So, I built my fury summon hybrid druid again this season. Thought I would ask a question, I got some runes together and I am debating where to invest them. For my main weapon should I do greif in a phase blade or a zodded eth reaper’s toll.
Reaper Wolf is my recommendation due to the built-in Decrepify. Alternatively, BotD in an Archon Staff or Ribcracker are solid options.
yeah I have done multiple wolves over the years. This was my starter this season and I am currently equipped with fortitude and a normal reapers. I have a zod rune and another Lo rune so was tyring to figure out do I make a greif and pair it with a spirit monarch or trade the Lo rune and find an eth reapers to upgrade my damage that way just wanted a second opinion before committing thanks, any other thoughts are welcome.
Edit, I did the same build 2 season ago with BOTD in an ethereal berserker axe paired with a pheonix shield. However, I don’t have the runes to make that this time. I am curious why would you choose an Archon staff for BOTD? The base damage on one isn’t that high and you cannot use a shield like you could with the berserker axe?
imho grief is a waste on a druid, so don’t do that.
also imho you should not use a shield on a shapeshifter due to their bad block frame rates.
so go 2hander on shape-shifters.
you want an Edeath Decpaitator.
reapers toll is another good option though, i use an eth zodded one as my offhand for physical immunes
2 Likes
Archon Staffs have 91 average damage that bumps to 136 when Ethereal. It also has decent Attack Speed for a 2-Hander that can hold 6-sockets for BotD. Yet as Swiftkitten pointed out, EDeath in a Decapitator base is arguably the BiS weapon for Wolves due to the insane Deadly Strike(can hit 100% with Highlords and Gores) and godly Crushing Blow. Attack Speed generally isn’t a concern for Werewolves so the lack of IAS on Death won’t hurt you. Your only issue will be Immunes so an A2 equipped with a Reaper is all you’ll need to break their immunity. Alternatively an Ethereal Reaper with a Zod is a strong contender(which is what I’d generally use due to not having to worry about immunity and piercing enemy Resistance when it procs).
Archon staff is good if you play on controller otherwise you’re going to whiff a lot because of the low range adder.
Yes this is a thing because point and click with a mouse always sets your attack range with fury at the maximum distance of the weapon, meaning an enemy that moves slightly away may become out of range. This is less of an issue on controller because of its freeform movement.
act 2 merc with reapers is way overrated… escpially for wolf… as you cant tele to repostion them to tareget the correct enemy… i tried it once years ago, just got annoying he would never attack who i wanted him to… nowadays i use act 3 fire merc… merc AI sucks
i mean he does still like to throw fireballs at fire immunes >.>
but him buffing my summons and my AR is very useful and he can kill physical immune himself too, especially tings like ghosts which like to stack, fireball aoe stronk
3 Likes
I’d use A1 Fire w/ Faith for the Fanaticism before I’d use A3. I mean yeah you lose out on the Enchant for the higher Attack Rating and marginal Fire Damage it yields but A1’s Exploding Arrow isn’t too bad and that Fanaticism is quite nice for the Skill IAS that easily puts you at Max APS on Feral Rage + Fury with Mark of the Bear rolling.
I like to use act 5 frenzy barb with lawbringer and hustle sword. Decrep+sanctuary+fant is great. He also uses hustle armor.
That guy speed is insane. He follows way better than act2
1 Like
grief is actually BIS for rabies, the only issue with that is rabies is complete garbage because of the duration is like 30 seconds.
like rabies is so horrficaly bad that if u have the perfect build with all bis items
greif
+8 rabies metamophosis
trange gloves
50% bramble
4x 5/5 poison facted jmod
aluders boots
arach,
bk/ sojs
maras/ +3 SS ammy
and 7 ss GC’s plus poison sunder
and maxes rabies and its synergies
you would STILL clear faster with you base level 1 feral rage, than with rabies
its GARBAGE
*i literally tested this offline… it was sad 
)
so this is a plea to blizzard, PLEASE cap rabies duration at 4-6 seconds ( keeping total damage over the entire duration the same)
the skill is SOOO FUN in mods like POD
1 Like
Why so, just for the -enemy poison resist? Wouldn’t a plague bearer be better and switch to death web?
it has IAS which of course is important.
it has ignore targets defense which means you will always proc rabies on any non super unique and even super uniques it has -25% defense
it had the - poison resist,
as well as mana and life after kill
it has literally everything you can ask for in a weapon for rabies
plague bearer sucks
it give nothing want could with except a some + rabies skills
deaths web switch is fine if your pvp, but u don’t need it, and I’m not even 100% sure it works like that anymore, with them fixing the weapon swap glitch.
but pvp also used greif becuase its fury+ rabies
greif is the best hands down
and no " plague" isn’t better either, its better than plague bearer sure. and is a decent temp weap if u really cant find that Lo rune but not even close to greif>
the ignored targets defense and life after kill are just as important as the - poison resist
agreed to all above.
and the sad part is that the poison length is soooo easy to change if they wanted to do it.
i use edeath decapitator and jewelers xxx armor of whale. 2x 15ias/15res + 2x 15ias/40ed jools. with highlords and LoH gloves you have 100%ias which is nice.
i play at p8 games, other ppl do baal, i do travincal runs. only thing that is bad is that i kill counsil so fast that i have to idle at kurast docks and wait for other ppl to finish the game.
i use a5 merc, with phoenix sword, he is unkillable by fire (hydras) so i can id drops and merc can tank other counsil members while i do that.