Heart of the Oak Runeword - D2R 2.6

Heart of the Oak

Runes: Ko + Vex + Pul + Thul

4 Socket Staves / Maces

Patch 1.10 Runeword

+3 To All Skills

+40% Faster Cast Rate

+75% Damage To Demons

+100 To Attack Rating Against Demons

Adds 3-14 Cold Damage, 3 sec. Duration (Normal)

7% Mana Stolen Per Hit

+10 To Dexterity

Replenish Life +20

Increase Maximum Mana 15%

All Resistances +30-40 (varies)

Level 4 Oak Sage (25 Charges)

Level 14 Raven (60 Charges)

Heart of the Oak is one of the strongest weapon choices for every caster class in Diablo II. In a lot of ways, it is the perfect jack-of-all-trades because it covers most of your basic build requirements. 40 FCR is a guaranteed stat on Heart of the Oak and is enough to reach most FCR breakpoints. The high bonus to resistances helps to make up for the fact that Enigma has none. And of course, +3 to All Skills is great on every caster.

Suprisingly, the supporting stats on Heart of the Oak are better suited for PvP than PvM. Replenish Life +20 and Increase Maximum Mana 15% are both very valuable in conditions where potions cannot be used and sustain comes at a premium. The Level 4 Oak Sage charges can also be used to give a temporary 45% boost to life. Heart of the Oak is the weapon of choice for many PvP builds including Trap Assassins, Hammerdins, War Cry Barbarians and Energy Shield / Fire Sorceresses.

In PvM, Heart of the Oak is still an outstanding weapon choice but it gets somewhat outclassed by other best-in-class game options. It suffers from the same problems as Chains of Honor where Faster Cast Rate and Resistances can be obtained from other less valuable item slots – and damage output is more important than stacking survivability in softcore.

Barbarian builds can dual wield Heart of the Oak Flails on their weapon switch for buffing and teleporting. It is possible to reach the 105 FCR breakpoint with 2x Heart of the Oak, Arachnid Mesh and a 10 FCR Crafted Blood Ring.

If you'd rather skip farming you can quickly buy gear at Rpgstash's D2R Store.