Guild Wars 2

The pull effect that was added to path of scars in today’s patch doesn’t fit in well with axe/axe in PvE.

When using a power build, axe/axe is one of the best choices available, and the most powerful skill that makes it worth using is path of scars. It does a good amount of damage, pierces enemies, and is worth using even if you couldn’t line up the second hit. To top it all off it was a projectile finisher with a 15 second cool-down, 12 if traited.

The problem with this patch is that this function of this skill won’t change. You’ll still be using it as often as possible for the damage output, only now it will be tossing enemies around every 12 seconds, pulling enemies away from your allies and towards you, annoying your team, and putting yourself at risk.

When looking at skill changes they need to take into account the impact it will have on all weapon combinations and game modes, but this didn’t happen. This update was directed far more towards the PvP and melee side, and didn’t account for the largely negative impact it would have on axe/axe in PvE.

Something which may be better suited for this skill would be a stun or daze. This would fit in with both melee and ranged play styles and would work great with the Moment of Clarity trait, which isn’t that popular due to the limited availability and long cool-downs on the current daze/stun skills, but would be amazing with path of scars.

EDIT:
Prehaps removing the pull wouldn’t be the best route as people seem to really like it in PvP and with sword/axe, and some even in PvE with axe/axe. But that doesn’t remove that this skill is a highly unreliable pull and how it was slapped on a skill which was previously meant for damage.
A better route than changing it to a stun or daze may be making the pull optional and more reliable.

It’s pretty clear they don’t even consider PvE or build diversity when they balance. The pull could have (and should have) been a traitable option. This would have preserved the skill’s place as a DPS skill for axe/axe rangers and allowed it to pull targets for melee builds (what are those?) when traited. Instead, ranged users will endanger themselves and inconvenience their party with unwanted pulls.

Regardless of whether it fits with the weapon or not, we finally have a skill that allows us to do some wall-fishing in WvW.

It works well with offhand axe itself. Pull enemies into melee range, then Whirling Defense to damage them. Throw down a trap during the axe flight to add even more oomph to the combo. So from that perspective it is a well-designed change. It adds synergy to the weapon where there was very little previously (a ranged attack and a melee defensive ability… not much synergy there at all).

The only “problem” is in the fact of it being a pretty drastic change to an existing skill (not just a buff, but a straight-up change) and when you change something like that, inevitably you’ll throw off the people who are used to it acting the old way. I for one am going to miss running Sword / Axe, throwing a trap down at my feet, then using #2 to dash away, Path of Scars to hit from range (and combo field) then jumping back in for another combo with Monarch’s Leap. Now the axe throw will pull enemies out of my trap, so that’s a no-go. Pulling them into traps will be neat, and I can leap afterwards I suppose.

I’d still say its a good change overall, though. Just going to take some getting used to.

Some would argue that mainhand Axe isn’t really meant for pure long-range combat anyway, due to Splitblade. And the new pull on offhand axe will work nicely with Splitblade, giving you an easier way to get enemies close.

And if you want pure range, you can always stick with Warhorn or Dagger offhand.

Shiren.9532:

It’s pretty clear they don’t even consider PvE or build diversity when they balance. The pull could have (and should have) been a traitable option. This would have preserved the skill’s place as a DPS skill for axe/axe rangers and allowed it to pull targets for melee builds (what are those?) when traited. Instead, ranged users will endanger themselves and inconvenience their party with unwanted pulls.

Having to use traits to add the pull effect sounds like a good idea.

Buddy.7563:

Regardless of whether it fits with the weapon or not, we finally have a skill that allows us to do some wall-fishing in WvW.

Since the axe floats along the ground, not thrown into the air, it cannot hit people on walls. It will simply hit the wall and come back to you.

Bri.8354:

Since the axe floats along the ground, not thrown into the air, it cannot hit people on walls. It will simply hit the wall and come back to you.

Ah. Haven’t really used offhand axe any so I didn’t know that and haven’t gotten in to test it yet. Thanks for the info though so I don’t waste any time on it.

Bri.8354:

The pull effect that was added to path of scars in today’s patch doesn’t fit in well with the weapon or other functions of the skill.

Prior to this patch the main function of path of scars was damage. It did a good amount of burst damage, pierced enemies, and was worth using even if you couldn’t line up the second hit. To top it all off it was a projectile finisher with a 15 second cool-down, 12 if traited.

With the introduction of pull this won’t change. It will still be a damage focused skill that is used frequently, only now it will be tossing enemies around every 12 seconds. This may not cause issues if you are using a sword/axe, but with axe/axe you will be pulling enemies away from your allies and towards you, annoying your team and putting yourself at risk.

Something which would be much more suited for this skill would be a stun or daze. This would fit in with both melee and ranged play styles and would work great with the Moment of Clarity trait, which isn’t that popular due to the limited availability and long cool-downs on the current daze/stun skills, but would be amazing with path of scars.

The best thing about the offhand axe was the LOL damage that you could do if you ran pure glass. Well, they put the stop on that with this new pull business since a GC pulling 5 guys back is a death wish.

I’m having a hard time trying to think of places on Borderlands where I could pull people off cliffs also.

So yeah, completely friggin’ useless in my books.

So today I ran some dungeons and tried to make the new pull work out for axe/axe, but overall it only caused problems.

Due to the nature of its flight and the pull, it feels so random every time you toss it. Will it bounce off a wall and return faster? Will it go off a cliff and not return at all? I threw it like 3 seconds ago, when will it pull someone if it does at all? Is an ally blocking the path of the enemy preventing them from being pulled the full distance?

Its so annoying to use because of these factors; you don’t know what the heck is going to happen most of the time after you throw it. If you expect to pull an enemy you feel frustrated when it doesn’t. If you don’t think it will pull an enemy you become shocked when you see it appear right in your face and start hitting you. Its just plain annoying.

Additionally If it does pull someone while you are moving forward your character will be blocked or walk into them. If you were targeting that opponent or using skills when they got pulled, those skills will be canceled and you will be unable to attack as they are behind you. This generally isn’t a problem with skills that serve as intentional instant pulls, but the long flight time and wild nature of the projectile doesn’t allow it to be used reliably.

In my hours playing today, trying to make the pull work out, I found few situations where it was useful. A few times I was able to help pull a stray enemy into the bundle my team had created, but far more often the skill pulled enemies away from my allies, caused me harm from tossing enemies right in my face, and stopping my attacks when the target ended up behind me when i was moving when they got pulled.

In conclusion, the pull effect can be useful in some situations, but due to the unreliable nature of the projectile, amount of time that passes from when you use a skill to when an enemy gets pulled, and inconvenience it causes when used with a main hand axe, a pull effect is not well suited for this weapon in PvE.

Last night messing about in WvW, I noticed that the pull usually only works halfway… if it lands that is.
Often it missed, but from my engineer experience I know that the Tool Kit pull is easy to avoid as well.
But when it did pull, my target ended up a bit in front of me, not even melee range.

Bit odd.
Always many things going on in WvW, so not sure what the cause is.
On dummies it does pull closer.

Kimbald.2697:

Last night messing about in WvW, I noticed that the pull usually only works halfway… if it lands that is.
Often it missed, but from my engineer experience I know that the Tool Kit pull is easy to avoid as well.
But when it did pull, my target ended up a bit in front of me, not even melee range.

Bit odd.
Always many things going on in WvW, so not sure what the cause is.
On dummies it does pull closer.

From some testing I did in heart of the mists, it seems to pull enemies 450 range (half of the 900 range the untrained projectile travels by). Off-hand training does not seem to affect this.

Some other things I’ve noticed from testing it there:
- The direction of the pull is relative to your character, not the path of the projectile. Because the projectile heads towards your character this isn’t noticeable unless you use it inside an enemy or the projectile passes through your character on the returning trip somehow and hits someone behind you.
- If you’re closer than that 450 range, it will only pull them up to you. If you are moving forward during this pull, the enemy will end up behind you.

After a week my opinion on this remains the same. Although I have grown somewhat used to it, the pull effect is still bothering me and I now find myself hesitant to use the skill at all, knowing it might pull enemies away from my allies.

The skill was better in PvE when you could just throw it for damage and not have to worry about what it might pull every time you did.

I like pull on skill4 axe very useful for me on WWW.
Love to drag some1 or more to say welcome back my friend feel our warm welcome now…

I like the pull mechanism a lot, it works really well in conjunction with axe5. Offhand axe makes a lot more sense as a weapon now, as both skills function as counters to ranged opponents. Torch = cond damage, Horn = DPS, Axe = Range counter. If I played a melee ranger I’d probably really like offhand axe. Sword/Axe to stick on my opponent, reflect projectiles, and if they do get away, yank them back with path of scars. Or hold midrange for a while with Axe/Axe, and when I’m ready yank my opponent to me and go to town with Sword/Horn and QZ. Fun!

To clarify, the only problems I have with the pull is when using axe/axe in PvE. The change is fine in PvP and with sword/axe.

I may rewrite the OP to make the issue with it clearer.

OP – I agree that it doesn’t fit in well with axe/axe. So don’t use it. Since before the patch i have been using sword/axe in my serker build in wvw and pvp and it fits in marvellously with this build.

PoS pulls them in, proceed to entangle, sword skill 3 then quickness for beastly damage. If you pull them but are overwhelmed by their close-combat ability then sword skill 2 gives a great disengager if you’re not running lightning reflexes. The latter combined with sword skill 2 also makes for some serious retreat distance

Bryzy.2719:

OP – I agree that it doesn’t fit in well with axe/axe. So don’t use it. Since before the patch i have been using sword/axe in my serker build in wvw and pvp and it fits in marvellously with this build.

PoS pulls them in, proceed to entangle, sword skill 3 then quickness for beastly damage. If you pull them but are overwhelmed by their close-combat ability then sword skill 2 gives a great disengager if you’re not running lightning reflexes. The latter combined with sword skill 2 also makes for some serious retreat distance

Yeah that’s pretty beast, particularly if you pull them in and pop SoS and QZ for six seconds of pure damage. Personally I might go for RaO instead of Entangle though.

I think axe/axe works great actually. #3 to chill the opponent, then #4 to pull them in and use #5 with quickness for some good damage. What is a really good combo is #4 with the axe, then #5 with greatsword followed by maul.

I like it. It fits and it needs to stay.

And its quirks highlighted here just raise its Skill Index and make it more obvious who’s actually good at “aiming” in a party, and who’s just a scrub tossing out Physics b/c it gets them attention (Lol bad Longbow PBS’ers)

Idk about you but i love my Axe/ Axe in PvE, i normally pull the entire mob to me, hit them all with split blade, and then rack up the vuln for my team with WD for complete devastation of the mobs.

I normally explain what i do to my team first so they don’t fire off all their stuff until AFTER i start using WD though, and since my friend almost always runs with a Guardian there’s tons of synergy, he pulls them all in so they don’t have a choice to get pulled to me, and then they all die.

Sword / Axe here and I love the pull in PvE.

Part of good group play is being able to manage the enemies’ CC counters. The cooldown on path of scars isn’t horrible, so I finally have something more reliable to help out with.

In open world PvE, it brings all of the enemies into the sword’s default AoE range often making it better AoE DPS than the GS.

Havent tested it much in PVE. However, it was a blast in WvW

Considering that splitblade does bit condition damage at point blank, the pull from axe offhand is actually an improvement.

That said, axe/axe has always been a rather poor weapon combo for rangers in PvE, PvP, and WvW. At least now sword/axe is in good shape.

Axe/axe for me is a better option that the short bow when faces for than one opponent pvp or pve. The bounce affect means you will alway do 3 times more damge (when fighting 2+. While piecing arrow is really limited.

As far as pulling targets away fro you allies that is sometimes a good thing. Unlike the sb all of the other ranger weapon require you to be aware of your postioning. So for those that smash buttons mindless they will have more undesired effects.

The pull should not be traited one would have to trait for offhand training (1200 range) and the pull. Not to mention if you wanted the extra 10% damage for while wielding an axe in main hand.

The pull also acts as an interrupt. Which triggers moment of clarity give 50% in daze duration and 50% more damge on your next attack. This one effect make moment of clarity something you can build a build arround.

Pulling 5 foes in WvW in zerg on zerg battles means 5 bags for me. Rangers really lack aoe. Yes we have traps but they really dont cut it. Barrage is too slow. In WvW aoe is one of the biggest problems for our pets.

Durzlla.6295:

Idk about you but i love my Axe/ Axe in PvE, i normally pull the entire mob to me, hit them all with split blade, and then rack up the vuln for my team with WD for complete devastation of the mobs.

I normally explain what i do to my team first so they don’t fire off all their stuff until AFTER i start using WD though, and since my friend almost always runs with a Guardian there’s tons of synergy, he pulls them all in so they don’t have a choice to get pulled to me, and then they all die.

That’s what I do too. Path of Scars to pull all mobs to me, Splitblade for 5 stacks of Bleeding on everyone, then Whirling Defense to stack Vulnerability. Add some traps in there beforehand, plus I use a Drake that has Tail Sweep for a Blast Finisher, and it all adds up to a very nice bit of burst damage.

Since the shortbow nerf to 900 range I switched over to axe/axe too and its just pure fun. The pull is very useful in WvW and it would be bad if they removed it. Its actually great to pull mobs together and use whirling defense afterwards. I found a way to usually not annoy your teammates: Instead of pulling them away from your teammates run up to your mates and use it there. The mobs won’t be pulled away from them that way but to you can pull other mobs to them and deal decent dmg.
Definitely don’t remove the pull. The only other option that I would see is to make a choice: if you double click the skill (like GS 4 for the cripple) it is a pull, if not its only damage.

Durzlla.6295:

Idk about you but i love my Axe/ Axe in PvE, i normally pull the entire mob to me, hit them all with split blade, and then rack up the vuln for my team with WD for complete devastation of the mobs.

I normally explain what i do to my team first so they don’t fire off all their stuff until AFTER i start using WD though, and since my friend almost always runs with a Guardian there’s tons of synergy, he pulls them all in so they don’t have a choice to get pulled to me, and then they all die.

I’ve tried some stuff like that, but I haven’t been able to make it worth like that in most dungeon situations for the following reasons:

In order to not split up the enemy, every single one of them has to be within the path of the skill. Since enemies just don’t line up for you, it becomes difficult to pull more than 3, and many groups have 5 or more in them. Because of that, if you use path of scars in this way, you’ll be dragging part of the enemy group away from the rest which splits up your teams AoE and cleave attacks.

You mention using a guardian to pull them for your path of scars, and with much experience playing with guardians (always do dungeons with my brother who mains a guardian) I’d have to disagree.

Path of scars has a fairly narrow pull radius and the guardians pull does not gather the enemies into a tight enough bundle for path of scars to hit them all. As a result, path of scars will drag a portion of the group from the bundle. Additionally, because a player in the path of the pull blocks the enemies from getting pulled, it makes it all the much harder for this to work.

Just my personal experience anyway.

I guess I can see now how it would be a problem for Axe/Axe due to being at a range.

With Sword/Axe I tend to get right in the center of the action so even if I only get part of them, I pull them at least toward the center.

The system definitely isn’t a perfect control solution, but I think it’s better than nothing.

Everyone loves pulling people in zergs, but I’ve tried it in tpvp and small fights in WvW and it really needs some improvements.
I’ve managed to pull thieves out of shadow refuge with it but it’s more about luck and they not knowing what the hell is going on.

It’s a shame that Off-hand training makes the pull harder to land, cus if you have an enemy at less than 1000 range, the axe makes the whooooole path until it comes back and pulls, so it can be too easily avoided just by strafing.

I think it should have sooome homing and/or pull as soon as it hits a target. I know it’d only be single target, but to be honest, I don’t care about its uses in PvE, since other classes pulls are so much reliable.

They need to make it like guardian greatsword #5.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_guardian_skills#Greatsword

Hit the skill button once to use the skill. Any targets hit by the weapon are “bound” for a few seconds. If you hit the skill button again during that time, they get pulled to you. If you don’t hit the skill button again, nothing happens.

I don’t mind the pull effect in WvW but hate it in PvE.

If I am running a ranged DPS GC build I do not really want to pull five foes into melee range with me.

If I am in a group setting I do not want to face a situation where, in order to use my own heaviest hitting attack, I have to pull foes out of attack range of the group’s melee combatants, potentially causing any number of teammate attacks to miss.

Zaxares.5419:

Durzlla.6295:

Idk about you but i love my Axe/ Axe in PvE, i normally pull the entire mob to me, hit them all with split blade, and then rack up the vuln for my team with WD for complete devastation of the mobs.

I normally explain what i do to my team first so they don’t fire off all their stuff until AFTER i start using WD though, and since my friend almost always runs with a Guardian there’s tons of synergy, he pulls them all in so they don’t have a choice to get pulled to me, and then they all die.

That’s what I do too. Path of Scars to pull all mobs to me, Splitblade for 5 stacks of Bleeding on everyone, then Whirling Defense to stack Vulnerability. Add some traps in there beforehand, plus I use a Drake that has Tail Sweep for a Blast Finisher, and it all adds up to a very nice bit of burst damage.

I’m a spirit ranger so once they’re near me I pop all 3 spirit actives for an immob, burst of damage(normally wait till after vuln is up, have hit for 6k in my magi gear) and a double blind, really nice for keeping them from escape.

@Bri, he normally backs up a little bit as my axe goes towards them, the Melee ones will close in to chase and thus get hit, and any ranged tend to either 1) stand behind the Melee and this get hit too, or 2) can’t be pulled anyway(TA in looking at you!!)

PS: keep in mind in not a dungeon master so idk if this works in ALL dungeons, just the ones I’ve done.

For the love of god, ANET, please DO NOT remove pull from axe offhand.

This change is awesome, and it is the only real “buff” ranger received in the last patch.

p.s. And yes, im talking specifically about PvE
p.p.s. And yes I use specifically axe\axe in PvE cause sword is broken as kitten. Sword will most likely get you killed in PvE
p.p.s. Please add melee main hand weapon to ranger which wont get ranger killed on every autoattack chain

Thanks!

I just tested the offhand training and it is true. Offhand training makes the pull alot less reliable and easier to dodge. I think AreaNet should increase the projectile speed with offhand training so that the pull takes as long as without offhand training. Then it would actually be fine.

Skady.5916:

For the love of god, ANET, please DO NOT remove pull from axe offhand.

Thanks!

+1 Love the pull..
In WvW: LB/Sword-Axe combo..

• Axe 4 – Pull in – switch to LB
• LB 4 – push away
• LB 2 – wear him down – switch back to Sword
• SW 1 – finish him off

You gotta love it!