Guild Wars 2

Good day to everyone and happy Friday! I’d like to discuss our sad friend, the Axe. Now just to clarify, this discussion pertains primarily to the effectiveness of the axe in sPvP. To begin, I feel the axe is quite underwhelming and I intend to outline the reasons why I feel this way. My intention is to garner discussion and perhaps attract the attention of a Red, but mainly I just wanted to see what the community here feels. Let us begin, shall we?

Recap of the Axe
For those who may not recall immediately what the Axe skills are, I will list them here:

• Rending Claw – Slash your foe twice with ghostly claws to make them vulnerable (2 stacks).
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rending_Claws

• Ghastly Claw – Summon spectral claws to slash your foe in a quick flurry of strikes, gaining life force per strike (8%).
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ghastly_Claws

• Unholy Feast – Damage and cripple nearby foes. Gain retaliation for each foe you strike.
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unholy_Feast

Why the Axe Falls Apart
I’ll jump straight into the main ideas of why I believe the Axe presently is underwhelming. We first recall that Anet wanted to disband the “holy trinity” in favor of “damage, support, and control”. Subsequently, most skills, conditions, and boons fall into these categories. Furthermore, weapons attempt to capitalize on one or more of the above three categories to give said weapon a “feel” and “purpose”. This is where the Axe falls apart. The axe fails to satisfy or unite any notion of synergy amongst damage, support and control, and I will delve into those details by examining each skill independently and then simultaneously.

• Rending Claw
  If you have spent more than a few minutes in the Mists playing with the Axe, you understand that Rending Claws has a terrible damage output. In a glass cannon build, it crits for ~500+ (on Heavy Golems), and averages about ~300+ per non-crit. So clearly the #1 skill isn’t intended for damage, so it must either be support or control. The secondary feature of Rending Claws is its Vulnerability stacking, where it can muster ~11 stacks of vulnerability. Now, 11% more damage is spiffy, and supplies a nice Support effect, so one can argue that Rending Claws is a Support Skill.
  TL;DR: Let us establish this: Rending Claw is Support.

• Ghastly Claws
  Clearly this is a damage-based skill (with a hint of Support from the Life Force gain). Against a heavy golem, it yields 2.5k-3k damage using a glass cannon build (2k power, 2k prec). There really isn’t too much to say in addition to this.
  TL;DR: Let us establish this: Ghastly Claws is Damage

• Unholy Feast
  This skill is arguably one of the better weapon skills the Necromancer has, period. Large AoE with decent damage (crits ~1k) as well as cripple and self-retaliation. You can use this skill to hit Stealthed Players, cripple melee users, and punish ranged users. It really is a splendid skill, and offers excellent control in every aspect.
  TL;DR: Let us establish this: Unholy Feast is a Control Skill.

Cont: Why the Axe Falls Apart
So looking back at the above short analysis, the Axe has skills that complement all three of Anet’s ideals: Damage, support and control. This is a fantastic trait to have in a weapon, but unfortunately isn’t enough for the Axe. Looking critically at the Axe, it doesn’t perform well in 1v1 situations. The damage output is far to minimal to effectively kite-and-kill a competent foe, so let us consider this in a more ideal scenario: 2v1. In this scenario, the Necro is out of the line of combat is providing a Support role:

• Your ally is taking the brunt force of an attack, you stand back, throw on stacks of Vulnerability with (#1) and follow up with (#2) to apply pressure and damage. As your foe attempts to flee, you hit (#3) to attempt to keep the foe in the fight. If they turn on you, your retaliation should help finish them off. Ideally, you and your ally come out victorious as you supported him/her.

The above scenario seems to be the ideal situation for the Axe, and even seems to paint the Axe as a competent support weapon! But is it really? Consider using a scepter in the exact same scenario above. Not only does the scepter apply constant pressure through bleeds and poison, it has a further reaching cripple and it’s (#1) skill deals more damage than Axe (#1) in almost every scenario. So even in the Axe’s ideal environment, I argue that the scepter does a better job than Axe.
TL;DR: I believe that the Scepter does Axe’s role better than the Axe does.

Where does this Leave the Axe?
The Axe doesn’t have a loving home. It doesn’t fit well in a power build since it has little power behind it. It is a poor support weapon and is outclassed in pressure by the scepter. It has poor control as only skill (#3) provides control, and it’s “ok” at that, even. The Axe really doesn’t have a place where it belongs in the Necro line-up. Heck, I’ve had greater success with the scepter running 200 condition damage than using the axe in a power/support build. It really is just a lackluster weapon.
TL;DR: Axe isn’t good at anything and is outperformed by other weapons.

How to Fix the Middle Child.
I have a few ideas on how to remedy the Axe. I want the axe to be a viable option for the Necro regardless of the individual’s build (condition, power, minion, support, well, etc). Thus I have the following options:

• 1) Make Axe the life-force battery weapon. Let Rending Claw gain 3% per hit and Unholy feast 4% per foe hit. Furthermore, make the Grandmaster Axe trait improve life-force gain for the axe by 33% in addition to the recharge reduction and damage boost.

• 2) Change the conditions applied by the Axe. Let Rending Claw apply Weakness instead of Vulnerability (good for any build) and Ghastly Claw apply Confusion (2-3 stacks). This turns the Axe into a support and pressure weapon to be used in tandem with other players. It also wouldn’t hurt to increase (#1) damage as well, but that may be asking for too much.

• 3) Increase (#1) damage substantially. This would help define the Axe as a ranged alternative to the dagger. It also wouldn’t hurt to decrease the channeled time for (#2) as well.

Thank you all for your time and consideration! Take care!

if you take the marks dmg trait in master spite slot, and the close to death trait, have an axe/focus on offset..

you can get a lot of vuln+ % dmg modifiers on marks. If you set up the vuln, might stacking, and use Mark4, you can get crits of upwards of 5k+ on putrid and around 3k for each of the lesser marks.

I have seen it, and i’ve tested it. Its a good well bombing rig.

Axe is more of a set-up weapon, it’s handy at a medium range, and when you combine its skills with other utilities and trait stacking, you can get some pretty good performance. imho I don’t use it because I find that relying on set-up and combinations is a very risky way to play competitively, because if they cleanse or if you get CC’d in your setup (guaranteed to happen) you will not get those results.

I like option 1 best, though the values are too high I think. Option 2 has the issue of being obscenely overpowered, perma weakness is a huge debuff on a target that you can maintain at 600 range indefinitely. Option 3 is boring but workable, which is why I like option 1 better.

Currently no weapon really generates an acceptable amount of life force, dagger and staff are about close on generation, dagger seems to do a complete combo every approximately 2 seconds, and staff seems to cast every 1.25 seconds, generating 3% and 2.4% life force per second respectively. Having a build focused around power (axe) and generating a lot of life force to utilize death shroud more than the other weapons would be perfect.

Yumad.7341:

I like option 1 best, though the values are too high I think. Option 2 has the issue of being obscenely overpowered, perma weakness is a huge debuff on a target that you can maintain at 600 range indefinitely. Option 3 is boring but workable, which is why I like option 1 better.

Currently no weapon really generates an acceptable amount of life force, dagger and staff are about close on generation, dagger seems to do a complete combo every approximately 2 seconds, and staff seems to cast every 1.25 seconds, generating 3% and 2.4% life force per second respectively. Having a build focused around power (axe) and generating a lot of life force to utilize death shroud more than the other weapons would be perfect.

with gluttony, dagger1 has a perfect amount of LF gen.

staff1 in a large crowd can skyrocket your LF in moments.

Axe2 with gluttony is about a 60% LF fill on a single target from range.

Scepter sucks with lf gen. period.

Sheobix.8796:

if you take the marks dmg trait in master spite slot, and the close to death trait, have an axe/focus on offset..

you can get a lot of vuln+ % dmg modifiers on marks. If you set up the vuln, might stacking, and use Mark4, you can get crits of upwards of 5k+ on putrid and around 3k for each of the lesser marks.

I have seen it, and i’ve tested it. Its a good well bombing rig.

Axe is more of a set-up weapon, it’s handy at a medium range, and when you combine its skills with other utilities and trait stacking, you can get some pretty good performance. imho I don’t use it because I find that relying on set-up and combinations is a very risky way to play competitively, because if they cleanse or if you get CC’d in your setup (guaranteed to happen) you will not get those results.

That and the boosted damage from the vulnerability stacks isn’t necessarily worth the time spent stacking them up in the first place, especially with how little time the axe1 stacks last, I’d rather have the increased range of the scepter, aoe targetable cripple with a good radius and attack that doesn’t channel as slow as an 80 year old grandmother driving in the left lane on the highway.

A weapon built around life force gen would be very nice, but may need to be tweaked lest it be overpowered, because APPARENTLY we need to learn to use death shroud.

Sheobix.8796:

Yumad.7341:

I like option 1 best, though the values are too high I think. Option 2 has the issue of being obscenely overpowered, perma weakness is a huge debuff on a target that you can maintain at 600 range indefinitely. Option 3 is boring but workable, which is why I like option 1 better.

Currently no weapon really generates an acceptable amount of life force, dagger and staff are about close on generation, dagger seems to do a complete combo every approximately 2 seconds, and staff seems to cast every 1.25 seconds, generating 3% and 2.4% life force per second respectively. Having a build focused around power (axe) and generating a lot of life force to utilize death shroud more than the other weapons would be perfect.

with gluttony, dagger1 has a perfect amount of LF gen.

staff1 in a large crowd can skyrocket your LF in moments.

Axe2 with gluttony is about a 60% LF fill on a single target from range.

Scepter sucks with lf gen. period.

I’m sorry where are you getting 60% life force from ghastly claws? 8% over the whole channel or 8.8% with gluttony, assuming you crit with every single attack in the channel you’d get 11.44% LF on average if you took the crit for 1% LF trait. 11.44% is a far cry from 60%.

Dagger1 generation would be acceptable if dagger1 had a range similar to Elementalist dagger, it’s not enough at 130.

Edit: Forgot to address staff, yes staff in groups is fine, never said it wasn’t, though it could use a projectile speed boost.

Thanks Shoebix for the insight! I agree that the Vulnerability can be excellent setup for a Well Bomb and it was something I didn’t think about prior to typing up my spur-of-the-moment thoughts. Your understanding of the class is far more reaching than that of my own. So thank you for your input!

And thank you also Yumad. I agree 100% with everything you said. My 1) idea has high percentages because it’s “something we can give up in negotiations” (I was literally thinking of the Futurama episode where the Mutants gain their freedom…if you don’t catch that reference then ignore it). My “balanced” percentages would be 1% lower than what I have listed And you’re right on the money with 2) and 3). I was thinking the weakness would only last for a fraction of second, just enough that with huge amounts of duration investment could you keep weakness up “permanently”, but the moment you stopped spamming #1, the weakness would dissipate within a second or two.

Thank you very much for your input guys!

EDIT: Shoebix, again you are right on with your assessment of Life Force generation (except for the 60%, but I think that’s a typo ). My hope for the Axe would be a viable weapon to any build, which led me to the idea of LF generation, since that’s basically useful all the time (more or less).

I don’t pvp (yet) and i have found that the axe has a perfect slot when killing dragons apart from Jormag). Staff has range but little dmg, sceptre has higher atk values than axe but its cond’s are overwritten in the zerg and dagger has nice dmg but no range. Use a bloodlust/perception sigil to get 25 stacks of power/precision and swap to an axe/dagger set with lightning strikes/fire blast on crits. Axe is handy for single-target roaming damage if you have a means to cripple the target but even after the +10% damage boost it is still lacklustre compared to pretty much everything else we have.

Sheobix.8796:

Axe is more of a set-up weapon, it’s handy at a medium range, and when you combine its skills with other utilities and trait stacking, you can get some pretty good performance. imho I don’t use it because I find that relying on set-up and combinations is a very risky way to play competitively, because if they cleanse or if you get CC’d in your setup (guaranteed to happen) you will not get those results.

Sheobix hit it right on the head I think. It is a very powerful setup weapon in both pve and pvp, but as he also mentioned it’s very risky and most of the time unsuccessful because players would have to be as braindead as enemy AI for it to work properly. As for some fixes, I think the vulnerability needs a longer duration on #1, life force gain increased or either channel time/recharge decreased on #2, and idc about 3 because the retaliation duration is a joke unless you have a whole enemy team around you to get a decent buff off it but the aoe and cripple/stealth buster ability of it is invaluable. The overall usefulness of the axe depends a lot on the offhand as well, and utilities properly planned to capitalize on any advantages the axe is offering (which back to the point above lends to gimmicky, unstable builds, regardless of how powerful it is on paper).

The axe does more damage then the scepter in pve/wvw but in s/t pvp it’s lower due to not getting a mix of stats like you can do in pve/wvw…. The thing they need to do is give it more of a sustained damage feel to the no.1 in the form of a chain attack… The no.2 is a life force generation machine which is fine as is and the no.3 while you seem to think it’s meh is actually decent the cripple is a fairly long duration on a short cooldown and it’s aoe….

The retaliation on no.3 though should be replaced with vigor honestly the retaliation feels out of place on it and unholy feast on 1 gave more of a player buff to yourself not a offensive buff.

Axe#1 + Focus#4 are a great setup for DS#1. But as Yumad pointed out, the vulns from Axe fall off pretty fast. If the vulns on Axe#1 were increased from 5 to 8 sec (for example), it might help quite a bit to at least make Axe both more viable relative to scepter, and also a better support tool. Even with 30pts in Spite, 8 sec vuln would only be extended to 10.5 sec (I think).

I also like OmegaProjects idea about Weakness on Axe#1, but I think it should be added to Axe#1 rather than replacing Vuln (but maybe reducing the vuln stacks).

Vuln stacking on any weapon1 is a very poor choice of design, vuln should come in bursts from cooldown abilities, like reaper’s touch, as trying to balance around it either leads to the vuln itself being useless due to crap duration or the damage of the ability being useless because they are trying to compensate for the vuln.

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

One thing to note on Axe #2 is that the 2k damage is per-hit on a glass cannon build. I run virtually no power in PvE and regularly hit champs for 12-14k over the course of the channel. A glass cannon should easily be hitting 16-18k.

I enjoy the Axe+Focus combo as it allows for decent movement restriction and #4 gives great vulnerability, allows for an even stronger #2. Regardless, given the time of “prep” to set up the Axe versus the same amount of time spamming #1 with the scepter, I’d take the scepter. Here’s the story:

Present Build:
2,139 Power
2,025 Precision
357 Condition Damage
Clearly if Axe were a power-based weapon, it should outclass the scepter at this moment since my condition damage is significantly lower than the Power/Precision. However…

• Scepter: Against a Light Golem, just spamming #1, Golem dies in ~9-10 seconds
• Axe: Against a Light Golem, just spamming #1, Golem dies in ~9-11 seconds
  Now I chose the Light Golem since it has the lowest Toughness, making our numbers favor Axe. But in this case, the scepter is just as effective as the Axe (in regards to simply spamming #1. Moving on:
• Scepter: Opening with Grasping Dead and then Spam #1, Light Golem dies in ~8.5-9.5 seconds.
• Axe: Opening with Ghastly Claws and then Spam #1, Light Golem dies in ~8.5-9.5 seconds.
  These numbers were not done scientifically, but with about 5 tests and a stopwatch. Doing the same tests with the Heavy Golems yield similar results (except using only Axe #1 spam is takes significantly longer).

Now I understand that these tests really don’t mean much at all, since they’re done in a “vacuum,” so take them as you will. However, I’m pretty surprised at how awful the axe is performing when it has such a huge stat advantage in the build I tested with (Full Berskerker, max Spite/Curse). So when push comes to shove, I’ll be taking a scepter in my power build over the axe.

Again, thank you all for your input and insight! Have a great evening (where it applies)!

hackks.3687:

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

The LF per second is less than staff1 on single target.

Howdy Hackks! I’m sorry you didn’t find my analysis “sufficient.” It was, indeed, a spur of the moment thinking that I wanted to share. You’re opinions/statements are certainly valid, and I do not wish to nullify them. If you don’t mind, though, I’d like to share a little “rebuttal” if you will.

1) I treated Axe #1 as support since the damage was minimal. If it’s not power, or control, then what is it? Furthermore, with multiple allies, Vulnerability is Support and Damage, but by oneself, since the damage of the Axe #1 spam is so low, it’s a prep tool for greater damage to come — hence support. I’m not simply saying Vulnerability is Support, but that Axe #1 is.

2) You caught me I didn’t know how to treat the 8% LF gain, and by “Support”, I really mean it “supports” your character, not in the sense of Anets trichotomy. LF is such an important tool that any gain in it shouldn’t be written off and undercut, so you are correct on that. As for “what other weapon gives as much and on such a short cooldown,” I contend with Reapers Touch performs similarly (15% life force on a 18sec cooldown). Regardless, thank you for mentioning this.

3) I have full Berserkers and max Power and Precision :X Aside from Runes, I’m not sure there’s much more you can do. You may be thinking of “Attack” as “Power”, which is, indeed, much higher.

4) You are correct! Axe does perform better LF gain than Scepter, but that brings into question what is the Axe’s role? If you define it as LF gain, then yes, you are correct. I, personally, do not define the Axe as LF gain role but rather a ranged “support” weapon that, as Shoebix implied, prepares the target for more powerful follow ups. Of course, we are all allowed our own interpretations.

Thank you for your input!

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

The LF per second is less than staff1 on single target.

Staff 1 is not a channel and will not track targets – even while they’re stealthed. Giving up 1% LF gain for a significant increase in accuracy and efficiency is an acceptable trade off IMO.

hackks.3687:

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

The LF per second is less than staff1 on single target.

Staff 1 is not a channel and will not track targets – even while they’re stealthed. Giving up 1% LF gain for a significant increase in accuracy and efficiency is an acceptable trade off IMO.

Staff1 doesn’t have a 2.25 second cast that is trivial to interrupt or dodge partway through. Staff1 being dodged is not a big loss, axe2 is a cooldown and therefore a much bigger loss.

USING an axe is a loss of efficiency, a scepter would be better SOLELY for its ranged snare, or dagger for that in your face damage, depending on playstyle. Axe has no place anywhere, 600 range is within range of too many gap closers.

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

The LF per second is less than staff1 on single target.

Staff 1 is not a channel and will not track targets – even while they’re stealthed. Giving up 1% LF gain for a significant increase in accuracy and efficiency is an acceptable trade off IMO.

Staff1 doesn’t have a 2.25 second cast that is trivial to interrupt or dodge partway through. Staff1 being dodged is not a big loss, axe2 is a cooldown and therefore a much bigger loss.

USING an axe is a loss of efficiency, a scepter would be better SOLELY for its ranged snare, or dagger for that in your face damage, depending on playstyle. Axe has no place anywhere, 600 range is within range of too many gap closers.

now you’re comparing an AA to a CD skill. not a fair comparison at all.

And why are you discussing it like you wouldn’t use both weapons for a max LF gain build? Toss in Spite VI and Soul Reaping VI, maybe even reduce DS recharge or DS skill cd, and wreak DS havoc. My point is there’s plenty to build around there. Axe isn’t perfect, but the only reason it’s not a must have weapon is because Staff outshines them all and people seem to keep looking at Axe as a replacement for Staff. The largest major issue for Axe is it’s best suited for minion builds and as Minions are hardly working as intended (we hope) Axe’s usefulness is diminished further.

Here is how I know that Axe is utterly underperforming:

I run a Toughness/Power/Precision build with about 40% cit damage, and all my weapons are rare. I also have 30 points invested in Spite and have taken Axe Training. What do you think does more single target damage in this build— using both Axe 1 + Axe 2 or simpy spamming Scepter 1?

The answer is Scepter 1. How the EFF is Scepter 1 outperforming Axe 1 + Axe 2 in a Power/Crit build that also takes Axe Training?

Needless to say, I am respeccing ASAP.

If I may add more food-for-thought, let’s consider a comparison of Scepter #1 and Axe #1. I’ll note quickly that the actual “damage” (bleeding aside) from both skills are almost the same (~6700 for Axe, attacking for 10 seconds, ~6100 for Scepter attacking for 10 seconds). Note that the Axe damage includes the Vulnerability added, and if we subtract 10% of ~6700, we arrive at ~6100, the same as the Scepter (This was NOT an intensive study, so there may be some errors). So for all intents and purposes, let’s presume they perform the same “direct damage” (this is not true, but I think the values are close enough to consider this a “viable” example).

Let’s also assume that your Axe is capable of inflicting a constant 10 Vulnerability on a foe. Thus said foe will take 10% more damage. Now let’s assume you have, like me, ~350 Condition Damage, giving your bleeds about sixty damage a tick. Let’s also assume, then, that the Scepter is able to upkeep 5 stacks of bleed constantly (not a difficult feat). Thus the bleeding is performing about 300 DPS (5 ticks at 60 a piece). For 10 stacks of Vulnerability to match this, the target will be needing to take ~3,000 damage a second from outside sources (10% of 3,000 is 300, the damage the target would take from simply bleeding). This is tricky for any non-burst builds and/or team gang-ups. Thus, for the sake of pure damage, I believe it can be argued that Scepter #1 out DPS’s Axe #1 even when focused on Power and Precision, in most scenarios.

Take this as you, since it was done quickly and without in-depth analysis Take care everyone!

hackks.3687:

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Yumad.7341:

hackks.3687:

Questions:

1.) How is vulnerability support? It’s dmg based and on an AA making it virtually free.
2.) How is 8% LF gain on a short cd a “hint of support” when LF accrual leads to more DS use and less impact on our actual HP pool? And what other weapon skill gives as much on as low a cd?
3.) How is 2k power even remotely considered “glass cannon”?
4.) How is Scepter doing Axe’s role better when it hardly generates any LF at all and supplies 0 Vulnerability/Retal?

If you can’t see the synergy between high power (read as: way more than 2k), vulnerability, and retal, whilst applying all three from outside of melee range then axe’s functionality is not your problem.

This analysis gets a 2/10

The LF per second is less than staff1 on single target.

Staff 1 is not a channel and will not track targets – even while they’re stealthed. Giving up 1% LF gain for a significant increase in accuracy and efficiency is an acceptable trade off IMO.

Staff1 doesn’t have a 2.25 second cast that is trivial to interrupt or dodge partway through. Staff1 being dodged is not a big loss, axe2 is a cooldown and therefore a much bigger loss.

USING an axe is a loss of efficiency, a scepter would be better SOLELY for its ranged snare, or dagger for that in your face damage, depending on playstyle. Axe has no place anywhere, 600 range is within range of too many gap closers.

now you’re comparing an AA to a CD skill. not a fair comparison at all.

And why are you discussing it like you wouldn’t use both weapons for a max LF gain build? Toss in Spite VI and Soul Reaping VI, maybe even reduce DS recharge or DS skill cd, and wreak DS havoc. My point is there’s plenty to build around there. Axe isn’t perfect, but the only reason it’s not a must have weapon is because Staff outshines them all and people seem to keep looking at Axe as a replacement for Staff. The largest major issue for Axe is it’s best suited for minion builds and as Minions are hardly working as intended (we hope) Axe’s usefulness is diminished further.

If you use an axe you are not optimizing LF gains, so using the axe for a DS based build is a loss. If you use the axe for a kiting based long range support build using axe as your switch from staff is suboptimal because of its 600 range AND anemic damage, and is a loss. If you are running a close range, high damage or tanky build, 600 range might as well be 130 with the gap closers that reach out to there or close to that point, and choosing the axe over the dagger is a loss in damage output, LF gain and potentially utility since the cripple can be replicated by warhorn offhand at close range or focus chill at farther range, but the dagger immobilize cannot, this is a loss.

The axe fails in every single useful scenario outside of some ridiculous, clunky vulnerability stacking well bomb style build that doesn’t fly when they have a player or 5 using a class with aoe condition removal.

Julius Seizure.4985:

Here is how I know that Axe is utterly underperforming:

I run a Toughness/Power/Precision build with about 40% cit damage, and all my weapons are rare. I also have 30 points invested in Spite and have taken Axe Training. What do you think does more single target damage in this build— using both Axe 1 + Axe 2 or simpy spamming Scepter 1?

The answer is Scepter 1. How the EFF is Scepter 1 outperforming Axe 1 + Axe 2 in a Power/Crit build that also takes Axe Training?

Needless to say, I am respeccing ASAP.

This just seemed unbelievable, so I tried this in the Mists against the Heavy Golem, with no armor/jewelry, 30 in Spite and Axe Mastery, and nothing in Curses. Sure enough, Scepter#1 equalled or bested Axe#1+2. Even throwing DS1 into the axe mix didn’t help because of the long delay before DS1 ever fires. (Edit: Adding Axe#3 into the mix only slowed axe down more because of the long cast animation of Axe#3.)

Hopefully, Anet’s response isn’t “well, this just shows that Scepter#1 needs to be nerfed”.

TheAgedGnome.7520:

Hopefully, Anet’s response isn’t “well, this just shows that Scepter#1 needs to be nerfed”.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Anet’s actions, or lack thereof, clearly show how little they truly care.

TheAgedGnome.7520:

Julius Seizure.4985:

…How the EFF is Scepter 1 outperforming Axe 1 + Axe 2 in a Power/Crit build that also takes Axe Training?

Needless to say, I am respeccing ASAP.

This just seemed unbelievable, so I tried this in the Mists against the Heavy Golem, with no armor/jewelry, 30 in Spite and Axe Mastery, and nothing in Curses. Sure enough, Scepter#1 equalled or bested Axe#1+2. Even throwing DS1 into the axe mix didn’t help because of the long delay before DS1 ever fires. (Edit: Adding Axe#3 into the mix only slowed axe down more because of the long cast animation of Axe#3.)

Hopefully, Anet’s response isn’t “well, this just shows that Scepter#1 needs to be nerfed”.

It’s shocking how imbalanced the Axe is. After taking a weapon specific Grand Master trait, one that only affects 3 whole skills for the Necromancer mind you, and selecting armor stats fully slanted in favor of the Axe one STILL wields an inferior weapon.

Scepter is weak on getting LF, but thats okay, i mean in a full condition damage spec i have nearly no reasons why i should go into DS much – i cant extend my conditions – i dont deal much damage if specced for condition damage, our only “bleed” in DS is also our gapcloser, and as scepter you DONT want to be close to the enemy. Unless they give DS a purpose in condition builds i dont have a problem without having much LF while at a scepter weaponset.

Ontopic: The Axe itself:

give #1 a chain with an AOE part in it. Also Increase its damage and range – Currently it doenst make much sense – we get severly kited by 900 and 1200 Range weapons, and we get severly outdamaged by anything with meelerange

axe #2 needs an huge damage increase and something to make it interesting. I would say take the Warriors 100 Blades basedamage and scaling and add 20% damage for being only a single target spell – that would be balanced. We get much LF, but thats not enough for a secondary effect. Warriors for example get adrenaline for EVERY hit, giving our axe only LF generation is so boring and generic. Also Increase range to 900

axe #3 is basicly fine.