The Breath of the Dying rune word, also known as BotD, is very useful for melee characters. Some say it is one of the best melee weapons in the game, if not the best. You gain huge damage, speed, mana, and life leech, +30 To All Attributes and it makes your weapon Indestructible. Characters, that use melee weapons, especially two-handed. Examples are the Barbarian, Druid, or Paladin. It is also recommended to use it on your mercenary, as he will deal a great amount of damage. This will allow him to support you even more. As you can see the Breath of Dying is an expensive runeword, but especially in non-ladder mode one of the best. It is recommended for melee characters.
Make sure you have all runes available - 1x Vex Rune, 1x Hel Rune, 1x El Rune, 1x Eld Rune, 1x Zod Rune, 1x Eth Rune - then put them into the sockets of the base item, in the correct order pictured below. Pay extra attention to this. The rune word is 'VexHelElEldZodEth' for a reason, so if you don't socket it in the exact order, the result would not be 'Breath of the Dying' (and instead you would end up with a bunch of runes socketed into the base item).
Take your desired base item, then socket the runes in this exact order:
The War Pike is dealing a good amount of damage. For fast attack speed, use the Great Poleaxe. The Ghost Spear is also dealing a nice amount of damage, and is a reasonable choice for your mercenary. For single-handed weapons, use the Berserker Axe. And for two-handed weapons the Colossus Blade. It has high damage and a nice range.
All the weapons in Ethereal rarity and they need exactly 6 Sockets, to create the rune word.
Breath of the Dying has the highest damage for melee weapons. It is indestructible, lowers the target’s defense, and increases the attack speed by 60%. And on top, it steals mana per hit.
BotD is very expensive. That is why many players prefer other, cheaper Runewords, like Grief. Another reason to rather use Grief is that it makes comparable damage to BotD
Runewords can have a huge difference in value. In order to find out the worth of the Breath of the Dying Runeword, we need to add up the value of the single runes, as well as the base item used for socketing. Every roll will require these basic ingredients and will get you the Breath of the Dying Runeword with random stats. This can be defined as the minimum value. The higher the stats of the roll, the higher the final value of the runeword. A "perfect roll" in a superior base tends to be the most rare and hence much more expensive than a random roll.
Yes, we can offer the already rolled Breath of the Dying Runeword for you in different bases listed below.
Alternatively, you may want to get the unmade version, where we'll deliver the runes plus the base item to you. You can then complete the socketing yourself (offering a chance for a perfect roll, which would be of significantly higher value).
Here's the list of Breath of the Dying Runewords in various Base Items and Stats, which we can source for you from our network of trusted trade partners.
Non-Superior base Items can be easily found or bought from a vendor NPC in the city, so an easy option get Breath of the Dying in D2R is to buy the single runes in a pack and socket the runeword yourself. You can either add the below listed runes to your cart and have them delivered to you, or head over to our runes list to find some more.
In any case, if you want to build the Breath of the Dying Runeword, you will need the following runes: 1x Vex Rune, 1x Hel Rune, 1x El Rune, 1x Eld Rune, 1x Zod Rune, 1x Eth Rune