With the Warlock now live for a few weeks in Diablo 2’s Reign of the Warlock expansion, players are doing what they always do: theorycraft and trying to break it.
This time, the focus is on Bind Demon at Level 20. At this level, every bound demon automatically gains Spectral Hit, Extra Strong, Extra Fast, and Aura Enchanted. That changes the discussion away from basic modifiers and toward one important question: which demon has the strongest base stats?
The best part of it all? Someone actually pulled game files to find out.
How Players Compared Demon Strength
The whole theorycrafting started with one community member who extracted monster data from the game files and ranked them by average base attack damage. The comparison focuses on base stats, not perfect real DPS, since skill scaling, attack speed, and Bind Demon’s flat damage bonus all interact in complicated ways.
Even so, some clear favorites emerged.
The Top Uber Demon Choices
At the top of the chart are two Uber monsters: Pit Lord from the Furnace of Pain and Black Lancer from Matron’s Den.
Pit Lord leads in raw base damage and is absurdly tanky. It is immune to fire, cold, lightning, poison and magic, has 50% physical resistance, and immunity values high enough that they cannot be broken. If you care about survivability, this thing does not die.
However, survivability is rarely the real issue once you stack enough +skills. Many Warlocks already report that their demons feel nearly immortal in endgame gear.
Black Lancer, meanwhile, might win in actual DPS. It uses Jab and Power Strike, attacks faster, and likely scales better with Bind Demon’s flat damage bonus. If your goal is pure offensive pressure, especially with Cursed, this is the more aggressive option.
Best Options Without Uber Access
Not everyone wants to farm Uber events just to bind a demon, especially when you can misclick and consume the wrong target.
Outside Uber content, Hephasto is the most consistent recommendation. He hits hard, is easy to farm, and his AI is straightforward. He runs in and swings. For general farming, this is the most practical choice.
Lister has a different appeal. He comes with Crushing Blow and strong boss damage, but his biggest strength is aggro control. All skills have an internal AttackRank from 0 to 10 that influences how much attention they draw. Lister’s Smite is at 9. Hephasto’s generic attack is 0. For comparison, Uber Lancer’s Jab is 3, and Power Strike is 4.
That means Lister is extremely good at pulling pressure off you in boss fights or P8 runs. He is size 3, which can create minor teleport stacking issues, but if you value control and safety, he offers something the others do not.
The Holy Freeze And Vile Mother Angle
Another heavily discussed point within the thread is the Holy Freeze + Cursed combination. There are quite a few players who argue this setup can outperform Fanaticism because Holy Freeze constantly spreads Cursed across entire packs. For Eldritch or Abyss builds, screen-wide curse uptime can be much more important than squeezing out a bit more personal DPS.
Then there is the experimental option: Vile Mothers. They can spawn up to five minions, and if Bind Demon’s flat damage applies to each spawn correctly, total output could be very high under Fanaticism or Might. The problem is consistency and AI behavior. They do not charge in as aggressively, so they feel less reliable as frontline tanks.
So What Is Truly the Best?
Right now, there is no clean answer, because it depends on what you want or need. Nevertheless, the current community consensus looks like this:
- Max survivability: Uber Pit Lord
- Raw offensive scaling: Uber Black Lancer
- Consistent non-Uber farming: Hephasto
- Boss focus and aggro control: Lister with Cursed
But here is the honest take. Your Warlock is still doing most of the killing. At high gear levels, the gap between “best possible demon” and “very strong demon” is smaller than people expect.
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