Guild Wars 2

XDDDD

It was rhetorical. Ok maybe axe 3 can hit them. Aside from that: Nope

Yes it can.

The problem with axe is that it is a bad weapon for its range damagewise (taking the spite trait make it an meh weapon).
They should really give the aa some cleave or increase the range.

I agree its not great but considering axe 2 can and will hit 20k on softer targets, and will hit through stealth as long as you get the channel started before they enter stealth. I feel its well worth the down sides.

I roam WvW with staff + axe/wh and I find axe 3 very useful against thieves.
It has a decent range so when the thief stealths, use axe 3 – it cripples them, removes a boon (most likely regeneration they got when they jumped into stealth ) and damages them. Also, retaliation for you.

Lurock Turoth.9085:

I agree its not great but considering axe 2 can and will hit 20k on softer targets, and will hit through stealth as long as you get the channel started before they enter stealth. I feel its well worth the down sides.

Except it stops channeling if they move to your far sides or behind you, in which case dagger 2 has the advantage here.

It doesnt need to be rhetorical, its a fact. The #2 chanel will get canceled by any CC, side walk or port behind. no dmg, no life force, no evade… its literaly not hitting

Flumek.9043:

The #2 chanel will get canceled by … side walk or port behind.

Only if you’re immobilized or force your character to face a certain direction. In any other case you will spin whichever way your opponent goes or even teleports during the channel.

Unless they walk through you. It happens to me all the time in pvp. Some people come up right in my face and walk trough me repeatedly. Both the auto attack and the ghastly claws fail when this happens.

flow.6043:

Flumek.9043:

The #2 chanel will get canceled by … side walk or port behind.

Only if you’re immobilized or force your character to face a certain direction. In any other case you will spin whichever way your opponent goes or even teleports during the channel.

i know but its realy hard and clunky. Im mostly perma holding right mouse cz nobody stays still, or no one uses melee attack asist so its not uncommon to walk through somebody and needing to turn a 180.

Axe is very reliable weapon, especially for these two professions. Let me guide you:

-#2 – As most of channels, hits through stealth. In addition, cannot be bodyblocked

-#1 – Many people underestimate this skill. When not dealing great damage by itself, builds up solid chunk of vulnerability quickly allowing to follow it up with some serious damage from Axe #2 or Life Blast.

-#3 Best skill on this weapon IMO, very useful. :

1. Can be used as stealth detection. If you expect someone around use this skill to be sure. It also rips a boon off and cripples enemy. Cripple should allow you to avoid burst by simple running unless gapcloser is used (D/P #3 reveals)
2. Rips of 1 boon AoE wide:
-Might stacking on Thief when he’s in stealth
-Boons from stealth mesmer, cutting his defense after reveal (Aegis or prot/regen)
-Very likely to rip off Retaliation boon from Mesmer’s creations, allowing you to AoE without taking bonus damage.
3. Gives retaliation for every foe struck – Simply great for Mesmers spamming clones/phantasms, Spirit Rangers, MM Necromancers.

Axe should not be treated as Main weapon. It has great cooldowns and can weaken the foe a bit, but don’t expect to sit on this weapon set for long. Swap to dagger

Lurock Turoth.9085:

I agree its not great but considering axe 2 can and will hit 20k on softer targets, and will hit through stealth as long as you get the channel started before they enter stealth. I feel its well worth the down sides.

Maybe with 25 stacks of might and the target having 25 stacks of vuln. You’re lucky to hit higher than 10k damage even on someone wearing nothing but berserker with axe 2.

No might no vuln about 80% of the time I use it, it breaks 10k on any target, about the lowest I see is 8k and that only really happens if I get very unlucky with crits.

Lurock Turoth.9085:

No might no vuln about 80% of the time I use it, it breaks 10k on any target, about the lowest I see is 8k and that only really happens if I get very unlucky with crits.

What targets, and where? It doesn’t hit that hard for me, and I’ve been running full berserkers. The only time I ever see it break 10k is with 25 might stacks while in a party.

T1 wvw, wearing full ascended zerker.

Oh, well that might explain it. I don’t have ascended armor. No way I’m spending 200g in materials just for the chest piece.

Kravick.4906:

Oh, well that might explain it. I don’t have ascended armor.

That doesn’t explain anything.
The only significant damage buff is upgrading your weapon from exotics to ascended.
And even then you certainly won’t make a giant step up from below 8k to 10-20k damage on Ghastly Claws.

I have to say, those numbers sound rather unbelievable to me as well. Would you mind posting some screenshots of your combat log?

Axe #2 will continue to channel against a sidestepping stealthed target if you dont hold down a movement key (assuming you arent immobed or stunned). I’m not asking you to stand still until they gank you but you can for a second to track which direction they are going. The damage is fine, but the auto attack definitely needs a rework.

Kravick.4906:

Lurock Turoth.9085:

No might no vuln about 80% of the time I use it, it breaks 10k on any target, about the lowest I see is 8k and that only really happens if I get very unlucky with crits.

What targets, and where? It doesn’t hit that hard for me, and I’ve been running full berserkers. The only time I ever see it break 10k is with 25 might stacks while in a party.

Yeah, in WvW you rarely hit for that much – maybe on an uplevel. Certainly nowhere near 20K. Maybe average 4 – 7K.

Most of the time you can’t even land the full chain because people dodge, block etc.

They need to speed up the axe chain imo.

10k is trivial to get, this is a 60% channeled ghastly claws with 4 stacks of bloodlust, during the DAY, with no might, no guard stacks, and no wvw bloodlust. (If you can’t stack vuln with a necro, reroll).

I have full ascended trinkets, exotic weapons and armor. In a typical borderland engagement I have full guard stacks (100 power), full bloodlust stacks (250), and at least some wvw bloodlust, I don’t pay attention to what tier it is generally, but that also grants power. I run both a sigil of force and a sigil of night. I have my foodbuffs as well. If I really want them dead I drop the wells and use the signet of spite and BIP for more power. (I generally like the wells for clearing camps though).

How high it will go depends on the enemy, but generally its between 8k-20k, 20k is relatively rare, its most commonly seen against carrion necros or something else with high health but low armor (or obviously uplevels). Average of what I usually get is probably about 13k.

As for hitting a thief..yeah..channel skill. Start 2 before they stealth and watch them explode. (3 can also hit them).

Icewielder.4195:

10k is trivial to get, this is a 60% channeled ghastly claws…

Clearly it isn’t at 60%, the cooldown on Ghastly Claws started which means that the channel was completed.
Also, you generally hit a lot harder on guard/sentry npcs because of wvw infusions and +10% damage from the Guard Killer line.
And from personal experience, guards seem to have a rather low armor value, but I’m just guessing now.

Anyway, the screenshot you posted rather confirms that you can’t hit as hard as 20k on real players. Tbh I’d be quite suprised to see proof of a 10k+ hit on any non glass canon player.

I’m full zerker with bloodlust and i’ve never got anywhere near 20K in WvW - not saying it can’t be done.

Generally, i’ll wet my pants with excitement if i can hit 10K.

I don’t have the guard offensive buffs yet, but i have applied fortitude.

My life blast does good damage - 3-4k on high toughness players and 5-7k on lower toughness players. Up-levels i can do a bit more damage - so funny cutting an up-levelled thief in half.

Icewielder.4195:

flow.6043:

Icewielder.4195:

10k is trivial to get, this is a 60% channeled ghastly claws…

Clearly it isn’t at 60%, the cooldown on Ghastly Claws started which means that the channel was completed.
Also, you generally hit a lot harder on guard/sentry npcs because of wvw infusions and +10% damage from the Guard Killer line.
And from personal experience, guards seem to have a rather low armor value, but I’m just guessing now.

Anyway, the screenshot you posted rather confirms that you can’t hit as hard as 20k on real players. Tbh I’d be quite suprised to see proof of a 10k+ hit on any non glass canon player.

Admittedly if you’re running in a zerg like most WvW players do, then yes, you will never see 20k. Your fighting trash PVT zerglings with protection 99% of the time. Go fight enemy glass cannon roamers and you will change your opinion.

This ^^

And you can see in the screenshot the channel bar at 60% with no other channel skills and its clearly still mid-animation..

Also if you are having a hard time to land the axe skills, you must learn to strafe your opponent(its what they are doing to you) and face him when you need to use skills that require facing them (or let off movement controls and the game will do it). Mesmers for example also have plenty of skills like this like confusing images..

I have to say though, stacking 25 vuln on a player (decent roamer) is not usually all that easy without outside help(rifle warrior ). They tend to not stand in wells and like to do things like remove conditions..

Icewielder.4195:

If you play with skill lag like has been incredibly bad since seasons started, you wouldn’t be surprised by the cooldown showing up even when the skill isn’t done channeling.

dank.3680:

And you can see in the screenshot the channel bar at 60% with no other channel skills and its clearly still mid-animation.

The Ghastly Claws channel is represented by the taller and darker bar in the background. The thinner one which is at roughly ~60% progress is the auto attack, yet another indicator for a completed Ghastly Claws channel.
The picture shows that your landed 10k on an npc, that’s all. Stating that the picture doesn’t represent what actually happend is as much anecdotal evidence as your claim of hitting 10-20k on a regular basis.
So again: 10k+ on real players? Pics (or vids) or it didn’t happen :P

flow.6043:

Icewielder.4195:

If you play with skill lag like has been incredibly bad since seasons started, you wouldn’t be surprised by the cooldown showing up even when the skill isn’t done channeling.

dank.3680:

And you can see in the screenshot the channel bar at 60% with no other channel skills and its clearly still mid-animation.

The Ghastly Claws channel is represented by the taller and darker bar in the background. The thinner one which is at roughly ~60% progress is the auto attack, yet another indicator for a completed Ghastly Claws channel.
The picture shows that your landed 10k on an npc, that’s all. Stating that the picture doesn’t represent what actually happend is as much anecdotal evidence as your claim of hitting 10-20k on a regular basis.
So again: 10k+ on real players? Pics (or vids) or it didn’t happen :P

Your right and I thought the channel bar looked funny (compared to mine) but I couldn’t replicate the look so I chopped it up to graphics difference since I run on a very low settings. But after reading your reply I did manage to replicate the look mostly.

I do have to admit though that I’ve seen 10k+ with ghastly claws on softer targets such as thieves/mesmers/other zerker necros.. I wouldn’t say it’s rare, but certainly not the norm.. Just as I sometimes see 9k+ life blasts and some people would like to claim thats the norm in wvw but it just isn’t.

I did forget to mention, I find the claim of 20k in WvW laughable.. Maybe on an upscale, with 25 vuln 25 might below 50% hp etc…

Not slamming anyone here, nothing personal either. Just some facts that I feel need to be clarified, since I feel some of this is a little misleading.

So after talking it through, I’ve found that the reason this 20k damage exists is because of certain factors that are never included in uncontrolled damage number scenarios, such as WvW.

One, they’re using a combination of Sigils of Night and Force. This means that half the time, those numbers aren’t even reachable because of the Sigil of Night. It works consistently in most dungeons, I’ll agree, but people don’t typically run those sigils in areas where half the time you’ll get no benefit.

Two, they’re using a food that increases damage by 10% when moving. I honestly didn’t even know that food existed. Really, no one uses that food normally. Likely, like me, most people don’t know about it. Also, the other stat that comes along with it is 60% chance to gain swiftness on killing a foe. Kinda dumb. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Seaweed_Salad

So thats a 20% damage increase when the moon aligns with unrestricted access to movement. The target also has to be pure glass or an up level. I’m also not sure if being crippled and chilled negatively affects the food buff. Its an obscure bonus and those tend to be rife with bugs since very few people use them, much like how the Giver’s bonus to condition duration was bugged for the longest time.

Honestly, this combination is available to every class, and you never really see anyone using it, and for good reason. No one likes and/if/or and percent chance on kill conditional effects. Yes, it is entirely possible for Axe 2 to hit for 15k under these very specific circumstances, but talking about it like its a normal thing isn’t really right, either. To many conditionals for this to be considered normal. Reminds me of that guy who tried to keep telling me hitting LB crits for 13k was ‘normal’, and on further interrogation I found out he only runs Arah over and over and nothing else.

Kravick.4906:

So thats a 20% damage increase when the moon aligns with unrestricted access to movement. The target also has to be pure glass or an up level. I’m also not sure if being crippled and chilled negatively affects the food buff. Its an obscure bonus and those tend to be rife with bugs since very few people use them, much like how the Giver’s bonus to condition duration was bugged for the longest time.

Its a 20% damage boost at night and a 10% during the day (from sigil + food), obviously swap out that sigil for a functional one during the day. As for bugs, this food was bugged entirely until a few patches back. Currently it functions if you are immobilized/chilled/crippled etc as long as you are pressing forward or strafe. (Running backwards does not work).

Oh, and 2 minutes of swiftness on a necro, not something I’m gonna complain about. Stack up a few thousand coyotes and enjoy.

Last thing, its not as effective on some classes, if the attacks halt your movement before actually attacking, it wont work, aka killshot or rush.

Nobody here has said that 20k or even 15k is normal. Those are very high hits, I only claimed 10k was easily reached, and that doesn’t require the food or sigil to get, but once you throw them in, its a very common sight.

Kravick.4906:

I honestly didn’t even know that food existed. Really, no one uses that food normally. Likely, like me, most people don’t know about it.

The first time I saw someone using Seaweed Salad in WvW was about two months ago. Since then it seems to have grown in popularity, more and more people are eating this. And without a doubt, for some classes it’s clearly the best damage modifier, not to mention a little cheaper than something like Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup. Although, their price almost trippled in the past three months.

Icewielder.4195:

Oh, and 2 minutes of swiftness on a necro, not something I’m gonna complain about. Stack up a few thousand coyotes and enjoy.

Wasn’t boon duration stacking limited a few patches ago..?

flow.6043:

Wasn’t boon duration stacking limited a few patches ago..?

Yes it was, currently swiftness can stack up to 9 times, with spectral walk, locus swarm + 7 stacks from the food is 110 seconds of swiftness. I rounded the number, you will see two minutes rather frequently if anyone else applies a longer swiftness.

Icewielder.4195:

Oh, and 2 minutes of swiftness on a necro, not something I’m gonna complain about. Stack up a few thousand coyotes and enjoy.

No idea why this made me laugh but I almost spit out my coffee lol.

Avigrus.2871:

Up-levels i can do a bit more damage – so funny cutting an up-levelled thief in half.

Did a 10k life blast to an uplevel the other day. I nearly spontaneously combusted.