Guild Wars 2

My main is a Warrior and I’ve always wanted to throw his Axes around. But alas… So I’m thinking of starting a Ranger. But everyone I see use Longbow/Shortbow as their two weapons… So… how viable are Axes?

i use offhand axe. path of scars got a buff and it’s now our best “burst”. the axe 5 is mostly useless in wvwv and okay in pve

Offhand axe is great for solo karka farming. I just run up to them, hit #5 right when they start shooting, and by the time I’m done spinning they’re either dead or one kitty-crit away from it.

I – LOVE – MH axe. Change weapon sets all the time, but i just can’t leave home without Axe+warhorn. I really think people underestimate its damage, in situations where piercing arrows only hit 2 or less targets, axe gets the edge in dps, and you don’t even have to position yourself. It’s also great in events, as stuff dies so quickly that the homing rebounds are a blessing to tag mobs.
Skill 2 is also decent if you get a good number of mobs packed together, due to the penetration…

I can’t stand offhand axe thou. Path of scars is still “meh” after the buff, and whirling would be good if it didnt freeze you in place. Only use it when i NEED the deflection, like in some fractals, due to the lack of alternatives – and quickly unequip it after i’m done.

I agree with Aegis, I love the AoE potential of MH Axe, the chill from #3 is also very helpful, and with Honed Axes trait with a power/crit build you’ll see nice numbers specially ikittenerg in WvW.
OH Axe is very lackluster so far, if you could move during Axe #5 (like Warrior’s oh axe #5) it would improve by a lot, but until then it is the worst OH weapon we have.

If a ranger wants to use an off hand weapon then you get a choice of axe (range) or sword (melee) for the main hand. The main hand axe works best for a mobile skirmish against a small groups of mobs. Bows tend to be better for longer ranges, single target dps, or very large groups. The axes work well at triggering combo fields.

In my opinion the axes are not there as a main weapon for all content and lack good skills such as an interrupt or evade. They are still fine for a weapon swap with choice of off-hand.

Well.

I’m sure us Warriors would gladly teach you how to move while spinning if you teach us how to reflect stuff!

Heh. Thanks for the input you guys.

vespers.1759:

i use offhand axe. path of scars got a buff and it’s now our best “burst”. the axe 5 is mostly useless in wvwv and okay in pve

Just thought I should clarify this; the 85% damage increase only applies to Path of Scars if you did not trait Off Hand Training, which you should trait if you are using off hand axe if not purely for the cooldown reduction. I’m not sure whether the tooltip of the trait is wrong or path of scars when untraited was nerfed and they forgot to update the tooltips but now the skill, traited or untraited, does the same damage.

Basically it wasn’t a buff at all.

Wispy.8679:

Just thought I should clarify this; the 85% damage increase only applies to Path of Scars if you did not trait Off Hand Training.

Well, I tried it out on patch day – the damage on tooltip went up (by 85%) compared to pre-patch and was not reduced when selecting either axe/offhand-specific trait. Damage on mobs was identical traited/untraited too, i.e. no nerf. Has this changed since?

Vadrillan.9185:

Wispy.8679:

Just thought I should clarify this; the 85% damage increase only applies to Path of Scars if you did not trait Off Hand Training.

Well, I tried it out on patch day – the damage on tooltip went up (by 85%) compared to pre-patch and was not reduced when selecting either axe/offhand-specific trait. Damage on mobs was identical traited/untraited too, i.e. no nerf. Has this changed since?

No, that was what I was trying to explain. If you had Off Hand Training traited pre-patch it would have been doing the same damage as it would be doing now. If you did not have it traited it would have been doing less pre-patch but now they do the same, a change I assume was to reduce the impact of the trait and also to make the description correct for it.

Ah, gotcha. Shame we didn’t get an actual buff

I love them as an offand for PvE. Whirling is an amazing skill.

i love MH axe, it’s one of the strongest weapons rangers get imho – one of only a few ways we can apply weakness, and chill is always great. Also it’s great vs other rangers cos it hits the ranger twice and the pet once for every throw XD

I’m almost always carrying an axe as my ranged weapon. I like to fight in the midline (infront of the glass cannons, but behind the melee guys), which isn’t a strict thing in Guildwars 2 due to all the moving but you get the idea. My preference for midline combat is a mix of practicality and the fact that I want to be able to jump into melee every so often.

Basically, that gives two weapon options (because Longbows don’t encourage being anywhere near your foe), shortbow and longbow. The shortbow has nice utility to it, but the axe’s multi-hitting without the need for traits makes it my weapon of choice, plus frostbite’s kinda nuts.

Also, the Axe doesn’t have part of a large portion of its damage as conditions, making it work better with my cleric’s stuff.

For PvE, I think it’s very viable.

I use axe mainhand almost exclusively. For offhands, I’ll pick two of warhorn, torch, or axe, depending on where I am. I use battle sigils of the offhands to keep might up on swap, and offhand training to bring the 25 sec cooldowns down to 20 to match swap speed. It works well for me.

Relative to a bow, I get the constant AOE bounce, so adds drop without retargetting, and a lot of utility from the offhands, at the cost of range and single-target focus. And, of course, I have to kill a lot of wandering moas that pull a stray bounce.

Axe/warhorn or Axe /Torch make great secondary sets if you like to stay mobile.