Neverwinter
Warlock Hellbringer by Ennileah (M22 Onwards)
I haven’t been writing up my builds for very long, so if you have any questions, or notice anything I may have missed. I would love your feedback. This build is more aimed at those progressing towards endgame (IC upwards). This is more of a Single Target (ST) build but
works well also in Area of Effect (AoE) situations.
Disclaimer: This build is a work in progress so is constantly subject to change on gaining new items. It is a base however for working
towards endgame content. My playstyle is very specific, I do use Shadow slip much so gears that work on having 75% stamina or more
are pretty useless to me most of the time but I do carry such items sometimes for specific content. Feel free to pull whatever information you may need from my build, but be aware that this build will not work for everyone and may not work as well for you as it does for me.
The Basics​
Race:
-
Human (Tiefling, Dragonborn and Aasimar can also work well)
​
Ability Scores:
All points into:
-
Dexterity - Critical Severity
-
Charisma - Forte
-
Intelligence is often a popular goto as it gives magic damage however, I find I lose damage output if I spec into this instead of Dex.
Boons: (Subject to change on new gains). I currently have 89 points spent and have all Adventures and Campaigns up to M22 fully complete.
Tier 1:
-
Recruit's Training - 5/5
-
Critical Strike - 5/5
-
Critical Avoidance 2/5
-
Cultist Bulwark 5/5
-
Cultist Power 5/5
​
Tier 2:
-
Squire's Training 5/5
-
Critical Severity 4/5
-
Defense 5/5
-
Demonic Bulwark 5/5
​
Tier 3:
-
Knight's Training 5/5
-
Combat Advantage 5/5
-
Awareness 5/5
-
Dino Bulwark 5/5
​
Tier 4:
-
Captain’s Training 5/5
-
Accuracy 5/5
-
Necrotic Bulwark 5/5
-
Necrotic Mastery 5/5
​
Tier 5:
-
Masterclass 4/4
-
Quick Call of Power 4/4
​
Master Boons:
-
Blood Lust 3/3
​
Feats:
-
Double Scorch
-
Warlock's Curse
-
Risky Investment
-
Creeping Death
-
Soul Spark Recovery
Class Features:
-
No Pity, No Mercy
-
All-Consuming Curse
Guild Boons (optional and where available)
Guild Boons:
-
Hit Points
-
Critical Strike
-
Revive Sickness/Mount or Movement Speed (Situational)
These Boons will depend on what your guild has available. If you havent these choices, then choose the stats that your lacking in the most. As a fresh Level 20, just coming out of levelling, you may find Power & Defense guild boons more useful so consider those until you progress further into a higher item level range.
For general daily content, I tend to use the Mount Speed Bonus. For the Random Queue's and earlier queued content, where you cannot use your mount. the Movement Speed boon is very useful. I only use the Revive Sickness in full endgame content such as Vault of Stars, ToMM etc and then usually only Boss fights.
Powers
At-wills:
​
-
Hellish Rebuke (Main Attack)
-
Hand of Blight (Melee, Secondary Attack)
​
Hand of Blight is the fastest attack At-will a Hellbringer has. It has both a ranged attack and a Melee Attack. At close range to an enemy, it uses your Pact Blade as a physical weapon. Due to the fast
attack speed, this can increase the rate of Soul Spark Gain, especially in Melee range.
​
I have a Class Feat (No Pity, No Mercy) which also turns Hellish Rebuke into a normal damage attack (removes the damage over time effect), gives Combat Advantage over critically hit Targets and increases Soul Spark gain. If you plan to equip a Band of Air in the future, you may want to consider not having this feat so the equip bonus of the Band of Air can proc from the damage over time of the normal Hellish Rebuke attack.
Encounters:
​
-
Killing Flames
-
Hellfire Ring (Swap for Hadar’s Grasp for Single Target (ST) fights, especially useful in End Game Boss fights and Trial such as ToMM etc)
-
Fiery Bolt (Can be swapped for Blades of Vanquished Armies - BOVA for Single target which provides damage resistance and can help increase Soul Spark gain, this works well with Hand of Blight.
​
At my last check of available info, BoVA has a bug (and I am not sure if this has been fixed as yet), where if targeted on an enemy when firing it, it will take the enemies Critical Avoidance into account more than it should and will stop all critical damage happening from the Blades attack. When I have this equipped, to avoid this happening, I look away from an enemy, typically up in the air, and fire BoVA then return to looking at the enemy. This power can also be targeted on a group member, where it will give them 5% damage resistance while it is active).
Dailies
-
Brood of Hadar (AoE)
-
Flames of Phlethagos (ST)
​
Note: Many Warlocks use Tyrannical Curse. This increases your overall damage on all powers for a short time when activated and can be a great choice for one of your Dailies. I have never gotten on well with that power however, as it takes quite a long time to activate, hence my choices above.
Additional Powers:
​
-
Soul Scorch (RB on Xbox/PS, Tab on PC)
​
Soul Scorch is given automatically and cannot be changed. It can be activated as an additional ‘encounter’ power when the pips on the meter reach 3 full green pips. The meter at the side shows how far off you are from filling the next pip.
Due to my feat setup, this power is in my regular rotation. When the Soul Spark Meter reaches all 5 points full, fire it and it will leave 2 pips of sparks remaining. When the 3rd Soul Spark pip fills, you can fire it again very quickly after the first shot. I have tried this also just firing at 3 pips full each time and find the first method the better way for me.
Head: Enclave Medic’s Coif - Available from the current Seals of the Wild Vendor.
Whisper Hood of Quiet, Helm of the Skyblazer(ST only), Midnight Cowl, Goristro's Horns & Mask of Cormyr (ST only) are also viable options.
Chest: Bone Devil's Ribcage (Available from Avernus Nightspine T3 Hunt - RNG Drop)
Arms: Wristguards of Precipitation (Drops from Vault of Stars Mini Bosses).
Weapons: Mirage Set (from the River District). Single Target.
(Alternative: Lionheart Set (from ToMM or AH) AoE)
The Artifact Modifications I currently carry are: Main Hand - Hellish Rebuke (Increases the damage done by this power by 10%); Off Hand - Recharge Speed (2.5% Recharge Speed & Enhanced Combat Advantage (Currently adding 2381 Rating)
Blessed Blade set from Avernus Favors, or the Chultan Masterworks Set are other alternatives if you haven't Mirage. There are also Weapons from the Seals of the North Vendor, Grand Alliance Set and also a set that can be gotten from the Dragonbone Vale campaign. The Seals and Dragonbone Vale weapons are not Artifact Weapons (upgradeable) and do not carry Artifact Modifications on them however, so are not as good as they may appear at first glance.
​
Mirage is performing well on Warlocks right now, and have all the changes to the summoned mirage’s damage output complete.
​
Feet: Wasteland Wanderer’s (Drops from Vault of Stars Mini Bosses).
Rusted Iron Leggings can also work well here but note that some healers may not be too happy to run with those with these boots, given the reduction of the Incoming Healing (ICH). Since the Combat rework, ICH has been increased, so many now already carry a decent amount of this stat, making these boots very viable and the loss of ICH will not affect you as much as it did before the rework. A tip is to make sure you take responsibility for your own health. Always carry Health Stones/Life Scrolls, and don't get cross with the healer if you go down. There are other boots available, but I have found these two options to be the best options for my build.
Rings: Diamond Ring of Sight +3 (From Vault of Stars End Chest Rewards. I plan to replace this with the Red Eyes Blind Ring.
Gold Ring of the Herald (Redeemed Citadel - Requires the Reforger’s Blessing (Zen Purchase) that was previously available from the Zen Market. If you didn't buy the Citadel Blessing, then an additional Guiding Ring of the Spy, or an Ebony Ring from Undermountain can be used (3% to Ranged Damage). I plan to replace this with the Red Eye’s Glare
Shirt: Shirt of the Hell's Interrogator (Critical Severity & Accuracy Stats - Nightspine T3)
Weathered Wood Raid/Assault, The Vale Pants/Shirt Set from Dragonbone Vale, Upper Pact Brands of the Interrogator (Nightspine T3 in Avernus) are also options. (Sadly I haven’t dropped this as yet but it is considered amongst the BiS items). It all depends on which stats you're lacking in the most.
(Ebony Shirt also from Undermountain MEs can be used in some cases as a 'stepping stone' .If you keep your stamina over 75%, it gives 3% damage to all powers)
Pants: Velvet Trousers +1 (or Pants) - From Professions (Tailoring) and the AH.
Many Warlocks seem to choose the Seals Vendor pants if they don't have the gears from Nightspine. Most Pants carry defensive stats, so if you're dying quite a lot, these can be great, however, the Velvet Pants & Trousers from crafting carry offensive stats and can help a little with your much needed caps. Some of the Pants from Dragonbone Vale HE’s also now carry offensive stats and can be useful.
Sets:
-
Mythallar Set - Mythallar Fragment Artifact, Mythallar Shard Neck & Mythallar Piece Waist (From Completion of the Dragon Bone Vale Campaign)
Alternatives
-
Lostmauth's Hoard Set - Lostmauth's Horn of Blasting; Golden Belt of Puissance; Lostmauth's Hoard Necklace. (General content, Daily Grind) AoE only (Drops from Lair of Lostmauth Dungeon)
-
Demogorgon’s Wrath Set - Demogorgon’s Reach Artifact, Heart’s Twine Neck and Sinuous Chord Waist. (from Demo Trial or AH)
-
Neverwinter Set - Neverwinter’s Standard Artifact, Sigil of Neverwinter Neck & Neverwintan Buckle Waist. (From Echoes of Prophecy)
-
Apprentice's Spoils Set: Arcturia's Music Box; Jhesiyra's Tattered Mantle Neck, Trobriand's Conduction Cable Belt. Single Target more so. (Drops from Undermountain MEs, The Artifact can be purchased from the Tarmalune Trade Bar Merchant)
Other Alternatives: These can be useful while you can get the better sets above, but ultimately, you will not use these in full end-game content, although the Halaster's Blast Sceptre is a good Artifact to have on standby for some late content that requires a 'debuff' artifact.
-
Mad Dash Set; Halaster's Blast Sceptre; Necklace of the Mad Mage; Belt of the Mad Mage. The Mad Dash set doesn't work well for me, given you have to stand still for 3 seconds (I rarely do) for the bonus to activate.
-
Dark Remnants Set: Vile Book of Darkness, Engine Master's Mantle & Whip of the Erinyes. This set gives 2.5% damage to all enemies in the game and this bonus doubles to 5% in Vallenhas and Avernus content (including Infernal Citadel). This set is only really of any good use in those two areas now though.
Additional Artifacts:
-
Envenomed Storyteller's Journal (Main Slot) All Pages for AP gain and Stun effect)
-
Frozen Storyteller's Journal (Debuff Artifact) All Pages
-
Flayed Storyteller's Journal (For Stats only) No Pages
The Tattered Mantle & especially the Conduction Cable are quite expensive nowadays, due to not as many people running MEs in Undermountain. The Music Box Artifact is available from the Tarmalune Trade Bar Merchant. the Neck & Belt from the AH also (at a huge cost!)
Using 3 of these journals provides the '3 of set bonus', the Neck and Belt to this set are not needed. Neither do you need to carry all 4 books. I have all 5 pages in the Envenomed and Frozen Journals as these are the only 2 of the set I use as an active Artifact. The Frozen Journal is only used in very (specific situations such as in ToMM) Pages are not required in any journals you won't use in that top slot.
If you haven't the Tales of Old Storyteller's items, these can be substituted for others depending on the stats you need.
A few more alternatives:
-
Vile Book of Darkness (33% Chance of Debuff)
-
Halaster's Blast Sceptre (ST Debuff)
-
Arcturia's Music Box
-
Wyvern Venom Coated Knives (AoE/ST Debuff)
-
Trobriand's Ring
-
Staff of Flowers (Buff to group)
-
Golden Memories/Scathing Light - The Redeemed Citadel/Zen Market
-
Neverwinter's Standard - From Echoes of Prophecy
-
Jewel of the North Artifact - From Echoes of Prophecy
-
Twinkling Fey Emblem (Star Set from VoS)
Note: Golden Memories & Scathing Light are the same stats and Bonus. Scathing Light was given to the top 100 on the leaderboard for Redeemed Citadel Milestone 2
For content upwards of IC, 'Debuff' artifacts are a near must for the newer Dungeon/Trial bosses given the high Hit Points they have and can be swapped in depending on what your group is carrying and what doesn't affect your stats too much. Some of those are noted above… others are listed below:
​
Additional Debuff Artifacts:
-
Token of Chromatic Storm
-
Charm of the Serpent
-
Lantern of Revelation
-
Heart of the Black Dragon
-
Defender's Banner (Available from PvP)
-
Tactician's Banner (Available from PvP)
-
Vanguard's Banner (Available from PvP)
-
Champions Banner (Available from PvP)
-
Fey Emblem
-
Sigil of the Paladin
-
Tiamat’s Orb
-
Diamond Refulgent Pin.
Summoned: Owlbear Cub (Augment)
Active Companion Bonuses:
Offense Slot:
-
Staldorf’s Presence
​
Defense Slot:
-
Phasespider's Presence
​
Universal Slots:
-
Batiri's Wisdom (for Single Target) otherwise Neverwinter Knights Discipline or Book Imp (for the Stat %.
-
Alchemist's Discipline
​
Utility Slot:
-
Mythic Golden Cat for 7.5% Combat Advantage
​
Companion Equipment
Tarnished Emerald Talisman of the Companion - Reward from Scaleblight Summit Completion or Crown of Keldegonn
Tarnished Diamond Belt of the Companion (Reward from Scaleblight Summit Completion)
Pristine Ring of the Companion (Sharandar Bounty Quest Reward)
*Any companion gear is viable here and should be chosen more for the stats and combined rating you need rather than Item Level. With the removal of Runestones, there are no longer Offense & Defense slots on these pieces, which opens up more choices of them to choose from.
Companion Enhancement Power:
This depends on the situation, but I recommend choosing a bonus for offensive stats for most content. I run Acute Senses, which increases Combat Advantage by 7.5% for 15 seconds.
Other Offensive Choices:
-
Accuracy - Perfect Vision
-
Power - Potency
-
Critical Strike - Precision
-
Critical Severity - Potent Precision
Again this choice is dependent on which offensive stat you need to increase the most.
There are quite a few Debuff Enhancements that can be useful on endgame Dungeon/Trial bosses. These do not stack together any longer.
​
-
Armor Break (Reduces Enemy Defense)
-
Blurred Vision (Reduces Enemy Accuracy)
-
Dulled Senses (Reduces Enemy Awareness)
-
Slowed Reactions (Reduces Enemy Deflect)
-
Vulnerability (Reduces Enemy Critical Avoidance)
-
Weapon Break (Reduces Enemy Critical Severity)
Insignia Bonuses:
I have found that having more of 3 of the same bonus makes little if any difference. I rely on my movement speed (Gladiator's Guile) to quickly get me out of AoE attacks and such and that I can use my Shadow Slip more often. My build prior to M22 carried 3 x Gladiators Guiles, I have not noticed a difference in dropping one of those for M22. If the Assassin's Covenant makes you more 'squishy', Artificer's Persuasion can also be used to help reduce the cooldowns of your encounter powers.
Mount Collars:
The 2 most useful collars I carry are:
​​
Wayfaring Barbed Collar IV
Sturdy Crescent Collar IV
The other 3 are down to your own personal choice. I also carry:
-
Supportive Crescent Collar (Stamina Gain)
-
Unified Crescent Collar (Movement Speed)
-
Practical Regal Collar (increased AD Gain)
A useful guide to what Collars can be equipped together can be found in the below graphic:
And also at this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/ivz7xy/mount_and_mount_collar_upgrade_guide/
Mount Combat & Equip Powers:
Combat Power: Tunnel Vision (Single Target) - from the Owlbear Mount (Or Legendary Toad)
For AoE situations, Dragonbone Whirl (From the Dragonbone Golem) or Explosive Equalizer (Various Mount Options) are ideal for when surrounded by enemies. Both of these powers have a small range of the enemies that they can hit. ( 20-25 feet approx).
Equip Power Options (At Mythic):
-
Neverwinter's Pride (Barded Neverwintan Lion) 2250 Critical Severity, 2250 Forte, 2700 Combined Rating (I currently use this!)
-
Rapid Accuracy - 4500 Accuracy
-
Ferocious Predator- 2250 Power, 2250 Critical Severity, 2700 Combined Rating
-
Opportunistic - 4500 CA 2700 Combined Rating
​
Or any other that you may find useful to help cap an offensive rating stat.
Our stat priorities are Power,Critical Strike, Critical Severity & Combat Advantage
A Comprehensive list of Mounts and their powers can be found in Rainer's Pocket Wiki here:
Insignias
My Insignias are a mix of mainly:
-
Brutality - Power & Critical Strike
-
Aggression - Critical Strike & Critical Severity
-
Skill - Critical Strike & Combat Advantage
-
Dominance - Power & Forte
All of my Insignias are at Mythic quality, giving 750 of each stat. When it comes to Insignia choices, it depends on what stats you are lacking and also what mounts you have for the types of Insignias needed for your insignia bonuses.
(At the time of writing (April 2022) Insignia bonuses are still very lacking and outdated. Due to this, some players tend to go more for the stats they need rather than getting the right type of Insignias for the specific bonuses. It is down to your own personal choice as to whether you go for the bonuses or just get the base stats that you are lacking in. Insignia bonuses are in a future plan for additional ones to be added in, although no ETA for these has yet been given)
Forte is always a good choice as that will boost the 3 main stats in that category, which are the following for Hellbringer:
Following the Enchantment Rework in Mod 22, all the standard Enchants for Offense, Defense & Utility slots all now give the same number of stats at each Quality rank regardless of what type of stat is offered:
Common
Rare
Epic
Legendary
Mythic
+450
+900
+1350
+1800
+2250
I currently have the following equipped:
Offensive
-
Jade Enchantment x 4 (Critical Strike)
Defensive
-
Amethyst x2 (Awareness)
-
Garnet x 2 (Defense)
Utility
-
Garnet (Forte)
​
Combat: Poisoned Thorn (I use this permanently in all situations).
​There is also the option for AoE situations to use Cursed Burn, but I rarely if ever do this as the Poisoned Thorn works very well with the Combatant’s Maneuver Mount Insignia bonus, simply throwing an At-Will power procs the Insignia Bonus due to the Control Effects on the Poisoned Thorn.
Bonus Slot
-
Action Bonus - Gives up to 5% Action Point Gain at Mythic
Overloads:
-
Devil’s Precision (5% Accuracy & 5% Critical Chance)
-
Rage of Flames (5% Total Damage Bonus)
Companion Enhancement Slot
-
Companion Enhancement - Mythic
​
This enhancement is probably the most important one to focus on when upgrading your enchants. Whether you use a 'Striker' (that attacks enemies with you) or an 'Augment' (Only provides stats, does not attack enemies) companion. refining your Companion Enhancement first, will help your character much.
I hope you can make use of my guide and it helps you learn something along the way!
Happy Grinding
Ennileah
