well on bnet right now I have mang songs, +4 shield, +3 circlet, +3 ammy, arachs, 2x bk, 10x plain skillers, authority armor. No torch/anni/cta/wraithstep (str req). That's already 50/58 and with a skill shrine I'm at 52 total, and its not like the extra 5 skills on torch/anni/cta/wraithstep (with enigma) are unachievable, I just don't want to waste fg when prices will drop soon. If I just went out and splurged I'd be at 55+2
getting a +5 weapon is trivial, getting a +4 shield was a minor hassle, getting a +6 weapon or +5-6 shield is the hard part. At most that's 3-4 missing skill points from difficult items, you only need plain +3 helm/ammy/skillers when you're only using them to lock in a binded demon

This post was edited by Goomshill on Feb 26 2026 06:48am

You wont lock them in, bind demons work like iron golems, every new game their recast from your current skill lvl. Say i bind the demon and my skills are lvl 45, if come into a new game with skills lvl 40, my demon i had before at lvl 45 will now be on the strengh lvl as if i was lvl 40 skills.
Btw i love folks are getting into summoner builds as their my favorite on d2r, i have summon nec, druid, warlock. All skills lvl 43-51. i only use 3 skill gcs atm, i got torch and anni, so i could add 6 more skill gcs, but then my invertory would be full that would bring me to lvl 49 skills with bo. When i made that post i i said for the majority of players lvl 50 demon skills would be more practical, as most folks are not gonna be able to get those rare circurits and daggers etc. Ive done ubers and dclone, and mini ubers. I think 6 extra skill gcs should help drastically, but the mini ubers when my skills were lvl 41 went down fast.

This post was edited by starskylord on Feb 26 2026 08:37am

I did some brief testing and I can confirm yeah you have to equip the +demon skills gear when you leave a game and join a new one to lock in the higher +skills
It appears the affixes on the demon are locked in at moment of casting and will persist joining a new game even if you wouldn't have the added aura/extra fast/etc from +skills, but damage/hp are being recalculated at the start of the game

made a simple char with 1 point bind demon / mastery and 16x jewels of +7/7 bind/mastery
1/1 demon barely scratches enemies. No change by equipping gear before rebinding. 113/113 demon kills in 1 hit, no difference unequipping, or rejoining a game with same gear equipped, but unequipping the gear and rejoining it retains all the unique affixes but barely scratches enemies

In that case, you can just slap on the +demon gear after the fact. Neat

Yup, but it does make it less attractive for swap gear in normal usage and skill shrine farming useless