Testing Bind Demon mechanics

I just hit 96 and planned a respec, so time to say goodbye to my non-consensual faithful servant. Thought I'd use this opportunity to play around with

Bind Demon mechanics.

There are a few alleged mechanics to play with:

1. Binding a demon creates a snapshot of it's health (including P1-8 scaling) and affixes -- confirmed
2. Your skill level at the time of binding creates a snapshot of the demon's damage, and that is its permanent damage -- unconfirmed
3. Your skill level at the time your demon spawns in a new game snapshots your demon's damage, and that is its permanent damage for the rest of the game -- unconfirmed
4. Your demon's damage depends on your current skill level, i.e., is dynamic and changes with things like adding hard skill points (e.g., leveling) or soft skill points (e.g., equipping +skills gear), hitting skill shrines, or CTA buffing -- unconfirmed

Experimental Design

1. Bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor using my regular gear
==> A) Measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (average of 10 zombies)
==> B) Take off gear and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (average of 10 zombies)
2. In a new game, bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor while naked
==> A) measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
==> B) put on gear and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
3. In a new game, bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor using my regular gear
==> Remove gear and start a new game
==> Measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
==> Put gear on again and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
4. In a new game, bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor while naked
==> Put on gear and start a new game
==> Measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
==> Take off gear again and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)

Welp, we'll see how this plays out!

@FerociousTerrier Nice plan.
Please use some very standard gear with as small variability as possible. Like Spirit, Horazon set, old sunder charm only (no+ to skill damage or - enemy resist), etc.
This will be easy for others to replicate.

dionisy_cn wrote: 19 hours ago

@FerociousTerrier Nice plan.
Please use some very standard gear with as small variability as possible. Like Spirit, Horazon set, old sunder charm only (no+ to skill damage or - enemy resist), etc.
This will be easy for others to replicate.

I'm a bit limited on resources, but will do another round removing my more specialized gear like Ars Tor Baalos.

Current gear:
2 SOJ
Arachnid

Belt

Shako
Mara
Obsession (can switch to HotO or Spirit)
Baalos (don't have Spirit shield)

Wraithstep +Demon

Magefist (irrelevant for

Bind Demon)
Hellfire
Anni
~4 demon skillers

Putting me at Lvl 42

Bind Demon and Lvl 44 or 45

Demonic Mastery. Going naked puts both at 20, so should be able to see some differentials.

Note: I will also test binding with a Sunder vs No Sunder and starting games with/without sunders and adding/removing sunders afterwards.

Edit: I need to find the lowest level/safest place with physical immunes.

FerociousTerrier wrote: 18 hours ago

Note: I will also test binding with a Sunder vs No Sunder and starting games with/without sunders and adding/removing sunders afterwards.

Edit: I need to find the lowest level/safest place with physical immunes.

Arcane Sanctuary may be. Full of ghosts. Your Hell

Fallen should fire immune. Goatmans can cause troubles.

If you are using

Death Mark or

Engorge, note that they increase damage done by your Demon. Your + skills will affect this too.

I re thought this. Naked VS Book with +to

Bind Demon and

Dagger + to

Bind Demon will show only this skills. + All skills will affect skills pointEd above.

*lol , this already starts feeling like work*

dionisy_cn wrote: 18 hours ago

FerociousTerrier wrote: 18 hours ago

Note: I will also test binding with a Sunder vs No Sunder and starting games with/without sunders and adding/removing sunders afterwards.

Edit: I need to find the lowest level/safest place with physical immunes.

Arcane Sanctuary may be. Full of ghosts. Your Hell

Fallen should fire immune. Goatmans can cause troubles.

If you are using

Death Mark or

Engorge, note that they increase damage done by your Demon. Your + skills will affect this too.

I re thought this. Naked VS Book with +to

Bind Demon and

Dagger + to

Bind Demon will show only this skills. + All skills will affect skills pointEd above.

*lol , this already starts feeling like work*

Didn't mention that I won't use

Death Mark or

Engorge, just let the demon attack. The problem with +

Bind Demon books/daggers (I have +3 of both), is that at only +6 skills, it may be difficult to see a difference. But I can add that comparison in the mix--Naked vs

Bind Demon skills vs fully geared. This is also why staying in the

Blood Moor is better, since it will be complicated to survive elsewhere. NOTE: if the

Fallen dies easily, that is another data point to add.

After that, we can start getting into multivariable models like adding Merc Auras. Emilio might be making the ultimate

Sacrifice for science.. multiple times.

Note: I can also test the sunders with summoning Tainteds since I have a renewed fire sunder--although this has likely already been tested (summoning with sunder then removing sunder and vice-versa).

FerociousTerrier wrote: 19 hours ago

I just hit 96 and planned a respec, so time to say goodbye to my non-consensual faithful servant. Thought I'd use this opportunity to play around with

Bind Demon mechanics.

There are a few alleged mechanics to play with:

1. Binding a demon creates a snapshot of it's health (including P1-8 scaling) and affixes -- confirmed
2. Your skill level at the time of binding creates a snapshot of the demon's damage, and that is its permanent damage -- unconfirmed
3. Your skill level at the time your demon spawns in a new game snapshots your demon's damage, and that is its permanent damage for the rest of the game -- unconfirmed
4. Your demon's damage depends on your current skill level, i.e., is dynamic and changes with things like adding hard skill points (e.g., leveling) or soft skill points (e.g., equipping +skills gear), hitting skill shrines, or CTA buffing -- unconfirmed

Experimental Design

1. Bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor using my regular gear
==> A) Measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (average of 10 zombies)
==> B) Take off gear and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (average of 10 zombies)
2. In a new game, bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor while naked
==> A) measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
==> B) put on gear and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
3. In a new game, bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor using my regular gear
==> Remove gear and start a new game
==> Measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
==> Put gear on again and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
4. In a new game, bind a

Fallen till getting

Holy Freeze in the

Blood Moor while naked
==> Put on gear and start a new game
==> Measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)
==> Take off gear again and measure how long/how many hits it takes the bound

Fallen to kill a

Zombie in the

Blood Moor (avg of 10)

Welp, we'll see how this plays out!

Man this is awesome! Please keep us posted!

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

FerociousTerrier wrote: 19 hours ago

[..]
1. Binding a demon creates a snapshot of it's health (including P1-8 scaling) and affixes -- confirmed
[..]

Has that actually been confirmed post-patch? Now that there is a health

Cap, whatever it may be, I wouldn't just assume that a blanket statement of "P8 > P1" still holds true.
I wouldn't even be surprised if the whole reason for the health

Cap was to counter exactly that.

dionisy_cn wrote: 19 hours ago

@FerociousTerrier Nice plan.
Please use some very standard gear with as small variability as possible. Like Spirit, Horazon set, old sunder charm only (no+ to skill damage or - enemy resist), etc.
This will be easy for others to replicate.

You'd actually want the gear to be as top-end and extreme as possible so as to maximize the impact of gear (=max possible skill points), by extension maximizing any possible "difference due to gear", in turn minimizing the impact of random chance/dmg spread on the results.

I'll add a P1 vs P8 comparison. A

Fallen shouldn't be too difficult to see it's health drop, as opposed to Heph, Lister,

Blunderbore, etc.

Schnorki wrote: 1 hour ago

FerociousTerrier wrote: 2 hours ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

Has that actually been confirmed post-patch? Now that there is a health

Cap, whatever it may be, I wouldn't just assume that a blanket statement of "P8 > P1" still holds true.
I wouldn't even be surprised if the whole reason for the health

Cap was to counter exactly that.




You'd actually want the gear to be as top-end and extreme as possible so as to maximize the impact of gear (=max possible skill points), by extension maximizing any possible "difference due to gear", in turn minimizing the impact of random chance/dmg spread on the results.

I'll add a P1 vs P8 comparison. A

Fallen shouldn't be too difficult to see it's health drop, as opposed to Heph, Lister,

Blunderbore, etc.

While you're add it, you could run that life comparison twice:
Once with

Blood Oath and once with 0 pts (hard or soft) in

Blood Oath. See if that's impacting it now.

I JUST pumped points into

Blood Oath. I do have one token in the stash though... For science!

The problem currently: I can't bind any

Fallen. The summoned goats one shot it. I may need to find a +1

Miasma Bolt

Kris or something.

So far I have only confirmed that summoning

Tainted while having a fire sunder in your inventory makes the taineted damage fire immunes. This works whether or not you keep your sunder in your inventory. It also goes the reverse. If you

Summon Tainted without a fire sunder in your inventory and then add the fire sunder, your

Tainted do no damage to fire immunes.

I do not yet know how this translates to Bound demons. I'm still working on minimally damaging a

Fallen so I can bind it...

FerociousTerrier wrote: 1 hour ago

I'm still working on minimally damaging a

Fallen so I can bind it...

Summon a defiler instead of a

Goatman. You can "slap" the

Fallen as he's busy with the defiler and to not kill him.

I just respeced to get a cursed Heph. I killed my bound pre-patch next-to-immortal Heph and got a cursed one (no immunities on him) and he's taking damage quite easily. TZ 96, P8 both.
I have to take a look at his life bar once in a while. I didn't do any Ubers or Ancients yet, as I'm on a 1000 Hell Countess challenge.

Florian_G wrote: 1 hour ago

FerociousTerrier wrote: 1 hour ago

I'm still working on minimally damaging a

Fallen so I can bind it...

Summon a defiler instead of a

Goatman. You can "slap" the

Fallen as he's busy with the defiler and to not kill him.

I got a

Dagger from

Akara with misma bolt. That worked.

Problem is still that the little sucker kills in one hit. In P7, he killed everything but one

Zombie in a single hit. And I suspect he just missed the one time.

I'm about to do the strip-down and start a new game naked to see what that does.

Ok, bit tricky, but basically got the method down.

Lure out a

Fallen, hit him a few times with

Miasma Bolt, swap back to Obsession/Baalos, bind. Rinse, repeat till getting a

Blessed Aim

Fallen (

Holy Freeze also damages, I think).

Note: ran into an elite pack of zombies and they can definitely kill the

Fallen (P1), so I will also try to note how many hits he can take before I have to port or run out to keep him from dying.