Warlock
Cursed Staff Build
There are those of you out there that prefer the dark and deadly effects of the Warlock weapon line. If stacking players up with damage overtime, eating away at their health bars, before watching them explode with the fearsome “death curse” eruption sounds tantalizing to you, then this is probably a build you want to check out.
The curse staff works by building up vile curse stacks on your opponent, if an opponent has four stacks of vile curse on them before death curse’s time is up, they will explode taking incredible amounts of damage. If you really want to get the most of it, try casting death curse, along with your mage cowl and throwing your poison pot, all whilst under the protection of the cleric robe. The combination of all these spells together has allowed players in 4.1 to take down highly geared opponents with ease.
Vile Curse: Vile Curse allows you to quickly stack up a single target with powerful damage over time. This maxes out at four stacks, and can be constantly refreshed from there. In PvE, or vs melee opponents, you may want to choose cursed sickle, to allow you to kite out your opponents, or clear groups of mobs quickly.
Desecrate: Desecrate allows you to stay on top of fleeing opponents, or kite out pursuers. It will also affect any enemies with one stack of vile curse, making it easier to stack up your opponents. You can switch to “Armor Piercer”, a very long range beam attack that will reduce resistances, to really help your Death Curse hit hard, or to make short work of mob packs.
Death Curse: Death Curse, places a curse on your opponent that will detonate after a few seconds. Damage depends on the number of vile curse stacks on the opponent. You can cast this on opponents before, or after your have stacked them up with Vile Curse, but in general its a good idea to make sure your target has at least two stacks of Vile Curse on them before casting this spell.
Equipment abilities
Mage cowl
This cloth cowl simply gives you another damage over time spell, this combined with your already strong damage over time on vile curse can do a lot of damage, very quickly, especially when combined with armor pierce.
Cleric robe
A very strong offensive and defensive utility. You activate the Cleric Robe, and if you take damage within the next 1.5s you become invulnerable, and deal 20% more damage for 3 seconds. This is a great item to avoid burst damage, but if you activate it and use that damage to apply your more powerful spells, it will amplify their effects greatly.
Soldier boots
These boots give you the ability to chase down those players no doubt running in fear, or kite out those brave enough to take you on. You can always switch to rejuvenating sprint or dodge roll in PvE, should you need to survive some of the game’s tougher bosses.
Cape
Standard cape is fine just for the energy regain. If you have the money and want to improve dungeon clear times you can opt to wear a Thetford Cape.
Muisak
One of the mage line offhands, this relatively inexpensive item will increase your damage at the cost of slightly higher mana usage on abilities. This may mean you struggle in longer fights with energy, so pace yourself where needed.
Passives
The Warlock build is all about burst. Maximize your damage with the “aggression” passives on cloth, and take “toughness” on the boots to add some damage mitigation. For the weapon passive, either “hit and run” for some better movement, or “bane” for more auto attack damage.
Beef Stew
With the cursed staff having such high damage, a stew can be a fantastic way to make the most of it. You can always run a cabbage soup in PvE if you are struggling for health regenerations.
Poison potion
A poison potion reduces the resistances of your target, and deals true damage. Throw your poison potion before your E lands to help squeeze the most out of the spell.
Strengths
- Good in PvE
- Very good in PvP
- Very high damage even at low tier
- Easy for new players to learn
- High ping friendly
- Cheap
Counters
- Sustain builds
- Whispering bow
- Warbow