Guild Wars 2

I feel like the offhand axe lacks purpose.

The #5 ability would be great if it continuously counted as a Whirl finisher, rather than just on it’s activation, as the ability to do damage and stack vulnerability is fantastic in PvE. However, being immobile makes it a poor PvP skill.

The #4 ability is really only effective as a projectile finisher. It’s a total throwaway skill outside of that. For this reason, I would propose that it works like the Chieftain’s axe does – that it pulls in enemies hit on the return flight. This would give it a lot more synergy with other abilities, such as pulling enemies into traps or grouping mobs for AoEing with #5.

Opinions?

I think the 5 ability has use in PvP, I personally combine it with Sigil of Stone and wait til I’m surrounded by enemies to become immune to damage and make them wonder where all their health went. It is also useful when fighting other rangers who refuse to switch from a short or longbow in melee since I can reflect all their projectiles back at them and many times they won’t notice. It would be much nicer if we could move while using it, though.

The 4th skill is pretty useless, I must say. If it would pull enemies it hit towards us it would be very useful, or inflicted a cripple or bleed or something, maybe just double damage on someone it hit both coming and going? Because right now its damage just isn’t high enough to really make it useful for much of anything. Maybe if they drastically reduced the cooldown on it so you could spam it faster and give you a ranged offhand option that could do steady damage?

I think it would be better if given some kind of status effect, or the pull like you suggested, or maybe just a knockback/knockdown depending which direction the axe was going when it hit you?

Actually, a boomerang pull-in on the return flight would be quite reasonable. Axes are ranged weapons, but they benefit from being in close quarters, such as the shotgun effect of Splitblade or the splash AoE when you reflect projectiles with Whirling Defense.

That would be quite an elegant solution to making offhand Axe appealing.