Anyway to recap

Level 20+ bind turns all bound demons into uniques with aura enchanted, extra strong, extra fast, spectral hit. Even random trash mobs or demons that can't normally be uniques, but it will only have those affixes if its a trash mob
Any cursed unique enemy will gain all those affixes even if it doesn't display them under its name, so every cursed demon unique can be bound to become a curse + holy shock/freeze/fire aura that spreads aoe amp damage.
Ismail Vilehand is the only superunique demon that will always have cursed affix, so every time you bind Ismail he'll be cursed, aura enchanted and a bunch of other affixes.
There's a 1/7 chance of each aura so 3/7 chance any ismail vilehand you bind will be amp + holy aura, and a 1/7 chance that any demon you convert- even trash mobs- will have conviction, or fanat.

Also it appears that the skill is doing insane amounts of damage and we can only really guess at the mechanics. The best guess is that when it says "+732 damage / +460% damage" on level 26 bind demon + mastery, its actually adding base damage AND global % ed.
So maxing it out on my random non-max possible setup with with level 50 bind demon / 53 mastery / 50 blood oath with +1428 damage / +850% damage / +57% eias / +38% frw / +77% all resist / +11% dr / +1300 AR, and given level 12 fanat aura on self (+237% ed / +31% eias) + 230% from might on a2 merc, + cursed, +99% extra strong, +spectral hit

I don't know how TZ affects base stats, so let me just use even a lowly non-TZ hephastus
If those assumptions are all true, hephastus has a base 140-170 physical damage and uses animation 5P with 14 framesperdirection / 255 speed / 7 action frame, so a 13 FPA regular attack with simple math.
His EIAS should cap at +75% since that's where d2 engine hard locks attack speed, so 7 FPA attack, +15 AI delay frames, so he hits at 22 FPA
Now how is his damage really calculated? If they seriously are giving him +1428 base damage and +1416% ed then he's dealing a ridiculous 23770-24225 damage per attack before cursed
which actually is what it looks like he's fucking doing


Now just for testing's sake, not quite those numbers since no might on merc so maybe around 20k damage per hit predicted, no cursed affix to make it simple. He's in bloody foothills P8 doing about 66-100% of the hp of a burning dead archer trash mob in a single hit (they have HP ranges even if his damage isn't much of a range). Those skeletons should have 17658-25231 HP average with 33% dr. So yeah, it looks like he's doing about 20k damage per hit. Not including the minor spectral hit / etc damage which is extremely tiny by comparison to the ludicrous base damage. Also he should have 5% chance to crit.
By contrast, if all you had was aurabot with 1 point in the skills same setup, level 26 with +732 damage / 460% damage, and no might aura, no fanat. Then he's just 5k or so damage per hit

This post was edited by Goomshill on Feb 18 2026 07:40am

Also this means the best dps demon would probably be anything that can hit more than once per attack, or use a skill that adds their attack damage multiple times like tomb vipers did with clouds, not sure which ones qualify
Frenzytaurs aren't demons so that don't work

What demons cast lower res? Any of them tanky or is that always going to be a caster demon? Would like to get a lower res conviction demon early season to clear cows with fire lock

This post was edited by ManWithOutaName on Feb 18 2026 08:15am

Furthermore its clear the way +%ed and +base damage is being applied to monsters is very unintuitive
Most (all?) missiles used by monsters are not direct attacks but instead abilities made to look like attacks, even if they are physical. IE, dark rangers use a skill called "cr_arrow1" or flayers use "blowgun". And either they don't scale their damage with bound demon, or maybe some part like base damage or % ed doesn't apply, because either way they clearly do piddly damage compared to melee mobs. In general I'd say ranged bound demons don't work unless you get something that is specifically broken like old tomb viper effect was.
Dark lancers as guest monsters in act 5 and matrons den have a jab sequence attack that hits multiple times, but they don't use it too frequently because they all have a 2nd skill and normal attack too
Festering appendages are demons but can't be bound
Hell buzzards won't fly, just be basic autoattackers
I'll need to do more testing

also my other testing / digging
I don't see any multi-hit attacks other than lancers across the whole game
putrid defilers don't seem to use the impregnate skill, and the vile children allied with you that do spawn from vile mothers appear to use base stats and no bonuses, just auras/etc so they are very very weak, about ~60 damage, though they do teleport with you and seem more or less permanent so they make a free minion zoo with fair HP each, can't be consumed, don't count against demon limits, don't show their hp on bar, etc. Appears to be a limit of 5 children, and all die instantly if the mother dies / unsummoned / consumed, but also they don't heal in town when you do either. Replaced fast enough that if they do die it doesn't matter.
tested quite a few demon projectiles and didn't find any that inherited damage

I want to test the behaviors of champion mobs, like ghostly/berserker/etc demons /e: they definitely retain ghostly appearance at least

This post was edited by Goomshill on Feb 18 2026 09:21am

so ur saying i can find hephisto with fanat and on bind he can ALSO get holyshock or holy freeze?

No only 1x aura. If you got lvl 20 bind and you bind a demon with an aura he keeps his spawn aura and the lvl 20 perk is useless. Hephasto not an ideal pick when lvl 20bind skill

ic ic
any idea who i can bind that has both fanat and holy shock/freeze?

Mobs can only ever have 1 aura

hmm
okay so not really possible to end up with Might, Fanat AND holyshock/freeze between bind/merc? Maybe there is a runeword im missing