Guild Wars 2

If you guys have noticed, necromancer is getting scepter aa to have a boon convert. Look at what Axe has. Then you’ll get what this title is getting at.

Ideas to revive Axe:
1)Make Unholy Feast the old Feast of Corruption on Scepter?
2)Make Unholy Feast larger AoE and give might instead of retaliation.
3)Make Ghastly Claws do more damage per condition on foe? -Counter active to the first idea.-

-Feel free to post more ideas.-

Well I still got hope for the rest of the changes

By “rip axe power necro” are you implying that after the patch power builds would rather use a condi weapon than an axe? Not that the axe was that popular to begin with…

Anyway, arguably the scepter needs the least amount of help out of all our weapons. So while it is rather surprising that they would improve an already solid weapon, it does give hope that other weapons will be buffed as well.

kybraga.7103:

Make Unholy Feast the old Feast of Corruption on Scepter?

That makes no sense, it would be worse in every single way.
Unless you mean that the current version of Unholy Feast should be buffed to generate life force and hit harder for every condi on your target?

I think most people just want more finishers on axe (whirl on Ghastly Claws, blast on Unholy Feast).

I feel like ghastly claws and our axe auto are pretty good, honestly. The problem is unholy feast… it’s a damage loss all the time. The only time you should ever use it: When kiting away from the opponent to cripple them or when you’re behind an obstacle because it hits through obstacles.

Unholy Feast is such a bad/outdated skill. That 1 boon corrupt is so… ugh… why…

I agree with the blast finisher. But also:

IMO, rather than a lame damage increase (since our axe 1 and 2 skills just do damage) I’d like to see Unholy Feast cast an AOE fear instead. A lot like the thieves stolen ability Skull Fear and our reaper shroud fear.

I don’t care what other effects unholy feast keeps or loses by I think a fear would be amazing. Fear is much superior to a cripple. I can think of many times where a fear would have saved my life.

On that note, I would also like to see our warhorn trait change the warhorns daze into a fear.

Zefrost.3425:

I feel like ghastly claws and our axe auto are pretty good, honestly. The problem is unholy feast… it’s a damage loss all the time. The only time you should ever use it: When kiting away from the opponent to cripple them or when you’re behind an obstacle because it hits through obstacles.

Unholy Feast is such a bad/outdated skill. That 1 boon corrupt is so… ugh… why…

I agree with the blast finisher. But also:

IMO, rather than a lame damage increase (since our axe 1 and 2 skills just do damage) I’d like to see Unholy Feast cast an AOE fear instead. A lot like the thieves stolen ability Skull Fear and our reaper shroud fear.

I don’t care what other effects unholy feast keeps or loses by I think a fear would be amazing. Fear is much superior to a cripple. I can think of many times where a fear would have saved my life.

On that note, I would also like to see our warhorn trait change the warhorns daze into a fear.

You missed the turning stab into fear thingy :P

Zefrost.3425:

I feel like ghastly claws and our axe auto are pretty good, honestly. The problem is unholy feast… it’s a damage loss all the time.

Unholy Feast is a damage loss over the auto attack?
Even if that was true, that’s not the point of Unholy Feast. You use it to cripple, corrupt and get retaliation, the damage is just a bonus.

Zefrost.3425:

On that note, I would also like to see our warhorn trait change the warhorns daze into a fear.

No. Daze > fear.

I don’t think axe is a bad weapon overall; my biggest beef is that it’s pretty kitten boring to use. I’d like to see the auto, or any of the skills for that matter, get a chain or sequence tacked on. For the auto, I’d keep rending claws and add two skills after, perhaps:

-Rending Talon (or any fancy, thematic name that’s better*): inflict vulnerability and briefly (2 seconds) cripple your foe with a shadowy “scythe” stemming from the axe

-Ghastly Talon (see above*): Slash up to three foes at extended range (1200) with a shadowy “scythe” and gain life force (3% per foe?)

That being said, Spiteful Spirit needs something beyond a cooldown removal if nothing is done to Unholy Feast. Something that caters to furthering our boon corruption potential.

It was ever alive?

Spiteful Spirit sucks because Unholy Feast sucks. I used a bruiser build for a long time that used spiteful spirit but then I started to seriously question why I use such a bruiser type build. Ultimate conclusion I came to: Signets offer more survivability and better boon corruption than this special snowflake build that I like.

This will be even more landslide into scepters favor if we seriously get boon corruption on its auto attack. The pathetic 1 boon corruption on unholy feast shouldn’t even be a thing. The impact on a fight from that boon corrupt is so no non-factor that you can’t even notice the corrupt unless you are fighting opponents that are already bad. Even if the only boon that the opponent (somehow) has is stability, it’s going to do squat. 1s of fear is nothing lol.

The 1 boon corrupt is just more AOE spam.

The retaliation on unholy feast used to be good over 2 years ago when the game at least had some balance to it. You could actually use unholy feast or spiteful spirit to skillfully to return burst damage to the attacker. My favourite was unholy feast or the old spiteful spirit (gain retaliation entering death shroud) then enter death shroud against sword/pistol thief. Butted their low health pool every time.

It’s a crap skill like shatterstone is because of the power creep this game has gotten over the years.

I’m done with giving ideas on Axe to Anet. They never listen.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

It was ever alive?

If I remember they are careful with it because it doesn’t act like a projectile, not that it has the benefits of a projectile but that is the reason it seems for its state…at least boost the traits.

Zefrost.3425:

Spiteful Spirit sucks because Unholy Feast sucks.

Spiteful Spirit doesn’t suck for several reasons, one of them being that Unholy Feast is a good skill.

Zefrost.3425:

I used a bruiser build for a long time that used spiteful spirit but then I started to seriously question why I use such a bruiser type build. Ultimate conclusion I came to: Signets offer more survivability and better boon corruption than this special snowflake build that I like.

Your build that didn’t use signets was bad, then you changed your build to signets.
Cool story. What does Spiteful Spirit have to do with any of it?

Zefrost.3425:

This will be even more landslide into scepters favor if we seriously get boon corruption on its auto attack. The pathetic 1 boon corruption on unholy feast shouldn’t even be a thing. The impact on a fight from that boon corrupt is so no non-factor that you can’t even notice the corrupt unless you are fighting opponents that are already bad. Even if the only boon that the opponent (somehow) has is stability, it’s going to do squat. 1s of fear is nothing lol.

First of all, you’re incredibly ignorant in regards to the impact that even a single corrupted boon can have on the outcome of a fight.
Secondly, fear is a stun, you know. Even if it’s just 1 second, interrupting a skill or stomp or rez by using a corruption skill isn’t nothing.

Zefrost.3425:

2 years ago when the game at least had some balance to it.

Come on, don’t go full hipster. 2 years ago was much worse than today, especially the necro’s balance.

Zefrost.3425:

My favourite was unholy feast or the old spiteful spirit (gain retaliation entering death shroud) then enter death shroud against sword/pistol thief. Butted their low health pool every time.

How is this different today?

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

It was ever alive?

If I remember they are careful with it because it doesn’t act like a projectile, not that it has the benefits of a projectile but that is the reason it seems for its state…at least boost the traits.

there’s no point in NOT playing condi if all the upcoming changes go through…

It’s funny how fast people forget that not everyone min maxes.

rchu.8945:

there’s no point in NOT playing condi if all the upcoming changes go through…

rchu.8945:

there’s no point in NOT playing condi if all the upcoming changes go through…

Wasn’t Necromancer kinda meant to be the condition profession?

Also, when Shoutbow became popular, there was no point in playing condition. Builds do rotate.

Obtena.7952:

It’s funny how fast people forget that not everyone min maxes.

Like that suddenly invalidates the fact that some weapons are kitten….

RIP axe meta (oct23-oct28 2015)

My friend predicts 8 days for necros this time

spoj.9672:

Obtena.7952:

It’s funny how fast people forget that not everyone min maxes.

Like that suddenly invalidates the fact that some weapons are kitten….

Not even suddenly but a change to some other weapon certainly isn’t RIP Axe. The whole premise of the thread assumes everyone cares about what is the currently flavour of the month. Going out on a limb here but if your minmaxing, you simply use whatever works best; if something becomes better, you just switch to it. If you’re not, you don’t care if it’s best or worst; you use it for other reasons. Either way, Axe certainly isn’t going to get used any more or less by either of those two types of players because of an AA change on Scepter.

Call me crazy but I’m going to say this reality has much to do with why Anet doesn’t focus their efforts on ‘the worst’ weapons/skills, etc… for balancing.

Am I against changing Axe? Certainly not, if Axe wasn’t so ‘in between’ Scepter and Daggers, I would use it. No reason to be sensational.

Either way you still dont have a point. :P

I won’t fault you for missing it.

as a power necro i use axe over staff
the biggest weakness i find when using the axe is the offhand choices

I could be way of the mark here but…

I just chucked a build into gw2.skills and swapped in a scepter instead of axe as a range option.

It stated that axe with asc zerker was (2x) 322 (which i assume to mean 161 per axe hit) on a 1sec cast
whilst an asended zerker scepter was 147 (88 bleed) on a 1/2 sec cast
ascended sinsiter scepter was 147 (118 bleed) on a 1/2 sec cast

zerk axe = 322 /sec
scep =294 (+ whatever the bleed ends up being due to DoT)

I may have messed up my maths and someone can correct it, but it seems like based on AA alone sinister scepter already is better then axe.
Then again there could be an aftercast on scpeter making the attack rotation longer, i don’t claim to know this.

In terms of life force
axe 8sec cd for 12%
scep 10sec cd for 10% +2% per condi (max 5%)
Win seems to go to scepter (only in terms of LF, damage wise axe is higher 1.3k vs 1k (with 5 condis on target giving 7 torment stacks)

Otherwise 6% ferocity loss, but a small condi damage increase over all skills (chill, bleed, poison, etc.)

Please note: My thoughts are with PVE in mind and was just a quick thought with the change to boon corrption on auto, sinister scepter may out perform zerk axe for a range alternative.

Edit: to try to work out why it is underlining points. Can’t see a reason for it so underlined things are just random

Edit 2:
Wiki says
scepter auto chain = The whole sequence takes 2.4 sec.
Axe auto = Attack speed is approximately 0.95 seconds per attack.

Well in terms of coeff per second. Axe is 0.81 and scepter is 0.5. So yeah the condi’s can easily make up the difference.

Axe in its current state will never be meta in pvp or pve. Compare it to any viable long range power weapon and you will see why. It is bad dps, and bad utility. The vuln application is slow and bad, the burst skill doesn’t burst anybody, and the utility is slow and less relevant with the current rate of boon application.

for axe to be more competitive as a power wep it need skill 1 to have more effect skill 2 to be faster and skill 3 be a blast finisher ( traits need to change also)

Well axe has its uses, i dont think the scepter buff could change anything. Axe 3 is a AOE skill, thus you can hit stealthed targets around you easy. Scepter 2 isnt even compareable to that. It can provide decent sustain with Blighters Boon and has a good retaliation uptime against mesmers and rangers, sometimes even scappers. They just need to tweak the skills a bit. For example:

Axe 3: Let it corrupt 2 boons, the boons prioritized are always protection and stability, the boons always get converted into vulnerability.
Axe 2: let this skill extend the vulnerability duration on foes, add bonus damage based on the number of stacks of vuln on the target.
Axe 1: Add a second attack to the AA chain, creates ghastly rift at the targets position that detonates after a small timeframe for AOE damage, you get might and lifeforce per foe hit by the explosion. That way you add some power that is counterable by moving, providing a higher skillcap because you need to lockdown your target in pvp in order to get good damage.

This way they could give this weapon a clearer direction then it is now.

Nah, I want more retaliation, which is even more thematic for necros then guardians. Also we have so much might already!
Axe 3 should corrupt 1 additional boon and it will be great.
Axe 2 need some additional effect. I suggested before to make it destroy projectiles(its animation is already perfect for that) or to give short retaliation or protection.
Axe 1 obviously need to do more damage(10-15%). Also it will be much better if auto attack is split into 3 attacks(1st- average damage; 2nd- 1.5x damage; 3rd- 2x damage). 1st and 2nd attacks to give vulnerability and 3rd to give LF or cleav up to 3 targets in 300 range around your target.

Tadsoul.6951:

as a power necro i use axe over staff
the biggest weakness i find when using the axe is the offhand choices

I want to agree with this, mainly because lacking a quality condi transfer (o/h dagger is terrible) is pretty much the worst in pvp, but… the damage on axe is just poor. Even taking into account that it doesn’t have projectiles to destroy, the damage is just flat out bad. Axe + a power build doesn’t come close to scepter + condi build for dealing with ranged threats. Axe becomes a GC for life force, Feast for retal and corrupt, then stow it for a real weapon.

First, I do not understand how a change to a condition damage weapon will affect a power weapon. People play builds they like. The weapon is secondary.

Second, from a PvE PoV, adding a corruption to scepter will help give it a bit more use in PvE when compared to the condi-burst professions and I like the dev’s thinking in making boon-spamming more dangerous in all game modes.

Third, axe seems fine as it is. It has been buffed I-don’t-know-how-many-times.

The gaps I see in weapon functions are: long-range direct-damge, short-range condi-damage, and strong group support (for a significant dps loss).

Staff is a fine AoE weapon but it’s limited group support with condi-transfer toned down, Defiant implemented, and it was never a long-range, single-target dps weapon. Arguably, axe is the long range dps weapon but several professions get 1500 range, well outside of most hazard areas.

Scepter is the only pure condition damage weapon with nothing more potent to switch to at less than 150 range. A short-range condi-burst weapon would be very nice and likely an instant hit with the profession.

One idea for a new group support weapon might be condition corruptions, or making conditions into boons. Combine that in a new elite line that sacrifices Shroud to heal allies using LF and I think that could make Necromancer more capable in support roles.

Unholy feast is a good skill with blighters boon and todays meta.
That skill priority is swiftness THAN stability so if target have stability and no swiftness, that skill would turn the stab into fear. and adding reta thus adding life force cause of blighters boon + the extra cripple is always nice.

Brujeria.7536:

Axe 3: Let it corrupt 2 boons, the boons prioritized are always protection and stability

Well, first is Swiftness than Stability and than Protection.

Swiftness>Stability>Protection>Regeneration>Might>Retaliation>Fury>Vigor

Sandrox.9524:

Swiftness>Stability>Protection>Regeneration>Might>Retaliation>Fury>Vigor

Would you mind sharing how you figured out this particular order?
Just in case you didn’t know, this is from the June 23, 2015 patch:
Boon to condition conversion and condition to boon conversion has been standardized and is functionality changed. Skills that convert boons and conditions now randomly select from all boons and conditions on the target.

flow.6043:

Sandrox.9524:

Swiftness>Stability>Protection>Regeneration>Might>Retaliation>Fury>Vigor

Would you mind sharing how you figured out this particular order?
Just in case you didn’t know, this is from the June 23, 2015 patch:
Boon to condition conversion and condition to boon conversion has been standardized and is functionality changed. Skills that convert boons and conditions now randomly select from all boons and conditions on the target.

ah good I thought somthing is wrong. IT was like that before this patch just thought is one of thier kitten bugs

Anchoku.8142:

Third, axe seems fine as it is. It has been buffed I-don’t-know-how-many-times.

This says more about where axe started and has been than where it is (which is the bottom of the barrel).

IMO Axe won’t really lose too much ground because Axe generates more life force then Scepter and the AoE boon rip and cripple is very strong. Ive always seen Axe having more synergy with Shroud then the Scepter and Staff being the Condi weapon with good Shroud synergy.

I don’t think axe needs massive buffs.Axe is a perfect replacement to melee power dps,as it deals decent damage (FROM RANGE,always remember that,because there isn’t a single ranged weapon in this game that deals more dps than it’s melee counterpart),and builds LF extremely quickly.

Zoso.8279:

Ive always seen Axe having more synergy with Shroud then the Scepter and Staff being the Condi weapon with good Shroud synergy.

Probably a holdover from Unholy Fervor affecting shroud when the player is holding an axe AND that Death Shroud does diddly for condi damage.

If anything, scepter synergizes better with either by… actually doing damage and being effective : /