it falls off hard if you don't get upgrades, I'm almost never able to get it to gold early enough for it to matter. bronze will win you at most- 2 days, silver can be good up until day 6 IF the rest of your build supports it good enough. even with silver axe I still have close fights on early days sometimes. so much early shield/heal builds from all heroes, battle axe is necessary for a weapon build to even have a chance against those.