Question about base for BOTD

General Discussion
1

Hi, I saw that some guides suggest that the best base for “Breath of the Dying” is an Archon Staff, if you want to do the most damage.

But I checked the Arreat Summit site and found out, that there are other bases with the same average damage and attack speed:

ex: Glorious Axe with average damage 92 (more than the Archon Staff) and the same attack speed.
For Druid it is listed as “Fast”

There is also the Great Poleaxe with a little bit lower damage, but better attack speed.

So why the guides suggest to use the Archon staff instead the Glorious Axe, for example?

If it is the lower strength requirement, I don’t agree with this argument because:

  1. Ethereal items have lower requirements
  2. There is a Hel in the reciepy, which will reduce the requirements even further
  3. You will be puting points into strength anyway to inrcease your damage.

By the way, I am making a Fury druid and thinking of using a Glorious Axe, because an Archon staff is too expensive to trade and Glorious Axe seems better.

2

Even with the ethereal and Hel rune an EBotD archon staff has vastly lower requirements, taking a mere 18 strength vs the 122 strength and 34 dex of an EBotD glorious axe. Granted the difference wouldn’t actually be that great because you still need strength to equip your other gear.

Having said that the main advantage of the archon staff is the very tight base damage range, 83-99 vs the glorious axe’s 60-124. Some people prefer more consistent damage, others don’t really care.

Personally I’d pick glorious axe over the archon staff as well, it’s got a higher range adder and I don’t really care about the increased requirements nor the bigger damage range. And glorious axes are just so badass. I really want to find an ethereal 5 socket one to make Death for my Maul druid.

3

Thanks for the confirmation. I was thinking of going with glorious axe as well.

4

They may simply be considering that the +50% damage to undead is worth more than the 1 average damage point with the axe.