Dread Claws Warlock Leveling Guide for Diablo IV Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

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Dread Claws Warlock Leveling Guide for Diablo IV Season 13 - Season of Reckoning

Welcome to the Dread Claws Warlock Leveling Guide! This Abyss-themed build revolves around positioning and brings massive AoE damage to the table. If you want to stealth around before striking the entire screen at once from the shadows, you’ve come to the right place!

Your main skill Dread Claws – Encircling Terror summons a circular AoE around both yourself and your Greater Demon (Rampage – Abyssal Titan), allowing you to double up on your damage and cover more area.

Meanwhile, Hellion Sting serves as an incredible single target solution thanks to its Eviscerate synergies. Once you unlock the combo of Tail Spikes + Eviscerate, you can simply hold down this button to melt any elite or boss in seconds while refilling your Wrath.

All in all, the Dread Claws Warlock is a great allrounder that brings magnificent AoE coverage to the table and breezes through the entire game with ease. Let’s dive in to see how it works!

Dread Claws Warlock Equipment

Great AoE
Melts Bosses
Smooth Power Scaling

Mediocre Defense
Mediocre Mobility
Requires Positioning

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

The Skill Tree represents the core of your build and offers deep customization. As you level up, more and more branches gradually unlock at specific level thresholds. Follow the step by step progression below for a smooth leveling experience with the Dread Claws Warlock.

Dread Claws Warlock Skills

Hellion Sting is your Basic Skill to generate resources and occasionally apply a powerful DoT, supercharged by the Eviscerate upgrade (lvl 9) paired with the Tail Spikes variant (lvl 14) to absolutely melt elites and bosses. Note that the bonus Eviscerate chance only applies to your selected target – you have to lock on or mouseover for it to work!

Dread Claws (lvl 3) is the Core Skill you want to spam for AoE. It sends out a powerful frontal wave, later converted into a circular AoE around you and your Greater Demon by Encircling Terror (lvl 15). When low on resources, weave in a Basic attack to ramp up Damage for bigger bursts.

Nether Step (lvl 4) is your mobility tool, allowing you to teleport around the battlefield. Use it on cooldown to go faster and to generate Shadowform for Encircling Terror.

Rampage (lvl 8) is your best friend for this build, fueled by your secondary resource bar called Dominance. Not only does this guy pack a punch on his own, but you can summon him into packs to unleash Encircling Terror in two locations at once. The Abyssal Titan variant (lvl 20) allows you to reposition him without spending additional Dominance by recasting the ability. Later, this step can be semi-automated with Nether Step – Recall Shadows (lvl 34).

Laalish, acquired from the Mastermind Shard at lvl 15, is your second best friend. It continuously attacks nearby enemies and you can command it to unleash free AoE damage at a specific location.

After level 30, most of the key synergies are unlocked and the gameplay loop is almost complete. As you level up, you unlock a lot of extra points that first fill up all skill ranks on your primary abilities with leftovers spent on utility skills. Check out our Warlock Endgame Builds for the next steps!

You can unlock 14 extra skill points for a total of 83. Check out our Season Rank Guide for more details.

At level 15, you can unlock your class mechanic called Soul Shards, with a secondary option called Fragments at level 30.

Mastermind Shard unlocks Laalish for free but more importantly grants synergies for Abyss and Shadowform (generated by Nether Step, Sigil of Subversion), boosting most of our damage sources.

Blasphemous Fragment further builds into that by allowing Rampage – Abyssal Titan to apply Hex, amplifying all Abyss damage even further.

Dread Claws Warlock Soul ShardsSeason 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

To get started as a Dread Claws Warlock, focus the most on upgrading your weapon, as its damage is the base for all further damage calculations. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don’t have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options, such as Resistances, Life, and Armor, to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap, and the results can be very impactful.

Note: work in progress until we get new item datamines

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist, unlocked by salvaging items with these powers.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Useful Aspects (drop/gamble)

Accelerating
Edgemaster’s
Fortress
Deeper Shadows
Malevolence
Insidious
Impetus

Great Uniques for this build

Litany of Sable
Seed of Horazon
Lurid Pact

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 70, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Uniques

Spine of Tathamet (enables Hell Fracture Endgame Build)
Anathema of the Primes (enables Tyrant’s Grasp Endgame Build)

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Preferably, socket them into your Armor pieces as Weapon Gems offer powerful multiplicative damage bonuses. The Dread Claws Warlock focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

Cir + Ceh – Spawns wolves that deal damage and freeze enemies
Cem + Qua – Free movement speed buff every time you evade

Alternative choices

If you have access to higher level runes, you can also explore the following options:

Gar – For more crit
Que – Earthen Bulwark helps with defense
Igni – Another good way of generating offering
Tam – You spam our core skill all the time
Jah – Allows you to go faster with free Teleport

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

Varyana is used for additional healing from Taste of Flesh and grants more Aattack Speed with Hysteria.

Aldkin improves survivability by casting Field of Languish and slows enemies.

Dread Claws Warlock MercenariesSeason 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing any of the game’s Campaigns, completing War Plans activities, clearing Strongholds, or interacting with Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the base & VoH Campaigns provides all the background lore but is not necessary.
The original Campaign is the slowest way to level, but it’s worth experiencing Diablo 4’s storyline at least once.
The Vessel of Hatred campaign offers a much faster leveling experience and is also recommended at least once to see the story.
Both legacy campaigns can be skipped if you want to jump straight into the latest content.
The Lord of Hatred campaign is required to unlock War Plans and the full campaign skip for future playthroughs. For a faster pace, stay on Normal difficulty.
To play Seasonal Content, you often need to have completed or skipped the Campaign.
After finishing the campaign, you should focus on War Plans activities such as Helltides, Undercity of Kurast, or the Pit.
Strongholds provide a significant boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 60.

If you have never done so, first complete the Lord of Hatred campaign.
If available, begin with the Seasonal Questline in order to progress your Season Rank to unlock additional perks, loot, and work on your Seasonal Perks.
Preferably, stay on Hard difficulty or above to benefit from the extra XP multipliers as long as your clear speed remains fast. Use power jumps (e.g. key skill unlocks, legendary drops) to bump up the difficulty.
From level 1-70, you should focus on earning experience in War Plans activities to work on your activity trees.
Ideally, focus on Helltide, Pit, and Undercity objectives, as well as Infernal Hordes and Nightmare Dungeons for a fast and smooth experience.
Strongholds provide a significant boost of experience for little time investment. You can clear all of them after around level 60 to speed things up.
If you’re playing an Alt, make sure to use Tempers and Imprints as soon as you acquire rare gear to crank up the difficulty.
Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail with our Speed Leveling Guide.

Tips and Tricks

Imprint Important Aspects on Amulet
- Ideally, put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, since it is usually not replaced as often as other gear.
Compare Your Items
- Press Shift to activate item comparison. Use this build guide’s Stat Priorities section to identify potential upgrades.
Choose an Easy Difficulty
- Ideally, start on Normal or Hard difficulty for the extra XP modifier, then try to go higher when it’s way too easy. If that slows you down noticeably, it’s better to stay on a lower difficulty.
Use Your Materials
- There’s no point in holding on to your gold or materials for later. Use everything to speed up your journey to 70. If you’re twinking, make sure to temper and imprint your gear with powerful options to make leveling a breeze.

If you’re looking to min/max your time spent on the way to 70 instead of following a generic guideline, you need to use a specific strategy.
This usually includes farming certain activities up to a specified level and then switching to other tasks while gathering XP in high density areas and pushing the difficulty as high as you can.
We update this strategy seasonally in our Speed Leveling Guide.

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

Dread Claws Warlock Starter Setup

As you approach level 70 with the Dread Claws Warlock, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints. After reaching 70, Paragon Levels unlock, offering you a steady power progression even after the initial leveling phase. Complete Pit Tier 10 to enter Torment 1, where Diablo IV’s Endgame begins.

With better gear, more levels, and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards while exploring the perks of War Plans activities and their trees.

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation and order. Note that Glyphs go from a starting radius of 3 up to 5 at level 50. Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.

← Use the slider for progression steps →
Dread Claws Warlock Leveling Paragon

Glyph Leveling Priorities

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

Coming soon.

Season 13 – Season of Reckoning

Dread Claws Warlock

The Dread Claws Warlock is simple to play AoE powerhouse with great endgame scaling potential.

Attack with Dread Claws and position your Greater Demon inside packs to get double hits.
Delete elites and bosses with Hellion Sting.
Use Nether Step to move around and to generate Shadowform.
Cast Sigil of Subversion and Command Laalish in large fights.
Become one with the shadows!