lol I kind of hate that grief exists but oh well. I remember cubing a mythical sword way back in the day trying to get that CMoQ and went through so many chipped gems (I think it was chipped). Those runewords take all the fun out of everything lol

I really appreciate this thread tho. Its like nearly 2 decades of built melee druid knowledge

It all depends on where you duel.

I can list out top builds for 1.09d if anyone wanted to play on a private realm that was running that patch, for example.

There was also the 1.10 druidpk/1 community which banned runewords completely. We used jeweler's armors of the whale or stability instead of fort or engima, mang song's lesson for shifting prebuff instead of c/t/a, gris caddy was the most common main weapon if you didn't have a rare (although some people favored shael death cleaver or eth runemaster 5 frame builds). Sometime in 1.11 or so people got sick of not being able to compete with zeal and converted over to c/t/a/, fort, etc.

So it's really quite possible that as PvP ramps up on D2R that we can create melee ladders that for example ban runewords entirely, and since we have respec tokens now there's no reason why we couldn't have both a no runeword ladder and a runeword allowed ladder. In fact, in a few months once people start duelling for serious I will make the no-runeword shapeshift ladder myself.

Just assume that if you are joining general melee pk games, whether in public or games like pn/1, that everyone will be using runewords.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Oct 10 2021 07:12pm

Well I am definitely excited to see the scene develop and plan to be around for it. Its just such a shame that casuals can poop on u in pub games using simple runewords when perfectly rolled rare/blue weapons are truly the hardest to find in the game. I feel they deserve to be best in slot overall due to rarity, but I guess thats just 1.09 things.

It’s really fury vs fury (and maul) where grief is beyond dominant. Once you start battling paladins with super high defense the rare fools weapons get better.

Keep in mind that in 1.09 those magicals were so good because the standard entry level weapon was a 3x Ed/ias, shael, rune (eth or Lo) phase blade. Some people even ran 5x shael eth or 4x shael eth amn lol. Fury fanged knife was pretty usable then, too. The robo phase cannot work at all anymore. Fury fk could work maybe as a bleeder weapon. BotD and grief are still way better.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Oct 10 2021 07:47pm

ah man I use to run fury fanged knife. Good times that just gave me a blast of nostalgia. So from what Im gathering a fanged knife will be the best to charsi imbue or cube

Correct. Fanged knife OR seraph rod/ettin axe. The highest possible DPS is actually at 5 frame with the later two weapons. FK is close behind and the top 4 framer. Technically you can push FK higher but you’d need like a magical pelt with 3 fury and 60 life and 3x 30 max jewels and a 30 max jewel in a stormshield and 9min or 4 max crafted rings.

Phase blades are usable as well with their tight damage range. They are consistent but less likely to land you at the top of a ladder.

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Oct 10 2021 08:14pm

Nah I wanna live the dream with 4fpa and if fanged knife is the way to go then so be it. Phase blades do win the style points meta though.

For D2R PvM:

I made a BotD eGPA. I also have a 6os eArchon Staff. I can get a 3os eTomb with 228% ED. Highest I have seen so far is in the low 250s.
My BotD is 399%ED.

Is it worth switching to the low roll eTomb or try and roll for a good Archon Staff (I am going Titan and it would mean no need for points in Dex like the GPA needs, Staff has low Str req)? Or is the BotD eGPA I have the best right now in this situation? I tried using maxroll.gg for math but it is all f’d up as it is showing my BotD to do 3x the damage of a perfect eTomb with 2x 40/15. I am thinking I would need at least a 250+ ED Tomb and 35ED+ jewels for it to start taking over.

Archon Staff main draw is being able to get over 600 STR so potentially more ED through this. Of course I gotta roll good on the BotD.

Would like some input.

This post was edited by tcpgeest on Oct 11 2021 05:36am

I use Arreat Summit and a calculator for most of this:

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items

---

GPA - Average damage 86.5 * .5 ethereal bonus = 43.25 + 86.5 = 129.75

You have 399% ed so 129.75 * 4.99 = 647


---

Archon - Average Damage 91 * .5 = 45.5 + 91 = 136.5 * 4.99 = 681

---

Etomb

228 + 70% from two 35 ed jewels = 298% cryptic axe

91.5 average * .5 = 45.75 + 91.5 = 136.25 * 3.98 = 542


Then you have to check DPS.

https://d2.lc/IAS/

etomb 7/4 frame fury does 5.43 attacks per second = 5.43 * 542 = 2,943 average DPS

GPA 8/5 frame fury does 4.46 attack per second = 4.46 * 647 = 2885 avg DPS

Archon 9/5 fury does 4.31 attacks per second = 4.31 * 681 = 2935 avg DPS

This is before enhanced damage from items, strength and skills.

Let's assume level 30 fury 593%, 300% fort, 600 strength for GPA and etomb and 614 strength for archon

15.93 (1493%) * 2885 = 45,958 DPS GPA
15.93 * 2943 = 46,881 DPS eTomb
16.04 * 2935 = 47,077 DPS Archon

So the Archon titan build is slightly the best DPS

---

One more thought, if you used 2 shaels instead of two 35% ed/ias jewels in the etomb it would look like this:

6/4 Fury = 5.68 attacks per second

228 % ed ethereal Cryptic Axe is ~ 91.5 average * .5 = 45.75 + 91.5 = 136.25 * 3.38 = 460

460 * 5.68 = 2621 * 15.93 = 41,621

This post was edited by inkanddagger on Oct 11 2021 01:20pm

Wow this surprises me. Didn’t expect going from 5 to 4 frames to do so much.

So there really is absolutely nothing that can beat eTomb then for 2hand? Outside of maybe some theoretical max rolled eth self repair tare.