S-TIER | WARLOCK BUILD Apocalypse one-shot (@wudijo) | SEASON 15

ENDGAME | PIT PUSH | PIT 150 DEMONISTE

Build Overview

This Apocalypse one-shot Warlock by wudijo looks like one of the most devastating setups of all of Season 15: according to its author, the Warlock has been buffed so much that it becomes by far the best class of the season. The video relies on sessions played on the test server (PTR), where wudijo could chain Pit 150s without any real trouble, even though this Endgame setup was not fully optimized yet.

wudijo has maintained this guide since Season 13 and updated it for Season 15. On his best runs, he got down to roughly two minutes to clear a Pit 150, a time he expects to go up after possible Blizzard adjustments, but which should still leave the Warlock at the top, or very close to the top, of the class rankings.

Plenty of bug fixes and fluidity improvements have landed since Season 13, when the build could feel clunky and a bit slow. Several skills can now be cast while running, such as Bombardment, Dark Prison or Sigil of Chaos, and many upkeep buffs, including some paragon nodes, last much longer than before, which cuts down the number of buttons to press on repeat. On top of that, Apocalypse wipes the entire screen in a single explosion and one-shots nearly every enemy from Torment 12 onwards, a tier thousands of times easier than the Pit 150 targeted at the end of the season.

Pros and Cons

Recommended Gear

The gear of this Apocalypse one-shot Warlock relies on a set of unique items that radically change the way Apocalypse is played. The Hands of the Worldbreaker are among the very first targets to get: they turn Apocalypse into a Sigil skill and grant it a massive damage multiplier, which wudijo puts at 520% increased damage, while unlocking the Sigil-tag synergies through the Ritual of the Nameless.

On the chest, the Fleshwrit Carapace benefits from the same Sigil tag through a kill counter that eventually triggers bonus effects, on top of bringing a welcome damage multiplier to a slot that is usually defensive. Moloch's Beating Flame, heavily buffed this season, becomes the priority mythic target once your first cube upgrade is done, as long as no other more urgent piece is still missing. The Hemat Stone has also been buffed: it now benefits both Command Valloch and the fragments, with a particularly strong fragment effect that grants extra damage and explosion size for every Overpower charge.

Season 15 also reworked the Ritual of the Nameless: keeping your stacks is now much easier, and they can keep building even once the cap of 100 is reached, whereas you previously had to freeze them at the right moment or lose everything on a drop. Notably, the Endgame setup does not rely on a mythic seal: a regular six-slot seal is enough to hold The Hemat Stone next to the other set charms, as these pieces are powerful enough on their own.

On the aspect side, the build notably runs the Aspect of Scorching Heat for raw damage, the Misanthropic Aspect which grants 45% damage reduction as long as no demon other than Valloch is active plus a hefty amount of Dominance on every hit taken, and the Aspect of Rallying Reversal for a bit of damage reduction and attack speed. Very early in the season, the Undying Aspect can also fill in to offset the build's self-damage, before switching to a bit of life on hit on the weapon once your gear is more advanced. The seasonal mechanic also adds new splinters to socket into jewelry, with bonuses ranging from attack speed and critical strike chance to a good chunk of damage reduction, a traditional weak point of the class.

Horadric Seal S15

This build's talisman relies on the Ritual of the Nameless set: from Midgame onwards, wudijo lines up five set charms (Phoba of the Nameless, Fer of the Nameless, Mlor of the Nameless, Linta of the Nameless and Beru of the Nameless) and keeps the sixth slot for the unique charm The Hemat Stone, the new Season 15 amulet used here as a charm. The seal stays a legendary six-slot Horadric Seal rather than a mythic one: the power of The Hemat Stone and of the set is more than enough. In the Starter setup, the set is not complete yet and two Ritual of the Nameless charms sit next to four charms of the Slaughter set, easy to get before the Torment tiers.

Gameplay Tips for the Apocalypse one-shot Warlock

Even at full damage output, this build keeps a fair amount of defensive solidity, against the Warlock's usual reputation. The three-piece bonus of the Ritual of the Nameless alone brings up to 40% damage reduction, and the Misanthropic Aspect adds another 45% as long as no demon other than Valloch is summoned, while generating a hefty amount of Dominance on every hit taken thanks to your very low base life. That Dominance is precisely what fuels Overpower charges and keeps your resources flowing, in addition to allowing repeated leaps with Rampage.

One thing to watch: the ritual fragment used in this build consumes 4% of your maximum life on every cast. A bit of life on hit on the weapon is enough to compensate late in the build; very early in the season, the Undying Aspect does the job perfectly to neutralize this self-damage until you find something better. Be careful though: without Fortify active, casting into thin air without hitting an enemy can also chip your life a little, with no real danger that said.

Stat-wise, wudijo recommends prioritizing critical strike chance and critical strike damage, then damage to vulnerable targets, nearly permanent thanks to the Sigils, a healthy pool of life, some willpower, overall damage and resistances, whose value has been raised significantly this season. The seasonal splinters mentioned above conveniently add attack speed and critical strike chance.

For anyone discovering the build, a leveling version lets you play Apocalypse from level 34 to 42, once Umbral Chains and its Chain Whips upgrade are unlocked: that is the requirement to start building the stacks that trigger the explosion. wudijo actually recommends this build as a season starter, before possibly switching to another Warlock setup once the first gear pieces are in hand.

Talent Tree

The rotation opens with Command Valloch, cast at the very start of a fight to fill up your Overpower charges, then regularly to regenerate resources and bring them back to maximum. Next comes Umbral Chains, which deal little damage but build Apocalypse stacks very quickly, even on a single target: around four casts are enough to reach 100 stacks. Once that threshold is crossed, Apocalypse can be unleashed with no cooldown to blow up the whole screen, with both the size and the damage of the explosion scaling with the number of stacks.

The pace adapts to enemy density: against a big pack, a strict alternation between one Umbral Chains and one Apocalypse is enough, whereas you need several Umbral Chains casts, two, three or even four, before each explosion when facing fewer targets. Bombardment can stay active while moving, adding a few extra stacks and some demon kills along the way, while Rampage lets you leap faster whenever Dominance is available. Dark Prison rounds out the rotation every now and then to stack Weaken, Fortify and a welcome damage reduction.

Once the Ritual of the Nameless is complete, Sigil management becomes almost automatic: every Apocalypse cast triggers one of the Sigil effects, Vulnerable, enemy slow, movement speed, without having to keep Sigil of Chaos or Sigil of Subversion on the skill bar. Before you get the full set, you have to cast them manually to get the same effects, in particular Sigil of Chaos to trigger Volatility.

Mercenary S15

Paragon

The paragon board follows a step-by-step progression, with a rush of the most valuable nodes you can apply from the first days of the season to climb quickly to around paragon 150, before refining the setup according to the content you target. The five boards of the Endgame version host the Wrath, Unbound, Occultist, Empowered and Superiority glyphs, the latter being new in Season 15; the Tower Push variant swaps Superiority for Hellforge.

The double-edged paragon node of this Apocalypse one-shot Warlock

One particular paragon node catches wudijo's attention in this build: it massively increases damage dealt to healthy enemies with Hellfire skills, which makes it a formidable option as long as you keep one-shotting your targets. The problem starts as soon as that is no longer the case: most of the node's damage is concentrated in the very first moments of a fight, an extremely short window, leaving the bulk of the enemies' life with no bonus at all. As a result, this node becomes one of the least valuable in the game as soon as content gets harder or your gear is not optimized yet, and wudijo then prefers more consistent nodes, geared towards demon kills, keeping Volatility up or extra damage reduction, more reliable over time in high Pits.

An unexpected strength against bosses

Another interesting side effect noted by wudijo: bosses also count as elite enemies. The damage bonus against Hexed targets, granted by the Overwhelming Aspect, therefore fully applies to them, which largely erases the build's traditional single-target weakness. The rotation mostly thrives on density, with a faster or slower alternation between Umbral Chains and Apocalypse depending on how many targets are in range, but the time needed to take down each enemy tends to even out between high density and single target, which keeps DPS high, bosses included.