Guild Wars 2

I noticed it got some power added to it through longer vuln and extra damage on axe 2. back in Feb.

I feel like to justify using it you have to go 30 points to grab its master trait, but the weapon feels like a handicap without it, and when you do invest in the master trait it STILL feels mediocre. I could be wrong, and i’ll admit i’ve never really fully understood what role its meant to be played with.

Anyone know if its still being looked at? Or did these last changes put it where its supposed to be? I pvp a lot so my concerns are from a pvp perspective.

To me, axe was never meant to be a primary weapon that you constantly auto attack with. I use it as a burst tool with Ghastly Claws and then supplement that with Life Blast for 5s during Fury uptime, wells, or minions if you go MM. It’s also a great AOE tool since you can hit up to 5 targets and gain Retaliation equal to the recharge time of the skill if you hit all 5.

Just remember that you don’t want to sit and auto attack… it’s not that kind of weapon. It’s meant to be used in tandem with your other abilities that do more damage (like wells or minions) or help boost your big hitting Ghastly Claws.

In PvP Axe really falls short, in my mind. It has a really nice spot in minion builds, but outside of that, most of the time you’ll just want to use a dagger for the far better damage output it has (dagger does nearly double the damage).

But like Tak said, if you want it for damage, its all about your 2 skill. Your entire fight is going to be around setting that up and using it as often as you can.

I think axe was meant to be primary weapon in power builds, because you cant go always for melee dagger attack. It also increase dmg for your minions and allies, howerer, damage is low and scales quite badly with power.

It will be awesome if anet make 30 spite trait “axe mastery” a 20 spite trait, cuz now everyone always take “close to dead” trait. And what if “Unholy feast” is also a blast finisher!

Those changes will make axe to be a weapon to finally carry.

EDIT: oh, and what about cleave!

I’m only going to respond to this from an sPvP perspective, because I can’t say much about the other game modes I haven’t played in months.

Axe is not really an option in any build except (possibly) a minion master, which I don’t consider good use of the profession in sPvP anyway.

Direct damage (even traited) doesn’t come close to any dagger build with comperable power/precision/crit, so if you want to go power it is a poor option.

Vulnerability is applied more effectively by Focus #4, and the 7s duration vs. 5s didn’t make a difference, because by the time you stack 10 vulnerable with the axe it is either removed or someone bursted you to death, or the target has kited you because your range sucks and so does your mobility.

A-net’s opinion of the axe isn’t really relevant. Objectively, it is a weapon that there is no reason to use with the possible exception of a hard bunkering minion master (not really viable anyway) that has tons of sources of damage from minions, but no power to deal his own damage (thus buffing the damage of the minions is preferred).

Axe is, in my opinion, the worst necro weapon right now. It is sort of a team support weapon because it applies vulnerability, which supports your team. But for that purpose the staff is much better. It is also mostly a single target weapon, and then it gives you a skill #3 that is used against multiple foes.

All these lack of focus and contradictions make this a bad weapon, outside of minion master.

Watch my video of it for further details.

Axe goes well with minions best since spite tree benefits minionmancers. Axe 1 increases minion damage, and axe 2 is your main damage. Normally, Axe 2 is a slow, easy avoided, and easily interrupted ability that does single target damage. But with minions going around, they can hold the enemy down while you empty out the normally slow as heck axe2/focus 4. Axe 3 is a great ability though. The nominal range on the axe also helps matters.

As for Anet, they seem to think it sucks since they buffed the axe recently, though they never really fixed the main problem… the auto attack sucks.

Its not that bad. It does have one advantage over dagger. Since it’s weapon damage is higher it gives bigger life blasts. axe 3 is also great, don’t forget it cripples too.

The Axe is a good weapon when you have a build that is constantly casting something. Thus auto attack becomes irrelevant and the burst of Axe 2 gains value.

I use Axe as my primary weapon. My build is focused on Power and DS, and I mostly do dungeons. So the idea is stacking as much Vunerability with its autoattack, focus #4 and Well of Suffering as possible. When Axe #2 is out of the cooldown I use it do boost my DPS, and #3 is good for when fighting many trash mobs.

With all of this and Superior Sigil of Peril it’s not hard to keep 25 stacks on bosses all by myself. Paired with my high Power and Axe #2, I can do enough damage to not fall behind and also aid the group greatly. Bosses with 25 stacks of Vulnerability go down much faster than they normaly do.

Would I like it if it had more damage? Sure, why not? But it’s not something that bothers me too much. Moving Axe Mastery to a lower tier would be awesome though.

Going axe in sPvP is almost completely useless.

Why? Cause you almost HAVE to be a power necro to use it cause you need the 30 trait for it, but again why is that so horrible? Cause as a power necro it’s also almost essential to have “close to death” or whatever it’s called, and it’s impossible to have both.

Besides that you can use it in minion builds where it has slightly more use, but minion builds are easily countered and the necro has so many other more useful utilities so it’s still similar to a subpar version of the other specs (power/condi/bunker/support).

Axe suffers from similar design weakness of range single target channeled burst, akin to warrior rifle, thief pp and ranger lb. Weak auto attack, long cd/poor cc, nothing to help land the burst, burst damage slightly poor. Axe 3 needs to apply chill/fear/ weakness, since cripple is pointless in pvp below 600 range. Or make axe 2 aoe. 30 traits to axe mastery is also poor. the bigger picture is axe suffers from being a 600range weapon having the power of a weapon of 1200 range.

axe is good if you swap often.

Talentless.5708:

axe is good if you swap often.

This even as a minionmancer, I swap between staff and Axe/focus in pvp regularly. Axe is a fantastic mid range mixture of support and damage. If you are teamed up with a burst theif/warrior/mesmer, than the 20 stacks of vuln I can put up in seconds rocks, but in terms of pure damage it’s below dagger.

For pve axe is my favorite because I don’t have to spend points traiting Marks and I don’t have to be close enough to dagger someone. If I want to max damage I run Tak and kitteno’s Zerker Axe build. 10-14k Axe 2 is pretty awesome.

axe is great if you use forms and another weapon like staff alot.
Dont really use auto attack much.

I think it was Wiazabi who said that it is ridiculous that there is an axe 30 points into our trait tree, when all the other classes get it early on. He also said that the 30 point trait for the Necro should be a CLEAVE.

Great suggestion, but, think about that for a second, imagine if we got a cleave weapon; talk about weapon diversity!

I feel like Axe is meant to me used in a primarily DS build.
I use Axe as a main weapon when i want to just DS dance, when DS #4 is on cooldown i DS flip for the 5 second Fury and Axe #2 get some good numbers with it.

what if they put axe mastery 20 points into spite? maybe reduce near to death dmg by 5%? that would be lovely (and OP)

Axe #1 – Apply Vuln so your minions do slightly more damage
Axe #2 – Get into DS faster for when your minions die; Also, does okay damage
Axe #3 – AoE Cripple and gain Retal so you can tank or kite better while in DS; Cripple works well with Life Blast. Retal works well with Life Transfer.

Dylninja.4216:

I feel like Axe is meant to me used in a primarily DS build.
I use Axe as a main weapon when i want to just DS dance, when DS #4 is on cooldown i DS flip for the 5 second Fury and Axe #2 get some good numbers with it.

Dagger Auto and Staff Auto both build Life Force significantly faster.

Axe is for debuffing for your team (including minions). Dagger is better if you want dps.