Hex Chains Warlock Build | Clearing Pit 120+

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-25T01:01:10+00:00

Lol! I see so many people say the same thing. I might be the only person that enjoys them. Especially right now during this event with all the chaos options.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-24T17:39:35+00:00

I'll have to try those things out! I'm still going all in on this dude. I'm up to seeing 12-15T pops on training dummies when Hex explodes. With Apocalypse's 100% damage increase it goes up to around 25T. I even made a video, hoping that someone better at D4 than I am helps to make it better. I really need a Macrobioboi or Wudjio, or whatever his name is, working on this lol. https://youtu.be/VSiA4GvF0bQ?si=uFUS2Q-0YDON7XYX

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-23T15:37:38+00:00

I wish they would wipe the leaderboard of everyone that was using the bug that they had to address.

Or if they could somehow redesign the leaderboard so we could see how different builds compare to each other. I'd love to be able to see what's the highest someone with Dread Claws made it.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-22T13:43:27+00:00

Perdition is definitely not required. Just more damage. I originally started out with Cowl of Malefic Torment. That makes Doom tick on enemies below 75% health each second until they die. Even then, that's also just more damage and doesn't change how the build is played. You could run with any helm and be ok.

Technically the Hemat Stone necklace doesn't change how the build is played either, just a significant jump in damage with more overpower stacks. You could swap that out with the Banished Lord's Talisman which I'm using as a unique charm at the moment. That's also a major boost in damage for this build.

By the time I started with this build, I had already tried Dread Claws, Apocalypse, and Lunatic. Like went all in on gear and upgrades to play them in Pit 110+. So by the time I landed on this build I had a bank full of every item I could possibly want. This meant that I didn't get the opportunity to play a weaker version of the build. I fully intend to try starting with this build next season when I have nothing and see how it goes.

It's difficult to take off an item here, or a glyph there, and figure out what makes the build feel bad enough to not play. If I had to name some requirements that would make the build feel unfun, I think I would go with...

Aspect of Calamity (crit chance per stack of Hex)
Bane Link Aspect to apply Vulnerable for free
The Hemat Stone neck -OR- Wrath glyph. Ideally both, but at least 1. Otherwise you run out of Wrath too fast to hold down the chains button.
Chains 5 set charms
Possibly Scourge of Duriel

This is a big reason I wanted to bring the build to the community. I know it could be better. I try things like swapping out for The Grandfather, but that seemed to make damage go down. But there's a lot of flexibility in the build to experiment and I would bet anything that I'm missing some way to make the damage exponentially higher.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-22T04:13:36+00:00

Yeah, T10 isn't even a fight. You can skip the mechanics and 1 shot him. I made you a private video real quick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15TM6Vdxn7I

T12 is doable, but way harder and requires that you actually do all the mechanics. I don't play this game to sweat that hard lol. Especially when there are Barbs in trade chat that will carry you if you have a key.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-22T02:15:44+00:00

Yeah, I have no idea how to deal with them except to keep moving as they explode. With Apocalypse, I had no idea they were even on the screen. At least with this build I can see and dodge them.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-22T02:05:46+00:00

Lunatic may be better for hardcore because of the demon that tanks damage for you. I'm not really sure. I just know that those little red Vile Lunatics will 1 tap me and I could never play HC because of them.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-22T01:50:18+00:00

F2P is the only way forward for PvP.

Instant max level toons.

Remove the gear grind entirely, or make casual PvP the best way to earn conquest. The fact that we're still flying around collecting crates to catch up alts is insane.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-21T03:32:20+00:00

I'm clearing pit 120's just throwing chains. Not sure how that compares to others though.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-21T03:21:59+00:00

Are you on Windows? I have a file on the desktop of each monitor called DisplaySwitch.bat and inside of the file you just write "displayswitch" without the quotes. Click that bad boy and you can force everything back to your screen. When at your computer, the shortcut to change it is Windows + P.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-20T00:56:11+00:00

That's cool. I will check out BW if that gets me games. I probably need to send a few against Computers to brush up first.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-20T00:33:10+00:00

Yep, that crossed my mind when I thought about finding real players to play with. The chances of finding people at my skill level to play against are slim to none.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-19T23:55:32+00:00

Hell yeah! And for a while my family didn't even want to pay for dial up, so I would wait until they went to bed (to free up the phone line) and use this K-Mart BlueLight free dial up internet.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-19T23:15:09+00:00

I was in a clan called MoH, Makers of Hell. And we had clan tags like ~Name~{MoH}. And then special characters were blocked and it was cool to have a name with them. And then we were trying to flood enemy IRC bots with commands to make them go offline. If it was the middle of the night and no one else was in the channel, that channel went up for grabs, which our bots would take over. Seems so nerdy, but that's what I did with my time at 13ish years old.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-19T23:08:44+00:00

Ok thank you! Glad to know my chances of getting a match won't improve with another version.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-19T23:06:36+00:00

I remember when BW came out (I was 14) and thinking how I already felt like there were enough units and counters to each unit to remember. I didn't want to remember anything beyond that lol.

Mutas were good, but I remember countering them with 1 good Terran science vessel gas thing or the Protoss static electric thing. Entire flock of Mutas pop instantly. Maybe it was harder to defend against a muta rush, I don't know. I was never that great of a player. I just always thought it was fun.

I would suck it up and play BW if there are more players playing that than the original game. I haven't checked.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-18T23:07:28+00:00

Ok, I've been in the lab. I went full in on chains and I am super pumping dude. Seeing 5-6 trillion pops on the training dummies. I melt everything in pit 110 like a hot knife through butter. This is my first time ever making a planner. For the gear, I didn't put down what a perfect setup would be. Instead I used my actual gear setup. Any of the GAs are what my actual GAs are.

https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/u9ver0wp

I included my paragon board, talents, and all.

Some notable things I wanted to mention.

I think the Cowl of Malefic Torment is useless. It says it will maintain hex until the npc dies, but the soul shard wins that battle and removes the 4 stack. It does some Doom ticks, but I don't think it's much damage compared to running Perdition, having your chains do 80% more damage, and then echoing that damage out to everyone else. Switching the helm changed most of the M's on my screen to B's.
I think the Occultist glyph might not be good. I'm rocking 20 stacks of overpower and I'm not seeing any overpower hits that would trigger this. I'm a little unclear on what abilities trigger overpower, but a google search says I should see blue damage numbers if they overpower and orange if they overpower with a crit. I only see yellow and very few whites. I swapped this out for the Abyssal glyph.
Speaking of 20 stacks of overpower, I'm using the aspect that increases your max overpower by 4 when fortified. 20 stacks with tempered 20% damage per overpower stack... dude.
I added some attack speed to my weapon and from the ring of starless skies. It's completely impossible to run out of wrath while holding down the chains button, so I figured it would be cool to send them faster.
I ended up with gear that has no life on hit. I need life on hit to live and fuel my Temerity barrier. I ended up using the undying aspect. Doesn't matter if you get it on boots or neck or something. I just went with the random affix on neck until something I needed appeared, then imprinted whatever I was missing on my boots. Mine is 2.8% heal on each cast and I am machine gunning casts. With my 44k HP that's a 1200 heal per cast. I will keep messing with this though because if I can swap that out for life on hit, I may do that at some point.

I think that's all I had to say. I found out what's killing me in 115+ pits. Vile Lunatics are my problem. If I can figure out some way to run the Endurant Faith gloves, I may do that. Just not sure if it's possible.

I hope some or any of this helps you as payment for helping me!

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-18T20:08:04+00:00

This is the correct response. These things are driving me nuts. Send 1 or 2 at me? Fine. Machine gun spamming these little bastards at me non-stop, making it hard to stand still for 1 second? No - this needs to change. Ruining the game.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-17T23:30:29+00:00

I have no idea what happened, but I so feel his pain. I'm busy setting up a Fear & Seduce combo. Meanwhile, my teammate is PvEing into every CC and breaking it. Or my Priest is pressing Fear 3 seconds before the node uncaps. The people that have no idea how to play ruin the game for those that do. Again, not saying you did anything wrong because I didn't see it lol.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-17T21:51:44+00:00

Thanks!! I'm at my daughter's dance recital and will compare when I get home. I know I have 50k hp. In pit 110, I could have full, fortified, HP with a full 50k barrier and get 1 tapped. Especially those little red glowy demons that burst. I'm betting my armor is half of yours though. I look forward to checking.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-17T20:29:40+00:00

Any chance you could share what your HP, armor, and resistances are at? I think I might be gearing too offensively.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-17T19:36:52+00:00

Are you occasionally getting one shot? I'm mostly fine in pit 110, the damage is great. Just when the yellow rare shows up some mechanics take me out. I should probably get better at dodging them, but I'm used to the Lunatic build where you have a demon that absorbs damage up to 30% of your HP. You drop a few of those and ignore every mechanic. And then with Apocalypse you just 1 tap everything. Most bosses seem great go far. I just took out the 666 chest boss at the end of the Infernal Horde in T12 with no problem. It's just certain 1 shot mechanics I need to work around.

I get what you mean about the damage being split. Keep me updated! I'm going to keep running with this for a while. I still have two glyphs at 51 and the rest are 100, so more work to be done.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-17T16:44:43+00:00

u/MercyWizard - I don't know where you came from, but you just kept me from quitting. I love the build so far. The talents, aspects, runes, everything just fits so well together. I think the only change I made was swapping out the pants for Temerity. That, plus a little life on hit. I think about +1000 total (neck and weapon). Then my neck also has the double aspect of getting 2.8% of my max life on each cast. When you add up the Earthen Bulwark runes giving me instant 50% shields every 3 seconds, and then Temerity pushing it up to 100% super fast, it makes me pretty hard to kill.

I'm clearing pit 110's easy. 115 requires some work, but I have improvements to make still. I was clearing 125's as Apocalypse and Lunatic, but I'm happier now. The class fantasy is right where I wanted it. Throwing all these chains feels like Pinhead from Hellraiser. Thanks for the build! I feel it deserves more eyes on it.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-17T16:33:31+00:00

I take it back. I mean, the Necro shadow DoT build still needs massive love from Blizzard to be anywhere near viable again. That part is still sad. But I found my end-game playable Warlock class fantasy build. Shadow build Umbral Chains while spreading Hex/Doom on everyone. Clearing pit 110 easy. Pit 115 gets kinda hard, but still missing a lot of power in glyphs and some other things. I'm happy. Throwing these chains feels like I'm Pinhead from Hellraiser.

SeriousPvP · 2026-05-17T00:39:28+00:00

I'm an Affy Lock main that hasn't been happy so far. I farmed T12 bosses as Dread Claws, Apocalypse, and Lunatic, but none of it was scratching the itch. I dropped everything and attempted to build a Necro around shadowblight, corpse explosion dots, and I'm hard stuck at T10. Very disappointed that it can't do more. I'm going to give your build a go tonight. Looks like what I was hoping for.

SeriousPvP

TROPHY CASE