Guild Wars 2

I understand why the hit timing was changed….. but was it really necessary to alter the weapon’s attack animation?

Timing nerf? Not even necessary, but okay whatever.

This just LOOKS like crap.

Mesmer gs is really very very strong. Necro axe is the worst weapon in game. So did they nerf the mesmer gs exploit too? if not lol

Mesmer GS wasn’t necessarily being talked about on a fairly popular podcast that the devs listen/have listened to in the past. It is actually very likely that this was changed primarily because we mentioned it quite a bit, and as long as it exists as a weird interaction they would probably be hesitant to buff Axe AA.

Bhawb.7408:

Mesmer GS wasn’t necessarily being talked about on a fairly popular podcast that the devs listen/have listened to in the past. It is actually very likely that this was changed primarily because we mentioned it quite a bit, and as long as it exists as a weird interaction they would probably be hesitant to buff Axe AA.

Lol, everyone knows about mesmer gs , more than about axe necro. If they didnt fix mesmer gs it means they hate necro. Further evidence to what we all knew

Lordrosicky.5813:

Bhawb.7408:

Mesmer GS wasn’t necessarily being talked about on a fairly popular podcast that the devs listen/have listened to in the past. It is actually very likely that this was changed primarily because we mentioned it quite a bit, and as long as it exists as a weird interaction they would probably be hesitant to buff Axe AA.

Lol, everyone knows about mesmer gs , more than about axe necro. If they didnt fix mesmer gs it means they hate necro. Further evidence to what we all knew

Infallible logic.

Also, I’m surprised so many people use Axe #1.

Because of this, I finally decided to stop using axe. Even though I have no additional condition damage currently, the scepter still hits harder that the axe with its aa. So.. RIP Necro axe

I really do think mesmer GS should have gotten this treatment if anything but lol all the people saying they won’t use axe after this.. im pretty sure none of them used the stow weapon trick to increase their dps.

Just checked out the animation. Plz revert the animation back for human females…. It looks soooo so bad. I’m sad if now if this is the way it stays :/ Not that i auto attacked really ever lol.. But before it looked epic even just running around auto attacking air with my frostfang.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Bhawb.7408:

Mesmer GS wasn’t necessarily being talked about on a fairly popular podcast that the devs listen/have listened to in the past. It is actually very likely that this was changed primarily because we mentioned it quite a bit, and as long as it exists as a weird interaction they would probably be hesitant to buff Axe AA.

Lol, everyone knows about mesmer gs , more than about axe necro. If they didnt fix mesmer gs it means they hate necro. Further evidence to what we all knew

Infallible logic.

Also, I’m surprised so many people use Axe #1.

The reason people use it is because the number of people who monitor their dps or build synergy or theorycrafting is likely the lower proportion of players.The game has a very strong casual appeal and I dont mean that in a negative context.

People choose weapons for looks, feels, playstyles, animations as much as anything else and the necro axe did have a unique look and feel to its play. It was perhaps the most enjoyable class for purely just….swinging an axe. It didnt matter to many whether it was more or less viable. Its the same reason a lot of warriors like myself enjoy the shield so much.

I’m just annoyed because I made Frostfang. I avoided AAing as much as possible, but when weapon swap and death shroud are on cooldown and it’s not a good time for off-hand dagger skills? Not much choice.

Randulf.7614:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Bhawb.7408:

Mesmer GS wasn’t necessarily being talked about on a fairly popular podcast that the devs listen/have listened to in the past. It is actually very likely that this was changed primarily because we mentioned it quite a bit, and as long as it exists as a weird interaction they would probably be hesitant to buff Axe AA.

Lol, everyone knows about mesmer gs , more than about axe necro. If they didnt fix mesmer gs it means they hate necro. Further evidence to what we all knew

Infallible logic.

Also, I’m surprised so many people use Axe #1.

The reason people use it is because the number of people who monitor their dps or build synergy or theorycrafting is likely the lower proportion of players.The game has a very strong casual appeal and I dont mean that in a negative context.

People choose weapons for looks, feels, playstyles, animations as much as anything else and the necro axe did have a unique look and feel to its play. It was perhaps the most enjoyable class for purely just….swinging an axe. It didnt matter to many whether it was more or less viable. Its the same reason a lot of warriors like myself enjoy the shield so much.

That’s very true. Axe #1 did always feel good, from the sounds to the animations. Felt like you were slicing a mob up, though if you looked at the numbers, you’d realize you were gusting a cool breeze at them instead. Games need casual appeal if they want numbers, whether that’s for revenue or for e-sports crowds. Perhaps this is changing with the way mobas are hitting the scene, but if someone doesn’t play a game, odds are they aren’t going to go out of their way to watch someone else play it.

Also, isn’t Warrior shield actually really good? At least from a PvP perspective. And despite how I feel about the #1, personally take Necro Axe for the #2 and #3 when I don’t want to run around with a Staff.

It can be good, but a lot of people use the shield in pve because of the cool skins.

Guardian shield is a better example. I use, with no illusions of it being effective over other options. However, he loooks awesome….and that is more important to me on that toon.

The only thing I can think of to justify the new/future Axe changes, is that they intend to buff it quite a bit and have to normalize it and prevent the possibilities of exploits.

Right now we have a janky animation and a 0.25 sec (25%) increase in cast completion for an already weak, single-target autoattack on a 600 range ‘power weapon’.

Then we have the upcoming (ridiculous imo) nerf to Axe Training with the cool down reduction being tied to some convoluted rotation of autoattacks. The cd reduction nerf is also being paired with a nerf to the 10% damage modifier, which will then require Cripple on you target. Unholy Feast is the Axe’s only source of Cripple and gives 33% Cripple uptime (if not cleansed). In order to make the best of the damage modifier, axe will have to be paired with warhorn which has a tiny range, doesn’t synergize with axe well, and renders the 600 range of the axe useless anyway. And this is all supposed to “make a more dynamic and active weapon”? What a joke.

I just can’t begin to understand these changes without some form/intention of compensation.

Are the gonna finally give the axe a 900 range that we’ve asked for forever? Is Ghastly Claws gonna be made a whirl finisher? Is Unholy Feast gonna become a blast finisher?

We’ll have 3 power weapons. Two of them are melee: a single-target (two really) dagger with quick attacks and a cleaving greatsword with slow, powerful attacks. And…/sigh…then there’s GW2’s true ‘black sheep’ of all the weapons in the game: a medium-ish range, single target power weapon with pathetic damage, little synergy with the rest of the Necro as a whole, AND now it’s looking to get gutted further, to the point of being more of a liability than anything else.

Sorry for the negativity. I just don’t get it. Pretty sad that it’s now, arguably, better to take scepter in a power build instead of axe. :/

Tman.6349:

Sorry for the negativity. I just don’t get it. Pretty sad that it’s now, arguably, better to take scepter in a power build instead of axe. :/

And this is why I switched. Even not counting condis, the scepter hits harder, even per second. Which… Is kinda sad. Buuut…. The scepter at least keeps with the look of a focus and staff

Bhawb.7408:

Mesmer GS wasn’t necessarily being talked about on a fairly popular podcast that the devs listen/have listened to in the past. It is actually very likely that this was changed primarily because we mentioned it quite a bit, and as long as it exists as a weird interaction they would probably be hesitant to buff Axe AA.

Mesmer GS cancelling is talked about frequently and in detail in one of the most popular mesmer PvP guides linked on the official forums, that is 2-3 years old, so….yeah.

If they wanted to do this for the sake of “future changes” to axe they could’ve done some pretty serious harm reduction by waiting until they had said future changes for necro axe sorted out and ready to ship alongside the nerf. As it stands it’s pretty much just kicking one of the worst MH weapons in the game while it’s down…

I wouldn’t say the developers literally hate Necromancers but it’s clear they are absurdly careless with the implementation of pretty much anything the prof gets.

Vydahr.4285:

Tman.6349:

Sorry for the negativity. I just don’t get it. Pretty sad that it’s now, arguably, better to take scepter in a power build instead of axe. :/

And this is why I switched. Even not counting condis, the scepter hits harder, even per second. Which… Is kinda sad. Buuut…. The scepter at least keeps with the look of a focus and staff

Not mention the 900 range and the poison uptime which, sadly, in the current celestial meta offers more offensive utility by itself than the Axe’s single boon removal. If scepter could build lifeforce better, it wouldn’t even be a debate. :/

Instead of back-ending all damage, why not just add a 1 second uninterrupteable delay before weapons are sheathed?

Good-bye beloved Axe, you weren’t particularly powerful, but at least you looked cool when I used you.

If I wanted bad animations I’d stick with scepter anyways.

I’m sure this has been said before but this nerf was necessary actually surprised no one was abusing this. If done properly I was autoattack ing with axe faster than any weapon I’ve seen in game while stacking vuln. I was getting 25 vuln stacks solo, and it was extremely hard to do it manually so I can only imagine anyone that was doing this probably had a macro to do it. I’m guessing they have known about this for a while and that’s probably why axe was never getting a buff.

In short I think they nerfed it to buff it.

TooBz.3065:

Instead of back-ending all damage, why not just add a 1 second uninterrupteable delay before weapons are sheathed?

Anet would rather put a bandaid on a broken arm, than actually attempt to fix the problem.

They didn’t fix the problem they just detoured gameplay around it.

What caused the exploit was weapon swapping/stowing…. not necromancer axe.

Nerfed necro axe….. and wow look memsers (for example) can still use the exploit.

can someone please explain how the animation related to the exploit?

The animation didn’t have anything to do with the exploit.

@blackleech
How did weapon swapping have anything to do with it?

NeXeD.3042:

The animation didn’t have anything to do with the exploit.

@blackleech
How did weapon swapping have anything to do with it?

Players were able to weap swap/stow weapons to cancel the skill.

Since the damage on the skill was front-loaded they could rapid fire Axe 1 for a pretty op dps increase.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

NeXeD.3042:

The animation didn’t have anything to do with the exploit.

@blackleech
How did weapon swapping have anything to do with it?

Players were able to weap swap/stow weapons to cancel the skill.

Since the damage on the skill was front-loaded they could rapid fire Axe 1 for a pretty op dps increase.

Swapping has nothing to do with it just stowing. Swapping wouldn’t work. I knew about the dps increase as I’ve stated in multiple posts. Swapping has nothing to do with it.

Also I’m pretty sure this isn’t a bandaid. They didn’t fix mesmer gs yet because it’s a different skill that channels.

This axe exploit was probably the reason axe never got any love, so they nerfed the exploit so they can buff axe when hot comes around. Mark my words.

Nerfing the xploit is a good thing, but changing the animation from something fun and well designed to something so basic and poor was not. Whether or not they buff it is a different matter. I’m incined to believe that’s the axe done and dusted with as I doubt we’ll ever hear any further on this subject, sadly

Just wanted to chime in and say these animations look terrible…

Not that another voice on it is likely to matter.

Wow. This is just terrible. Asura axe 1 had the best animation in the game – that flying roundhouse was just awesome. And although axe 1 was pretty rubbish dps-wise, it was worth equipping axe because axe 2 can really take chunks out of mobs. In fact in the power build I use for my necro, axe is hard to beat, even thought the autoattack sucked. Since I actually utilise my skills, rather than just mashing 111111111, I could make pretty good use of it.

But to take away that AWESOME animation…wow. Badly done there Anet.

Greyhound.2058:

Wow. This is just terrible. Asura axe 1 had the best animation in the game – that flying roundhouse was just awesome. And although axe 1 was pretty rubbish dps-wise, it was worth equipping axe because axe 2 can really take chunks out of mobs. In fact in the power build I use for my necro, axe is hard to beat, even thought the autoattack sucked. Since I actually utilise my skills, rather than just mashing 111111111, I could make pretty good use of it.

But to take away that AWESOME animation…wow. Badly done there Anet.

Agreed.

Badly done there Anet.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Anet would rather put a bandaid on a broken arm, than actually attempt to fix the problem.

Anet would rather tear off your arm than fix it. And then chop off one of your legs aswell, because of reasons.

I guess I’m on the minority on this one. My necro is asuran and while I liked the spin, the first swing looks perfectly done; it’s a head-to-toe cleave (without, of course, actually Cleaving). The backswing doesn’t actually look like a backswing even though it does damage, not sure what they were thinking there, but it doesn’t look terrible either.

The video of the human version does look a bit wimpy though.

The backswing is the worst part. Doesn’t look right at all…

Can all u idiots who somehow think this is a good or somehow necessary thing plz kitten if anet even see one positive post they will kid themselves into thinking they did a good job and that’s it redundant weapon forever. How can u be stupid enough to think this somehow looks better or is somehow a dps boost. Nobody stowed it, and they managed to nerf Lightning whip without kitten ing the animation or gimping the normal dps output of the skill, hell it’s meta for dungeon speed runs atm when conjures aren’t up. Mesmers exploit stow, I even know fresh air eles who have started stow casting arc lighting during downtime if they mess up their rotation for extra healing. Find me a forum post moaning about an insane stow casting necro instantly applying 25 vuln to everything and 1shotting it whilst getting stupid amounts of passive healing from leech traits.
No I’m not sorry for the rant until anet are sorry for giving my necros a bone/ nerve related disease in their arm I will probably get banned for mentioning.

I have to agree with some of the posts in this thread. It is a dps nerf, for one of the weaker dps weapons in the game…

As for the animation, it looks okay on human/sylvari male (other than making offhand magically dissappear), and absolutely horrid on female.

On Charrs… the attack animation looks like they are pointing at the ground, even when the target is elsewhere.

It’s super clunky, and needs to be reverted until a better animation or fixes can be implemented.

I want the old animation back and I want axe buffed so it is actually worth using.

Using axe is a DPS loss, no matter how you swing it. I wish it wasn’t because applying vuln on autoattack is really cool, but there is no situation where you would take this over a mainhand dagger.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

I understand why the hit timing was changed….. but was it really necessary to alter the weapon’s attack animation?

+1

Another unnecessary change by Anet. Human animation is just stupid now and asura animation is a huge let down. I want my backflip back :o

It seems most people only concern about the dps and the animation. Alright. Dps is the issue of the skill mechanics, and the animation may only be a subjective aesthetic issue. If that is the official thought, fine. BUT, WHERE IS THE OFFHAND WEAPON GONE? It is very irresponsibile for only saying it is a bug without any remedy.

Ok, i get the part about people exploiting certain skills using macros and what not. But the animation change was not needed. It was fine the way it was before, the new one just makes my eyes bleed.
What kind of artists/animators do you have over there ? A few hours in 3DS Max, and i bet i can make something way better, and i am in no way a “professional”.
I will stop using axe until they fix it, it looks completely kittened on my sylvari female necro. Looks like she is swatting flies.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hi all,
The animation of this ability has changed so that the attacks occur later in the skill, fixing the draw to constantly cancel the ability for an unintended increase in damage. The overall active time of the ability hasn’t moved (remains 1 second flat), so there shouldn’t be any actual loss of damage as long as you’re not cancelling the ability early. The first strike now occurs at ~0.5 seconds in (slightly past it), while the second attack occurs closer to the 1 second mark than before.
There is a bug with the attack hiding your weapon, which was unintended and will be fixed.

-Karl

Holy crap! The animation look so awful on asura! I just came back from a year ago. This chopping axe animation is ridiculous. I remember that asura used to spin attack twice first hit at the start of the delay and 2nd hit at the end of delay was the best. I remember the delay was 3/4 sec and now changed to 1 delay for hitting twice at the end of the delay?! I don’t even have any confidences playing axe on necromancer anymore =(

What Anet saying "cancel the ability for an unintended increase in damage. The overall active time of the ability hasn’t moved (remains 1 second flat), so there shouldn’t be any actual loss of damage as long as you’re not cancelling the ability early. " Is there anyway you can fix the canceling attack thingy? and bring the old animations and 3/4 sec back? they are my favorite! I hate chopping twice at the end of the delay. I dont have confidences for doing chopping twice at the end of the delay it just feels too weird. I hope that Anet will fix this stupid canceling exploit thingy by someone for ruined it.

TL;DR : Anet needs to fix the cancel thingy and bring the old animations and 3/4 delay back.

It’s quite funny feedback out here.

Like suddenly, after 3 years, people started using Axe #1 and are so concerned about it.

“I made Necromancer just for the Rending Claws animation!” jk, son.

fairchild.3621:

It seems most people only concern about the dps and the animation. Alright. Dps is the issue of the skill mechanics, and the animation may only be a subjective aesthetic issue. If that is the official thought, fine. BUT, WHERE IS THE OFFHAND WEAPON GONE? It is very irresponsibile for only saying it is a bug without any remedy.

Id like to ask the same question. it is not about the axe. I wonder what the off hand is doing..lol

Rym.1469:

It’s quite funny feedback out here.

Like suddenly, after 3 years, people started using Axe #1 and are so concerned about it.

“I made Necromancer just for the Rending Claws animation!” jk, son.

Axe is viable in certain situations in PvE. I take axe/dagger over staff in PvP because it is easier to bait a dodge with it, and also provides an aoe cripple that helps with kiting, and it helps distinguish if there are any stealthed enemies near by. I like axe tbh. But even that wasnt the case. Any current uncalled for nerf provides less efficiency for a future build that might utilise axe as a necessity.

All i can say is that i really want the old animation back, th enew one jus tlooks bad and wierd ( just like a slow version of dagger 1)
Used axe since i start playing necro just because i liked the playstyle and animation. Thats what i’ll do with every of my characters. Not because of DPS or any stupid bugs.
The worst part is that they’ll do this secretly. Fix important bugs in-game and don’t change this kind of stuff.
Blame you a-net, bad move.

I’ve waited a while until I could make up my mind about this change.

First of all, I couldn’t care less about the animation. Granted, I doesn’t look that terrible on charr, but it wouldn’t make a difference to me if I waved pink flowers around, although mainly because I try to avoid the auto attack as much as possible.

That being said, this shift of the first hit towards the end of the animation is a nerf even if the time of the whole chain is the same.
Because: the few times you actually use the auto attack is either if
1. you have to fill the time between cooldowns
or
2. you want to get rid of blind or aegis.

@1:
Quite often the time you have to fill between the cds of other skills is less than half a second. That means since the patch whenever I’m in a situation where I would’ve been able to get a hit off between cds I couldn’t because the single hit I used to be able to land before just didn’t make it in time.
This huge delay until something finally happens made this already weak auto attack even worse.

@2:
No need to explain much here, “cleansing” blindness or getting rid of aegis not only takes forever but due to the big wind up it’s even better telegraphed for opponents to avoid.
You would think that this can’t be that big of a deal, but I was actually surprised myself how annoying it is to have this delay here when fighting thieves or guardians.

Basically, the only two things the auto attack was good for don’t work properly anymore.

And one more thing to note:
Even if people did animation cancel with this skill (which no one did anyway), it would’ve in no way made the axe auto attack strong.
So instead of this “fix” to animation canceling they could’ve just made the auto attack twice as fast baseline. One could argue that in this case the vuln application would have to be adjusted, but seeing how well the Reaper with Spite will be able to stack vuln the axe wouldn’t even be worth mentioning with three times faster stacking.

Jelzouki.4128:

Rym.1469:

It’s quite funny feedback out here.

Like suddenly, after 3 years, people started using Axe #1 and are so concerned about it.

“I made Necromancer just for the Rending Claws animation!” jk, son.

Axe is viable in certain situations in PvE. I take axe/dagger over staff in PvP because it is easier to bait a dodge with it, and also provides an aoe cripple that helps with kiting, and it helps distinguish if there are any stealthed enemies near by. I like axe tbh. But even that wasnt the case. Any current uncalled for nerf provides less efficiency for a future build that might utilise axe as a necessity.

I’ve been using Axe/Dagger+Dagger/Wh for my power build since 2013, too.

But I point out specifically Rending Claws and the fuss about it.

Besides, I believe if they are to know this, they will after first five posts. No need to call for doom.

Agree old animations was good, new one looks bad. Dps’s nerf on an already bad dps weapon, is shamefull. You don’t nerf something, that is underpowered, period, not even for bandaid. You take more time to fix it, and voila. Hopefully Anet revert this mistakes (but ofc with still a exploit fix).

How many times has the axe been buffed over the years? And has still since then always been bad? Its almost like the new animation was put in place to mock us.. o_o

This is getting ridiculous, i’m not really enjoying my crappy animations on asura. Why can’t anet fix the animations and change the old delay back to 3/4 instead of 1 sec delay, hitting twice at the end of delay is kittened. I understand the canceling ability exploit, but why cant anet fix the canceling exploit and change it back to the old ways? I love the way asura spin attack style hitting at the 1st place and 2nd hit at the end of the delay. Fix the canceling ability and change it back to the old ways.

Recently created a female norn necro and the axe animation is atrocious. I didn’t care before but after making this new character I feel the pain of everyone else complaining about the animation.

Crossing my fingers and hoping that Karl will reply in an attempt to explain what his/anets final position is regarding this change.

Tackling real necro problems here, thank you. I also believe that one day the axe will be more than a toy. Give it 3 more years to mature.