Guild Wars 2

The context Since BWE1 I’ve really liked the feel of the axe, so since lvl 1 I’ve been pretty much only using an axe/warhorn and staff set-up (I’m now lvl 65ish). I’m trying to go more into the direct damage direction, so I’m currently running 20-0-0-10-25 in traits. I’ve only done PVE, so I’d also like to limit this topic to just that.

The problem The higher level I get, the more I find it hard to find a place for the axe. I mainly use it for 1v1 against normal mobs (during which I try to kite as much as possible, but to be honest, I could just as easily facetank most mobs and come out with over 50% hp; so the added value of kiting is questionable…). Against veterans/champions, I tend to switch to my staff because it feels more forgiving in these situations. The only other time I sometimes pull out my axe is in Xv1 in situations where I don’t feel the added support from the staff is necessary and damage boost to the group trough vulnerability is more useful.
The biggest problem here is that 1v1 fights always last significantly longer than 1vX (mainly because I don’t like to blow well of suffering on a single mob, but still…). I can live with the fact that our class is just better at 1vX than at 1v1, but it just feels wrong when 1v1 takes longer than 1vX.

The experiment In light of this, I did a little test on the Heavy Armor dummies in the Mists. I used a 30-0-0-10-30 trait set-up and power/crit (35%, +50%)/thoughness gear (which is what I’m working towards). The only trait that affected damage in this test was the Spite grandmaster trait ‘Close to Death’. For all our main hand weapons, I timed how long it took to destroy a dummy using just the weapon’s auto-attack. These are the rough results:
Dagger 9-10 sec
Scepter 15-16 sec
Axe 17-18 sec
Staff 21-22 sec
Yeah, you read that right, the scepter outdamaged the axe in a power/crit oriented build (yes, I had 0 condition damage)…To be fair, using also the axe’s 2 skill on cooldown (so twice in this experiment) brought it’s time pretty much in line with the scepter, but that’s using 2 skills vs 1 to get the same damage output. I know I could have designed a better experiment by also testing the lower armor dummies (as the bleeds on the scepter favor high armor targets) and omitting the grandmaster trait (to be sure it doesn’t affect the experiment in any way); but I think the odds were stacked pretty high against the scepter here and seeing it outdamage the axe in this situation surprises me (to say the least).

The question I thought I knew the role for each weapon:
Dagger: high risk, high reward direct damage
Staff: support and multi target
Scepter: condition damage
Axe: direct damage at range
I was obviously wrong on that last one, as the scepter proved to do a better job at that. Now I might have missed some way exploit the axe’s conditions (vulnerability, retaliation) to overcome this. So the question becomes: what place do you think the axe can take in our builds? Or how have you made the axe work for you?

Edit: took another look at my data and staff was off by a second

Axe, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
Axe, huh, yeah
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all

sry, couldnt resist

Axe is useless, completely useless.

first i think that axe synergies better with focus for stacking the vulnerability, but to question i think it is pretty decent for getting life force. sure dagger has that but melee is dangerous for light armor user and staff has some but it is slow.
So i think axes duty is to reap the life force.

After trying a few other builds with Necro and not digging them too much, I’ve recently settled on a build that’s all about stacking vulnerability and then attacking with a beefed up Death Shroud. Axe+focus is my weapon set of choice, and it synergizes very well with this because axe 1 and focus 4 both apply vulnerability, axe 2 builds up my life force, and axe 3 and focus 5 help keep enemies away if I need to kite them some more. So far it’s the build that I’ve had the most success with, even though I’m level 20, I’m liking it a whole lot more than conditionmancer or minion master.

@ OP

yea i do agree that Axe auto damage is low. But i think people are seeing it wrong. If you spend points in spite you get x% condition duration. So the main point of axe is to stack vulnerabilty, reap life force, and aoe retalition. Main point im gettign at is the axe is a good weapon switch, Stack vulnerability and the nswitch to a weapon that does better dmg.

Except that the damage you lose for stacking vulnerability is far more that the damage gained from stacking vulnerability.

Axe is a fantastic weapon. With a power focused build you can jump into a group of 4-5 mobs and use unholy feast to gain 12-15 seconds of retaliation.

You have no idea how strong this skill is in such situations. The raw damage alone from unholy feast crits for over 1000 damage, and with 15 seconds of retaliation (with power ofc) it becomes a really hard hitting aoe spell.

With only 15 seconds cooldown and a bonus aoe cripple this spell stands in one line with our hard hitting wells. Besides, the combination with focus for the mass vulnerability only makes it more viable.

@Nismu.4019 I thought the same about life force generation. Then I realised axe has 8% on a skill with an 8 sec cooldown, staff has 3% per target hit on it’s auto-attack… So it ain’t exactly ‘reaping the life force’.

@MoJoe.9063 I felt similar to what you describe at lvl 20, but that slowly changed with leveling up. I mean, during this experiment I had 11 stacks of vulnerabilty on the target for most of the ‘fight’. Turns out 11% extra damage is still lot less damage than an few stacks of bleed, even if you’re not specced for it.

Axe is in fact an aoe weapon. Open with 12-15 seconds of retaliation, and carry on to do whatever you feel like doing. It is no different than dropping a well on a group of enemies, and we all love wells…

Kamikazie.2048:

Axe is a fantastic weapon. With a power focused build you can jump into a group of 4-5 mobs and use unholy feast to gain 12-15 seconds of retaliation.

You have no idea how strong this skill is in such situations. The raw damage alone from unholy feast crits for over 1000 damage, and with 15 seconds of retaliation (with power ofc) it becomes a really hard hitting aoe spell.

With only 15 seconds cooldown and a bonus aoe cripple this spell stands in one line with our hard hitting wells. Besides, the combination with focus for the mass vulnerability only makes it more viable.

Granted retaliation can indeed be great, but how do you justify the use of a weapon for 1 skill? Imo, axe either has to compete with staff for aoe and/or support play, or deal solid single target damage. Since staff is such a no-brainer for the first 2 things (and with 2 of axe’s skills being single target), it can’t do the first thing. And since it indeed dealt solid damage in BWE1, but not anymore, it fails at the second thing too.

Or to phrase it differently: axe is somewhat usefull in both single target and multi target encounters, but it excells at neither. Since we don’t have any weapon that is similar in this regard, you can only pick either a solid single target weapon (dagger or scepter) or an aoe weapon (staff), leaving you sub-par in the other field…

Arvid, axe in my view is not meant to be a main weapon. I use staff as a main weapon for wells/death shroud build.

To start a fight against a group of mobs I use unholy feast +reaper’s touch. The cripple from axe allows me to gather distance and switch to my staff for marks. On the way I drop wells and finish with life transfer in death shroud. That combo always kills without much effort groups of 4-5 mobs. Axe—>Staff—>wells—>death shroud.
If I’m fighting against a single target and I don’t have enough life force the I switch to axe and use ghastly claws to finish off mobs.

In conclusion, axe is a secondary weapon that can be used as an opener or as a finisher

Yep, axe is horrible. I pretty much stopped using it as soon as my first dagger dropped. I wish they could move some of the skills over and make it an offhand weapon. There are a few nice things it can do like Unholy feast. but they far and away do not outweigh the bad.

I really want to like the axe but I feel that using an axe as a ranged weapon that performs sub-par to the dagger is just …..off. I for starters the 2 skill is just too slow for my tastes and every time I try to compare a dagger to an axe the dagger ALWAYS hits harder.

Honestly if I want a ranged weapon outside of the staff, the scepter is the only good choice due to the bleeds. I would love to see some more ranged weapon options for us besides the staff.

MoJoe.9063:

Axe+focus is my weapon set of choice, and it synergizes very well with this because axe 1 and focus 4 both apply vulnerability, axe 2 builds up my life force, and axe 3 and focus 5 help keep enemies away if I need to kite them some more. So far it’s the build that I’ve had the most success with, even though I’m level 20, I’m liking it a whole lot more than conditionmancer or minion master.

This. I use Axe/Focus and Staff in PvP, since both sets are good crowd control, pressure, and decent life force generation. I’ll fire off all the marks on my staff, then hit #2 again if it’s been triggered, and then i swap to the other set to pressure whichever target looks lowest.

In PvE i’ve been playing around with Dagger/??? sets to try to come up with a sturdy melee build that can rely more on death shroud thanks to dagger’s fantastic life force generation. I still keep a staff on hand for the general utility, since it’s even better up close than it is from a distance.

Either way, there’s really no excuse not to bring a staff if you’re a necro.

What annoys me is that Water attunement daggers for elementalist does the EXACT same thing as our axe, but it’s a line effect that hits twice. That’s right, it copies our axe and does it a hundred times better.

I want our axe to send out a black scythe

I’ve found that axes are best for the level 80 events. Daggers do more dps but you die way more often to the aoes that most of the events throw at you and using a scepter is a good way to not even get bronze with the stupid low bleed cap.

If you’re having problems getting gold in events, just use Death Shroud more and spam Life Blast.

Works just as well without wasting a weapon swap on an underwhelming weapon.

If you are running full minion spec axe gets a bit more over all >damage< then other weapons simply due to axe+focus vulnerability stacking. Other then that… meh… dagger packs more damage and generates more LF and staff on large number of enemies generates LF faster then anything else due to piercing projectile being auto attack also helps keeping your wet noodle army around for 1-2 extra hits with regen. Then again focus can now do that as well but it has a limitation on number of bounces so some of regens can be wasted on jagged horrors or bone minions which aren’t even qualified for cannon fodder role.
In dungeons if I do not swap my MM build to wells which would only lack ground based targeting on wells which is icing on cake. I swap to axe/focus for vulnerability for party damage and swap to staff if enemies use conditions and I want to get rid of them and toss some heals here and there. Also tend to drop bone minions due to their inherent 1 shot dead hp pool and worthless amount of damage. Just take bone wyrm and stick it on walls that makes it the only minion that can actually last through entire boss fight w/o getting killed. Sadly while wyrm has second highest damage its attack speed is very very slow.
All in all… axe due to damage lacking is probably best suited for MM build. Otherwise I’d go for something else.

Axe is horrible.
Now with that out of the way, axe + focus and staff are “great” for a minion master, you get both regen skills and both vulnerability skills in one package.

The only real use for axe is retaliation. It is absolutely wicked in PVP. Put up 10ish seconds of retaliation and then lol @ thieves who blow themselves trying to hurt you. Pop plague for added lols.

It does feel extremely gimmicky, though. It is very much of a one-trick pony weapon.

The axe is a very low damaging weapon, but I’ve been using it forever.

My setup is axe+dagger OH / staff. You could substitute the dagger for a warhorn or focus or what ever but basically I open with the OH dagger ability 4 for an aoe blind, then usually the axe 3 for an aoe cripple while I target the highest priority enemy with autoattack for vulnerability stacks, then use 2.

By then the cripple and blind will have worn off so I switch to a staff and immediately lay 3 and 4 for a cripple, damage and poison aoe. Then I usually drop my wells for damage and blinding, using the staffs 5 if they get too close for a quick fear. When everythings on cooldown, death shroud for an aoe damager plus a fear. By then you can switch back to the axe and repeat.

Using this method I find the kiting capabilities so good that I can take out en entire group of melee enemies without getting less than half health. The same tactics work for veteran/champion enemies but with a lot more dodging, and timing of your cripples, blinds and fears so that you always have one ability not on cd to keep your distance

Axe is the dumbest and weakest weapon in the game all professions included.

What’S it’s use ? None

1 Skill, Hit like a wet noodle so other can hit a big mighty 10% harder… I’d rather have 100% with a real weapon then a total gain of 50% damage in dungeons. It’s so dumb it’s amazing how they thought this would be good.

2 Skill. It’s just weak there’s nothing else to say.

3 Skill. That’s the dumbest kitten idea ever it’s a joke. Retaliation is such a dumb idea. The skill cripples people so they don’t reach you yet we get a boon that requires to be hit to work… So it only really works against range and guess what ? It’s harder to hit multiple ranged to stack duration than melee so you will do good for a big mighty 6 seconds if lucky.

But seriously the biggest problem is damage, I can stack 6-8 stacks of might, 10-15 of vulnerability and still hit like a paraplegic dwarf baby kitten.

I really hope they buff axe to give us a single target direct damage build. The axe is underperforming in everything you could try to use it for. Such a shame.

The 2 skill should do the kind of damage pistolwhip/illusionary flurry do when specced like a glass cannon.

Base damage is too low.
Power scaling is too low.
2 skill’s channel is too long.

I’d even accept the 2 skill to require standing still if it means we get a damage and channel time boost to it.

Axe is pretty much just there for the retaliation. Mind you the retaliation skill is really good as it creates a lose lose situation for the enemy. They can’t really get away but they don’t want to hit you either. However the auto attack and channel leave something to be desired.

Yeah I found the same thing in my tests scepter outdamaging axe in a power build.

kywei.9361:

I’ve found that axes are best for the level 80 events. Daggers do more dps but you die way more often to the aoes that most of the events throw at you and using a scepter is a good way to not even get bronze with the stupid low bleed cap.

Meh, just go staff. Same level of DPS, more range, and the ability to lay down a combo zone ever so often. Season with DS as you feel appropriate.

And it seems to me that those of us that can maintain a tight kite favor the axe more than the rest. Me, i have enough trouble coordinating my skill chain without the need to maintain some kind of movement without bumbling into another aggro zone.

I have been a axe user for around 2 week now. I’m currently using a Burst/MM build. I even traited Axe training over the 20% damage under 50%. (CRAAAZYYY)

And, while I won’t say it’s a really good weapon, and to say the truth it prolly our weakest weapon, it still isn’t as bad a people make it look.

Take in account that I’m not a full exotic user, and I only WvW, I don’t sPvP, so it’s not a “balanced” opinion.

But with minions, the vuln from axe and focus is really effective. With my Sigil and skill, I can stack up to 12-15 vuln on an ennemy. I stack it, and right away I use #2 axe and bone minion activate.

Bone minion crit : 2x 3k damage.

Axe #2 Crit : around 5k damag.

That’s 11k damage in 2 sec if you crit on everything.

Then I switch to dagger/warhorn (yeah I don’t use generic staff) to finish them. Dagger + vuln = ouch.

I also have Life blast vuln, sometime criting between 3.2 – 3.5k with one hit.

And don’t underestimate Axe #3, if you add Retaliation damage, it pack a punch.

Axe #3 on crit : AoE damage for between 1.2 – 1.4 k, + retaliation damage ( didn’t check howe much I do). You also AoE slow.

Overall, I still think this weapon would need some love from Dev.

Axe #1 damage is kinda low, My highest crit are 2x 700 damage. I think it should be a bit higer since it’s 600 range. And we have no combo on it like dagger or scepter.

Axe #2 Could receive an aditionnal effect. Damage isn’t the highest since it’s a low range channeling, and it only add life force.

Axe #3 is great.

As far as I can tell, axe is really only useful for its high hit volume. 50 feet is still too close to count as “ranged damage”, although you can kite somewhat from that range. It’s direct damage, but it’s weak. Life Force generation is decent, but not amazing.

However, it has the highest hit volume (hits per sec) of the necro weapons, which make it great on effects that have a chance to occur on crit or on hit. If you have lots of traits that apply bleeding/vuln on crit, lifesteal on crit food, and a sigil that does something on crit (flame blast, self-healing, bleeding, might, etc.) then it’s powerful.

The vulnerability is also great for increasing your group’s damage.

I honestly do not get the love for 3, but then i come from a PVE standpoint so any AOE effect is likely to attract attention i do not want. In PVP i can see it help build up a solid retaliation duration without resulting in 5+ opponents smacking you silly.

Thing about retaliation is that you need them to be hitting you to damage them. And unless you pop into DS to avoid the harm they are invariably going to do more damage pr hit to you than you do to them via retaliation. And if you go DS you can just as well trait for retaliation on DS entry (Spiteful Spirit).

Honestly, retaliation seems more at home on dagger than it does axe. But then i think someone said axe was a melee aoe weapon in the betas.

Starting to think necro has all the issues because the devs were busy “tuning” DS…

If you use a melee necro (Axe/dagger main hand) you will get hit a lot.

And If I know I will get hit, I might as well have a retaliation buff on me to counter some damage. And Yeah, most of the time, I cast it, then use DS, and use number #4 to mitigate damage.

Thing is, do retaliation actually reduce damage taken? All i see is it doing damage when damage is taken, nothing regarding it actually reducing anything.

Its to scratch the back of your enemies. That’s why when you auto attack with it, a low dps, bad utility, single target weapon; you hear a ‘scratching’ sound.

It needs:

• 50% damage increase to auto attack and 2 skill
• Hit multiple targets with 1 and 2 skill
• 1 second longer vulnerability

Axe is an off set/hand weapon.

Uses: CC + Life Force

If you view it like that then its worth it!

Scepter+Dagger / Axe+? —-Some like Staff in off set, that is also cool but axe has a place.

digiowl.9620:

Thing is, do retaliation actually reduce damage taken? All i see is it doing damage when damage is taken, nothing regarding it actually reducing anything.

Nop it doesn’t, I meant at least if you get hit, you will hit them a bit too.

And I use as much as as my other set right now. Like I said, the damage is average, but I least can keep my vuln stack up.

And buffing #1 damage by 50% would be so op.

Buffing #1 damage would make it op? Warriors/Thieves can crit for 4k+ with auto attacks at melee, Guardians can get up to 3k with auto attacks. Buffing 1 on axe makes it crit for 1k damage on auto attack at 600 range, 2k total if the second hit crits. How is that over powered?

For damage buff you can just as well go with might. it provides just as much buff pr stack unit to direct damage, buffs condition damage as well (vulnerability seems to only buff direct) and it goes with you when you switch target without having to involve epidemic. Tho i have had a bit of fun traiting LB to stack both vulnerability and might.

As for viewing axe primarily as a secondary set, perhaps. But i prefer to pack staff simply because it allows me to go back row if i stumble into a DE without having to dive into my pack (did go scepter+dagger/dagger+dagger while leveling tho, with a staff in the pack. But ended up abandoning that as cumbersome).

Everyones forgetting one thing about axe -

sepeters dammage relys on the fact that the bleeds will not be wiped within 1 second -

in many many cases in wvw bleeds get wiped every 10 seconds, gaurdian, ele / and what is it ranger? i forget

3 classes can wipe conditions automatically, and all classes have access to at least 2 ways to drop conditions -

with all that condition removal, the axe’s damage is looking alot better

except that scepters also do direct damage, and the chain comes out matching axe #1 in terms of DPS.

chuiu.4985:

Buffing #1 damage would make it op? Warriors/Thieves can crit for 4k+ with auto attacks at melee, Guardians can get up to 3k with auto attacks. Buffing 1 on axe makes it crit for 1k damage on auto attack at 600 range, 2k total if the second hit crits. How is that over powered?

You can’t compare our axe damage to thief/warrior, because we don’t have the same mecanism.

Hell, our dagger hit for a lot less then a Warrior/Thieve melee attack.

Man for 2k + vuln with Axes is a lot. The 2 attack are really fast, it’s like one normal range autoattack.

I’m all for upgrading the axe damage, but 50% is a bit over the top.

Axes are for cutting trees.

Or for warriors to tag mobs with.