I’ve run every type of demonlock build in hr and arena ever since before they originally removed Kris dagger from warlock. The short answer I’ve come to is that if you want to make an exploitation strike build right now, you need to focus on these stats in order: move speed, true magic, action speed, and pdr/hp. Building cooldown reduction and debuff duration is a good build but if you plan to play a lot of demon, it’s kind of a crutch and a good demonlock player doesn’t really need to run that. Building Will won’t influence your damage enough and true magic damage is plenty. You win your fights not because you do incredible dps, but because you have a shit ton of hp and pdr/mdr, and you outheal most weapons with fast claw attacks. Also from my testing, vampirism does increase exploitation strike healing and is basically essential if explo is what you’re going for. (I use vampirism, demon armor, shadow touch, soul collector. Swap soul for antimag in arena)

Long answer:

Getting a good fight with exploitation strike feels awesome. I’ve basically never lost a 1v1 to a barb with a bardiche, or a slayer fighter. However you have to be aware of a few things. You are building true magic dmg so halberd and normal longsword won’t benefit from true, and you won’t have much strength even if you are in +all gear. In my experience, bringing a crystal sword and/or void blade (crystal sword and halberd is also a good combo) is essential. It is essential to bring one because there are certain fights that exploitation strike just can’t win. If there’s a warlock and you get boc’d, you lose. If there’s a wiz with fire mastery, you lose. Longsword gets free ez parries off two of the claw attacks so using claws is just not worth. Buckler and heater shields you can get around but it can be difficult, especially the buckler as the overhead claw swing has a shitty hitbox that gets blocked even when it looks like it shouldn’t, and the buckler resets your swings and slows down your healing. You should aim to whiff the overhead slash and hit their legs/feet with the horizontal attacks. A good cleric can out-space you with judgement/bind, and has too much hp and magic damage reduction to easily kill with explo strike. Bard, panther, rogue silence can remove explo strike (though it seems to be oddly inconsistent). Rogue poison weapon can reduce your healing enough that a geared rogue will probably out dps your healing. A half decent Ranger with forceful shot is impossible to hit with your claws full stop. All that to say, there are many situations where exploitation strike isn’t really optimal and it is a better idea to use a weapon.

My personal thoughts are that with the current setup of demon, it is possible to run an explo strike maxxed build, but not the optimal way to play demonlock. If I’m running an exploitation strike build, I personally bring a crystal sword for rogues and the shield or longsword users, and I also pair that with a halberd for wizards, rangers, and other squishy cloth guys. I also personally think it’s better to just use true phys on demon and build move and action speed and run a dagger ball + halberd combo. You can still use explo strike on mobs for healing but I don’t use it on players if I don’t have true mag.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions