Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I just wanted to know if anyone uses Axe/Shield for roaming and if it works okay?

I also saw someone running Sword/Shield + Axe/Axe and I was wondering if anyone has tried this and if it’s good or not.

I use the typical GS/Hammer and I would like to discover a new build that fits a hard hitting style such as GS/Hammer.

MH Axe is a powerful PvP weapon, and Axe+Shield/GS is a powerful alternative to GS/Hammer.

Axe’s auto-attack hits very hard if you can get the entire chain off on an opponent, and it’s cleave makes it a perfect synergy with Hundred Blades for clearing camps. Cyclone Strike and Throw Axe are somewhat lackluster (though vulnerability and cripple are always nice to have) but Eviscerate is where MH Axe shines. In an offensive power build, it’s not uncommon for Eviscerate to deal most of a low-armor target’s health. It’s a telegraphed ability that can be tricky to land, even with the short leap, but if you’ve practice landing earth-shaker consistently, it shouldn’t be long until you’re landing Eviscerates left and right.

Shield OH allows you additional defense, as well as some cc to help land Evis, and is a popular weapon to pair with MH Axe. Like the GS/Hammer build, you have great mobility, solid defense and impressive damage, but you trade out the individually powerful attacks and CC of Hammer for higher burst from Axe’s auto-attack and Eviscerate.

I’m… not sure how well a sword/shield+axe/axe build works in WvW, as it sounds like a GS+Axe/shield build that sacrifices some mobility and aoe damage for… extra condi application and fury uptime, which I’m not sure is a fair trade. It’s quite possible the build can work and work well, but I believe GS+Axe/Shield is more powerful numerically.

I still run it. It works somewhat but I really find the nerfed eviscerate range annoying. You can’t really use it as a gap closer as well as burst anymore, I’ve had multiple instances where people started within range of eviscerate and managed to get out before I hit them simply by walking away with swiftness :S The damage it does is also very spread out (it wasn’t like that in the past, at least not to this degree) so even when you do manage to land it the crits can go between 4 and 8k.

But yeah unless you set it up with the shield stun its somewhat iffy to land since people have long figured out to dodge/blind it. It can still burst people down like crazy but its just not as good as it used to be unfortunately. The sword/shield + Longbow power build is very strong I find. You can either pick strength for berserker’s power to deal quite a bit more dmg or arms for perma fury, 20%+ crit chance vs bleeding foes on sword as well as 20% CD reduction on sword abilities. In full zerker gear you get around 89% crit chance on all you sword abilities (from fury + the passive 20% vs bleeding foes).

Since Axe is already addressed here. I’d like to recommend on the Sword/Shield front that you take Hammer as a weapon swap.

They actually synergize surprisingly well. And you can you the stuns on hammer to keep them in place for your Final Thrust for example. This particular build requires a lot of weapon stowing at the right time to cancel out skills or animations (Such as flurry F1 on Sword. If you stow your weapon right as it begins they will still be immobilized fully so you can land whatever attacks you like). However the Sword 2 leap is great for clutch escapes in WvW.

There were some great videos from a friend and rival called Callahan who was a beast at utilizing the environment in WvW to make escapes and kills on youtube, but sadly they have been taken down since.