Max damage secondary for Demons?

I'm willing to go for things that simply boost primary damage formidably, such as -resist or +damage, rather than just attacks. I've been inspired to make a damage dealing MM after reading that someone's bots/storm did 350 DPS in the Rikti Pylon thread. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that Demons have the potential to give more DPS than bots, especially if I'm attacking constantly with the whip and stacking -resist.

Right now my Demons MM is /Dark because I like the idea of having an extra pet with the Dark Servant. After doing some research I'd assume that /Thermal and /Storm would also offer either nice damage or nice damage buffs. My issue with /Storm was that it seemed to require very careful planning with any class that couldn't provide the controls (immob especially) to make sure things don't get tossed all over the place. What pushed me away from /Thermal is the idea of the constant buffing all of the different pets + teammates every couple of minutes. That just sounds like a huge hassle!

On the other hand, /Thermal would provide shields, and my least favorite part of my MM at the moment is the fact that the three weak demons especially are dying practically every pull... Will they die less frequently at a later level with /Dark, or is constant pet death an issue all MMs suffer from forever?

Traps. With a good amount of recharge you can stack your acid mortar several times. Plus, you have trip mine and lots of -regen.

Edit: Storm could be good too. Dunno which is better.

That's a ton of recharge necessary to triple stack acid mortar, how much would that build cost?

How exactly does traps work? It seems like every ability requires enemies to walk by. Is it difficult to use or fairly simple? Is it fun? I've never used it or seen it used before.

Traps is a blast, but you have to play aggresively. Don't wait for foes to walk past your minefields, run in and drop mortars, bombs, and gas traps at their feet. Use bodyguard or seekers to mitigate the alpha.

As for cost, even cheap builds can double stack acid mortar. I'm posting from my phone, so not sure how much +recharge is required to triple stack, but it should be around 50% + hasten. Oh, and don't forget to slot the mortar with an Achilles' heel proc.

You might struggle to out damage bots vs a stationary target. That burn patch does a lot of damage and against the pylons the assault bot has powerful -regen (that only works sometimes cause it is bugged but still, it does a bit.

The problem with demon/traps vs pylons specifically (or GM's) is that when you run in to put down poison trap they will decimate your minions because they are standing in melee range too. It's fine for most AV's, but GM's and Pylon use powerful aoe attacks.

Edit: you could conceivable instruct your pets to move to range each time you refresh PT.

I'd be tempted to suggest demon/storm because you can stand back and not have your pets get wasted, but at the same time you need to taunt to keep the aggro off of them. That works better on a bots storm as you get bubbled by the pro-bot so building for softcap is a lot easier. But the storm pseudo-pets nado and LS will greatly benefit by all the -res you and your pets dish out.

Edit: But be aware that many AV's (and probably GM's) will flee even through constant powerpool taunting due to the powerful afraid factor of storm.

Which brings us to demon/thermal, which with decent recharge on forge is no damage slouch either if you can perma HE and Melt armor.

Thermal is quite good. It heals, it buffs, it mez a bit, and it debuffs insanly good.

Why do people keep thinking you can stack acid mortar. YOU CAN'T STACK IT. when you go to summon another it replaces the previous one. Also its debuff only will stack from a different MMs mortar. It has been like that for a very long time. Now the Proc I think can proc again, if your lucky. The only point to adding alot of recharge for the mortar is for the fact of fast battles and you can have it out alot.

Traps

My first toon is a merc/traps mm, by first toon I mean the toon I made close to release. They made that change quite a long time ago. And as far as stacking goes. That was tested to see how it worked not to long ago. Apparently it change not to long ago. I haven't played my Traps MM since I16.

Oh that makes sense then, except acid mortar has stacked for as long as I can remember. The only way it wouldn't stack is if it despawned the first, which isn't the case, and hasn't been the case at any point in time on live servers afaik.

Acid Mortar does stack it's debuff from multiple casters. Since each acid mortar is considered it's own caster, a single MM benefits from the debuff multiple times.

The Achilles' Heel proc, however, does NOT stack under any circumstance. It actually applies a temp power to the target, and it will be overwritten by any other application of the proc, regardless of the source.