Guild Wars 2

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Vex.7486:

There is no other weapon in the game with a more horrible #1,than the Necromancer Axe.

flamestrike disagrees

Please, Flamestrike is a gift from the gods compared to Ice Shards. Gotta love extremely low damage coupled with no secondary effect. Flamestrike at least sets up for Fire Grab.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Zenith.7301:

That makes no sense. Axe is your power ranged weapon. You have no other options.

Dagger? DS#1?

Dagger is 600 range? If you pop DS1 to range someone you sure as hell are flagging yourself for a spike the moment you come out of DS.

axe 1 would be fine if you could actually keep that cripple from #3 on target, now it’s better switch to DS #1 and go for a kill (hopefully). People remove cripple or dodge out of range pretty fast so once that happens your axe #1 will be useless. It sure is useful for extra vuln stacking but our vuln stacking is pretty pathetic except maybe little spike at start. your target should be dead already when you get to use axe #1 vuln stacking or you are most likely dead before him.

As I promoted from my last posts I think axe need to have something that will make it unique. For 600 range it should be something worth using…

Attack radius. 90 should be fine for axe #1 and axe #2.

This would make Ghastly claws (axe #2) very nasty, because it could hit up to 3 foes. LF gain should be lowered back to 8 though. This “radius” would make axe to have something like cleave and i guess (and hope) it would not break balance In higgest tier spvp. However, in www, it would be something to use in Zergs other than always staff, Finally.

Unholly Feast should be also a blast finnisher.

It is quite sad to see necro to be ABSOLUTELY useless in team fight (in sence of blast/ projectile finnisher department). Only ONE blast finnisher is available, Putrit Mark. And even this skill needs to be triggered by enemy! Other blasts are just so unreliable and situational. Who will use wurm or bone minions primarily as a blast finnisher??

It is just so nice to have a charr with hammer (guard, warr) and blasting with it. And then go back to necro and do nothing when you are stacking up for attack…

Axe 3 really doesn’t need buffing. I’ve taken Axe solely for how much I love Axe 3, and because I can fill the dead space with other things before I swap out. Axe 3 could have used it before, but now it also strips boons. Axe 1/2 need the buffing, and maybe LF gain on 3, to reward you for being in combat with multiple people (X% per foe hit).

Zenith.7301:

Dagger is 600 range? If you pop DS1 to range someone you sure as hell are flagging yourself for a spike the moment you come out of DS.

If you’re 1200 units from your target, you shouldn’t have to worry about too much of a spike.

Bhawb.7408:

Axe 3 really doesn’t need buffing. I’ve taken Axe solely for how much I love Axe 3, and because I can fill the dead space with other things before I swap out. Axe 3 could have used it before, but now it also strips boons. Axe 1/2 need the buffing, and maybe LF gain on 3, to reward you for being in combat with multiple people (X% per foe hit).

Oh yeah, Axe 3 is awesome. I used Axe while leveling with minions solely because of how kitten it felt popping #3, even though it was terrible for that build (Retaliation is pointless if everything is just attacking your minions anyway). Such a good animation.

The intent with axe seems to be vuln stack, vuln stack, vuln stack, then burst with 2, rinse and repeat. The problem is lack of aoe damage, and that the 2 spike does not make up for the low damage of 1 even with the vulnerability stacking. The fact that we have 0 cleave weapons is a bit of a problem, dagger at least needs a cleave. In my mind, they could either give axe cleave/aoe, or they could give it 900 range and give it a little bit of a damage buff. I sort of like the latter option, because I tend to pair it with a focus in my power build as my mid-ranged swap, and the 900 range just feels a lot more like “mid range”. At 600 your just a few steps away from melee.

Necromancer needs more blast finnisher that he can use right away and doesnt have to wait for foes to trigger it!
There are only two candidates for blast finnishers that the necromancer realy needs!

Warhorn #4 Wail of Doom.
Axe #3 Unholly feast.

I understand that Unholly Feast skill is now balanced and if Anet adds it blast finnisher it might be quite strong.

If Axe 1 & 2 and cleave, that’d be great. Axe 2 won’t be op even if it can cleave. I mean look at 100b, it can cleave. 600 range is basically melee range.

All I can say is necro weapons are terrible designed.

vicious.5683:

All I can say is necro weapons are terrible designed.

Necro scepter may be the best loved scepter skill sets in the game for any class. They are not all badly designed.

Rennoko.5731:

vicious.5683:

All I can say is necro weapons are terrible designed.

Necro scepter may be the best loved scepter skill sets in the game for any class. They are not all badly designed.

inb4 “But Feast of Corruption is pure direct damage on a condition weapon!”

I always thought that was weird until I went on other classes and realized that nearly every weapon has a mix.

Dagger mh: power, dagger oh: condition. And we have a trait for using both at the time.
Axe#3 is AoE but no cleave on aa or #2
Marks works better at melee range but they are 1200 range.
Focus have ridiculous long casting times and don’t have a specific purpose.
WH long CDs short effects.

vicious.5683:

Dagger mh: power, dagger oh: condition. And we have a trait for using both at the time.
Axe#3 is AoE but no cleave on aa or #2
Marks works better at melee range but they are 1200 range.
Focus have ridiculous long casting times and don’t have a specific purpose.
WH long CDs short effects.

I agree completely. It is just so sad to have non-synergy traits that encurage/force player to play hybrit like build (if you want to max out stats and trait bonuses).

Or whole game mechanic that is just so “unique”…

It just needs to generate life force imo. Axe honestly discourages DS. Sure axe 3 gives you some but its so easy to dodge and if it goes on cool down, unless you’ve got a focus in hand you’ve got no life force generation on your 1-5 skills.

The Axe is an ok weapon I mean I like it in WvW. Combo but it with well of suffering and focus 4 and you can put 20-25 stacks of vulnerability on a single enemy if you do it right. Very good for Knight and Soldier necros. That said unless huge stacks of vulns are your intention I will admit it is pretty lacking and outside Axe 3 compared to the other 3 weapon why use it.

What does the axe need. Well either make it the prime Death shroud weapon and make its basic attacks generate huge amounts of life force (4% but the extra range makes it a good dagger alternative) or Extend its range and turn it into a mini AOE so we have an alternative to the staff. Either way I would like to see the Axe Fixed so I can use it more in the future

I’m fine with range on Axe. I actually wish there were more mid-range weapons like it.

The skills could definitely use some improvements, though. It just doesn’t seem to do anything well. It doesn’t AoE well, it doesn’t generate LF well, it only kind of marginally bursts well (and said burst is long and channeled). I guess it stacks vulnerability decently, but you can still only stack around 10 vuln before they start dropping off, and something like Ranger Longbow can put that much out in a single shot and then be free to use other attacks to actually take advantage of the vuln with their own attacks, where Necro is just mainly stacking it for the benefit of others if you want to maintain it. You can try to burst with a few vuln stacks using #2, but half of them have dropped by the time the channel is done.

Some finishers on Axe would be nice. Necro lacks finishers in general, and that would be an interesting niche for Axe to fill. Whirl finisher on #2, Blast Finisher on #3. Both of them make perfect sense given the attacks.

The #1 just needs to be improved period. Either more upfront damage, better attack speed, small LF generation, something.

I’d also be in favor of making Axe a pseudo-cleave weapon (or more like a cone, though probably thinner than Guardian Staff in area) as many have suggested. AoE weapons are also something Necro is severely lacking, and as wide as the animations for the axe swings are it would make sense for it to hit more than one.

Agreed 100%. Axe is dreadfully underpowered. Adding a sort of cleave attack to it would help it significantly. Along with a range increase.

From the wiki:

Rending Claws:

• Slash your foe twice with ghostly claws to make them vulnerable.
• Damage Damage (2x): 236
• Vulnerability: 7 s
• Range: 600
• Activation (casting) time: 3/4 sec

I think the problem with Axe1 is that ANet kind of screwed themselves by coupling vulnerability and direct damage and granting it 100% chance of 2x vulnerability.

In doing so, any change such as adding cleave or increasing speed results in too much total vuln stacking. Likewise, increasing the damage per hit results in too much total effectiveness of vuln+damage.

As a result, we have mediocre vuln stacking, very weak damage, and a slow speed (i.e., slow casting time) attack. The slow speed of the attack is especially unhelpful with the limited 600 range to maneuver. Also, the 600 range makes it hard to justify Axe1 as a “support” ability.

My proposal is to:

• Make the vuln application crit-chance%-based
• Decrease the casting time
• Increase the direct damage per hit

The result would be something like:

Rending Claws (revised):

• 50% chance on crit to slash your foe twice with ghostly claws to make them vulnerable.
• Damage Damage (2x): 120
• Vulnerability: 7 s
• Range: 600
• Activation (casting) time: 1/4 sec (same as dagger1 or casting a well)

Over 3 sec @ 3/4 sec cast time, there are 4 casts. Results in:

• 4 × 2 = 8 vulns
• 4 × 236 = 944 dmg

Over 3 sec @ 1/4 sec cast time, there are 12 casts. Results in:

• 12 × 2 × .5 x .5 = 6 vulns (assuming player has 50% crit chance)
• 12 × 120 = 1440

This gives us a cast time suitable for 600 range and 50% more direct damage, at the cost of slightly lower vuln stacks and a dependence on being a build with crit chance (which most axe builds will have).

Another alternative fix is to leverage the Axe Training trait as a way to uncouple vuln stacking from Axe1.

In this case, we alter the Axe1 weapon skill to remove vuln application and make it hit harder and reduce cast time to 1/2 sec.

Rending Claws (revised):

• Damage Damage (2x): 260
• Vulnerability: 7 s
• Range: 600
• Activation (casting) time: 1/2 sec (same as scepter1)

And then alter Axe Training by adding the vuln ability there.

Axe Training (revised):

• Axe damage is increased, axe applies 1 vulnerability stack per cast and axe skills recharge 20% faster.

This gives a decent autoattack, and only players who spec into Axe Training will gain the vuln stacking.

Change vuln for torment on #1 and we are done here

vicious.5683:

Change vuln for torment on #1 and we are done here

I dont think this would be the good way to improve axe. Axe should be power(direct) damage weapon and for that it has that 1 stack of vulnerability per hit making it a perfect candidate for direct damage necro build. However, damage is low and that vulnerabiliy doesnt compensate it. Lack of cleave is also quite sad.

If you switch axe vulnerability for torment that would be even more messy with already bad necro weapon/trait synergy.

If you want to give torment somewhere it would be somewhere on scepter, because scepter is used mostly for condition damage and torment scales with condition damage.

For instance scepter #3 Feast of Corruption which is direct damage skill on “mainly” condition weapon. Again, you have two skills that do damage mainly with condition and then you get that slap with Feast of corruption…

Lingering Curse – Grandmaster trait then gives 33% condition duration. But it only affect TWO SKILLS!!! WHAT THE kitten?!

Dagger is the pure power weapon. I see the axe as an hybrid weapon with some direct and condi damage on it. Poison would be great too on aa

If they add a cleave and some LF gain, I’ll be a happy panda. Increased range would be nice for sure, although not really needed imo :s

vicious.5683:

Dagger is the pure power weapon. I see the axe as an hybrid weapon with some direct and condi damage on it. Poison would be great too on aa

Except it has absolutely no damaging condis on it. Scepter has hybrid potential, as does staff (although its more utility than damage), and Dagger is our sustained DPS weapon, fit axe elsewhere.

..Just.. get.. rid.. of the channeling.
It was intended to be a ranged melee weapon

Bhawb.7408:

vicious.5683:

Dagger is the pure power weapon. I see the axe as an hybrid weapon with some direct and condi damage on it. Poison would be great too on aa

Except it has absolutely no damaging condis on it.

That’s why torment or poison could be a great addition to axe.

beside, you can use Dhuumfire on it without a great crit change, because the axe counts with a lot of hits, 2x on aa 8x on #2 and up to 5 in #3. At least one will be a crit.

There is nothing about the current kit of axe that says “condi weapon” it applies vulnerability, which does nothing for condis, and does 100% direct damage. Adding poison makes it a bad scepter with less range and less condi damage.

At most axe can be turned into a hybrid weapon through on-crit effects because it hits fairly often. Also, who wants a third weapon with condition damage on it?

vicious.5683:

Bhawb.7408:

vicious.5683:

Dagger is the pure power weapon. I see the axe as an hybrid weapon with some direct and condi damage on it. Poison would be great too on aa

Except it has absolutely no damaging condis on it.

That’s why torment or poison could be a great addition to axe.

beside, you can use Dhuumfire on it without a great crit change, because the axe counts with a lot of hits, 2x on aa 8x on #2 and up to 5 in #3. At least one will be a crit.

Torment is the rarest condition and using it in autoatack will make alot problems. Axe have traits in spite line as a power damage weapon. Torment is condition that is most curses-like and it would make a perfect addiction to scepter in curses line. Axe needs cleave. Adding torment is not a solution, but a step back.

do you know Spite it’s the condition duration tree too, right?

it doesn’t hit as hard as dagger and it will never do. It would be a better dagger because it hits at range.
It won’t cleave either because it’s a ranged weapon. There is no such thing as a 600 range cone cleave area in the game, they won’t invent it for the necro axe.

adding condi damage(making axe more hybrid than already is) is a feasible solution to the damage lacking of the weapon.

sure torment is the rarest condition, but I only see it as a better bleed, dont know how it would be problematic to put some torment on an auto attack.

ofc it shouldn’t be as powerful condition wise to replace scepter (as it doesn’t hit as hard as dagger in the direct damage department )

vicious.5683:

do you know Spite it’s the condition duration tree too, right?

it doesn’t hit as hard as dagger and it will never do. It would be a better dagger because it hits at range.
It won’t cleave either because it’s a ranged weapon. There is no such thing as a 600 range cone cleave area in the game, they won’t invent it for the necro axe.

adding condi damage(making axe more hybrid than already is) is a feasible solution to the damage lacking of the weapon.

sure torment is the rarest condition, but I only see it as a better bleed, dont know how it would be problematic to put some torment on an auto attack.

ofc it shouldn’t be as powerful condition wise to replace scepter (as it doesn’t hit as hard as dagger in the direct damage department )

There is a way how make ranged attack to have somthing like cleave. Adding 90 radius to those attack. Same as elementalist fire attunement #1 Fireball on staff.

Making axe to have a dot condition is another nail to necro already non-synergy traits. Spite traits have condition duration, but that is used primarly for not dot condition (Vulnerability, chill, cripple etc). That is why Duumfire is there. To compensate the damage for a burning. Making this trait to be efective only if you also go for curses line to gain another 300 condition damage. Then you are a glass, but you hit like a train.

Axe need:
Axe #1 and Axe #2 now have radius 90 as a “cleave” mechanic.
Axe #1 damage increase by 5-15%.
Axe #2 number of strikes increase from 8 to 10 and lifeforce gain from Axe #2 should be 1% per strike. (with 90 radius, you can hit foes more than 20x = 20% LF.)
Axe #2 recharge increased from 8 to 10 second.

Unholly feast is now a blast finnisher. Thanks to lack of blast finnisher, it would make a axe to be gold!

Those^ changes and axe will be up for a fight.

vicious.5683:

do you know Spite it’s the condition duration tree too, right?

condition duration benefits vulnerability, chill, cripple and blind which power builds make sue of; im farily sure thats what was in mind when the power tree secondary stat was decided on

vicious.5683:

It won’t cleave either because it’s a ranged weapon. There is no such thing as a 600 range cone cleave area in the game, they won’t invent it for the necro axe.

do people even play this game?

Sewra.2805:

It just needs to generate life force imo. Axe honestly discourages DS. Sure axe 3 gives you some but its so easy to dodge and if it goes on cool down, unless you’ve got a focus in hand you’ve got no life force generation on your 1-5 skills.

its axe2 that generates life force (how long does dodge evasion last? surely theyd need to burn both dodges to avoid all the hits) and warhorn has life force generation too... although it is counter intuitive to axe being ranged (which i assume is why you didnt mention it… but i like being pedantic)

DriV.6203:

Axe need:
Axe #1 and Axe #2 now have radius 90 as a “cleave” mechanic.
Axe #1 damage increase by 5-15%.
Axe #2 number of strikes increase from 8 to 10 and lifeforce gain from Axe #2 should be 1% per strike. (with 90 radius, you can hit foes more than 20x = 20% LF.)
Axe #2 recharge increased from 8 to 10 second.

Unholly feast is now a blast finnisher. Thanks to lack of blast finnisher, it would make a axe to be gold!

i kind of like these changes… but im assuming with the number of hit increase on axe2 it would also get a dps increase (all hits doing the same amount of damage as currently?)? and a channel duration increase makes me question whether the recharge increase would be merited

… also the blast finisher would be interesting… axe is primarily a DS weapon meaning the wielder would be unlikely to possess combo fields… could aid build diversity/co-operative play

I play a lot of pve so I tend run direct damage, and I think necros could use a good ranged direct damage weapon. Scepter is already strong hybrid weapon, since 3 scales with power. Axe was clearly designed to be for direct damage, but it’s simply underpowered. The burst from scepter 3 is almost always better then the channel from 2 with the number of conditions a 5 man group will stack without even trying, and it’s less likely to be interrupted. Scepter gives you an aoe cripple, and axe gives you… Marginally better life gain? At 300 shorter range? I think it could use a bit of a buff, or maybe I’m just using it wrong.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

DriV.6203:

Axe need:
Axe #1 and Axe #2 now have radius 90 as a “cleave” mechanic.
Axe #1 damage increase by 5-15%.
Axe #2 number of strikes increase from 8 to 10 and lifeforce gain from Axe #2 should be 1% per strike. (with 90 radius, you can hit foes more than 20x = 20% LF.)
Axe #2 recharge increased from 8 to 10 second.

Unholly feast is now a blast finnisher. Thanks to lack of blast finnisher, it would make a axe to be gold!

i kind of like these changes… but im assuming with the number of hit increase on axe2 it would also get a dps increase (all hits doing the same amount of damage as currently?)? and a channel duration increase makes me question whether the recharge increase would be merited

… also the blast finisher would be interesting… axe is primarily a DS weapon meaning the wielder would be unlikely to possess combo fields… could aid build diversity/co-operative play

Axe #2 would have dps increase. Channel time would be same (2¼). I realy dont think it would be op. It is very predictable and it can be easily evaded. it is also limited with 600 range that is not that much as it seems. The reason why someone score ~10k damage with it is mainly because of traits and other factors.

As for unholly feast. This would make axe (and whole necromancer) viable in team fight in www as a close range blaster. It is just so sad to see necro completely worthless when your team is stacking up before fight. There is now only one blast finisher that is somewhat effective and it must be trigered by an enemy!

I agree Axe #1 could use a little love, however first the necro class a whole might need to be dealt with. They got some pretty strong buffs last patch and I’m not sure it’s balanced to be completely honest.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

vicious.5683:

It won’t cleave either because it’s a ranged weapon. There is no such thing as a 600 range cone cleave area in the game, they won’t invent it for the necro axe.

do people even play this game?

Actually Necro axe is the only 600 range weapon in the game with single target auto-attack, the only option for cleave we have is axe #3. Ranger axe is 900 range with every attack being aoe/cleave

azuzephyr.7280:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

vicious.5683:

It won’t cleave either because it’s a ranged weapon. There is no such thing as a 600 range cone cleave area in the game, they won’t invent it for the necro axe.

do people even play this game?

Actually Necro axe is the only 600 range weapon in the game with single target auto-attack, the only option for cleave we have is axe #3. Ranger axe is 900 range with every attack being aoe/cleave

do people even read the posts they reply to?

Linguistically Inept.6583:

vicious.5683:

It won’t cleave either because it’s a ranged weapon. There is no such thing as a 600 range cone cleave area in the game, they won’t invent it for the necro axe.

do people even play this game?

You are talking about an aoe attack, not cleave.
A cleave attack is when you hit the adjacent target(s) of your target.
Axe 1 is a single target, no area attack. This means a cleave attack on axe aa should be something like hit your target, and then hit the targets beside them and not all the targets between you and the target.

What you want is to change the animation of axe#1 to match your expectations.

vicious.5683:

A cleave attack is when you hit the adjacent target(s) of your target.

While that is how cleave often ends up working, and how some cleave works, that is not the only way the term is used.