Warlock Dissolution Impale Reap Champion - content compilation

PoB: https://pobb.in/eK0GthXVFTli

Ninja: https://poe.ninja/builds/affliction/character/kaevix/kaevix

Timestamps:

• 0:00 Uber Sirus

• 1:35 Alched Uber Eater

• 2:10 Alched Uber Exarch

• 3:56 Uber Maven

• 6:26 Maven-witnessed max roll Uber Replica Cortex

• 8:28 Maven-witnessed Uber Uber Elder

• 10:56 Maven-witnessed Uber Shaper

• 14:09 Flawless Chayula

• 15:41 Random Feared with no leech and less recovery for demonstration purposes

Disclaimer: This is not a guide. Due to not only the cost but also the difficulty in crafting the items required to play this build, I cannot recommend this in good faith to anyone. Try it at your own risk.

Warlock wasn't getting a lot of love, so I decided to give it a shot since it's not gonna stay past this league (or so I predict). I've received quite a lot of PMs ingame from people who want to see how the build plays out in maps and against bosses, so I made a full gameplay compilation. Here's a rundown of the build.

To fully leverage Warlock's benefit, ideally you want:

• physical base skill for Cannibalised Faith (converted or not doesn't matter too much, since you can fully convert the added damage anyway)

• life stacker of some sort (Dissolution is optional)

• optional: has an inbuilt cost multiplier (Reap's Blood Charges)

While you can certainly play stronger skills like Penance Brand, I decided to just stick to Reap. Gucci's been lamenting about how his gloves aren't really used much, and I think they're seriously underrated so I decided to stick with pure phys + impale. Also wanted to try a Dissolution build as I'd never played it before. Conveniently, the new Adorned jewel is pretty good for this build. Here are my observations thus far.

Pros:

• very good at tanking one-shots due to the sheer amount of life; with Lethe Shade and poison/bleed removal/immunity, DoTs seriously aren't a problem unlike what most people say is an issue with Dissolution

• provides quite a hefty multiplier to scale Rathpith Globe

• do every single map mod (Pantheon for burning ground, TWWT for reflect immunity, less recovery is slightly annoying)

Cons:

• active playstyle; you have to watch your reservation closely

• high density content is very difficult as you don't have the space or opportunity to let the reservation drop off - think Simulacrum

• can be quite tricky to manage life cost and life loss from Petrified Blood + Progenesis when Eternal Youth recharge stops; I solved this with overleech and instant leech, and if there was a way to get Vaal Pact without losing too much I would take it

Neutral

• due to reservation limits, you can only use one major aura outside of your Blessing. Fortunately, Zealotry isn't needed to get high crit and Determination isn't necessary as we have phys taken as. Also you don't need to keep Blessing up as Eternal Blessing is permanent, and you have extra gem sockets to run Exsanguinate for clear at all times.

Hopefully the video shows the build's strengths and weaknesses. It's observable that frequent and persistent damage is a real issue for the build (e.g. Cortex add phase, Exarch ball phase), but making a few mistakes here and there is perfectly recoverable (my terrible gameplay seemed to work out in the end).

This is by no means a build that makes efficient use of currency. I just wanted to try out Warlock and I'm quite happy with how the build played out as an all-rounder. Thanks to coolwhit and Edea who funded this entire build, Ed and imre for improving the build!