Guild Wars 2

Hi everybody

I just want to know your opinion about this particular trait, which is one of the granmaster traits of the beastmastery line.

Currently, this trait is really inferior compared to the other two, zephir´s Speed and Beastly Warden, becaust this trait only gives like %10 critical damage and makes axe 3 explode on impact (only if it hits your target, doesnt explode if it hits the ground of a wall), and give a -%20 recharge time on axes wich is standard of weapon especific traits.

So, here is my idea

Rename trait because it will now affect both speargun and axes

DESCRIPTION: “Gain precision when wielding an axe or a speargun, axes or speargun skills recharge faster and have improved effects”

Both speargun and axe effects
+150 presicion
20% recharge reduction (stack with lead the wind for speargun????)

Axe effects

Ricochet: +1 bounces (so it bounces 3 times now)
Splitblade: +50% direct damage per axe and fires 2 extra axes (so it hits like 2 ricochets of direct damage now instead of 1 and deals increased condition damage)
Winter´s bite: explodes on impact (Just like now)
Path of scars: Knocks back on the first hit
Whirling defense: Increased radius and grants 5 seconds of 5 stacks of stability (this stability is removed as soon as you cancel the skill similar to old mortar)

Speargun effects

Splinter shot: Pierces (similar to engineers coated bullets trait that doesent exist now)
Coral shot: +900% damage (so its damage is similar to 1 hit of path of scars)
Feeding frenzy: Increased radius to 360
Mercy shot: Knocks back 300 units
Ink spray: Increased backwards distance by 50%

And thats it im eager to hear your opinions

Edit: switched aegis for stability and changed some others axe effects

pretty good. winter’s bite aoe needs to be baseline and whirling defense needs a rework.

whirling def needs stability not aegis , try using it now and you end up on your kitten v quickly and once you get knocked, stunned feared etc it drops of you so you would never get 6 or 7 aegis.

there is too much wrong with WD, there’s no point in discussing it until its channel time is halved and until it’s castable while moving. or completely reworked.

mistsim.2748:

there is too much wrong with WD, there’s no point in discussing it until its channel time is halved and until it’s castable while moving. or completely reworked.

It would be a neat skill if it hit harder and had less hits (that retaliation :O).

I think it is a great skill idea it just functions poorly since a lot of ranged attacks in this game aren’t projectiles, same way swirling winds on ele is pretty easy to ignore although it doesn’t require you to stand still and channel it.

As far as the GM trait goes, I kind of dislike how it is critical based and yet it is in the BM traitline, same with GS. It used to be in skirmishing and I enjoyed using power axes but I guess it was supposed to be that kind of kite set for pet users. I believe this trait and many other 1h weapon specific traits should be more of a “per weapon” type of bonus and effect the whole set more than just 1 skill such as:

Honed Axes: Gain ferocity for each axe you have equipped. Axe skills recharge 20% faster and winter’s bite is now an AoE skill (ground targeted). Ferocity 200. (I know warrior has 150 on theirs, but axe also hits extremely kitten warrior)

-Ricochet: Increase might gain to 4 seconds to benefit a power attack more, vs only really helping conditions.

-Splitblade: decrease pre cast, has a tendency to cancel extremely easy if target gets slightly to the side.

-Path of scars: Relocate a large sum of damage to the first part, allow return as soon as it hits an obstacle since it rarely ever returns.

-Whirling Defenses: Reduce number of hits to 8, increase base damage and power scale by 33%(33% less hits, so buff damage). Increase projectile reflection radius to 240, increase vulnerability stacks to 2 per hit.

uri.6521:

Hi everybody

I just want to know your opinion about this particular trait, which is one of the granmaster traits of the beastmastery line.

Currently, this trait is really inferior compared to the other two, zephir´s Speed and Beastly Warden, becaust this trait only gives like %10 critical damage and makes axe 3 explode on impact (only if it hits your target, doesnt explode if it hits the ground of a wall), and give a -%20 recharge time on axes wich is standard of weapon especific traits.

So, here is my idea

Rename trait because it will now affect both speargun and axes

DESCRIPTION: “Gain precision when wielding an axe or a speargun, axes or speargun skills recharge faster and have improved effects”

Both speargun and axe effects
+150 presicion
20% recharge reduction (stack with lead the wind for speargun????)

Axe effects

Ricochet: +1 bounces (so it bounces 3 times now)
Splitblade: +100% damage (so it hits like 2 ricochets of direct damage now instead of 1)
Winter´s bite: explodes on impact (Just like now)
Path of scars: Knocks back on the first hit
Whirling defense: Increased radius and grants 5 seconds of 5 stacks of stability (this stability is removed as soon as you cancel the skill similar to old mortar)

Speargun effects

Splinter shot: Pierces (similar to engineers coated bullets trait that doesent exist now)
Coral shot: +900% damage (so its damage is similar to 1 hit of path of scars)
Feeding frenzy: Increased radius to 360
Mercy shot: Knocks back 300 units
Ink spray: Increased backwards distance by 50%

And thats it im eager to hear your opinions

Edit: switched aegis for stability

Whirling axe being able to move should be baseline.

NinjaEd.3946:

mistsim.2748:

there is too much wrong with WD, there’s no point in discussing it until its channel time is halved and until it’s castable while moving. or completely reworked.

It would be a neat skill if it hit harder and had less hits (that retaliation :O).

.

my suggestion was to simply reduce its cast time to 2.5 (keeping damage the same) and make it castable while moving. this is bare bones though…even then im not sure id take the weapon.

Only things I can get behind is Winter’s Bite AOE becoming baseline and an extra bounce on Ricochet.

mistsim.2748:

my suggestion was to simply reduce its cast time to 2.5 (keeping damage the same) and make it castable while moving. this is bare bones though…even then im not sure id take the weapon.

Not a really good idea.
That suggestion would be good to rise the DPS, but would lower the utility, people usually use WD for its projectile reflection, lower the duration would reduce the time it reflects.

Whirling Defense needs the increased radius rolled in as baseline anyways. It’s one of those weapons that will just be worse of it they bundle all the enhancements into traits, leaving the baseline skills pretty.. bad.

Belzebu.3912:

mistsim.2748:

my suggestion was to simply reduce its cast time to 2.5 (keeping damage the same) and make it castable while moving. this is bare bones though…even then im not sure id take the weapon.

Not a really good idea.
That suggestion would be good to rise the DPS, but would lower the utility, people usually use WD for its projectile reflection, lower the duration would reduce the time it reflects.

Not necessarily, other skills have a shorter channel than their reflect.

In that case it would be very nice to have the the channel time reduced.

Honed axes doesn’t need a rework.

Mainhand axe and whirling defense do.

Mainhand axe is a hybrid weapon much like shortbow, which is what makes them garbage because they neither excel as condition or power weapons, and they don’t benefit fully from armor choice since the coefficients for power are low and these condi weapons don’t really apply aoe condi like engineer grenades or warrior longbow/swords or necro marks.

To start with, their change to the mainhand axe autoattack is so dumb. Profoundly dumb. It has miserable autoattack damage, and their solution is to give it some short might stacks on target bounce? A wet noodle with might still hits like a wet noodle.

So buff the kitten autoattack damage for mainhand axe, greatsword, hell all ranger autos except longbow need buffing.

Buff the power coefficients for all of mainhand axe skills so it serves as a power weapon to benefit from honed axes’ 10% extra crit dmg trait.

Allow whirling defense to be cast while moving, replace the useless retaliation with protection/stability, and increase the damage of the channel. The damage for the cast time of the skills is really bad.

Increase the radius of whirling defense, it’s pitiful.

Path of Scars should be a cone instead of just a line and pull the mobs completely where the ranger is. Alternatively, the first hit should cause a 1 second knockdown and the second should be the pull.

Cause Splitblade to apply poison or vulnerability, and increase the vulnerability duration. Winter’s Bite should bounce baseline, and the Honed Axes trait should simply apply the Slow condition and give quickness to the pet, and add Torment to Splitblade.

Since longbow barrage is such a bad aoe skill, I get the feeling mainhand axe was supposed to be our cleaving/aoe ranged weapon, but it isn’t. It’s a shotgun weapon in current design with a wimpy bouncing autoattack that is neither strong enough for a power build nor applies bleeding/poison as any condi weapon’s autoattacks do.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Not necessarily, other skills have a shorter channel than their reflect.

Yeah, but those 3 other skills are more personal-based reflections, one of which is a heal, and can be used on the move. Whirling Defense design is more akin to group-wide reflections which, for the most part, are stationary once used.

WD should also go back to being multiple whirl finishers, like, 12.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Not necessarily, other skills have a shorter channel than their reflect.

Yeah, but those 3 other skills are more personal-based reflections, one of which is a heal, and can be used on the move. Whirling Defense design is more akin to group-wide reflections which, for the most part, are stationary once used.

Those other stationary skills are also much larger and effective at reflecting incoming projectiles against a group, they are drop and forget (which means you can use other skills in the meantime, unlike whirling defense which locks you down in a channel), and most of them also serve as combo fields, not to mention those reflects can be used from RANGE.

This is the Ranger class after all – can’t have everything. :P

Not just the rangers, necros are in a similar boat and mesmers only exist as portal/time warp bots in PvE, otherwise they would get booted for guardians instead.

Utility is nice and all, but the ability to output top tier DPS is essential so the class doesn’t devolve into a gimmick class set to prop up the main classes (ele, warrior, thief).

There are a lot of bad ideas in this thread… Some of them would kill axe mainhand for condi users in spvp, some of them would kill axe off hand for pve and our only reflects/aoe pull. The good ones are changing from ferocity to precision and the reduction of splitblade precast. Axe main is only good as a condi weapon, and it’s not effective either in pve or pvp with power gear.

apocalypso.4895:

There are a lot of bad ideas in this thread… Some of them would kill axe mainhand for condi users in spvp, some of them would kill axe off hand for pve and our only reflects/aoe pull. The good ones are changing from ferocity to precision and the reduction of splitblade precast. Axe main is only good as a condi weapon, and it’s not effective either in pve or pvp with power gear.

all weapons should be useful for condi AND power builds. they must change their design philosophy. the individual weapon skills need to scale better, depending on how the player chooses the stats. for instance, Split Blade should receive a 300% bonus to the “white damage” portion with zerker stats, and 0% bonus to the condi portion. Honed Axes trait was a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough.

Traited Winterbite should become a ground target projectile that explodes on impact like Combustive Shot so you can use it while retreating.

Whirlwind Defense should give 1 stack of stability when traited and have its damage doubled baseline.

mistsim.2748:

all weapons should be useful for condi AND power builds. they must change their design philosophy.

This would require redesigning all weapons. Weapons take in consideration in their design what kind of role you’re supposed to fit with them, and restrict you based on that, the design not only considers weapons itself, but class mechanics, traits, and lastly gear. What you’re suggesting is that they make all weapons hybrid, which would break the game in many ways. Now if you change that to “all hybrid weapons…” then I agree.

apocalypso.4895:

There are a lot of bad ideas in this thread… Some of them would kill axe mainhand for condi users in spvp, some of them would kill axe off hand for pve and our only reflects/aoe pull. The good ones are changing from ferocity to precision and the reduction of splitblade precast. Axe main is only good as a condi weapon, and it’s not effective either in pve or pvp with power gear.

Axe mainhand is only bad as a power weapon BECAUSE ITS AUTOATTACK HAS MISERABLE DAMAGE.

There’s a reason the auto is power based and not an autoattack that applies bleeds/poison/torment.

The weapon and its related traits were treated as meant to be hybrid power weapons, but obviously that doesn’t work.

Zenith.7301:

Axe mainhand is only bad as a power weapon BECAUSE ITS AUTOATTACK HAS MISERABLE DAMAGE.

No… with higher dmg for a power build on aa you would still have 0 mobility, 0 team support, 0 evades, 1 situational soft cc and a useless skill (splitblade). = bad.

axe/axe is the perfect opportunity to give the ranger a CC-heavy weapon set. there should be a block in there, and path of scars should be a massive attack that changes the ground to create a wall or a ditch or something. split blade needs to be more appropriate for power builds, and ricochet probably needs a 200% buff on power builds so that it crits for at least 1.5k per throw.

sadly, I feel staff will get all the cool new tech (as I assumed, only the elite specs are looking shiny while the old weapons are getting left in the dust) and axes will get ignored once again.

what puzzles me is how the devs still don’t understand why a/a fails on power builds after THREE YEARS. the recent patch was an opportunity to fix axes, SB and warhorn and they missed it AGAIN. it’s just so frustrating, but least 2/3 of our weapons are usable.

Winter Bite should be grount targeted,
Splitblade should be a flip skill “block the next attack” flip send 5 axe to your foe bleeding then and make 500% more damage

apocalypso.4895:

Zenith.7301:

Axe mainhand is only bad as a power weapon BECAUSE ITS AUTOATTACK HAS MISERABLE DAMAGE.

No… with higher dmg for a power build on aa you would still have 0 mobility, 0 team support, 0 evades, 1 situational soft cc and a useless skill (splitblade). = bad.

It’s a ranged aoe weapon on a power build since you use it for the bouncing autoattack. Why in hell would you need mobility on it.

And the 0 team support and situational soft cc applies just as much to 1h sword, nobody gives a kitten about crippling talon.

In fact, pretty much all ranger weapons are lacking on damage, team support, aoe, and aoe CC, it’s why ranger is an inferior class in pretty much any format.

apocalypso.4895:

Zenith.7301:

Axe mainhand is only bad as a power weapon BECAUSE ITS AUTOATTACK HAS MISERABLE DAMAGE.

No… with higher dmg for a power build on aa you would still have 0 mobility, 0 team support, 0 evades, 1 situational soft cc and a useless skill (splitblade). = bad.

Axe is a great condi weapon. If the enemy eat splitblade fully, he is looking at 4k damage in a 6 second cooldown. This is like eating Dragon’s Tooth.

Splitblade is very easy to land as well. You simply need a soft CC so they cannot just walk away. So it is very easy to land that splitblade.

Cripple shot, Crippling Talon and Winter’s bite are great soft CC, they share one thing in common: They have very low cooldowns.

Zenith.7301:

It’s a ranged aoe weapon on a power build since you use it for the bouncing autoattack. Why in hell would you need mobility on it.

Remove 5 and 3 from thieves SB and see how many of them will use it in pvp… that’s the buffed aa axe that you’re asking for.

apocalypso.4895:

Zenith.7301:

It’s a ranged aoe weapon on a power build since you use it for the bouncing autoattack. Why in hell would you need mobility on it.

Remove 5 and 3 from thieves SB and see how many of them will use it in pvp… that’s the buffed aa axe that you’re asking for.

…..

Is this a serious question? Because if so, it’s pretty dumb and ignorant.

Of course they’d still use SB because

1) It’s their only aoe weapon
2) It’s a ranged weapon with very potent aoe in cluster bomb, a spammable blast finisher you can keep blasting on water fields to keep your melee train healed up or to stack might for fire fields.
3) It has a poison field that can be blasted by cluster bomb for weakness
4) it’s kittening awesome for team fights or zerg clashes where thieves can’t go into melee without getting vaporized

By your silly logic, necro staff is worthless because it neither has evades or leaps or really any escape features built in. The obvious answer to that argument, and the same holds for longbow rangers whose sole line of defense against a melee trait, which is unaffected by a single target knockback or stealth….

IS TO POSITION WELL.

I think honed Axes should effect axes in general…
My idea is sth. like this:

- Winters bite becomes ground targeted (as it is atm)
- All axe skills have -20% recharge (as it is atm)
- Axe 1 has a 33% chance to inflict bleeding (5s) on hit
- Gain 150 Ferocity when wielding an axe in the off-hand.
- Increase reflection-radius for whirling defence by 66% (150 new)

In my opinion this would be GM worse.

Axe is a very odd weapon set outside of a condition heavy build. The idea of a single tier auto attack applying might means they can never really buff it too much or it becomes easily broken but leaving it where its at does no good either for lasting far too short to make any real use of it.

Some new ideas to bounce around, I think MH axe could become a pet-centric weapon while OH axe would become the aoe ranger’s want.

Change
(1) Ricochet: Increase might duration to 7 seconds, change to only apply might to your pet. Increase base damage by 20%.

(2) Splitblade: Decrease cast time to 1/2 second.

(3) Winter’s bite: Make it a ground targeted aoe skill baseline. Increase power scale to 0.9 and base damage by 20%. This skill is now a blast finisher.

(4) Path of scars: Add cripple effect (2 seconds), relocate all damage to first part, change projectile to automatically return upon hitting an obstacle.

(5) Whirling Defense: Lessen number of hits to 8, increase vulnerability stacks to 2 per hit, increase radius of projectile reflection to 180, remove retaliation and add effect “Break Stun”, increase damage by 33% (33% less hits).

(Trait) Honed Axes: Reduced recharge on axe skills by 20%. Increase ferocity by 150 for each axe equipped. Projectiles reflected by whirling defense deal 30% more damage.

Reason

(1) This skill is now entirely meant for a pet build to get heavy might stacks while you keep ranged.

(2) As far as damage and potency, this skill does its job however it has a common problem of going on cooldown if an enemy gets slightly to far to your side.

(3) This helps with kiting a lot and also provides a little more group utility being a blast finisher which is something ranger tends to lack. Since this skill is not a projectile finisher even without the AoE trait, it should be defined in some means of a finisher.

(4) The cripple effect means it will have an easier time landing on an enemy on the return and the obstacle part means the infinite ways this skill can disappear no longer happens.

(5) This gives enemies something to fear should they get to close to you since you have to stand still and channel it. I think allowing movement with this skill would be like giving 100b movement in the sense that it would look really funky. It’s a neat channel skill, but for 5 seconds you should get some real return from it if you have to stand in a bunch of AoE’s + the added stun breaker quality gives OH axe a nice defensive option no matter your enemy’s weapon of choice. The less but stronger hits helps deal with retaliation and more vulnerability stacks should hurt melee builds a little more.

(Trait) Given oh axe is more of the direct damage based of the 2, the ferocity per axe means you can actually see use of that stat either way you put them on, and the additional projectile reflection damage makes WD a real danger for enemies of that type since you have to stand and channel it when there are so many ranged attacks that do not count as a projectile.

Zenith.7301:

blablabla

I’m talking about spvp only, not wvw, the game is balanced over 5v5 conquest in which there are roles to fill…
Necros are designed to be resilient and have low mobility, and they don’t fill the same role thieves do neither work the same way.
But sure, you can keep thinking more damage and positioning is the answer to everything.

Didn’t get a chance to read comments, but I did read original. I think the axe has a place, but it does need baseline buffs or trait buffs. In place of your trait, I agree with your 1 and 3. Extra bounces and the aoe are nice. It embodies the axe wanting aoe. The rest is not quite right with me.

2: Increase bleed duration by 50%, add 2 stacks of bleeding (so about 40% damage and 50% duration at end point)
4: Speed up the projectile. Make it more reliable. At end of pull (it goes out for good damage, and comes in for good damage) it now knocks target down, after all axes are super heavy.
5: Take reduced damage (25%?), gain stability per pulse just like retaliation, and expand the bubble either over time or just by a static 30-45%. As the skill is now, its ok. You have to combo correctly and so far I can’t get the full damage without my Drakehound swap for quickness+immobilize. It doesn’t need to queue faster, because it reflects projectiles and thats handy.

Anywho, just my 2 or 3 cents. Hope I didn’t run over any toes, didn’t have time to read all the comments and I apologize if I did. I know nothing of speargun.

Honed Axes; “You gain +150 condition damge while wielding an Axe in your mainhand, you gain +150 ferocity while wielding an Axe in your offhand. Axe skills recharge 20% faster. Winter’s Bite is now an AoE skill, Path of Scars moves 100% faster and you can move while channelling Whirling Defense.”

Now that you say that, i think that the skill 2 effect was too power oriented, and since its the only axe condition damage skill it should increase condition damage output in some way, so i changed it to fire 2 extra axes for 2 extra stacks of bleeding, while keeping similar power damage output compared to my previous idea.

On path of scars im sure it would be more reliable my idea compared toyours, since the first knockbak would lock your target just enough for the second hit to come making it more cc heavy and reliable that your option of only increasing the speed of the axe and adding knockdown at the end.

Also, i dont think adding some or all of this chages into baseline would be a good idea, because thats how things become OP, and this changes are all very powerfull to be added into baseline just like that.

Agreed, but the whole purpose behind skill 4 is control. Maybe both of our ideas? Or would that be too much? Skill 4 into 5 recently worked in a 1v1 duel (people tell me Sword/Axe Shortbow is bad when you build zerker…pfft) that also made me win because 6k damage. So, skill 4 sets the hit and then you either transition into gs for a big hitter or skill 5 on axe for big hitter… Just trying to find a way to make this skill chain better WITHOUT making it broken.

To better address the 4 balance bit: Neither of ours would work alone (hence skillshots right). Mine would leash quicker, and would feel more rewarding because its a tad harder (imo). Yours would rely on them not having a stun breaker AND the axe basically acting like scorpion wire where it pushes out until it hits the target and then drags them in. The problem is stated: It would end up being a stronger scorpion wire. So again, combined? I mean, even just adding 25% speed to the out throw would be a massive buff as a stand alone. Not even counting anything in the trait. But to compensate, the pre-cast on skill 5 would have to be 25% shorter (as they are, you barely get skill 5 in time after you cast skill 4).

Just rambling, sorry if that didn’t make sense- tends to happen when I start trying to figure things out. I’m really bad at explaining my thoughts because they are just so jumbled XD

Just nix the ferocity bonus on the trait and make it cause the Axe autoattack apply bleed or torment instead.

roamzero.9486:

Just nix the ferocity bonus on the trait and make it cause the Axe autoattack apply bleed or torment instead.

Yeah, that would be nice. Torment please.