Hey Baragain, Is Herald Hammer the best?

Oh @_Baragain_ , it's time to temp you into another weapon question...

Since we do not have an end world Axe to transfer into (yet), is the Herald Hammer the best or do you think an axe might come in the foreseeable future?

Even with the massive boost in dmg I would get with that hammer (at tier 4), giving up the crit would make me have to shift around other items.

Since hopefully I have you thinking, it's getting about that time where we all need one of your ultimate build guides. You know the kind I mean, if you built your all time monster 2 hand.

The last build guide topped out at 25K dps if my memory is correct, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one curious to see what might be possible.

 

Rhysingstar, Join post please .

Assuming the unique 2h axe available. The axe crit rate value about the same with crit rate on 2 rings.
I've been wondering using the 2h axe, and use hp ring such as 2xROL.

@_Baragain_ what do you think of this kind of set up?

 

I haven't put in any time into my DK for a while now, so I'm still using old outdated gear like the dragonache rings.

Currently my crit is 57%. If I switch to a hammer, I drop to 31% if the hammer doesn't have a great crit line.

My current axe has 3 gold % idoi lines and 1 decent crit line of 1572. Add the base of 1651 and I lose a ton of crit by swapping it out.

Of course at some point I need to get rid of the out dated gear, and refine my old crit gems into new ones which will help, but that takes time. If I go with the big hammer, my dmg will jump considerably but I'm guessing it is not worth it (for now).

I've got some decent leg crit rings that could be transferred into a unique, but I'm thinking that I need to focus on a better weapon first and then worry about the older gear.

If DSO would get off their lazy butts and make a good unique axe, that would solve my problem instantly.

Meanwhile I'm trying to come up with a plan on which uniques I want to spend my materi frags on for future transfers. The sad part is that by the time I get all this tier 4/5 gear, they'll be up to 6 or 7 and I'll have to start all over again.

 

Well, that is one way to get my attention, lol.

I'm in a similar boat as you, so here are my thoughts.

TLR- Build a new 3/4 %IDotI 2H weapon to transfer to Herald's hammer for significant improvements now while we wait to see what the future holds.

My axe is similar to yours. 3x really good %IDotI (Pre LVL 55, so we are talking 77.5+) and a nice damage line. I recognize that if I want to improve, I need to upgrade to one of the new weapons since the old style stats and level 50 means that improvement is expensive and not that impressive. The problem is that once I craft the old %IDotI in to a 4x %IDotI 2H Legendary, and then transfer those lines to Herald's hammer, I've used the old lines up and can't get them back. Instead, I'm saving my current axe in the hopes that they will release a 2H axe down the road. In the mean time, I'm working on crafting a 3/4 legendary 2H with the new %IDotI stats (73%-76%) and I'll transfer that legendary to Herald's hammer to hold me in the meantime.

My other thought is that I haven't done the math, but I really should. I'm sure you remember my old DPS calculating spreadsheet (since that is what you are referencing above ) for comparing weapons with different enchantments. It needs a lot of changes to update it to the current meta, but then I could run what I know about the current tier system and extrapolate what a T5 axe would give.

One of my considerations that I would include on the spreadsheet is the effect of crit rate being nerfed in higher difficulties by that Infernal Debuff. If you have a hammer, you have insanely high damage and you can also reach 80% crit rate from a nice helmet, a nice weapon decoration, base crit on rings, and some large onyxes. From there, a hammer DK is able to work on crit damage. The problem is when you go into IV or V and your crit drops below 80%. If you have a lot of crit damage, this DPS could be really significant depending on how far you overshoot the 80% mark on your I, II, and III Crit rate. With a 2H axe, you will likely be able to easily overshoot the 80% mark. Because of that overflow, your DPS would suffer in I/II/III difficulties due to the lower damage, but it may compensate in the Infernal difficulties. Since higher difficulty Infernals are going to just keep coming, I'd expect that a majority of endgame farming time will be spent in those dungeons and I'd prefer my end goal reflect that eventuality. Sure, for I/II/III farming, you will likely never beat a 2H hammer, but as time marches on, axes may become more relevant.

Like I said above, my primary consideration of using a 2H axe is the overflow crit for better crit in Infernal difficulties. In that fashion, you would also want crit from rings to contribute to this. Sure, RoL would be great for improving survivability in the higher difficulties (Infernal III and higher), but I think it will have to be balanced against the DPS considerations I mentioned above.


I'm currently farming the mini event like a fiend because I am in desperate need of Draken Cores (I have a T5 spider decoration that promises to seriously boost my crit), so I don't have the time to rebuild the spreadsheet and generate one of my comprehensive guides. When I have the time (likely after the event is over and I've gotten a strong start into the next season's leaderboards), I'll work on it... It should be fun.

 

There is no need for crit on a weapon there are plenty of other item combinations that will get you 80% crit without wasting damage.
Main source of damage IS from the weapon so that is most important item to have damage enchantments on I wouldnt recommend shooting yourself in the foot for the crit on an axe.
The only damage sacrifice should be from switching to a crit helmet instead of a damage one for infernal modes.

And about the weapon I would say herald is best bet just because the set bonus is so strong in pve.
But I think bloodrune sword will get you more base damage and attack speed if you are playing without herald set. I'll see for myself soon transferring to bloodrune sword to try it out.

 

Out of curiosity, can you maintain an 80% crit rate in Infernal II? If not, it may be interesting to see the effect that higher crit may have on DPS where your crit with a 2H Hammer may plummet.

 

75% lvl5

 

I was hoping to wait on the other gear, but it looks like I may have to find those crit items first and bite the bullet on a hammer.

That massive hammer you are swinging made me bring my DK out of retirement. I now have to develop a plan on what pieces to get and farm the required materi frags to get them.

Thanks for the input, it really helps.

 

You can always use "2 in 1" rings ... if you're lucky enough to drop any, no need to use the "hard to glyph-up" RoL:


EDIT: BTW, I have around 20k draken, would you buy 5x10% HP runes to add into this ring?

 

Yes. This is something that I missed.

Been thinking to have one. It's hard while I also would like it with 4/4 enchantments either hp or crit dam.

I will not hesitate to spend it all on hp rune if I got that much of draken, and fill it in any hp based ring or boots.

 

I like those rings they're like a super bloodtooth

Was going to transfer this one but realized how good it is with both crit and hp so I made another one and transferred that.

 

I have 10 such runes and I rotate them to which ever item (boots, gloves, rings) that have the most HP. There is no question that they are worth it. I only wish there was another way to obtain them other than draken.

Remember also that because it is 10% IHPotI, it will then get multiplied by any %HP you have too. So, if you put 50% onto a ring and you have 80% HP from other sources (knowledge, amulets, sets, etc), then the effective multiplier would be 1.5*1.8=2.7 times the HP on your ring. That means that a ring with 2k HP would give you 5400 towards your total HP. It is just like %IDotI on a weapon.