Guild Wars 2

Is it viable in lets say a WvW or sPvP setting? I’m thinking of using an axe over a shortbow but I am not so sure. Which one do you guys think is better?

And if axe, which offhand do you guys think best suits it? I was thinking perhaps warhorn

play what you want, tho either a shortbow or a longbow is recommended, because as a ranger you want *range", right?
and an axe can’t compete with either of those in terms of range.

really, play like you want, mess around with traits and weapons until you’ve got your rythm – practice makes the winners.

except for spirits…those are currently just bad for any kind of build i can come up with imo. :P

since axe skill #5 can block projectiles and inflicts decent damage to all surrounding close enemies, why not try that one out at your offhand?

or if you do like condition damage, i’d go with a torch. it also leaves behind a “combofield” – so if you throw you axe or swap to any bow, you’ll trigger a “projectile finisher” which burns your target.

trial&error, fellow ranger.

I’m very fond of the axe in any sort of setting.

PvE: With no investment in marksmanship, it’s you’re only way to deal damage to multiple enemies at a range.

WvW: Same deal as PvE, but 1v1 fights are also somewhat important here. The axe is an amazing weapon against fellow rangers and other profession’s if they’re attempting to fight with an inferior partner. The bows are far better for seige situations as well, especially the Longbow. But the axe is probably your best way to fight a zerg rush.

PvP: Once again, great against anyone with pets and will rip apart any opposition dumb enough to stand near each other. The chill on the axe can also mess some players up considerably and will guarantee your pet will hit with anything that isn’t drake breath. Ricochet will also raze a heavily fortified turret engi with great efficiency. But once again, nothing beats the Longbow at controlling space.

Axe is good for multiple targets and arguably the best 1 v 1 weapon due to the weakness that it gives.

Coming from someone who has used Ranger axe A LOT (I have Frostfang for god’s sake), axe is not good for ANY pvp situations.

It has little to no survivability and single-target damage is nonexistent.

In WvW and sPvP, ranger shortbow is much, much more useful, since it has a lot of survivability (cripples, evades, dazes), and does a lot of single target damage.

Yeah, what attracted me to the axe was its ability to hit multiple targets. In my experience it is slightly stronger than the short-bow auto attack and hits more targets (pierce overall doesn’t seem as reliable for hitting multiple targets from my experience). And also I can equip an offhand like maybe a warhorn (still deciding, idk yet) and then switching to a longbow for longer range.

I just wasn’t sure if it was a popular choice since I don’t hear of an axe main hand very often

I use Axe/Warhorn to go with my longbow in WvW. Though the truth is I don’t like any of the Ranger’s melee weapons all that much.

But, with that being said, I find Axe 1 to be helpful when fighting a more numerous foe as it bounces on three targets. It’s not great damage. I’ll not pretend it is. But in big engagements, the whole mano-et-mano dueling thing doesn’t work very well…

Plus as I need the speed boost Warhorn 5 gives me and Warhorn 4 does some very good damage… Also, Axe 3 is pretty good in that it has chill and lets your pet’s next attack inflict weakness. Plus, unlike the sword, the animation requirements don’t foul up my fighting style…

In the end, though, it’s the better of two options that don’t thrill me…

jwaz.1908:

Coming from someone who has used Ranger axe A LOT (I have Frostfang for god’s sake), axe is not good for ANY pvp situations.

It has little to no survivability and single-target damage is nonexistent.

In WvW and sPvP, ranger shortbow is much, much more useful, since it has a lot of survivability (cripples, evades, dazes), and does a lot of single target damage.

:rollseyes:

But doesn’t give a speed boost which means you’re burning a Utility Slot to get your 25% flat boost. And even that’s not all that great as you’re going to get caught from behind by all the 33% speed boosters who can catch you fairly quickly.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how many rangers I’ve offed on my warrior who maintains a constant 33% boost because they think that 25% constant is ‘good enough.’ Only to find out that when we’ve blown through the front-line of the enemy zerg to wipe the back-line first… They have just found out that, no, it isn’t…

(And yes, you can have a constant 33% boost with a warrior. It’s easy to do.)

I find the signet really only works well in the zerg when you’re being boosted by all the warhorns and elementalists. And, of course, if you miss a few boosts, or you’re on a havoc squad, you’re ending up at the end of the conga line and ripe for being picked off as a straggler.

Personally, I think short-bow is a great weapon, especially for dueling. And can be quite useful in a zerg if you’re replacing the longbow you equip for sieges. But I think your advice is a clear failure in general WvW where sustained speed really does matter.

In tpvp and hotjoins I’ve been running a bunker style with this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnY8fjEV91BWKWo2Bi2DN1fM9eEL23eXB/XwlE;TwAg2CrosxYjwGrNObk2s8Y4xeh5CA

It’s a pretty standard variation of a BM build. I choose SoR over LR for a mass condi removal on my stun breaker, since I have enough vigor without LR and don’t find the effect to be that beneficial in this build.
Weapon swapping is key, I doubled up on sigils of Geomancy for maximum bleed stacking potential, and I only doubled up on minor corruption because I haven’t found a better alternative so far. The build plays around constant weapon swapping to get a flow of all of the conditions you can output from both sets. If done right, burning, bleeding, and poison can have almost, if not, 100% uptime.

Dolyak runes for more defensive and health regen. It is an extremely tanky build. I switch around the Empathic Bond and Bark Skin depending on the enemies team comp.

MosesZD.7428:

jwaz.1908:

Coming from someone who has used Ranger axe A LOT (I have Frostfang for god’s sake), axe is not good for ANY pvp situations.

It has little to no survivability and single-target damage is nonexistent.

In WvW and sPvP, ranger shortbow is much, much more useful, since it has a lot of survivability (cripples, evades, dazes), and does a lot of single target damage.

:rollseyes:

But doesn’t give a speed boost which means you’re burning a Utility Slot to get your 25% flat boost. And even that’s not all that great as you’re going to get caught from behind by all the 33% speed boosters who can catch you fairly quickly.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how many rangers I’ve offed on my warrior who maintains a constant 33% boost because they think that 25% constant is ‘good enough.’ Only to find out that when we’ve blown through the front-line of the enemy zerg to wipe the back-line first… They have just found out that, no, it isn’t…

(And yes, you can have a constant 33% boost with a warrior. It’s easy to do.)

I find the signet really only works well in the zerg when you’re being boosted by all the warhorns and elementalists. And, of course, if you miss a few boosts, or you’re on a havoc squad, you’re ending up at the end of the conga line and ripe for being picked off as a straggler.

Personally, I think short-bow is a great weapon, especially for dueling. And can be quite useful in a zerg if you’re replacing the longbow you equip for sieges. But I think your advice is a clear failure in general WvW where sustained speed really does matter.

I wasn’t saying warhorn is bad for WvW, in fact warhorn is amazing in WvW, but don’t use axe mainhand, because it absolutely sucks in pvp. Sword would be much better especially if you get into smaller skirmishes or have 1v1 encounters.

Also, keep in mind you can switch weapons from your inventory while not in combat, so you can swap warhorn in for the speed buff, then swap out again for another preferred weapon.

i run beserker axe/axe with the trait 10% more crit dmg when axe is equipped on mh… the axe offhand 4 hits like a truck and when traited can be used fairly often… pretty strong in conjunction with the axe mh #3 with chill n weakness

I run Axe/Torch with Sword/Dagger

Take that for what you will.

After using it for over 2 months, I would say main hand ax is a melee condition damage weapon.
- Ax flight speed makes it so that you won’t be hitting most of the time if the target is moving (and has a brain).
- Splitblade (ax 2) is best used pointblank.
- Anything power related (power/precision/crit damage) is only affecting “half” your damage (you direct damage is scaled down to compensate for pet direct damage and gear stats don’t transfer to pets).
- Anything condition related (condition damage/duration) will affect all your conditions fully.

That said, pair it with a torch.

Axe auto is complete garbage. Axe is there for the 3rd skill chill, splitblade at pointblank, and simply because it’s the only ranged weapon that lets you bring a second offhand.

Its not a super great Power weapon I’ll say that, but for conditions its not bad.

5 Stack Bleed/Chill/Weakness is great for PvP, esp the Weakness.

Zenith.7301:

Axe auto is complete garbage. Axe is there for the 3rd skill chill, splitblade at pointblank, and simply because it’s the only ranged weapon that lets you bring a second offhand.

This. With the build I posted above, the only reason I don’t run shortbow is because without crits, I find the axe to be the more damaging condition weapon since the bleeds are applied easier than the shortbow. That, and since it is a bunker build, the chill with the pets attack applying weakness can really make a difference.

Yeah the axe is very weak. At launch I used it from 1-80 with the shortbow (and I didn’t even know about traiting peircing arrows at the time). I also used it in dungeons a lot with war horn off hand. As soon as they buffed Signet of the Hunt I dropped the axe (I no longer needed the war horn for swiftness). When I tried the axe again recently (I was looking to build a support ranger and wanted the war horn – I despise the sword root problem so axe is my only choice) and even with permanent Fury from red moa and Call of the Wild, full berserker’s gear and traited to do 10% more crit damage with axe main hand, I found the weapon to be very underwhelming.

Ironically the main strength of the weapon is negated by the two bows once you trait piercing arrows. It’s a terrible AoE weapon and it has no way to trait it to hit more than three targets (or bounce back to the original target). Staff eles can make their AoE larger, rangers can hit multiple foes in a line, most other weapons can hit more targets but not the ranger axe, including the other two (superior) ranged ranger options. It encourages you to build crit damage although it feels more like a condition damage weapon (from Splitblade bleeds and the weapons shorter range than the two bows has more synergy with throwing traps). Honed Axes also competes with trapper traits as well as 20% cooldown on bows which a lot of builds will want. On top of that, I can boost all five skills of my bows with a single trait (both Piercing Arrows and Quick Draw boost both bows). The axe is only boosted by Honed Axes and the offhand trait only boosts the last two skills (possibly four if you also run a dagger or a warhorn). Splitblade is bizarrely most effective as a melee attack (at maximum range it’s mediocre).

Why chill and weaken when I can cripple (barrage, crippleing shot) and evade/avoid (greater range on the two bows, quick shot, point blank shot, serpent’s strike etc)? I also don’t have to rely on my pet to land a hit to weaken, we all know what happens when you rely on your pet to respond.

It does bad single target damage and it doesn’t perform the AoE role very well. It has less options to trait for it and the options it does have aren’t very good. It’s more effective in melee range despite being a ranged weapon and the other weapon options tend to offer more. Mostly it has a bad auto-attack which doesn’t do good single target damage, nor does it provide better AoE damage than other options.

Zenith.7301:

Axe auto is complete garbage. Axe is there for the 3rd skill chill, splitblade at pointblank, and simply because it’s the only ranged weapon that lets you bring a second offhand.

Axe auto is amazing in certain situations, such as weakening mobs in dungeons, but for pvp circumstances yes it is quite horrible.

Seetoo.9316:

After using it for over 2 months, I would say main hand ax is a melee condition damage weapon.
- Ax flight speed makes it so that you won’t be hitting most of the time if the target is moving (and has a brain).
- Splitblade (ax 2) is best used pointblank.
- Anything power related (power/precision/crit damage) is only affecting “half” your damage (you direct damage is scaled down to compensate for pet direct damage and gear stats don’t transfer to pets).
- Anything condition related (condition damage/duration) will affect all your conditions fully.

That said, pair it with a torch.

While this can be true, if traited (10% crit dmg), axe can also be a great zerker weapon.

EDIT: I also might add that axe auto doesn’t apply damaging conditions, only axe 2 does, so most of the time, axe is a zerker weapon.

I’ll also add that on crits, my auto attack does around 14-1600 per bounce, which isn’t that low of damage (for rangers at least).