u/Diligent_Function_87

Hello,
I played Diablo 1 for many, many years, but I never got around to playing Diablo 2 until recently, when this expansion with the Warlock was on sale. I bought it and decided to fully commit to it without reading any tutorials, and I’ve made it all the way to the endgame. I’ve found some good items, and I’m really enjoying the game. It’s a great sequel to Diablo 1. The only thing I would criticize is that it no longer has that medieval horror atmosphere and feels more like dark fantasy.

What’s bothering me is that I can’t seem to find any Skill Books anywhere to learn new abilities. I picked Warlock because I saw it has the same spells as the Sorcerer in Diablo 1: Apocalypse, Flame Wave, and so on. But when I open the spellbook, everything is greyed out and I can’t cast any spells, even though I have 110 skill points it seems like they are for nothing.

The Warlock doesn’t feel like a Wizard at all, but more like a Warrior from Diablo 1. I found this sword that gives me one spell that lets me attack using copies of my weapon, and that’s basically how I’ve been playing.

Players 1 difficulty is no problem for me at all, but as you can see in the video, Players 8 is going pretty slowly. I have a feeling that with this kind of gear, I should be much more efficient and faster.

Where can I find Skill Books, and how do I learn abilities like Apocalypse, Flame Wave, and Ring of Fire? I feel like I’m missing a part of the game.

EDIT: tnx everyone, I figured out how to do it. Before you all start laughing to stupid old man I just want to say that im no fool, I just had so much respect for this game that it never crossed my mind they would give you all the spells in the game for free, just because you leveled up. That is such terrible game design , made for modern lazy generation who just want everything to be gifted to them so they can just kill everything for free. Back then you had to find your spell and fight for it, and once you got it and want to level it up guess what? You had to find ANOTHER spell book to increase spell level. I will go back to Diablo 1.

Pure Summoner Warlock. First Ubers and then P8 Baal run.

The strategy is to bind an Act 5 Terror Zone Lancer, which naturally has 33% PDR, 50% fire resist, and immunity to lightning. With maxed Bloodoath, Stoneskin affix, Engorge bonus, and Tainted Fire Aura, it becomes immune to lightning, immune to fire, and almost immune to physical damage (99% PDR). It also works with a Mauler from the Durance of Hate.

The Warlock uses Dreadfang as a weapon, which provides a bonus to Mirrored Blades that he uses to instantly apply curse.

There is also a budget version of the same build with no skillers, sunder charm, or runewords in this thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo_2_Resurrected/comments/1t56a2s/nerfed_pure_summoner_warlock_ptr_without_skillers/

EDIT: If you think this is only viable because summon Tainted is busted on PTR here is a players8 Chaos Sanctuary run, same build but with 2 defilers and no tainted: https://youtu.be/qALNhRHR098

Pure summoner warlock after the nerf, with no fancy items and no special demon. I used a regular A5 lancer (white mob), rerolling TZ until I got Stone Skin, then binding several mobs until I obtained Fanaticism (no curse on the demon).

All skill points were invested into the demon tree, with minimal investment in Sigil Lethargy. This build assumes the player has no access to skiller charms, resistance charms, or high-end runewords (so no Enigma, Infinity, Pride, etc.), and no Sunder charms either.

The mercenary uses a non-ethereal Reaper’s Toll with a Shael rune. The warlock uses a Dreadfang sword with the full Horizon set, which provides instant curse application along with a bonus to Mirrored Blades.

Bound demon is immortal. Dark lancer naturally have 33% PDR and immune to lighting. With stoneskin affix, bonus from bloodoath and Tainted fire aura that is: Immune to lightning, Immune to fire and 99% physical damage resist ( natural 33+stoneskin 50+bloodoath 11+ engorge 5). Only place in the game where you have to be careful is Lillith fight but she wont die instantly you will have time to react and there will be corpses around to engorge. She does not have curse but thats why you carry Dreadfang.

I think the build works really well, and it has the potential to become much stronger with a unique demon with the right affixes and proper endgame gear.

EDIT: same test, same build but demon is regular white Urdar mob from TZ river of flame with stoneskin/fanaticism: https://youtu.be/HLXPF4wBTJ4

Found a way for a pure Warlock summoner with a bound demon to work after nerfs. It is actually surprisingly good. The build maxes out Demonic Mastery, Blood Oath, Bind Demon, Bloodboil, and Summon Tainted.

The army setup is 1 Tainted and 1 Defiler, and for the bound demon you pick an Act 5 cursed/holy freeze/stone skin lancer. The merc needs Infinity, and the Warlock uses the Beast runeword. Act 5 lancers naturally have 33% physical resist and are immune to lightning. With the Stone Skin affix, that becomes 83% physical resist, and Tainted increases fire resist with its aura. Combined with +all resist from BloodOath skill she is practically immortal in all circumstances.

With Holy Freeze, the curse will proc reliably whenever you are dealing with multiple enemies, so your bound demon with Defiler out will quickly clear everything immune to fire, and 1 Tainted + Defiler will easily clear everything else even on P8. For act bosses, you just pull out 2x Tainted instead of Defiler and you don’t care if curse does not proc. For everything else, use 1 Defiler + 1 Tainted. Build does not require any sunder charms or gear swaping.

Because you have Beast and can shapeshift into bear form, you can assist with basic attacks on Ubers to proc a chance of Open Wounds, but that is not required, it merely speeds up the kill.

Here is a video, first doing Ubers, then clearing P8 Worldstone Keep and killing Baal. No sunder charms are used.

I believe this is the best way to build pure summoner warlock post PTR if nothing changes.

EDIT:
Some people here complained that I was doing this with elite endgame items, so I wanted to be fair and run the same test again, this time with more realistic endgame equipment. I removed Infinity, Shako, Enigma, all skill and resist charms from the inventory, and the Ars Tor Baalos offhand. I replaced them with the full Horizon set, and the mercenary now uses a non-ethereal “Shael” Reaper’s Toll. So, overall, it’s very basic endgame gear, nothing too crazy.

I did have to help a bit with basic attacks to apply the chance of Open Wounds, but there were no major issues. The build is viable with non elite (though still endgame) equipment.

Here is the video:
https://youtu.be/NmXYMaq01pI

EDIT2:
I ran another test under the assumption that I couldn’t find a specific cursed/holy freeze/stone skin demon. My solution was to reroll the Terror Zone until I got the “Stone Skin” affix, then keep binding regular white lancer mobs until I found one with a Fanaticism aura. The Warlock equips Dreadfang, which provides mirrored blades and instant curse application. As you can see, it works really well:
https://youtu.be/PqEqlR0JBx0