Weapon for Werewolf Druid

[Vash]

I'm making a Werewolf druid and I'm wondering what kind of weapon to use. I've already read Dragoon's Werewolf guide (which I must say was excellent).

Right now I have a cruel colossus blade on my barb which I can give to my druid. It is shaeled and comes out to be around 357% enchanced damage after jewels. I also have a clean IK Stone Crusher. I looked at some weapons stats at Arreat Summit and I noticed that elite axes have great damage and are especially fast for druids.

Should I just go with one of the two weapons I already have (c blade and IK maul)? If so, which? Or should I wait it out and try for an even better weapon?

[FenrisWulf]

I personally would go for the IK Maul, but then again, I don't know a lot about your Colossus Blade. Two things I can guess, though:

Your Colossus Blade is dealing around 118-301 damage (should most likely be a bit less, but I don't know exactly what jewels you socketed).
It has less than 50% IAS.

In comparison, the IK Maul should deal around 234-321 damage, is faster (by virtue of WIAS and weapon type), gains 1.1% ED per point in Strength, has a nice bit of extra damage against Demons and Undead, and deals up to 40% Crushing Blow. If you place a Shael or IAS jewel in the IK Maul's socket, it will be swinging at 9/5/5/5/5 (thanks, TheDragoon!). I really don't see how the CCB can even compare. :D Leave it on your Barb.

IK will serve you fine all the way through Hell, easily. It's a great weapon. However, as a Shifting Druid, you'll need some sort of PI switch; I would recommend Baranar's Star and Tiamat's Rebuke, obviously, but if you don't have these handy, an Elemental Damage Wand/Dagger/Sword, either Magical or Socketed, will work decently well, too.

[Vash]

Yeah the sword does around that damage...one handed =P

2-handed it does 268-529, but it only has 20% IAS.

[Nebuul]

I find that, when in doubt, do enough damage to kill any enemy in 1 hit. Therefore, get an ethereal hellslayer and put a zod in it.

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

In comparison, the IK Maul should deal around 234-321 damage, is faster (by virtue of WIAS and weapon type), gains 1.1% ED per point in Strength, has a nice bit of extra damage against Demons and Undead, and deals up to 40% Crushing Blow. If you place a Shael or IAS jewel in the IK Maul's socket, it will be swinging at 9/5/5/5/5 (thanks, TheDragoon!). I really don't see how the CCB can even compare.

What I'm TALKIN' 'BOUT! :D

[TheDragoon]

Ug, that's a terrible plan. It'd be so slow, random and inefficient it'd drive me bonkers!

As for the original poster, you're looking at the IK Maul (9/5/5/5/5 Fury with Shael Rune) vs. that sword (13/8/8/8/8 Fury). The fact that the IK Maul is so much faster most likely makes up for the lack of damage. Oh, and don't forget the extra damage to demons/undead as well as the Crushing Blow. :)

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

I find that, when in doubt, do enough damage to kill any enemy in 1 hit. Therefore, get an ethereal hellslayer and put a zod in it.

Which makes it as slow as molasses in January. I've used a Hellslayer myself. I just *ITCH* when I see the attack animation that slowly. *ITCH* I tell you.

Hey Vash, plan ahead. Get yourself a Ribcracker now (usable at level 31!) and bide your time. When the patch comes (just before you retire) you'll find yourself on the threshold of THE Werewolf weapon of 1.10.

[FenrisWulf]

@Vash
*cough* I should get used to reading the Sword damage charts, eh? :) Thanks, I was wondering why that value seemed so low...stupid Barbarians and their ability to dual wield two handed weapons... <_<

[Vash]

But I can always wear IAS equip can't I? If I wore sufficient IAS equipment, would the sword be a better choice?

Also note that I won't even be able to use the damn IK maul until level 76...that's usually how far I take characters.

Edit: *looks at ribcracker* *compares stalagmite base damage to elite mace damage* *cries*

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

Wereforms don't interact with OIAS ("Other Increased Attack Speed") equipment quite like the usual suspects. You can see that discussed in-depth in TheDragoon's guide. It does affect to some limited extent, but won't make up for the deficit you're looking at.

For what it's worth (and has been chewed and re-chewed), here's a nice progression of weapons:

Axe of Fechmar (level 8)
Goreshovel/Steel hammer or axe (level 14 or 13)
The General's Tan Do Li Ga (level 21)
Battlebranch (level 25)
Hwanin's Justice (level 27)
Steeldriver (level 29)
Ribcracker (level 31)
Athena's Wrath/Buriza-Do Kyanon/Aldur's Rhythm (level 42)
Baranar's Star (level 65)
IKMaul (level 76)

These are all uniques, of course; it's easier to recommend something you can guarantee statistics with. These shouldn't rule out finding a very nice (and fast) rare or magical weapon. Crafted Blood axes (of the fast types) are an option too. Another consideration is a Steel runeword in an appropriate weapon.

Note that I've given mostly Two-handers (with the odd exception). I detest shields on wereforms; it slows you down far to much and gives me chilling flashbacks to my warrior-blocklock days. The block rate on druids is simply too painful for me to deal with on a constant basis; I'd sooner opt for a one-handed weapon without the shield.

My opinion, given without malice.

[kier]

I have recently re-made my druid yet again, and this time he uses 2 weapons, neither have had a big mention in this post, but i believe are in the guide.

Firstly, there is the buriza, a nm uni crossbow. Allthough on an ama, or any other char, it fires slowly, because it's a crossbow, when you use it in werewolf, or werebear form for that matter, that 80 ias means you have an awsome attack speed, and add a shael and thats 100 ias. This speed, combined with some good leech (i use rage/fury tactic, so i have around 50 ll) can keep you alive in a herd of cows from level 70+.

Secondly, is the alltime favourite, the hellslayer. It is slower than the ik maul, and certainly the buri, but when you do that amount of damage, do you care?!! They are one of the cheaper elite unis, and if you ever see an eth one you will understand how good they are. I haven't completely checked this, but I think they do more damage than any other weapon in the game when eth, certainly more than any sword or bow, even those <spit> :angry: crappy iths.

[Fragbait]

What have we here:

Hellslayer
Decapitator

Two-Hand Damage: 100 To (280.14-685.86) (190.07-392.93 Avg)
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 189
Required Dexterity: 33
Durability: 40
Weapon Speed: [10]
+100% Enhanced Damage
+ (3 Per Character Level) 3-297% Enhanced Maximum Damage (Based On Character Level)
Adds 150-250 Fire Damage
+ (0.5 Per Character Level) 0.5-49.5 To Strength (Based On Character Level)
+ (0.5 Per Character Level) 0.5-49.5 To Vitality (Based On Character Level)
10% Chance To Cast Level 19-20 Fire Ball On Attack (varies)
+25 To Life
(Only Spawns In Patch 1.09 or later)

Base Damage is: 49-137
Etheral Base Damage would be: 49*1.5-137*1.5 = 58.5-205.5
Minimum Damage: 58.5*2(100%enhanced)+150(Fire Damage) = 267
Maximum Damage(lvl99): 205.5*4.97(100%+297%enhanced)+250(Fire Damage) = 1271.34

Etheral Average Damage: 773,67
A hell of a damage.
It would have to be very slow to negotiate that (if my calculations are right, of course). ->Dragoon?
Besides, more damage in less attacks helps against MSLE bosses.
Correct me if I was wrong.

Greetings, Fragbait

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

and this time he uses 2 weapons, neither have had a big mention in this post, but i believe are in the guide.

Firstly, there is the buriza, a nm uni crossbow...

Secondly, is the alltime favourite, the hellslayer...

They've been mentioned and discussed repeatedly in this thread, kier. Take another look. :huh:

Something you "high end" gentlemen seem to be missing is the importance of speed and the nature of Crushing Blow.

You favor huge, but extremely slow, weapons. Quoting average damages over time is lovely, but it's a statistic and subject to other considerations. The fact that a Hellslayer is doing massive damage is curtailed by two things: Global Physical Resist and the ability to get tagged yourself. It's very hard to keep up your vaunted Average Damage when you're getting hit often enough that you can't swing the damnable thing. Hellslayer certainly suffers from both of these mitigating factors... and the Buriza-Do Kyanon suffers from the GPR as well. While both have a middling amount of elemental damage, it doesn't compensate over time.

Crushing Blow. Gentlemen, in the world of Hell's Global Physical Resist, elemental resistances and scaling amounts of life... you cannot overlook this aspect. Your Hellslayer can do huge damage? That's nice... my Ribcracker/IKMaul can reduce their life by 25% AFTER I apply my initial damage. I can kill monsters on Players8 in Hell FASTER with my Ribcracker than with my Buriza-Do. That holds true with the Hellslayer, as well. When you're dealing with opponents life in the 10s of thousands... 25% loss (even with diminishing returns on repeated hits) is a devastating amount... and dwarfs the "high end" damages of such monsters as the Hellslayer.

Even if 1.10 removes the GPR from Hell (and doubles the existing life as a counter-balance) this will hold true. While Crushing Blow doesn't effect Champions/Uniques or higher... it DOES effect 95% of the opponents you encounter. NOW calculate your average damage over time on the battlefield , where it counts.

You want a killer Wolf? Trade away your Jalal's and put on a Guillaume's Face. Pull on a pair of Gore Rider and fasten a Highlord's Wrath around your neck. Socket your Ribcracker with a Lo. Voila: 100% Crushing Blow, 50-87% Deadly Strike, and a FAST weapon that includes a "Holy" Defense bonus to everything you wear and enough FHR to seriously threaten the 125% upper breakpoint.

My opinion, given without malice.

*tips helm*

[TheDragoon]

Does an Ethereal Hellslayer look like it would do a lot of damage? Yes. This is what it would roughly look like:

Average Damage: 285.105 to 589.395

Basically, I looked up the damage for Hellslayer in the Arreat Summit and then multiplied by 1.5 (for it being Ethereal). Note that the damage ranges with character level and so only at level 99 would you hit the high end. For level 66, when you could first equip it, you would have 487.965 average damage (again, these are rough numbers). Not quite as high as you expected, I think. Then again, you factored in the fire damage into the calculation which is a big no-no when calculating weapon damage for the sake of comparison (because elemental damage is NOT affected by strength/skill/item +%Enhanced Damage bonuses). :)

Now, that sort of an average damage LOOKS really good on paper. The problem comes in on its actual use. A 0% WIAS Hellslayer will attack at 14/8/8/8/8 at fastest (assumes slvl 20 Werewolf and 20% OIAS). Needless to say, this is really freaking slow. A 14 frame standard attack? I almost guarantee that you will find it VERY hard to maintain more than 3 charges of Feral Rage going at a time with this sort of a weapon. This severely hampers the strengths of a Werewolf. Additionally, you have probably noticed that there are some bugs associated with Zeal, Fend and Fury's targetting. With a fast weapon, if you have a couple Furies in a row that miss due to this bug, then it's not really a big deal. However, with a Fury Animation that takes nearly 2 full seconds to complete, you can expect to have a great deal of frustration and start chugging potions to try and keep yourself alive in those cases. Also, if a group of fanaticism enhanced frenzytaurs comes charging at you and you've just started a Fury Animation (in which it misses), 2 seconds is awefully long time to sit there, watching your life plummet before being able to disengage.

Besides, more damage in less attacks helps against MSLE bosses.

While this is true, I've rarely had issues with Lightning Enchanted Bosses when using very fast weapons, either, for the simple reason that I maintain a high level Feral Rage charge at all times. If you deal a GOOD amount of damage with each hit and leech back a goodly portion of the damage you deal, more often than not, there is no problem. :lol:

Finally, the question of whether it does more damage or not.... I'll compare this weapon to a Shaeled Immortal King's Stone Crusher at level 80.

Ethereal Hellslayer Average Damage: 530.996
Attack Rate: 14/8/8/8/8
Standard Attack Damage Per Frame: 37.93
Fury Attack Damage Per Frame: 57.72
Hellslayer Fire Damage is roughly equivalent to +1 damage per frame in this form (since it is not enhanced by +%ED)
Hellslayer Strength enhancement is roughly equivalent to a little less than +1 damage per frame
Standard Attack Damage Per Frame (+fire, strength): 39.93
Fury Attack Damage Per Frame (+fire, strength): 59.72

Shaeled Immortal King's Stone Crusher Average Damage: 277.5
Attack Rate: 9/5/5/5/5
Standard Attack Damage Per Frame: 30.83
Fury Attack Damage Per Frame: 47.85
IK Stone Crusher's Crushing Blow is roughly equivalent to about +5-7 damage per frame when modeled in this way (assumes at least 2 people in the game in Hell difficulty, varying with monster hp and # of people)
IK Stone Crusher's +Damage Undead and Demons is roughly equivalent to about +4 damage per frame, on the average.
Standard Attack Damage Per Frame (+other bonuses): 39.83-41.83
Fury Attack Damage Per Frame (+other bonuses): 56.85-58.85

Now, I've kind of pulled the extra damage adjustment numbers out of the air, but I actually DID do a study of how those modifiers ACTUALLY affected damage a while back on the Amazon Basin and I've basically adjusted the results to fit the attack speeds listed (the original calculations were done for Werebear). But, if you believe me on those, you'll see that the Immortal King's Stone Crusher will do roughly the same amount of damage over time, but the IK Maul is much more flexible and potentially less lethal to its user. :)

[Vash]

Thanks for the discussion guys. I think I'll go with the IK Maul then. And when I find that Ribcracker...I'll be remaking my druid =)

One more question: Does shael in IK Maul increase fury's speed further? Or is it not enough to reach the next breakpoint? (assuming max werewolf)

[TheDragoon]

Immortal King's Stone Crusher
Damage: 234 To 321
Required Level: 76
Required Strength: 225
+200% Damage to Demons
+250% Damage To Undead
40% Increased Attack Speed
Indestructible
35-40% Chance Of Crushing Blow

Unsocketed (40% WIAS):
10 frame Standard Attack Animation
6 frame Fury Attack Animation

With an IAS Jewel (55% WIAS):
9 frame Standard Attack Animation
5 frame Fury Attack Animation

With a Shael Rune (60% WIAS):
9 frame Standard Attack Animation
5 frame Fury Attack Animation

So, yeah, you'll need to socket either an IAS jewel or a Shael to hit the 9/5/5/5/5 attack rate (with a decent level of Werewolf)

[Fragbait]

Hail TD,

Seems like I was indeed wrong with my calculations. Thanks for clearing that up. I can see now why I shouldn't add in the fire damage, kind of unfitting when you want to calculate skill boni later (like another enhanced damage).
You might be right about the IK Maul being less lethal. But don't you think the great chop of a Hellslayer with a possible damage output of over 1000 is cool, too? Have you ever played with an Axe (preferably KAoH or Messerschmidts Reaver) in Diablo and Hellfire?
It simply feels SO powerful to do that amount of Damage (350-400?). It's really an option in a 1on1 with a boss or a strong monster, but rather bad when getting swarmed... Ach well - but oops, that was Diablo 1. :D

In short: It might very well be that speed goes above all. This could be true for D1 and D2.
Thanks again for your effort. Some nuts like me fail to get your point the first and the second time, you know... B)

Greetings, Fragbait

[kier]

:P OK, firstly one of you mentioned weapon IAS, that is why the buri is good. I'm sure you will agree it has a faster hit rate than an IK maul, or any other weapon for that matter.

The eth hellslayer damage you have stated is corect, at level 66, but it increases dramaticaly as your char increases in levels. I have it stored on a level 90 barb, and the damage is shown as aprox 130-950 I think, perhaprs a min damage is slightly higher, 150 maybe. At high levels this is a really handy damage to have as a second weap.

Also, a normal hellslayer could kill a cow in less hits. This may make it possible to kill cows quicker with a hellslayer than an ik maul. Allthough i agree you do need good life leech when using slower weapons.

And yes, the 2 weapons were mentioned, but not given much floor space, so I was just putting my bit in.

[Nebuul]

Ok, it's like this:

If you wanna be Mr. L33T druid, you use the IK, or better yet use a silence weapon.

If you wanna be a tough-as-nails badass from hell, try to get an ethereal hellslayer. Nothin says "I am a real wolf" more than 1-hit-killing players with 3k life. No, the hellslayer isn't the "best" weapon for effectiveness, but it IS the best weapon for attitude* :)


*note: I suppose an ethereal cruel thunder maul of self-repair would be equally cool, supposing you got a 280%+ one

[Fragbait]

It's rather like this:
If your into socketing, Fury may be the better choice than Silence.

While Silence gives +2 to skills, +75 resall, +200% dam and 20% ias (and a few other things)

Fury gives + 209 % damage, 40% ias, ITD and some 20% to attack rating (and a few other things).

If we ask the dragoon, Fury might be his choice: speed rules! :D
I don't know about the frames, though. Will depend on the weapon class.
This is of course, in case you can go without the +2 to skills and the resists.
Besides, Fury has the far more common runes, I think.
Someone else do the exact calculations.

Edit: may it be, that a Stormspire on a Fury Werewolf goes down to a 9/6/6/6/6 frame attack without even having OIAS?
It is [-10], and has 30% IAS; I did this using Dragoons Calculator. This seems a quite respectable speed to me.
35 frames mean 1.4 seconds for a full: 'standartattack-animation + furyattack-animation' - turn.
Of course, 9/5/5/5/5 would only mean 1.16 seconds, but you cannot reach this with Stormspire.
Then again, Stormspire's damage is not quite high. I just thought I once read in a thread "Stormspire is just way too slow".

Edit2: Hmm, Upgraded Athena's Wrath: 214 avg damage, 9/6/6/6/6 also, +1-99 max damage, +1-3 druid skill levels, +15 dexterity...
Hmmm !!

Greetings, Fragbait