Guild Wars 2

I know its not as much damage as some want and the dots are not their. I know it isnt staff and scepter. Instead it is axe focus. I tried it even though I was near convinced I would hate it but the exact opposite is happening.

Are my numbers huge? Not at all. But I would argue in PvE you contribute more damage than anyone else in your group. I have been able to keep 10-15 stack of vulnerability on targets most time and 10-15% damage for everyone is awesome. That alone makes axe so much better a choice in my eyes than other builds that show you your numbers.

I love focus with it for the utility of the 4 slot. The build is based around being as effective support as possible and coupled with staff I have fallen in love.

Anyone else running axe as a main weapon?

I am, but it’s still quite awful. Only reason I’m using it currently over Dagger is just to have more range a few more hits of vulnerability. I’m only using it for the Focus. That Vuln/Regen move is good dmg and really fills your Life Force.

I’m forced to be in death shroud spamming Life Blasts to actually do dmg anyway, so I just use Axe + Focus for the extra vuln and massive life force gains.

Right now i primarily run staff and axe/focus for all play types. Staff is our best weapon for general utility, and axe/focus give decent debuffs and life force generation for DS use.

Thanks for the posts guys. I now have a couple questions for you more experienced axe wielding necros.

I have been going with power so far and was planning on focusing power, toughness, and either vitality or crit. I wasn’t planning on going pure dps with this but is the crit worth the stat in exchange for vitality? I know we have high base hp. If I get toughness will that eliminate the need for me to stack vitality on this so I can focus on another damage stat like crit?

If you want a class that stacks vulnerability I suggest rolling an engineer. 25 AoE stacks in 4-5 attacks.

I run axe in a cheese minion build but I find it very underwhelming. And if an engineer is in my group, I may as well switch weapons.

I run axe/dagger/staff in a pure power/crit/crit dmg build (84% crit 110% crit damage) but my build is focused almost entirely on Death Shroud. Mainly I just use axe to keep up vulnerability stacks.

5 ppl performing at 100% is better than 1 at 20% and 4 at 115% just saying. Axe is so bad that even with Vulnerability it’s still terrible. But that is only single target, when AoE comes into play the Axe becomes totally useless.

Also Vulnerability is almost totally useless against bosses which are the real deal in dungeons as they take forever to kill.

I can keep close to 25 stacks of vulnerability on the mob between crits/Life Blasts/axe/well. Somehow your logic says, that’s useless… because they take forever to kill? Here I thought stuff died faster if it took 20%+ more damage.

I use Axe/Focus and Staff on my MM build. But I’m starting to feel the burn, so to speak. I feel less useful than I could be in a lot of content. And that sucks because I loved Necro and MM in GW1. Hopefully some fixes come along for MMs. In the meantime, I’ll keep hoping that my minions accomplish something.

Axe is good for MM, all those vulnerability stacks mean increased damage for your minions

The problem IMO is Axe is the least efficent way of giving vulnerability. Axe1 is slow, despite allowing you to get to 9 stacks. Focus4 gives 9 stacks in one go if you are alone with that enemy, and Well of Suffering is great for its damage potential. Spectral Wall? 10 stacks.

It may not be the best way to stack it but it frees up all my utility spots for minions, so to me its a fair trade off. With minions I am doing around 3-4k dps a second if all my pets are attacking the same target. Not including bone minions explosions of course. That and I don’t even have good gear yet.

Flesh Golem – 770
Blood Fiend – 239
Shadow Fiend – 350
Bone Fiend – 572
Total – 1935
1935 * 1.4 (vulnerability damage 10 stacks + training of the master) = 2709
Axe – 300-400
Grand total = 3009 DPS

That’s assuming I don’t use any of the minion skills which then increase damage as well. If I pop a bone minion I do another 2235.8 (1597 * 1.4) damage. Mostly single target of course but still it is decent considering I can be 300 feet away if im not stacking vulnerability with the axe. I also run with the focus anyways too.

Nero.3978:

It may not be the best way to stack it but it frees up all my utility spots for minions, so to me its a fair trade off. With minions I am doing around 3-4k dps a second if all my pets are attacking the same target. Not including bone minions explosions of course. That and I don’t even have good gear yet.

Flesh Golem – 770
Blood Fiend – 239
Shadow Fiend – 350
Bone Fiend – 572
Total – 1935
1935 * 1.4 (vulnerability damage 10 stacks + training of the master) = 2709
Axe – 300-400
Grand total = 3009 DPS

That’s assuming I don’t use any of the minion skills which then increase damage as well. If I pop a bone minion I do another 2235.8 (1597 * 1.4) damage. Mostly single target of course but still it is decent considering I can be 300 feet away if im not stacking vulnerability with the axe. I also run with the focus anyways too.

Yes but the problem is build up of vulnerability. Put it this way. You are doing in a regular mob, it’ll probably die to your attack and the minions before reaching 9 stacks of vulnerability. If you are fighting a champion, its more likely everyone else will put on a bit of vulnerability anyways.

IMO, I think Axe1 just sucks. Not vulnerability; vulnerability is awesome. Axe1 is just so useless. Low damage, slow vulnerability build up. Axe3 to me is the shining star of the axe, followed by Axe2.

The moment an Engineer with grenades come running, you become absolutely a detriment to your group in a dungeon setting. Grenades can be tossed from a safer distance, stack vulnerability faster and is AoE without needing to pick up Well of Suffering or Epidemic. It also applies other conditions such as blind, poison, chill and what not alongside this.

Axe used to be decent until they completely gut the damage aspect of it. It’s only use now is a weapon you can use outside of staff to get a better chance at better contribution on zergy long boss fight events.