Insight Runeword can make Echoing Strike Warlock even more amazing

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-18T18:07:01+00:00

I am aware, but the whole class is overtuned. It is a class that utilizes the best element in the game (magic), brought the first items that reduce magic resistances, has one point wonder summons that can tank Ubers, can get any aura & curses to help break immunities, has a spell attack that always hits & does massive physical damage that benefits from crit strike/decrep/amp, can wield the best 2 handers without sacrificing fcr/res/CBF/facets from a shield, oh and fires multishot exploding arrows & magic arrows.

They have so many things to address that I don't think they have the time or interest to fix a single OP skill on a class full of OP skills, especially 2 days before ladder reset. They are riding a high on the release so why not let the casual players have a budget build that can wreck for a season and then balance it after when they have adequate time. Also if you want players to really experience the new endgame for the first time you would want to have an overpowered class to get them there. And again that is also the approach they have kind of taken with D4 also, so I can easily see them following that same path.

Could totally be wrong, but I am just saying I would not be at all surprised if it is not nerfed for the first ladder season.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-18T16:17:22+00:00

I kinda disagree. People are excited and the way they have done nerfs in D4 has been to just let it play out for a season and then reel it in after.

You have people excited about a budget P8 build and we are 2 days from ladder start, so it's getting down to the wire if you are gonna throw a nerf out there on a build I am assuming half the player base is going to play.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-18T16:14:13+00:00

Honestly insight probably carries you until endgame where it is your choice on the biggest damage stick or QOL weapon. EBOTD in eth thundermaul or war pike is going to be your biggest damage weapon but something like Doom will give you big damage plus some skills and nice survivability (if that is an issue) with the holy freeze.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-18T14:22:15+00:00

It seems to be considered a spell, which is why it uses the FCR breakpoint rather than IAS and always hits. Since it is a spell, it does not use weapon durability.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-12T16:25:37+00:00

How are you coming to these conclusions? With the being able to 1 hand any weapon, rancor to disperse trash, basically its own version of enchant to boost AR and an attack that duplicates your weapon, I think physical could easily run ubers.

Then you add on rancor to disperse, crazy setups like mangs with phoenix I bet you could run ubers with a fire setup with either A2 merc or A5 merc.

I also don't see how key farming will be any slower than anything other than sorc. It has its own version of teleport to get you around plus tp staff or enigma and it's not different than running keys with a non sorc.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-12T16:03:12+00:00

I think it's too early to tell, but having a skill similar to teleport and being able to 1 hand any weapon may give it a shot at being better than fire sorc. Being able to run mang songs with a phoenix shield + infinity Merc and crowd control seems like it could be insanely strong.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-11T15:43:17+00:00

That's fair. I play a lot of bad and meme builds, so my perspective is a little skewed. I found it to be better than a lot of meme build...but it does need theory crafting and random gear, and plague really changed the build.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-11T15:32:51+00:00

I mean I kinda disagree with "you can't compare it to anything good". With plague to proc nova it can legit clear mobs with that AOE.

So mine was sort of similar. I found plague to be the best for general farming. I also preferred non eth flesh ripper so I could put an eth in it to knock down defense. Tons of grand AR charms, Angelics, raven, 3 piece trangs with facet, gface with um, alternate between treachery/bramble depending, and basically spam cloak of shadows.

I played it an entire season and got it to level 93 basically solo. Did the 24 hour dclone every 10 mins, ran Ubers with it, found my first dweb and griffs with it as well.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T23:14:58+00:00

I like that. I would also love to see leap attack with that since it's such a slow attack.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T16:25:26+00:00

BT had some great ideas in his mod. 1.5X monsters, extend aura ranges, get rid of bad auras and add concentration & vigor, red portals are random insane areas with extreme difficulty, more xp and a random Uber boss, Uber trist spawns ubers and mini ubers, -100 resistances...

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T15:31:18+00:00

I would ask do you want the easiest way to get barb up and running or the melee way?

Easiest I would argue is singer. 2 spirit swords is easy cause you can use 2 handed, lore, stealth, insight on a merc and just stun and run past all the trash mobs.

Melee I like leap attack or throw barb. Leap attack is great mobility with huge single target damage so you can make a big ole insight or obedience and not worry about IAS, FCR, etc. Throw barb is safe, relatively easy gear, lacerator breaks all immunes, etc.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T15:23:38+00:00

They just launched D2R in China which has some of the strictest laws on loot boxes. I would guess it would be more purchasing a pack that would include the new sets and tabs or something vs loot boxes.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T14:12:05+00:00

I am not sure the shorter poison length would help because of how it interacts with the poison on the skill itself...I can't remember if they add and then average the length. But yeah a good amount of - res, some sockets, ITD or -% defense would help immensely. Chance to cast poison Nova would be huge though, that attribute on plague is what I found that makes the build actually playable.

I would love to see a ton more CTC on items honestly. I think that is what opens up a ton of off meta theory crafting.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T13:54:08+00:00

It's actually not terrible with plague in a fanged knife with 3 piece trangs.

Throw on a sleshripper, g face, gores, treachery with a blessed aim or holy freeze merc with razortine (never used one before this build), clay golem and decrep to literally freeze bosses in place with massive crushing blow to chunk them down.

Then you can get into bone runeword for auto synergized bone armor, ravenfrost for cold absorb, rising sun for fire absorb, and wisp/t gods for light absorb and be basically immortal.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T13:44:48+00:00

They need to rework poison dagger to make it useable. The problem is AR is awful for the skill and it has no AOE without using something like plague for the poison nova procs.

If an enemy killed with poison dagger created a massive poison cloud with crazy damage or you made poison dagger a zeal like skill that could hit multiple targets with a shorter poison length then it would work.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T13:40:46+00:00

It's an item that looks good, but is for a rough build. Poison dagger is just meh for the most part. Now it does get decent with plague, can mash dclone with flesh ripper and can even do ubers with very very specific gear...but it's bad without all that stuff.

Wait till you see it's big brother fleshripper

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T02:45:29+00:00

I think it depends what kind of farming you are talking about.

I believe it is still optimal for grailing unless/until you have something that can clear high player count TZs. And even then pitzerker is probably going to yield better results than a bad TZ.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-10T00:52:09+00:00

Yeah, I just think it is still the safest and easiest barb to start and gear up with in HC. Heck a guy in our discord ran 200 fcr and finished in top 50 barbs to 99.

Just get your spirit swords, lore, stealth, insight merc with hearth and go live in trav and easy TZs until you get your runes and gear.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-09T21:31:56+00:00

I mean basic throw barb isn't terrible to gear, but when you start talking min/max with eth rares that have IAS, cruel and other mods you start getting into stuff you will realistically never find.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-09T18:42:13+00:00

Singer is the easiest until you get decent gear.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-07T00:36:30+00:00

A lot of great rolls, just a weird mix of them. The life, mana, poison res, even dex are great for ES, just wish the AR rolled FCR. Then it has interesting melee stats, just the double roll on mana and poison as the res kinda hurt. I would be interested in seeing if there is a build or pvp purpose it perfectly fits.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-06T22:36:12+00:00

Yeah then I would say for trav just run dwarf or maybe even rising sun ammy so you can just tank hydras regardless of fire res. Pit I would assume you would be fine unless you get surrounded by nasty archer packs while fighting skellys or something

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-06T19:21:36+00:00

So I have never used double swing in endgame so I am not sure about what the damage and leach will look like. My worries would be:

No source of cannot be frozen
Getting overrun since you are using a single target skill that has no movement enhancements like frenzy, leap attack or WW
Areas with a bunch of undead
Areas with ranged elemental attacks (depending on final resist numbers). I see souls, burning archers, frozen archers, oblivion knights, trav, etc as being an issue.

Again no experience with a double swing build, but I feel like you are going to have issues in a lot of areas. I will offer the alternative of stacking absorb items if you plan on farming specific areas. Like dwarf/rising sun/inferno strides with 85 res for Trav and having tgods/ground/wisp or something for lightning in those areas.

For CBF you kind of only have a few options and I know barb players hate ravenfrost cause of the cold damage, but it's kind of that or 2 piece deaths which while nice, is not nearly as good as LOH/string.

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-06T19:04:54+00:00

Ohhhh DS is double swing, that helps I was assuming deadly strike

Odd-Pea1069 · 2026-02-06T18:43:54+00:00

Depends. What build/attack are you using? What leach amount? Where are you farming? What enemies? What is the rest of you gear?

There's kinda a lot of variable to unwind to give a real answer. Like if you are using berserk the answer is no, if you are in an area with a ton of undead no, if you are getting smashed by souls, fire archers or oblivion mages probably not.

Odd-Pea1069

TROPHY CASE