly Destruction – Increased Attack Speed temper on your weapons
- Natural Motion – Movement Speed
Generally, you will be looking for the following stats in descending order of priority:
| Slot | Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
| 2H Weapon (Sword) | 1. Weapon Damage 2. x% All Damage Multiplier 3. x% Shadow Damage Multiplier 3. Willpower | Worldly Destruction – Attack Speed Temper |
| Helm | 1. Maximum Life 2. Armor 3. + Wrath Generation | Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life |
| Chest | 1. Maximum Life 2. Armor 3. + Wrath Generation | Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life |
| Gloves | 1. Attack Speed 2. x% Vulnerable Damage Multiplier 3. x% All Damage Multiplier 3. Willpower | Demonologist – Demonology Damage |
| Pants | 1. Maximum Life 2. Armor 3. + Wrath Generation | Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life |
| Boots | 1. Movement Speed 2. Willpower 3. Maximum Life | Natural Motion – Movement Speed |
| Amulet | 1. Movement Speed 2. Attack Speed 3. Willpower | Natural Motion – Movement Speed |
| Rings | 1. Attack Speed 2. 2. x% Vulnerable Damage Multiplier 3. x% All Damage Multiplier 4. Any resistances | Worldly Stability – Resource Generation |
Ae’grom’s Schism – Is a great unique item you can look out for, giving you a 2nd Ae’grom minion on the field!
Sceptre of the Three – When you don’t have an ultimate active, you get a stacking damage buff that resets once you’ve used an ultimate skill. This is a great addition to the build as well.
Gems and Runewords
Generally, we don’t recommend socketing items until level 45+ due to material cost and the fact that you’ll be replacing your gear too frequently, especially weapon.
| Weapon | Armor | Jewelry |
 Skull for increased Physical Damage. |  Runeword and  Sapphire for increased Willpower. | Soul Splinters or  Diamond for All Resistances |
When it comes to Runewords, the most beneficial combinations are:
| Runeword | Priority | Comments |
 Nagu +  Que | Very High | Lets you automatically cast  Earthen Bulwark for barrier generation. |
Nagu +  Jah | High | Replaces your evade skill with a teleport ability instead. |
You get runes back for free when salvaging an item, or a Jeweler can extract them for you.
| Soul Splinter | Slot preference | Effect |
| Splinter of Pain | Avoid | You gain 40% Damage Reduction, but you lose 30% Movement Speed. |
| Splinter of the Black Soulstone | Jewelry | Killing enemies absorbs a soul for 15 seconds. Each soul increases your damage by x5.0% but increases your damage taken by 0.5%. This effect stacks, but does not refresh. |
| Splinter of Hellfire | Leoric’s Crown or worse prioritized Jewelry | You deal x50% increased damage, but lose 100% Critical Strike Chance. |
| Splinter of the Mother | Avoid | You are Unhindered. Touching enemies makes them Vulnerable for 10 seconds. After touching 250 enemies, you are Stunned for 4 seconds. |
| Splinter of Anguish | Jewelry | You gain +35% Attack Speed and Critical Strike Chance, but your Primary Resource Costs are increased by 30%. |
| Splinter of Lies | Leoric’s Crown or worse prioritized Jewelry | You gain 100% increased Gold Drop Rate, Crafting Material Drop Rate, and 25% Bonus Experience, but you are always Weakened and Vulnerable. |
| Splinter of Sin | Avoid | You gain x40% Maximum Life, but your Maximum Primary Resource is reduced by 30%. |
| Splinter of Skarn | Optional | Killing an Elite Pack increases Monster Power by 1 for 25 Seconds |
Seasonal Mechanics
Splinters of Evil
In Season of Hell’s Legacy, one of seasonal powers will consist of the three 
Splinters of Prime Evil, acquired by completing seasonal questline and defeating echoes of Diablo beneath Tristram Cathedral, Baal at Arreat Summit, and Mephisto within the Durance of Hate. Splinter of Evil trigger iconic Prime Evil area of effect damage abilities and alter actitivies associated with the Prime Evil.
Main consideration for first Splinter of Evil choice is expected to be in activity modifiers. Only one Splinter of Prime Evil can be used at a time, but there is a mechanism to change. Due to Helltide being the most common early progression activity, it is recommended to use Splinter of Terror first.
Duplicitous Soul Splinters
The second layer of seasonal powers consists of Duplicitous Soul Splinters gems, like 
Abyssal Splinter of Hellfire, to be slotted into jewelry and the newly introduced 
Leoric’s Crown helm. You can equip up to three 
Soul Splinters among available Jewelry slots.
Duplicitous Soul Splinters gems provide sizeable buffs to some stats at the price of heavy penalties to others. One should be careful at making choices to either ignore the penalty – Damage over Time builds do not care about losing Critical Strike Chance, for example, or compensate it.
Recommended Duplicitous Soul Splinters setup to can be looked up in Gems and Runewords.
Diablo II Runewords Gear
In Season 15 some Diablo II runes, like 
Ral or 
Ith were reintroduced for the season, as the cherry on top. While being not impressive on their own – they can be used to craft new Unique gear piece by combining certain runewords and Normal “white” item base inside Horadric Cube. There are few the most impressive outcomes, like 
Enigma (Jah Ith Ber), 
Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn), 
Grief (Eth Tir Lo Mal Ral) or 
Infinity (Ber Mal Ber Ist). Ancestral version of item base will produce the Ancestral version of Unique.
For a complete overview of the current Season, its mechanics and theme, new leveling activities, and other changes, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.
Talismans
The Lord of Hatred expansion introduces Talismans as a new character progression and itemization layer. Find, equip, and fill a suitable Horadric Seal with a variety of Charms. These grant everything from plain stats similar to any gear piece to powerful set effects, doubling down on and elevating Necromancer archetypes to new heights.
This builds Talisman goalposts would be:
- Horadric Seal with the most Charm Slots possible
- Charms and Seals with valuable affixes, like:
- + 1 Charm Slot
- +% Attack Speed
- +% Movement Speed
- +%[x] Damage
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the main questline in the Vessel of Hatred expansion. Follow this guide on how to acquire each Mercenary and the benefits they provide.
The recommendation for this build is to hire Varyana as soon as possible due to the damage multipliers he brings to the table. Below you’ll find the list of his skills you want to use:
Use the Reinforcement slot to level up all your remaining mercenaries to get 
Pale Marks and all possible caches for extra loot:
- Aldkin: Cast
Haunt when the player uses any skill in combat. - Varyana : Cast
Bloodthirst or 
Shockwave when the player casts any skill in combat. - Subo: Cast
Wire Trap when the player casts any skill in combat.
Build Mechanics
We use Command Fallen to generate a ton of Lesser Demons, this is also emphasized with our Legion Soul Shard Ae’grom, who helps generate Lesser Demons. These Lesser Demons are then used as fuel to make Dread Claws do as much damage as possible. This also enables our Greater Demons to assist us.
On the utility front, we have Nether Step as our main mobility skill.
Rotation and Playstyle
- Sigil of Subversion – Should be used as your opening ability Hexing enemies mainly to get access to the increased movement speed from it.
- Command Fallen – Mainly used to generate Wrath as well as Dominance when needed and to summon Lesser Demons on the field.
- Dread Claws – Use this next to spend your Wrath resource for high damage output.
Tortured Wretch – Your main dominance spender until you unlock your Ultimate at 19.- Fiend of Abaddon – Main dominance spender ability for massive damage output once unlocked.
- Nether Step – Mobility skill for whenever it’s needed.
- Command Ae’grom – Big AoE damage with no cost when exploding your Lesser Demons.
Season Updates
Below you’ll find the most noteworthy changes for Season 15 Hell’s Legacy:
- Dread Claws now a Greater Demon Skill. Base damage and
Ravenous Jaws Eviscerate damage massively buffed. - Ae’grom is now Unhindered by enemies and prioritizes attacking Elites and other high priority targets Nearby.
- Fiend of Abaddon received significant base damage and
Crowd Damage upgrade cap buffs. 
Lesser Demon Bonus reworked. - Fixed bug where casting or moving during Nether Step would break Shadowform’s Stealth.
For a complete overview of the current Season, its mechanics and theme, new leveling activities, and other changes, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.
Changelog
- September 15th, 2026: Guide updated for Season 15.
- June 27th, 2026: Guide updated for Season 14.
- April 27th, 2026: Guide Added.
