Guild Wars 2

So I’ve long played various soldier (with a dash of cleric) builds centered around dagger/x + staff. Mostly for solo/small grp WvW and dungeons. Soloing guard camps is a favorite past time. The other day I thought I’d give Axe/Focus + D/D a try… I must say I’m pretty let down. Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but the only uses for this weapon over the dagger

1) Glass cannon zerker builds. The slightly longer range makes a big difference here.

2) WvW/Event zergs for easy ranged tagging/aoe tagging with Feast. Feast isn’t really even necessary with Life Transfer serving the purpose well enough.

That being said. I really feel like these two weapons need further definition from one another with some minor tweaks. If Axe auto-attack damage went up and skill #3 became Dark Pact (with a damage increase) you would have a premier single target burn weapon. If dagger damage was slightly reduced but cleaved 2 targets, and skill #3 became Unholy Feast you would have a well designed “wade into battle” weapon.

I’m really not a fan of this current setup… axe is just a weaker ranged dagger with vuln. These weapons should have very specific roles. Axe, despite its range should be THE single target power weapon. Dagger should most certainly be THE melee bruiser weapon. Right now there is just too much overlap and lack of purpose for each of these weapons.

I actually think axe is in a good place, its not meant to just have its skills spammed but to net a lot of life force quickly to put you back in death shroud.

Dagger just needs cleave

The thing with axe is that, even akittens most bursty, it only just matches the dagger’s damage output. The uses of the axe are best left to disengaging, life force generation, kiting and abusing the spell nature of the attack to bypass reflects. There are some fringe benefits like using retaliation, though.

IMO axe is the one that needs to cleave. Then the decreased damage will actually be meaningful.

If you want to try Axe focus, go with this build, 30/10/0/0/30 Knight/zerker.
Trait the Axe mastery + close to death make good combo. You will do major damage with #2 axe, and once this on cooldown go into DS and burst them with Life force. This is a very solid build against other players. #3 Axe can slow + rip boon + aoe damage, the #4 focus gives you regen + vulnerability stacks on enemy, the #5 focus removes 3 boons off of the enemy. I love it in PvP.

I love my Axe/Focus on my Hybrid. If your running close to death you can wear them down by stacking bleeds with scepter/dagger then focus #4 > axe #2 for some good damage at range. Never really ran Daggers though. Not that fun to me

My personal experiences with axes vs dagger is basically depends on the situation (I run both btw). Axes give you some amount of range to play with, but dagger does deal a lot of damage and a little healing on the side.

I like A/F cuz stacks vulnerability really quickly. You can open at range with F#4 and Axe-auto as you close in to dagger range. By that point, you’ve got a target with a least 6 stacks of vuln on them, probably closer to 10-11 if you get bounces.

^
whereas a warrior get 10 stacks straight with just a button. 2 more buttons it’s 18 stacks. All within 2 secs and without having to use a weapon that hit less than a mesmer. Vuln is so common. I don’t suggest a build built around stacking vuln.

Unless you’re an MM, in which case A/F can easily uphold 20 stacks of vuln, decent retal uptime, cripple/chill to keep minions in range, a bit of boon stripping to try to keep them down, a bit of possible regen, and then if you get the chance you can use Axe 2 for some decent damage and LF.

Its an amazing MM weapon. It needs a bit more work, but don’t go killing the best MM setup because you want another power weapon.

If Axe’s autoattack cleaved, it would instantly be in a good place.

And let’s up the healing on Dagger #2 a bunch while we’re at it. You spend 3.5 seconds channeling, it should be the sort of thing your opponent really wants to interrupt.

Bhawb.7408:

Unless you’re an MM….<snip>

Which I am. I should have mentioned that, seeing as it’s the only way I’ve really used A/F.

Yeah, the whole A/F setup is amazing for MMs, but I would never use it otherwise.

Afya.5842:

^
whereas a warrior get 10 stacks straight with just a button. 2 more buttons it’s 18 stacks. All within 2 secs and without having to use a weapon that hit less than a mesmer. Vuln is so common. I don’t suggest a build built around stacking vuln.

I dont use Axe focus because of vulnerability. i use Axe to be able to keep range, while doing massive damage using #2 skill, as well as benefiting from the 20% increased damage for life blast. As for the focus, I love it because the #4 does decent burst damage if we were 1v1, while #5 removes boons which is amazing

Right now Daggers deal a massively higher amount of single-target damage, even if you Trait the Axe and use #2 every time it comes off cooldown. Plus, Dagger #1 builds life force faster than the Axe can as well.

In my opinion, this is fair because the Axe autoattack is ranged, while the Dagger requires you be within a dangerously close range. However, the Axe autoattack should cleave in an area around the target the same size as a standard (untraited) Staff mark, to give Necromancers a weapon that hits multiple foes and helps Power Necromancers contribute to group damage (even if it is somewhat weak).

This would make Necromancers a somewhat desirable class for difficult dungeon content, as they could be counted on to increase the damage of close-range cleavers with AOE vulnerability and added “safe damage” from a short distance back.

Dagger = more autoattack damage but less fun because everything else you do drop your DPS. You also have less uptime than axe vs good players. Best weapon against sieges/structure and the only weapon that can hit a stealthed foe and hint you were it is when the AA chain procs.

Axe = less autoattack damage, good burst however at range that can’t be reflected. DS skills hits for more with axe + trait, just because of DS interaction with weapon’s power instead of being normalized. #3 is better against group, more AoE than Dagger, although I wouldnt say no to a cleave on AA. #2 is a great way to kill soon-to-be stealthed foe, as it follow them even in stealth once it started spinning. #3 tells me if someone is near, when the Retaliation buff’s popping.

I’ve been testing both in WvW, and I find that with 30/10/0/0/30, I can solo camp way faster with Axe than with dagger with less risk. Maybe it’s just my playstyle however.

Can someone explain to me how axe boosts DS? This is the 2nd time I’ve read that.

DS damage is based off your total attack, not just power. Meaning the more damage on your weapon, the more damage DS #1 does. Staff has the highest, but Axe is better than dagger.

Seras.5702:

Can someone explain to me how axe boosts DS? This is the 2nd time I’ve read that.

based off weapon damage
staff is naturally highest; but with axe training axe beats staff

Axe MH and dagger OH is the bomb….

Seras.5702:

Can someone explain to me how axe boosts DS? This is the 2nd time I’ve read that.

This might help too.
http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/death-you-bring-staff-axe-fight/

I honestly wouldn’t follow that guide. Its over a year old, and a lot of information it posts is highly (highly) questionable. Axe is better than dagger? Scepter is a support weapon? Don’t use staff to solo PvE? To be fair, MAYBE those were better opinions over a year ago when GW2 was still in Beta and things (including mindset and popular thinking) were different, but nowadays I’d worry that it would only mislead new players, and do nothing but be good laughing material for others.

Bhawb.7408:

DS damage is based off your total attack, not just power. Meaning the more damage on your weapon, the more damage DS #1 does. Staff has the highest, but Axe is better than dagger.

Actually, axe and dagger have the same (average) weapon strength.

The reason is that, since DS inherits some of the properties of you current main hand (e.g. weapon strength) to calculate it’s damage, it apparently also inherits the 10% damage boost from Axe Mastery.

Worth mentioning as well: the difference in weapon strength between axe and staff is 10% as well, so DS damage for staff and axe+axe mastery is exactly the same.