noob Q: grief I will have finally gathered the runes for my grief soon. I plan to put them in a zerker axe. Does it make any difference what axe I put them in? (ie. does the damage/stats of the original axe make any difference on the grief zerker?) If so, what is the optimum socketed axe to use?
The base damage of the axe doesn't matter that much since Grief's damage is added directly, rather than being percentage based. Berserker axe is the most popular axe for Grief.
Most people use either berserker axe or phase blade. Phase blades are faster, but berserker axes have higher range. If you want/need to make it in an axe, berserker axe is the way to go.
pb >> zerker simply because of the repair costs... zerker breaks pretty fast and grief isn't the cheapest weapon to repair...
With a phaseblade and fana aura you will need only few ias on the other gear for maxspeed with a smiter. A zerker is usefull if you want to combine it with a other runeword which only can be made in a axe on a baba
In short: WW without shield or frenzy or two-handed weapon: BotD, else if WW with shield or for any kind of PvP: Grief BA, else (i.e. in most cases) Grief PB. BTW, a Grief BA with less than 34%IAS won't reach the final WW breakpoint which will reduce the value of such a weapon a lot, no matter what the other stats are. Edit: I was just referring to Grief in contrast to BotD. There are a lot of other very good weapons, of course.
Berserker are preferred in some areas (ie. PvP) due to a longer range, and compatibility with other axes (ie. Barbs only need to max one mastery instead of two). Don't simply think of only repair costs when choosing a weapon for your Grief.
I have never made a Grief in a berserker axe due to the repair costs and because you need a lot more IAS. On a phase blade, it doesn't matter what IAS% your Grief has, because phase blades are very fast.
