Diablo 4 Nerfs the Warlock’s Best Build in Latest Update

Diablo 4‘s latest update brings devastating news for Warlock players, as it massively nerfed the class’s best Season 13 build. For being the latest class to join Diablo 4‘s roster with the release of Lord of Hatred, the Warlock hasn’t been nearly as powerful in Season 13 as classes like the Barbarian or Sorcerer. Now, the class has suffered another setback in the seasonal meta as its best build has its claim to fame taken away.

The Warlock is already having a rough go of it in Diablo 4 Season 13, with some players going as far as kicking Warlock players from Diablo 4 co-op parties due to the heavy screen clutter associated with the class’s abilities. Although some Warlock builds like Apocalypse and Tyrant’s Grasp Warlock have had some success this season, it’s the Eviscerate Warlock that has stood out from the crowd. Unfortunately, the power of this build was largely the result of a bug that has since been squashed, leaving players running this build with drastically reduced power.

Diablo 4 Players Are Baffled This Feature Still Exists 13 Seasons Later

Diablo 4 has changed a lot since it originally released in 2023, but one feature still has players confused as to why it exists in Season 13.

Diablo 4’s Eviscerate Warlock Was Nerfed in the Recent Hotfix

On May 19, Diablo 4 released a hotfix to patch several issues that had persisted in Season 13. This hotfix comes shortly after the 3.0.2 update for Diablo 4 that went live on May 13. Included in Diablo 4 update 3.0.2 was a bug that allowed the Warlock to deal insane amounts of damage to Elites when using the Eviscerate Fragment of the Warlock’s Legion Shard, combined with the Paingorger’s Gauntlets Unique, essentially allowing players to one-shot bosses on even the highest Torment difficulty tiers.

Rearrange the covers into the correct US release order.

Easy (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)

The Eviscerate Fragment gives Lesser Demon Skills a 2% change to Eviscerate enemies a second time, while the Paingorger’s Gauntlets mark enemies hit by non-Basic Skills, and then echoes damage from the next Basic Skill to all marked enemies. This combo allowed players to activate Eviscerate on enemies using Rampage while simultaneously marking the same enemies. Then players could use Command Fallen as a Basic Skill and Lesser Demon Skill to both reapply Eviscerate via the Eviscerate Fragment and echo that damage to other marked enemies via the Paingorger’s Gauntlets. The result was compounded by a bug that allowed this damage to scale near-infinitely and one-shot Elites like bosses.

Diablo 4 3.0.2 Hotfix

Fixed an issue where Blood Lance could deal far more damage than intended under certain circumstances.
Fixed an issue where Warlock’s Eviscerate Fragment could deal unintended damaged when paired with Paingorger’s Gauntlets.
Fixed an issue where Ball Lightning was not a Core Skill.
Developer’s Note: The tooltip for Ball Lightning will continue to not show the tag, but it will function as a core skill. The tooltip will be updated with our next client patch.
Stability improvements.

Damaging enemies with a Non-Basic Skill cast marks them for 3 seconds. When a Basic Skill first hits a marked enemy, the Basic Skill’s damage is echoed to all marked enemies, dealing [100-125]%[x] increased damage.
Crafted from fragments of Duriel’s carapace, wearing these gloves, or being struck by them, causes an agonizing sensation akin to pushing one’s hands through a thousand shards of glass..

In addition to fixing bugs with the Necromancer’s Blood Lance skill and the Sorcerer’s Ball Lightning Skill, it appears as though the Warlock’s Eviscerate Fragment and Paingorger’s Gauntlets bug was also squashed. Players who took advantage of this bug while it existed are not necessarily out of luck entirely. Despite no longer being able to one-shot bosses, the Lunatic Warlock build is still a solid option as an alternative to the Eviscerate Warlock and utilizes many of the same skills, such as Command Fallen and Rampage.

What’s That Weapon?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

What’s That Weapon?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)

The Paingorger’s Gauntlets are still a fantastic Unique to pair with this build as well, allowing players to deal hefty damage through the loop of marking enemies with Rampage before hitting them with Command Fallen. While it may no longer be the best Warlock build in Diablo 4 Season 13, Warlock players shouldn’t despair too much after this bug was fixed.