Min2 or Lit2 first Greataxe

[risinginferno]

I'm going for pure 20 THF Barb and I wanna know which is the better axe to craft first now. I was reading how you can cannith craft a better DR breaker. How easily is this to do if this is my only character and it is currently level 15. I have mostly all the materials to make either or since they differ little in what they need.

[Dilbon]

There's no point in crafting a Min2 greataxe any more. Getting 35 arcane and divine levels to make a +4 holy silver/cold iron of evil outsider bane is pretty fast. And of course there's the epic Antique Greataxe.

[Boegvar]

Crafting a +4 holy silver of lawful outsider bane weapon is pretty easy. You need crafting levels of 35 in divine and arcane crafting to be able to craft the shards you need.
You need around 15-20 shround runs to get the required mats to craft a min2 weapon, thats more than 6 weeks if you run shroud every time you are able to.
I would craft a lit2 weapon

[grayham]

They are both excellent weapons, but the Lit2 is more handy in more situations. If you're running Tower of Despair on Hard, or similar quest with DR issues, then min2 is the choice, but given that most devils don't have damage reduction against lightning-not to mention the 2-3% chance of lightning strike, Lit2 is the way forward my friend.

Crafting? Fine, but I think it takes longer than people think to get decent crafting levels, IMO.

Epic Antique greataxe? Nice if you can get it, but within 15-20 shrouds you will certainly have enough Lds or tradeable's to make your GS, whereas you can do all the Carnival quest 1000's of times and not get the bits for the Epic Greataxe.

p.s Shade has a very useful section on epic/L20 gear in his barb guide. Click on my friends and then a link in there to his pages.

EDIT link here http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=296816

[risinginferno]

Wow I went to take a shower and got all these nice replies so quickly. (such a nice difference from WoW forums) Thanks guys!

[R0cksteady]

It took me about a week and a half to get 35 in divine and arcane crafting, doing it casually without buying a ton of greaters. It takes me a LOT longer to get greensteel ingredients, since I'm poor and don't play as much as I used to. I would say Lit II. It's a much better weapon in almost every situation, except hard and elite shroud/ToD/VoD, and epic DQ.

Now, while the lit II will pretty much be your go to DPS weapon until epic SOS, which could take a long time depending on luck with the shard, the Min II is outclassed as a DR breaker by a +4 holy silver x of lawful outsider bane, let alone the better versions you can craft higher up, so Min II might be a taken spot in the bank in a little while.

[aristarchus1000]

Crafting casually, I'd say 3 weeks. That's probably slow, but I did it just using essences I collected while playing the game normally plus breaking down worthless vendor trash. In addition, once you level one crafter up you are basically set for devil-beaters for any other melee characters you ever build.

Definitely easier than collecting the 24 large ingredients for a Min2. In fact, you will pick up plenty of vendor trash while farming Shroud along the way, so you essentially can build your Lit2 and your Boss Beater/DR breaker at the same time.

[nolaureltree000]

with only one toon, it will take awhile for you to get to a high enough crafting level for a holy/bane beater or alot of money. since crafting went live, ive been taking all my pulled loot and deconstructing it. then i send all the essences to one toon and he levels up his crafting levels. ive just recently gotten all my levels to 40ish.

if you havent even started crafting yet or dont have a whole bunch of plat to dump into it, make a min II.

[Jaid314]

with only one toon, it will take awhile for you to get to a high enough crafting level for a holy/bane beater or alot of money. since crafting went live, ive been taking all my pulled loot and deconstructing it. then i send all the essences to one toon and he levels up his crafting levels. ive just recently gotten all my levels to 40ish.

if you havent even started crafting yet or dont have a whole bunch of plat to dump into it, make a min II.

it would be substantially faster to sell all the greensteel ingredients you would need to make a min II, buy a ton of cannith crafting essences, and level your cannith crafting up to 35 in arcane and divine than it would be to save up the ingredients needed to make a min II weapon. and by "sell all the greensteel ingredients", i actually mean "sell off a few of the less valuable ones", because you definitely don't need 24 larges worth of crafting essences to get to 35 in arcane and divine.

[Zerkul]

I'm going for pure 20 THF Barb and I wanna know which is the better axe to craft first now. I was reading how you can cannith craft a better DR breaker. How easily is this to do if this is my only character and it is currently level 15. I have mostly all the materials to make either or since they differ little in what they need.

Make a Lightning II ... it's better than mineral II on most raid bosses on normal [Harry, sally, horoth] ... You can always make a Antique Greataxe instead of mineral II.

[sirgog]

Never make a Min 2 on any character unless you need a special property like +4 insight to AC. They are obsolete now - Cannith gear is just far better. A +4 Holy Silver (or similar) weapon from the auction house will do until you can craft a +4 Holy Silver of Lawful Outsider Bane weapon.

A Lit 2 Falchion (Greataxe instead if dwarf) is the third or fourth best THF weapon in the game (behind the Epic Sword of Shadow, Epic Xuum, and possibly the classic Sword of Shadow depending upon your gear level). It is well worth the ingredients unless you already have a classic SoS.

[Kinerd]

The other thing to keep in mind is that once you can craft one Cannith boss beater, crafting another requires a tiny fraction of the previous investment. When you can craft one Min II boss beater, crafting another requires almost exactly as much as previous investment.

[chodelord]

DR on glancing blows pushes in favor of min 2, lit 2 doesn't proc on glancing so it doesn't scale with 2 handers like it does with twf

lit2 might be trivially better for trash but it is way worse for bosses with a few exceptions on normal only

[Jaid314]

DR on glancing blows pushes in favor of min 2, lit 2 doesn't proc on glancing so it doesn't scale with 2 handers like it does with twf

lit2 might be trivially better for trash but it is way worse for bosses with a few exceptions on normal only

but as has been pointed out, it is (comparatively) trivial to make a cannith-crafted weapon instead.

i mean, it may not be the easiest thing in the world for someone starting out to get to 35 in two schools, but it's a lot cheaper than getting 24 larges, never mind the mediums, smalls, or blank ingredients. it simply doesn't even come close.

[sirgog]

DR on glancing blows pushes in favor of min 2, lit 2 doesn't proc on glancing so it doesn't scale with 2 handers like it does with twf

lit2 might be trivially better for trash but it is way worse for bosses with a few exceptions on normal only

Lit 2 outclasses Min 2 on trash, and Min 2 is worse on bosses than Cannith gear.

Crafting a Min 2 is the biggest waste of ingredients I can think of. Why invest a lot of resources making something that's not the best weapon on anything, and not even close to it?

[HelvanderSeries6]

Lit 2 outclasses Min 2 on trash, and Min 2 is worse on bosses than Cannith gear.

Crafting a Min 2 is the biggest waste of ingredients I can think of. Why invest a lot of resources making something that's not the best weapon on anything, and not even close to it?

Agreed.
I cant think of any reasons to have a minII with maybe the exception being an encounter with a Marilith/Demon Queen given the new chages but a Cannith weapon would still out perform all the way around.
A LitII would be my first choice and i would also think a Trip Pos maul would be a good idea as a second GS weapon given the changes to greater disruption for encounters with undead during the leveling up process.

[Dilbon]

Min2 can still be a nice general purpose weapon for someone without the improved critical feat.

[haku-ba]

I strongly suggest you make a Lit II. I made a Min II a long time ago and now it is just a Stoneskin clicky. I still use the Lit II.

[risinginferno]

Thanks for all the responses guys! I decided to go with a lit2 since with only a little bit of messing around I was able to get arcane and divine up to 20 each today. So I guess I'll just craft myself a boss beater.

[Jaid314]

Agreed.
I cant think of any reasons to have a minII with maybe the exception being an encounter with a Marilith/Demon Queen given the new chages but a Cannith weapon would still out perform all the way around.
A LitII would be my first choice and i would also think a Trip Pos maul would be a good idea as a second GS weapon given the changes to greater disruption for encounters with undead during the leveling up process.

actually, i think in most cases a min II would be better vs a marilith (especially against the holy cold iron of COB, though still better than the holy burst cold iron of GCOB). the real question is, how much are you willing to invest into dealing slightly better damage against a single meaningful enemy in the entire game? the only one that even matters is queen lailat on epic, really.