Osprixx's Chaos Fissure Warlock Build Guide

Levelling with the same skills used in the endgame build

Very high ward even without Unique support

Great clear

Great boss DPS

Low HP means you get stunned quite often

Focusing heavily on Necrotic resist makes capping other resistances a little difficult

You probably won't be able to counter Marked For Death on every resist

The gameplay loop in monoliths is fairly simple.

1. Cast Spirit Plague on a pack
2. Cast Chthonic Fissure into that same pack
3. Walk away
4. Repeat

Bossing isn't too different, just with the added Wandering Spirits and Chaos Bolts spam.

Damage

There are a LOT of "more" multipliers in this build. Twisted Waves 3/3, Doom's Vindication 4/4, and Exult in Misery 3/3 just to name a few. The bulk of our damage is Necrotic DoTs from stacking Damned, as well as hit damage from Chaos Bolts, with a bit of incidental Fire damage from our main damaging skills. We stack Damned and Shred Necrotic Resistance very high, so most if not all of our damage is unresisted and nothing will be able to regen health. Curses like Torment, Bone Curse, Spirit Plague, and Anguish each provide additional sources of Necrotic damage over time while giving our Chaos Bolts a chance to deal double damage via Chaotic Strikes 5/5.

Every time we kill an enemy, we also inflict ourselves with Damned, gaining more damage for each stack via Aspect of Death 5/5. These stacks are for clearing packs and fall off fairly quickly, so don't worry about killing yourself by accident.

Spirit Plague will also be granting us stacks of Pestilence 3/3 whenever we inflict Spirit Plague, which is cast in an AoE and proliferated to nearby enemies on hit, so it should be generating dozens of stacks at least.

Defence

Our main defensive stat is Ward, generated via Spirit Plague's Putrid Recovery 3/3 node. We stack a lot of Ward Decay Threshold (WDT) implicits on gear, and gain 1 WDT per 1% Necro. Res. we have with Imperishable 3/5. This effectively acts as HP as long as we can regenerate it, which we'll be doing with Warlock's Dark Protections 7/7 node. It also pulls double-duty with some damage reduction from cursed targets.

We also have a solid low-life protection passive in Accursed Seer 3/5, granting us a huge burst of Ward when we fall to low health.

Of course our aim is to hit 100% all resist, but it may be difficult with such a huge focus on Necro. Res., but we're stacking Ward so high that it should make up for ~10-15% undercapped resists.

There isn't really a special way to level the build. As long as you're following the skill/passive trees and making sure you prioritize resistances, you should be absolutely fine.

Before Entering Normal Monoliths

All you really want before tackling monoliths in hardcore is a halfway decent Opulent Focus, and with SuffixNecrotic Resistance on all gear. You probably want to have ~45-50% all resistances as well. Don't worry about having them fully capped just yet as it most likely won't be possible anyway. That should provide us with all the stats we need to feel strong and tanky enough.

Before Entering Empowered Monoliths

You want to have ~1.5k resting ward (the amount of ward you sit at not doing anything), and be capped on all your resistances. It's going to be very hard hitting 100% all res to counter Marked For Death, but you should be aiming for at least 80% by the time you're about level 90 and doing higher than 100 corruption monoliths.

Completing the Build

Even without exalted gear, it's fairly easy to hit 700+% Necrotic resistance, which I feel is the sweet spot for making this build feel truly alive.

You also want ~250-300+% Ward retention if you can manage it, be at about ~1.8-2k resting ward and ~1200-1400 WDT.

If you want any single unique item upgrade, I highly recommend Boneclamor Barbute, as it will massively increase your Ward regen, nearly doubling your resting Ward value. The extra Intelligence it provides will help out your Ward retention as well.

A full foot filter that will take you from 0-100 without the need to edit.

Very strict by level 80.

https://www.lastepochtools.com/loot-filters/view/kB5b6Xox

I keep running out of mana, why?

Chaos Bolts is kind of expensive, and still costs 60 -80% from autocast sources. Funnily enough, the best way to regen your mana is actually spamming Chaos Bolts at a cursed rare mob or boss, triggering Devour the Damned 2/2 a bunch of times per cast.