Absolutely Max Damage Demon--into the weeds

I still don't understand exactly how damage of your demon is calculated, but in an exercise to crunch numbers, I learned a few things I didn't know previously. This is all based on the assumption that the following thread is mostly true:
https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/commen ... ow_so_far/

That is to say, your demon has a first snapshot on binding that dictates its aura/level, monster level, and health, but it does not snapshot its damage (and perhaps health after modifications like

Blood Oath). Also that your demon has a second snapshot every time it spawns in a new game, and this snapshot takes your skill levels, specifically

Bind Demon (and maybe

Demonic Mastery for AR and

Blood Oath for health and resists??), and calculates the damage your demon will deal for the rest of the game, before modifiers like auras,

Amplify Damage and such.

Therefore, it is in your interest to stack as much

Bind Demon skill as possible before exiting a game and starting a new one, at least any time you plan on doing something difficult like Colossal Ancients or Ubers (I dunno, never done one).

But wait! What about

Demonic Mastery? That adds a % damage that your demon does as well. Turns out, that % damage is already added into the

Bind Demon skill, so the higher DM goes, the higher BD goes. Which is best to maximize, though? BD increase flat damage and +5% damage per level, and DM increases 10% damage per level. Is the flat damage or the % damage more important?

To simulate this, I had some fun with Maxroll D2planner.

The very maximum you can get DM at the start of a game (since you can't prebuff) is Level 56:
Weapon: +3 Demonic +3

Bind Demon

Dagger
Shield: +3 Demonic +3

Bind Demon

Grimoire
Ammy: +3 Demonic

Helm: +2
Chest: +2
Rings: +2

Belt: +1
Boot: +1
Hellfire/Anni: +4
GCs: +9
= total +36

Bind Demon
All of that equip also results in Lvl 50

Demonic Mastery and Lvl 50

Blood Oath

These are my calculations (if I'm calculating correctly) for

Lister the Tormentor: Now, if we decided to change the +3

Bind Demon staff mods for +3

Demonic Mastery, we end up flipping them around to 50/56, respectively: I am assuming that the skill adds the flat damage first and then add the % damage increase afterwards and this becomes the Base Weapon Damage of Lister the Tormenter. Note that the flat damage has a very significant effect on the "Base Weapon Damage" damage of

Lister the Tormentor before things like auras, assuming the calculation is correct. It means we should max out

Bind Demon as priority. The damage at that point is ~16K per hit by

Lister the Tormentor. I don't think that is amazing even after linking 10 mobs, BUT, lucky us, we get a free aura and our Merc can pile on as well... and lets not forget Cursed! When you start looking at those percentages stacking up (assuming that upon spawn, the demon's base weapon damage is ~16K and that

Fanaticism,

Concentration and Might each add a percentage of THAT value on top as off-weapon ED... but I may be wrong), we are seeing some really decent damage on the order of 100K+. Cursed is where it goes cuckoo, resulting in ~300K damage per hit before factoring in physical resistances. Assuming 50% physical resistances, that would still be >200K damage in one hit.

Someone should really check me on those calcs...

Note also, however, that this setup includes ridiculously difficult to find

Dagger and book. So I just did a quick re-calc using my current gear setup with Obsession, Mara, a Splendor +3

Bind Demon book (which I have a base for) and only 3 GCs: And that's s big drop, but still ~100K damage per hit pre-

Amplify Damage. I don't have a merc with Pride yet, and Lister is currently rocking

Conviction, but once the patch hits, I will aim for a Cursed

Fanaticism demon and Pride. NOTE: this is without having to do any gear juggling before starting a new game.

If you wanted a more reasonable gear-juggle-scheme, you could get a

Mang Song's Lesson instead of super rare godly

Dagger and the aforementioned Splendor

Grimoire, while quickly swapping out 5-6 GCs for your

Gheed's, Sunder(s), cube and spare inventory space: This is quite nice, as it gives you a big damage boost and won't take 10 years of visiting

Drognan and re-rolling blue daggers/books to achieve.

I expect that everyone has read this post in fine detail and am now happy to hear your comments, critiques and corrections to my math. Thanks!

I forgot to mention. Since the flat damage absolutely dwarfs the normal damage of every demon in the game, it almost shouldn't matter which demon you bind. The affixes are probably the most important and "demon skills".

What might be crazy is that the Dark Lancer's

Jab might do all of that damage 3 times at once! But really, as that point, one hit should be enough, right?

Also forgot to mention that I do not know when/how

Blood Oath modifies the demon, but I expect it is similar to the snapshot of

Bind Demon at the start of a game--in any case, doesn't matter because the numbers are silly (>1 million health) and the caps are going to be in effect soon enough.

Sorry, I added another calculation. This time asking what happens if the % damage from

Bind Demon (and

Demonic Mastery) is added AFTER the spawn snapshot, and that the spawn snapshot only adds the +flat damage, thus making the

Bind Demon %ED calculation an off-hand %ED calculation alongside

Fanaticism/

Concentration/Might. Below are the numbers, which actually seem more realistic. I would also assume these numbers are more dynamic, meaning the %ED will vary depending on current skill levels, so in this case, I'm starting with max

Bind Demon and then swapping back to regular adventure gear: These numbers all seem more realistic, because with my current gear and

Lister the Tormentor with

Conviction (no

Fanaticism, Might or

Concentration, but yes,

Amplify Damage), it is taking him a fair amount of time to beat down

Baal in P1. I doubt that would be the case if he was slapping for 100K each time.