Warlock - Bleed & Life Leech

[wraith sonnet]

Just a build that I've been messing around with lately which came to mind the moment that Ares' Weakness shield was introduced and after a long pause from the game, I finally managed to build something around it (the Ares' Retreat Trance ability), even though I feel that the build is a little bit on the weaker side of things in terms of Defense especially the elemental resistances. Therefore, I would really appreciate any input in terms of gear that I should use instead of the items I currently have equipped. NOTICE; I used the shield on the legendary craftsman and got the Weigthless prefix, there as I am able to equip Agamemnon's Death Mask with the lower STR requirment.

The items that I'm using are the following;

Head Slot - Agamemnon's Death Mask.
In reality I see no Alternative to this item as it gives me 117% increased Bleeding Damage along with increased % Life Leech & Energy Leech.

Torso - Mantle of the Medjai - Very Interesting Item, It doesn't provide much in terms of defense but it has a very unique skill that activates upon attacking the enemy, Blade Storm which throws knives in all directions, If I'm not mistaken these knives benefit from your weapon as the usual Throwing Knives skill from Rogue Mastery would. With those not only do you bleed enemies more but leech the life from them as well. The alternatives that I have in my bags as a means to increase the Vitality resistance or/and Elemental Resistances is the Penumbra Plate and Mantle of Saj'jun allthough I find Penumbra Plate a little bit more useful considering the Vitality Resistance.

Arms - Hungin & Munin - Provides high Bleeding & Piercing Resistances, 40% Attack Speed, % Increased Bleeding Damage, +1 to skills in Rogue Mastery and along with that you get Study Prey cast on enemies any time you attack. Edit; Ruby Eyes is extremely good also, check below.

Legs - Agility of the Forefathers - Great Attacks Speed, Movement Speed along with some low resist in vitality & % increased to STR.

Jewelry - Band of Souls, Star of Elysium & Aphrodite's Favor

Weapon - Longquan - Great Spear which provides Bleeding & the All Needed Life Leech. Now the alternative to the weapon may be some nice legendary swords like the Stymphalian Talon or one of the new EE swords, and In reality those may as well be better. But also, what would be Ideal in my opinion would be one of the MI's like a Troll Sticker with some very nice Affixes one of which would include the Life Leech. Also Impaling prefix would probably be the best.

Shield - Ares' Weakness - Of course as mentioned previously, this item is the main reason I made this build. In critical situations that require high resistances I would probably switch it out with something else like Anexartitos or Aionios.

Artefact - Blood of Ares - I find this one to be the best since it increases % Bleeding Damage, and of course not to mention the attack speed along with the AS completition bonus. Since the build can be very fragile, I would equip Apples of Idun to increase the vitality resistance if needed.

So basically, the playstyle is very simple, as you attack enemies even once with your weapon, they will start to take a lot of bleeding damage, & life leech along with that, and fairly quickly fall to their deaths. As the enemies attack you you would retaliate the bleeding damage which would also result in quick deaths.

One more thing that It is worth to mentioned is the mana efficiency. As we have the Dark Covenant skills, I strongly suggest it being used every time when it comes of cooldown as by then (in my experience) you would have very little mana or none (maybe around 40). As you activate this skill your mana will quickly recover and the pool will be ready for the next usage of the skill. Also, don't forget about the Band of Souls ring, as it provides Energy Leech retaliation, if you play your cards smart you can leech the energy from your enemies (especially in EE) leaving you free to use the other skills.

[nimble plover]

an alternative to arms Id recommend if u can handle it is The Ruby Eyes. Tons of leech and bleed, it really enables my warlock of the same sort! 😄 Only AS and + to skills is a problem here though. It opens a Phonoi for me for a big +% boost to life leech, especially with base phonoi and Of Devouring suffix on it that I got (still looking for one with Tyrants prefix as well :/)

I also use Throwing Knives as a transfer skill to boot with the Ruby Eyes

[wraith sonnet]

Ahh yes.. The Ruby eyes look very nice and I would absolutely try them. The problem is, they are an item from Atlantis, and extremely Rare, so the reason I never mentioned them is because I never really seen them ....

Yea the Attack Speed wouldnt be that big of a problem, maybe +1 to skills aswell, as the idea of this build is to practically attack the enemies once or twice and thats it... they just fall down dead from all the bleed and lifeleech

[wraith sonnet]

Do throwing knives from Mantle of the Medjai work the same, as in the utilize they weapon that youre using or ruby eyes in your case?

Thats the only thing that Im not very sure about 100% ...

[nimble plover]

yes they do!

drops on epic atlantis, and its not too rare imo (like dagger of dawn)

[wraith sonnet]

Hmmmm

It seems that I would have to buy a ton of Epic Atlantis Orbs 😄

[wraith sonnet]

Update; After Some Testing the Ruby Eyes (Arms) seem to be extraordinary good, the added Life Leech on them is so high that if a for example blade storm from the torso proc inside the pack of enemies, you will leech their life so fast that youre practically unkillable, not to mention the retaliation of life leech from Band of Souls ring. I wouldn't at any cost dismiss Hungin and Munin since I would swap out for them when facing Undead enemies or Construct/Devices, since the added attack on them and study prey in addition to all is just too good to pass on.

[nimble plover]

thing is- you shouldnt need help with either of those. Constructs/Devices and u got rogue for that, Undead u got spirit for. It's PERFECT! 😄

[wraith sonnet]

True True, But with Study Prey & 40% AS from Hungin & Munin, you just take them down a little bit more faster, and not to mention the % Piercing resist along with higher armor... Those skeleton Archers can hurt

[wraith sonnet]

A little bit of an update on this build on whoever is checking it since I finished everything in the legendary Difficulty with it; As I understood how the effects works, the stacking and all of that with the help of some community members, the weapon that I switched to was Winds of Asphodel, since it doesnt requires OA (thrown weapon) and it gives some nice Life Leech numbers as well as reduced resistances on the target, making them more susceptible to bleeding, poison and life leech, therefore the arms are also switched with Ruby Eyes since they provide amazing Life Leech and Bleeding Damage (allthough the bleed is useless since it doesnt stack with Ares' Retreat). Everything else in terms of gear is the same. Some alternatives to weapons could be Amber Herald spear for example or any other MI or green that provides Life Leech and the boost to it. The live enemies were of course no match for this build except for the Mages that appear in mid and late Ragnarok and EE, those hurt very much since the elemental resistances are basically -50%. By attacking the enemies you apply Life Leech with one hit along with the Bleed from the trance, and everything around you falls down to death with your HP on 100%, times when I used healing potions were only those when I was against the Undead and the very dangerous Elemental Mages, Energy Potions are literally not needed since you will always retaliate the Energy Lech with Band of Souls if you play it smart. BTW dealing with the Undead is an ABSOLUTE bore, same goes for constructs, therefore I just ran thru the Mimir's maze and was done with it.

When bosses are concerned, Every boss in the game except for Fafnir & Nidhoggr are very easy to deal with. Ten Suns also gave me some problems, but if you switch to elemental resist gear there or use the scroll for elemental shielding you should be fine since you can Life Leech them. Fafnir I would avoid completely since he is absolutely immune to Life Leech & Bleed, His resists are so high up It took me literally 5 minutes to kill him, being on top of him with Apples of Idun Artefact just for safety. Same goes for Niddhogr, allthough this one is much less dangerous than Fafnir.
So basically in a nutshell; As long as you attack the enemies once, you will apply great amount of Life Leech (along with the bleed from the trance) and they will fall down around you in a second. Same goes for bosses since Large Majority of them are not immune to Life Leech (I actually think none of the are immune except for Talos (Construct) Fafnir (Demon) & Nidhoggr (Undead if im not misatken )) you just keep attacking them and you will be at 100% HP as they just get Life Leeched to death.

If we exclude the boring undead and constructs I had a ton of fun playing this build, I loved watching the enemies just fall around me or behind me to death as I was just running past. Of course its by no means a hardcore build or a build that can clear the content with all the electrum shrines activated, nor do I believe it will be very good in the new End - game dungeons, but as far as the Main game is concerned its just so much fun. I sincerely hope that whoever wants to try this build enjoys it as much as I did, and use this little knowledge shared to improve upon it

[nimble plover]

Fafnir is an absolute cheese- he has undead resists (hence u cant leech/bleed him) but he isnt undead :/ Talos should be relatively easy since he's a construct and while he did get appropriate resists recently, he purposefully is still weak to bleed so you should be able to bleed him easily- especially with that rogue passive, no construct/trap should be dangerous to you. same with undead, although they might be tedious since Winds of the Asphodel dont have much physical damage. Nidhoggr is Magical so he shouldnt have those immunities (much like fafnir) but I dont recall if he does or doesnt. You should need to kill him only once so you're fine.

[nimble plover]

@final vector aight Im here now- u mentioned swords right? For attributes that'd be 1:1 str/dex for a good while until you think you're fine on strength for requirements, and afterwards all in on dex

[final vector]

Okay, so no int at all? And yes, I was thinking mostly swords probably, best attack speed. Maybe some throwing weapon on the side, but on the other hand I'd kinda prefer to go for the 'Throwing Knife' skill once more instead, iirc that one also deals some bleeding damage?

[nimble plover]

ye no int at all. Life Drain btw doesnt even need int/+%vit dmg boosts to be strong thanks to that atlantis upgrade and you being melee with deathchill aura

Swords are good cuz of the base stats as you noticed, but as far as I've seen there's a few axes that are also quite bonkers for bleed 😄

also your DoT doesnt stack with itself- only refreshes the duration (for example Envenomed Weapon lvl 1), so attack speed isnt that key as far as I can tell

u can stack envenomed weapon with a poison weapon + relic on that weapon and so on, but that total amount of DoT will then only refresh itself on each hit you land

Throwing Knife is an interesting skill as it transfers all of your on-hit effects from all of your gear and buffs EXCEPT weapons/shields- so it effectively acts as your weapon. And it deals base bleed dmg, but it can proc Open Wound skill for example (if u wear axe/sword/spear/bow/thrown) and it will transfer your Envenomed Weapon effect, so that's quite fun

[final vector]

Wow, lots of great advice here, thanks a lot, I'll surely give that class a try now^^

[wraith sonnet]

So basically, you really dont want to invest into intelligence, only str and dex, dexterity mostly as you will get very good scalling with bleed and poison as primary sources of damage along with life leech but life leech scales with level. As far as the weapons go, the reason I went for a throwing weapon, winds of asphodel in this case as it doesnt require OA and it reduces enemies resistances making them more susceptible to your bleed, poison and life leech

If you go for a meele weapon you might find yourself to miss since the OA is low wirh this build and you will eventually start to miss enemies as your progress to higher acts, although it doesnt rrally matter considering one or two hits are enough and dots will do the rest, as i previously mentioned, go for a weapon that provides poison or/and lifeleech , amber herald for example. The reason I never went for throwing knives is because I used Mantle of the Medjai which constantly procced since the trance Ares Retreat counts as an attack, therefore I find the whole throwing knives skill tree useless

[final vector]

Yeah thanks, I'm not really worrying too much about lategame gear and such just yet, basically a rookie who just recently came back to the game. My most 'advanced' character right now is my assassin who just finished act 2 on normal (and even when I was playing way back in the days where there was only TQ + IT my best hero was somewhere mid-epic).
Another thing: you think a build like this might also be viable for mobile? There it's a bit more tricky then on PC to just click-click-click through the enemies real quick and it seems such a class might do that a lot?

[wraith sonnet]

Ahhh I see, well if you aim to start with this build from zero, I suggest you take it easy on the very start and pick rogue mastery as the first one, focus more on defenses, pierce and physical, with skill investments primarily in the tree level frist then the actual skills, especially skills like the Deathchill Aura, Life Drain for healing, and in rogue calculated strike with Open Wounds and anatomy. As for Mobile, I really dont know the answer to that question as I have never played TQ on mobile and I never will, but I suppose that its possible since there arent many actual buttons to press apart from activating the buffs when you load in

[nimble plover]

viable for sure since u got rogue to deal with constructs and spirit for undead- 2 of the things that are completely immune to bleed/life leech

I'd only say go for a different start, open wound is really bad unless u got god tier attack speed (or focus spamming knives), I'd say envenomed weapon + poison gas bomb is an easier start to level with, while calculated strike is always good

[wraith sonnet]

On legendary difficulty, areas that are heavy with constructs or/and undead are just to be skipped. Mimers maze, that terracota place in EE, that comes to mind first

Its a waste of time

[nimble plover]

depends on how much of pierce or phys u got

Constructs are very easy with rogue, you deal like +240% dmg to them lel, and take 80% less dmg from them.
Undead though, poison could be a valuable thing thanks to Spirit Ward+Bane, but ghosts I agree entirely skip that

[wraith sonnet]

Well I invested only a single point in Disable Traps or whatever its called, maybe its that, Ghost are actually not that bad, you kill them with Drain Life skill from the Spirit mastery

[nimble plover]

yep its disable traps that deals with em

[wraith sonnet]

I often forget the correct names 😅, in anycase I still strongly suggest skipping heavy undead areas and that, otherwise, build is a lot of fun

[nimble plover]

and these 2?

u pop this thing on when u fight undead and they are mostly harmless + you deal obscene damage to em 😄

even poison which is weak against undead will do good damage to em with this. And u still have some phys which can kiiiinda be okay with rogue even without mass str investment

[wraith sonnet]

Yea, those two I maxed out, but since the physical damage and pierce is not very great with this build, Undead enemies in later acts still do take a lot of time to take down. When you get used to literally killing all alive enemies in a seconds and encounter undead, Believe me, it becomes very boring to deal with them. Undead Ward maxed out is mandatory of course, Since it greatly reduces the damage you take, especially useful against the undead casters/mages. I mean look at Winds of Asphodel base damage, its weak, lets not kid ourselves, it doesnt hurt undead very well

[nimble plover]

ye I know, I have the same issue. Takes like 2 hits but it's still not the worst thing in the world. And life drain can still do something depending on which undead you fight + if u're in melee on them, so its not the end of the world. Also with Calculated strike, u can get the big hit on many undead so they should still die relatively fast

[final vector]

Yeah, I guess undead might be nicely covered with that skill, I'm mainly worried about ghosts I guess 🤣

[nimble plover]

ye I'd say skip em, or use the atlantis upgrade to life drain for em. Either works

[wraith sonnet]

Yea thats right, Life Drain is very usefull against zombies and some certain Undead enemies, but i dont know them by name, only by the look from playing the game a lot

[wraith sonnet]

Life drain in meele range, they die in one cast. You have to have the lvl 40 skill tho of course (from way up there in the spirit mastery)

[nimble plover]

ye same. Zombies and mummies are great even with the drain

[final vector]

Thinking more about stuff like that ghost mage boss guy late in act 1 (I think you can't skip that one), not too worried about regular mobs. Was it Alastor?

[nimble plover]

oh yes alastor is cancer on normal for any non-elemental char

for him u need to get a fast throwing weapon with Prometheus flame on it and pray you got enough fire dmg to beat him and thats it

[mystic crater]

long* not cancer

[nimble plover]

any additional ele dmg u get is good but this is the bare minimum

[wraith sonnet]

Well on lvl 70 Legendary I had no problems with him, but I think that he can be a pain in the ass on normal and epic, thats why I suggest investing in Str first, physical damage and pierce, Id go for Spears myself

[mystic crater]

Although he probably had

[nimble plover]

until he equips a life leeching staff or something 😂

[final vector]

Lol okay yeah, guess I'll just keep some strong (ranged) weapon with a lot of elemental damage around then^^

[final vector]

Maybe he even had it for long...

[wraith sonnet]

If you drop some nice Blue Spear or something like that with high damage and some additional damage (elemental preferably ) keep it for that one

[final vector]

Okay yes, I actually found one rather nice spear like that already 👍

[wraith sonnet]

Thats great then, I think you wont have problems with that boss then

@mystic crater Is it maybe possible to add a Life Leech Tag on this particular build, since that shares the #1 damage place with bleeding ?

[mystic crater]

Discord allows 20 tags per forum channel.
11 for the masteries
8 for the main damage/resistance
1 for "pinned"

I can't add it 😦

[final vector]

Yup, think I'm also gonna keep some big ass mace or something like that around for a while for undead until I get that anti-undead skill maxed...

[wraith sonnet]

Ohhhh Ok then, I really didnt know that I am sorry...... Hopefully they increase that number in the future

[wraith sonnet]

If you find a nice Axe, keep that instead of an mace, since axes work with blade honing.... but I guess maces arent that bad when I think about it, Calculated strike works with everything (Except Staves I think 🤔 )

[final vector]

Might work too probably, though I haven't really been too lucky with finding axes yet (only some weird anti-plant thing^^). Gotta admit I rarely ever even have secondary weapon sets on my heroes, but a guy like this might possibly have some use for it...

[wraith sonnet]

On lower difficulties definitely, especially on normal lower acts, where you arent at that breaktrough point yet. But as you progress further into epic and legendary you wont need a weapon swap, I never used one myself, since the Trance from Ares' Weakness gets cancelled of course when you swap the weapon sets

[final vector]

Actually that makes the build even more interesting to me right now, might make the game a bit more dynamic having to choose between different tools for different tasks. Like I said, never really worried too much about stuff like secondary weapons before, might be interesting^^

[wraith sonnet]

Yea for sure, it can spice things up, good luck trying the build and i hope.you have as much fun as i did

[mystic crater]

If they do I will add it

[final vector]

Yeah thank you, let's see how it goes 😁

[vapid hemlock]

ok

[nimble plover]

@vapid hemlock Kunlun is pretty decent

[vapid hemlock]

didnt know it excisted

xD

[nimble plover]

I love its OA boost and total speed, proooobably not the best but still decent

[vapid hemlock]

i mean

[nimble plover]

I like the +%phys boost especially for when you need it on things that are immune to bleed/leech

[vapid hemlock]

i didnt mind much the atk spd snce i all i do is bleed

[nimble plover]

Yeah exactly, that's how Ruby Eyes works out 😄

[vapid hemlock]

so u say go farm ladon epic?

or epic orbs?

[nimble plover]

For a bleed build I think star of Ishtar is the most optimal cuz of the %dex which is usually hard and annoying to get- but if you need other stats then you got better stuff

[nimble plover]

Both- farm a boss to get money and then splurge on orbs

[vapid hemlock]

gimme a sec

ill tell u why i cant get ishtar

[nimble plover]

Jade Idol as one of the components I assume? 😄

[vapid hemlock]

right now "FROM VANILLA TO RAGNAROK" i got

morpheus

isis..

hephaestus

jade emperor

kunlun

taranis

apollo

[nimble plover]

dont worry you dont need to go 1 by 1 🤣

[vapid hemlock]

thoth glory

yeah

the ones i miss are

[nimble plover]

whichever you can use is good to have. And if you get Adroit + a piece of argonauts you already got most of Ishtars boost anyway

[vapid hemlock]

poseidon , ares , sun wukong , zeus , bast , ishtar

and the reason is...

no lionheart

dont know where it drops

lionheart , hand of gaia , effigy of skyfire

i need those made

[nimble plover]

Epic difficulty for all of those btw

[vapid hemlock]

epic orbs?

xD

[nimble plover]

But anyway- farming epic for atlantis + adroit will help you

[nimble plover]

Should be droppable yeah

[vapid hemlock]

adroit?

[nimble plover]

the blue ring with +%dex and +%OA/DA

[vapid hemlock]

and for weapon the one u told me about in EE?

[nimble plover]

That or a well rolled Trolls Sticker would be my picks yes

[vapid hemlock]

all the EE uniques i got which are like 4 iirc all of them i got them from random chest

because all bosses on the way were a joke

for chest

u say stick to the one i got?

[nimble plover]

if you need + to skills I'd say Alexander is very easy for that, and 50% bleed DoT duration reduction lets you basically ignore bleed res

[vapid hemlock]

i got alexander

[nimble plover]

because the way that works is- if you get hit for 3k bleed over 3 seconds, and have 50% duration reduction, it's actually 1500 dmg over 1.5s.
so any bleed res over that just works much much better (or you ignore it lol)

you'll want to cycle out a bunch of gear to see how it works

Like swap both rings for Tanit + something else, ditch the amulet for something?, shield too, Arms + legs first and foremost, and then see from there

[vapid hemlock]

hey

got shark fin from epic orb

also

what would be another way to build a warlock

[nimble plover]

vit+bleed staff build with Fafnirs Heart, or with Trolls Branch for just bleed with ternion

could also be just a poison rogue char with easy undead support

[vapid hemlock]

got fafnir

but i felt WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY squishier

than using the spear and shield

[nimble plover]

yeah cuz shield is good and max dex = easy DA for melee defense

fafnir you'd probably also go max dex though, and just slap things. But you need int to wear it too, so either some weightless items or Tanit

[vapid hemlock]

if max dex i lose the head

thats not anubis mask

its literaly the head

head too heavy

need 650 str

[nimble plover]

that too- you need some str boosts to wear it in the first place

[vapid hemlock]

got lionheart

🙂

for neck?

i use aphrodite because +2 skills and ele poi and pierc res

[nimble plover]

yeah well it depends on the rest- if you just swap out arms/legs you can keep most of your stuff, but if you swap a bit more then you start shifting everything around

Aphrodite is very annoying but DoT builds dont mind since things die while MCed, and the health and + to skills and res are awesome

for myself I'm using a "Dreadful of the Guile" amulet which was a crazy lucky drop so I dont think if I can recommend that to everyone 🤣

[vapid hemlock]

what is that amulet?

[nimble plover]

These affixes on a shop talisman essentially

these affixes have high jitter and on an amulet with %scaling they can go pretty damn high

[vapid hemlock]

oh

[nimble plover]

this also leaves me a much more glassier char than usual

I'd use stuff like Torc of the Ancestors for vit+bleed+pierce res, + 1 to all skills and a bit of total dmg for example

[vapid hemlock]

torch of the ancestors

[nimble plover]

torc- act5 L amulet

[vapid hemlock]

nope dont own it

[vapid hemlock]

OH

yeaaah i dont own it xD

i got

however two amulets that look like that one

one is from that set

and the other gives block chance

[subtle hatch]

Instead of a spear could u change it out with a Sudis

[shadow jungle]

@nimble plover where at in act 5 does it drop I need to get me one

[nimble plover]

does what drop?

[shadow jungle]

@nimble plover the amulet torc or what ever

[nimble plover]

ah, any act 5 boss should be dropping it just fine- you can see for yourself on TQDB.
Also Legendary Scandian electrum orbs can drop it too

[edgy egret]

doesn't look like a guide to me

[mystic crater]

Because this isn't supposed to be a guide section. Ask your questions if you have some about that build.
The goal is to not loose discussions for future interested people

[edgy egret]

np

[eternal zinc]

picked up a blood oaath today and this build is so much fun, cant wait to get better pieces

[eternal zinc]

@nimble plover is going for bandit kings treasure worth it or are there better amulets in slot

[fallen prawn]

Hey, how do we distribute stat points, please?

Can I do 5DEX/1STR?