At the moment the main hand axe is a medium range skirmish weapon and the off hand axe has the characteristics of a melee weapon. This makes no sense at all to me in terms of human physiology and neither hand seems to offer a clear purpose in game play. The axe off hand fits badly with both main hands.
Does anyone else think the the main hand axe should become a melee weapon and the off hand the ranged weapon :
a basic auto-chain
short range leap attack
whirling defense
path of scars
winter’s bite (if anyone wants to keep it)
I think it might also make sense to make the main hand axe a condition friendly weapon but I’ll anyone else’s view on that.
You can’t make the main axe a melee weapon without forcing every ranger who wants an offhand to have a melee weapon. There would be no other ranged option.
I like how the axe functions on ranger honestly. The damage it does is still meh though.
And i don’t see axe as a condition weapon at all. Shortbow covers it. Actually, Splitblade is pretty decent as a condition skill. 5 stacks of bleed is pretty good on a 6 sec cd.
If I had to, all I would do is add this to the Honed Axes trait: You deal more critical damage when wielding an axe in your main hand. (+10% critical damage) Ricochet has an additional 2 bounces and damage increases after every bounce. (resets after 5th bounce or when you kill a foe) All axe projectiles become guaranteed projectile finishers
I like how the axe functions on ranger honestly. The damage it does is still meh though.
And i don’t see axe as a condition weapon at all. Shortbow covers it. Actually, Splitblade is pretty decent as a condition skill. 5 stacks of bleed is pretty good on a 6 sec cd.
If I had to, all I would do is add this to the Honed Axes trait: You deal more critical damage when wielding an axe in your main hand. (+10% critical damage) Ricochet has an additional 2 bounces and damage increases after every bounce. (resets after 5th bounce or when you kill a foe) All axe projectiles become guaranteed projectile finishers
When the axe bounces it does very good total damage and can even out damage the Sb (sure feels like it at least) if you are hitting two targets causing the axe to hit the first guy twice per throw.
It’s problem is that split blade does poor damage on a ranged skill that requires you to be in melee range to make maximum use of it and the main attack does nothing against a single target but incredibly weak damage making it a very poor weapon for 1on1 fights.
I only ever use it in pvp on a dire/settler setup for the snare and 5 bleeds. I’m pretty sure the offhand torch still does more damage though which is pretty sad.
If I wanted a melee 1h weapon on my ranger I would use the sword.
The only reason I use a/a on my ranger is for the range attack, btw axe #4 is also ranged, traited it is 1200 range, so I really don’t see what you are complaining about.
The only thing I want to see on mh axe is an improve for power builds, but the mechanic seems good imo.
Charter Vanguard [CV] – HoD Bardy Belzebuson – Ranger Sir Belzebu – Herald
(and the other 8 elite specs maxed too)
“If I wanted a melee 1h weapon on my ranger I would use the sword.”
That’s a fair comment but I’m sure there is a large portion of ranger community who want to use a 1h melee weapon but the last thing they would use is that sword.
I’ll accept the view that a main hand ranged weapon is useful, but I just don’t see the main hand axe as having useful skills. Each skill individually looks reasonable but put together in a weapon set they add up to very little.
Well I think we can agree that of all the weapons that need looked at in terms of skill synergy, the axe is probably the one needing the most attention. It may not be the one you want them to focus on (because you would never want to use the axe and you love say the greatsword or longbow hypothetically), but it is the weapon whose skills seem the most “random”.
But, while the axe should get a fixin, I think we do need a ranged option main hand weapon.
I love that main hand axe is a throwing weapon, it makes it really unique. I just wish it didn’t have such an identity crisis. Give the auto bleeds or make Splitblade and Winter’s Bite actually do some direct damage.
I love that main hand axe is a throwing weapon, it makes it really unique. I just wish it didn’t have such an identity crisis. Give the auto bleeds or make Splitblade and Winter’s Bite actually do some direct damage.
I honestly prefer Winter’s Bite the way it is, since it not only chills, it provides your pet’s next attack with weakness, but which amazing at damage mitigation. Splitblade though I will agree is a bit….unusual, but the bleeds it provides are still useful to getting some dot ticks in. Not to mention splitblade essentially gives you 5 chances to have on crit effects trigger from 1 move, so there’s that aspect too.
I love that main hand axe is a throwing weapon, it makes it really unique. I just wish it didn’t have such an identity crisis. Give the auto bleeds or make Splitblade and Winter’s Bite actually do some direct damage.
I honestly prefer Winter’s Bite the way it is, since it not only chills, it provides your pet’s next attack with weakness, but which amazing at damage mitigation. Splitblade though I will agree is a bit….unusual, but the bleeds it provides are still useful to getting some dot ticks in. Not to mention splitblade essentially gives you 5 chances to have on crit effects trigger from 1 move, so there’s that aspect too.
True, but unless you are using it on a condition build, the bleeds don’t do enough to make up for the poor damage, especially when you have to be right next to the target to get the 5 bleeds/crit chances on a weapon that is supposed to be ranged which makes no sense.
Each axe should at least do the damage of one of the auto throws to actually reward the player getting into melee range on a weapon that otherwise enables you to not be.
I use Axe/Axe on my Ranger, though mainly for RP flavour. Skill #1 is decent against multiple foes, and Winter’s Bite is actually quite underrated, as Setun says. Splitblade is kinda meh, I agree. The Bleeding is OK against foes that regenerate, but not much else. It does need a damage boost, I feel.
Path of Scars and Whirling Defense is where the Axe really shines.
The problem I see with mh axe is the same problem I see with Trick Shot (thief SB#1) and Chain lightning (ele staff#1). The ricochet effect causes a huge variance in the amount of DPS. Against a single target it does x DPS. Against 2+ targets it does 3x DPS.
The peak of 3x DPS means they have to give it a low coefficient and interval to keep its max damage reasonable:
That means the DPS against a single target is pathetic. For comparison:
sword autoattack =1.06 coeff/sec against 1 target
2.12 coeff/sec against 2 targets
3.18 coeff/sec against 3 targets
GS autoattack (no Maul) = 0.69 coeff/sec against 1 target
1.38 coeff/sec against 2 targets
2.07 coeff/sec against 3 targets
I think they should tweak the way the bounce mechanic works. Make it so the initial hit does x damage, and the bounces should do 0.5x damage. That makes the max damage 2x instead of 3×. That would allow them to increase the coefficients on these weapons so they don’t feel like you’re hitting with a wet noodle when fighting a single target. e.g. Ricochet could be upped to 0.75 coefficient for:
0.75 coeff/sec against 1 target
1.5 coeff/sec against 2+ targets
That makes it scale nicely with GS autoattack, with a lower cap to reflect that the bounces have a much bigger range than melee cleave. IMHO the current 3x mechanic only works if they made it so a bounce couldn’t hit the same target. Then you have a nice transition from 1x for 1 target, 2x for 2 targets, 3x for 3 targets, allowing you to set the coefficient higher. It’s the 3x against 2 targets which really messes up the scaling.
