It took 25 years for Diablo 2 to get a new class, and less than 2 weeks for players to figure out how to become invincible Warlocks with demon meat shields
And all it takes is two spells
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To mark the 30th anniversary of the series, and 35th anniversary of the company, Blizzard's put out a new expansion for Diablo 2, called Reign of the Warlock. The central feature is a fresh character class - the first in 25 years - the Warlock, who deals in summoning magic, and a huge exploit using it has been uncovered.
Among the Warlock's characteristics are a pair of skills, Bind Demon and Blood Oath, that prove to be pretty useful when combined. Like 'making you more or less untouchable' levels of useful. Diablo YouTuber Coooley managed to find a way of deploying them that essentially turns you immortal, as demonstrated at the start of his video explaining it by his character standing in the middle of three Prime Evils raising hellfire.
He explains that he "initially theorycrafted some wild ways" to test just how much pain a Warlock could tolerate and absorb under the right circumstances, he "was way overthinking it." It starts with Bind Demon, where you can capture almost any enemy and make them your personal meatsack to do whatever you say.
Then comes Blood Oath, which turns a pet demon into a sponge for damage inflicted upon you. Essentially, they let you make your own living armor, and the key to maximizing this lies in Blood Oath's stats. At first, the percentage of how much of your HP your demon can take is miniscule, but you can buff it up to 99%.
Ergo, your puppet will take almost all of the suffering meant for you. There are caveats, in that Coooley found 89% of Blood Oath to be a sweet spot, complemented by certain equipment to handle the 11% you wind up taking. Then, you have the question of what demon to enslave.
Your instinct might be to go for something like an Oblivion Knight, but Coooley finds it's even simpler: anything that's immune to most types of damage. He literally captures a Champion Pit Lord in the Furnace of Pain who does nicely.
It makes the endgame battles using the Warlock slower, but still wholly satisfying. Since it took less than a fortnight to get here, who knows where we'll end up next.
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Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.
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