Kodiak Build - IK or Azurewrath?

[Pesh]

Kodiak Build - IK or Azurewrath?

As per following this guide, I became a bit confused.

Azurewrath's strong point is that it has 750 magic damage, a 5 frame attack after being Shael'd, and lvl 10-13 Sanctuary Aura.

Also, you can wear a shield with this one hander.



However, the IK maul has 791 average magic damage (with 3 other IK pieces), 6 frame attack after 2 Shaels, 30-40% CB (which I assumed was important in the Kodiak build), a HELL of a lot more physical damage, and some other nice mods.

Of course, no shield with the 2hander.



So... which one is for me? I'm not entirely convinced why we should be using Hunger as a primary skill and not as a secondary skill, either. But I am relatively new to shapeshifting druids. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

 

[Smackin]

U can charge up maul and then use hunger. Hunger is ur main skill as it gives massive leech and prevents u from being fried by IM in 2 seconds. Gear wise, i'd personally go with azurewrath, IK is great, but it requires 3 other pieces, which doesnt give u much freedom gear. The CB can be gotten elsewhere, and the physical damage isnt the main concern for this build. Azurewrath gives u the sanctuary aura, which allows u to leech off skeletons without lifetap, and knocks back OKs. If ur lucky and manage to find 4x 1-100 lite dmg jewels, u can put them into a monarch for some serious ownage. I cant say which is better. If u go with IK, I suggest Jalals as helm, as the IK maul has enough CB. If going azurewrath, G face is the choice as it offers the CB u need.

 

[safetypro]

Pesh welcome.
Do a search for the "Town Dump Werebear" and give it a read. It will answer the questions you are asking

EDIT Here's the link:
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=590115

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Both weapons are great. It just greatly depends on what you want to do. Azurwrath gives you a shield and is more flexible for other gear requirements. Using the IK maul means you must use 2 other IK set items in order to get good use of it (the non-physical stats). The gloves/belt/boots/maul are all great together, the gloves/belt/ik maul are a great combo, but you get no shield. If you don't need the extra resists a shield has to offer, then this will give you more physical damage and decent elemental (but note, it's elemental not magical from the IK maul how you'll be using it, that can be resisted and some monsters immune to, therefore, less damage). Azurwrath does 500 magic and 500 cold. The magic will not be resisted or immune except by one monster in the game. The cold is resistable. Overall, you get more non-physical damage opportunity from the Azurwrath.

As for physical damage, you will certainly get more physical out of the IK maul, which means more leeching. Consider you'll have over 200 STR (200% ED), you get more for maces anyway, so it's like what, 1.1 or something % per STR? You get more than 200% ED due to that. The maul itself is over 300 damage. Charged maul gives good ED%. HoW gives good ED%. Etc. You will easily have over 1k physical damage without any attack skills. 75% penalty for hunger puts you into the 300's depending how high you got.

Crushing blow, speed, and the elemental damage do the rest. Then think about how many times you apply that damage per second, and that will tell you what does more damage.

In the end though, both are very powerful. It just depends if you're ok with less resists or if you're going to gear around having the Maul instead.

Also note, AR is a big problem if you have no dex due to using the Maul. You'll need to sub in gear to get that AR through the roof. Remember, high speed is not useful if you're not hitting nearly all the time. So consider that too.

Cheers, :sunny:

 

[phool]

With azurewrath the amount of dexterity required to wield a phaseblade means you're going to be blocking a reasonable amount whatever shield you use so you'll have do go for something with decent fbr. Even with whistans a block animation will be longer than an attack animation. Bears have huge life so I found the 2 hander option preferable, you're better off leeching any damage taken that gets pasts shockwave right back than trying to prevent it while harming your dps.

I'd probably recommend the ik maul overall, after maul's charged up you should be at least half fulling (probably a lot more) both bulbs with every hunger using it. Ik is very restrictive on the rest of your equipment but the other ik parts are all excellent. Combine with something like guillame's+metalgrid+raven or jalal's+highlords+raven and bring an act 2 nm offensive merc for even higher damage and leech, ideally using infinity (will help all that elemental damage on ik maul and negate ar issues) or reaper's toll I'd guess. Ik armour's enchant and HoW will cover your ar needs for general play but you'll struggle to get a good cth against bosses without some big non-percentile boosts. A couple of ar/fhr charms or fhr shape skillers would probably be pretty helpful.