Quick answer: The Warlock's three trees are Demonic Binding (summons and sacrifice), Arts of Chaos (fire and magic spells) and Eldritch Weapons (weapon enchantments and melee hybrids). For breakpoints, the Warlock uses the Necromancer's frame tables: the key FCR targets are 75% (10 frames) and 125% (9 frames).

The three Warlock skill trees

Blizzard's Reign of the Warlock announcement describes a class built around specializing in one of three trees: Demonic Binding, Eldritch Weapons and Arts of Chaos. Two mechanics sit at the center of the class identity: Bind, which binds a demon to fight for you, and Consume, which sacrifices a bound demon for a temporary power spike — endgame builds use Consume on a summoned Defiler or Tainted for damage and enemy-resistance-shred buffs.

Each tree holds 10 skills at the classic level tiers (1, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30). The lists below follow diablo2.io's skill database, whose entries are labeled with Patch 3.0 data; synergy values may shift with balance patches, so treat exact percentages as patch-dependent. Skill names use the official colon spelling where Blizzard uses one (Sigil: Death, Hex: Purge).

Demonic Binding (summons and sacrifice)

The pet tree. You summon demons, empower them, and ultimately bind or consume them:

Arts of Chaos (fire and magic spells)

The caster tree, split between a fire line and a magic/shadow line:

Eldritch Weapons (enchanted melee hybrids)

The weapon tree — home of Echoing Strike, the Warlock's strongest endgame skill:

Warlock breakpoints: FCR, FHR and FBR tables

Community testing has confirmed the Warlock shares its animation frames with the Necromancer, and the published tables agree across multiple sources (AOEAH's breakpoint guide, the d2jsp theorycrafting thread, and D2R World's breakpoint reference, which lists one shared table for "Necromancer / Warlock"):

Faster Cast RateFrames
0% / 9% / 18% / 30%15 / 14 / 13 / 12
48% / 75% / 125%11 / 10 / 9
Faster Hit RecoveryFrames
0% / 5% / 10% / 16% / 26%13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9
39% / 56% / 86% / 152% / 377%8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4
Faster Block RateFrames
0% / 6% / 13% / 20%11 / 10 / 9 / 8
32% / 52% / 86% / 174%7 / 6 / 5 / 4

The FCR targets that matter in practice: 75% FCR (10 frames) is the budget endgame breakpoint, and 125% FCR (9 frames) is the cap that geared Echoing Strike and Abyss builds plan their equipment around. There is no single published IAS table — attack speed frames depend on your weapon's base speed plus gear and skill IAS, so use a planner (such as d2planner) for your exact setup rather than a universal chart.

How the trees map to real builds

Current build consensus, per Maxroll's guides: the strongest endgame setup is Echoing Strike, which maxes Hex: Purge, Mirrored Blades and Hex: Bane and uses Echoing Strike itself as the trigger, with one point in Sigil: Lethargy and Summon Defiler — the Defiler is Consumed for its magic damage and resistance-shred buff. For leveling, Maxroll now recommends Abyss from start to finish; its older Fire Warlock leveling guide (Ring of Fire into Flame Wave into Apocalypse) has been archived after Bind Demon changes. See our Warlock leveling build for the route and Warlock runewords for the gear side.

One structural tip: synergy order matters more than spreading points. Max your main skill and its listed synergies first, keep one point in utility picks like Sigil: Lethargy, Blade Warp and Psychic Ward, and only then fill out secondary damage. The Akara respec and Tokens of Absolution mean a leveling setup never locks you out of the endgame tree you actually want.

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