3 posts in a row aren't good enough
I was curious enough about the permutations of item choices I wrote a quick program that summed up the item bonuses and calculates the damage for each setup based on input parameters like enemy phys/fire resist, strength and dex, then looks at a set of items I selected like lawbringer/beast/3030 sword, fort/2020 armor, phoenix/2020shield/160, etc etc for each setup, then returns the highest aoe damage after -resists (I could make it look for highest phys+fire damage, but I think the aoe is more relevant). The end results were pretty similar to what I had been testing, under assumptions like "lawbringer is always -50% enemy phys resist" even though the proc is reliable in practice and did not account for phoenix firestorm or ias in general. There are still better setups for each scenario like whether you're using tiger strike or a 156 strength or 600 strength or enemies have 0/0 resist or 50/75. The 5 parameters I summed for items are +% ed, +skills, +% fire skill, -% fire resist, -% phys resist.

so to give some numbers. For a 156 strength strength build against 0% fire / 0% phys enemy and no tiger strike, it gave the highest as;
lawbringer + fort + phoenix + 2x facet / +3 skills circlet + 3/20 gloves + infinity merc with soj/raven/arachs/3ma ammy = 24157 avg fire damage

and to confirm that math is accurate
+930% ed, -123% resist, 156 str, 146 dex, -50% phys resist, +6 skills for 490% dragon tail->
base damage = ((156+146-20)/4 + (156+146-20)/3)/2 = 82.25
kick damage = 82.25 + (83+149)/2 * (100+156*1.2+930)/100.0 = 1494.2
damage taken = 1494.2 * 1.5 = 2241.3
fire aoe damage = 2241.3*4.9*1.1 = 12080
fire damage taken = 12080 * 2 = 24160

so my math checks out. I wasn't doing the rounding and int flooring by hand here, but its in the program
Now with this programs, I can check the most damage possible with any given build or setup, for example if allies are providing the amp damage and conviction to bring an enemy to -100/-100

Using 600 strength and max tiger strike, against 0/0 enemies, I came up with;
lawbringer + 2020 armor + 2020 shield + 2x facet/3skils circlet + 3/20 gloves + infinity = 243816 fire damage dragon tail
I didn't include lacerator in the above calculations, but changing that to -100% physical resist for lacerator does 325088 fire damage
and if you had -100% from amp provided elsewhere ie charge up lacerator on swap, so -100% / 0% enemy resists, then a +6 skills claw with 2x facets, 20/20 armor, 20/20 shield, 2 facet 3 skills helm, 3/20 gloves, infinity comes up with 430742 damage


Now for actual practical terms and a reasonable build, it seems to me the best balance is that 24k damage build I listed first for 156 strength, which is also the same top damage build for 600 strength (36.2k damage), but once you throw in tiger strike with either build the % ed isn't worth as much, the lawbringer, 2020 armor, 2020 shield, 3/10/10 helm, 3/20 gloves and infinity is top for tiger strike with 600 strength (244k). But the various upsides really point to the lawbringer/fort/phoenix build- besides not dying due to being a glass cannon, lawbringer helps pierce physical immunities both with decrep and sanctuary, the various effects like stats, life, resists on the runewords sure compare nicely to blank 20/20 jewelers armors. And when you're using tiger strike on the 156 str lawbringer build, you hit ~118k damage anyway. And once you've reached a high enough damage that every monster in players 8 dies in 1 hit, you can't really improve on it. Which is why maxing out the non-tiger strike damage is a real help

This post was edited by Goomshill on Mar 19 2018 03:28pm