Guild Wars 2

The last two balance patches both had notable boosts to the Axe and Hammer weapons for Warriors, trying to dethrone the Greatsword as the king of damage. Unfortunately, simply reworking the numbers is doomed to failure – either for the weapon they’re trying to buff to relevancy, or the Greatsword.

The Strength traitline should lend itself to two iconic playstyles, and it’s most of the way there – That of the hearty warrior cleaving through foes with a mighty greatsword and gaining in strength as the fight goes on (Emphasized by the the current Restorative Strength, Forceful Greatsword, and Berzerker’s Power traits), and the aggressive brute that knocks down, stuns, and pulverizes enemies when they’re at the wielder’s mercy – ideally with a hammer and the warrior’s own body (With Distracting Strikes existing for those who’d rather use a mace with synergy from another traitline). Hammer’s more situational and unwieldy (But powerful) burst than Greatsword and Axe makes it a good weapon to have its trait compete with Berzerker’s Power, which is strong on weapons with easy-landing, spammable bursts like the greatsword’s Arcing Slice/Arc Divider (Even with its nerfed speed), and Axe’s Evicerate/Decapitate.

Axe, on the other hand… while it certainly synergizes well with parts of the strength traitline, is a Discipline weapon at its core. It’s not merely Greatsword’s angrier little brother. It’s the go-to one-handed power weapon for Warrior (Sword is mobility and condition damage. Mace is defense and CC), which makes it a solid weapon for any loadout to provide additional damage, and the ideal sidearm to swap to or from. Furthermore, the axe also synergizes well with the other traits in the Discipline line, making it more coherent and self-contained (And thus more capable of working alongside other traits and with other weapons) – either from Warrior’s Sprint giving the axe the mobility it needs to make up for its lack of defense and natural mobility, or Crack Shot, allowing the axe to serve as a vicious emergency weapon opposite Rifle.

Swapping the traits like this could also bring back genuine build diversity by empowering the Core warrior (Instead of leaving it the garbled mess that needs Berzerker to give it competitive power), and providing more options for all three weapons through traitline interactions through consolidating the weapons in their proper traitlines. Once the dissonance here is corrected, and Hammer, Greatsword, and Axe are no longer tripping over and hamstringing each other in their roles, the math of the weapons and balance of the class can get a better look.

Bump. I would like to see this change implemented!

All fluff aside, it sounds like you just want to be able to take the gs, axe, and berserker power traits. Amirite?

Why not just say that?

Choppy.4183:

All fluff aside, it sounds like you just want to be able to take the gs, axe, and berserker power traits. Amirite?

Why not just say that?

Because warrior does need a strong, selfish DPS build that doesn’t trip over itself the way the current traitline does, and I want to have Peak Performance, Body Blow, and Merciless Hammer on a single traitline for when I’m feeling stompy.

If AN removed the ability for GS to apply stacks of might so it wouldnt work so well with PS then you might see some more weapon diversity. But it wont happen unfortunately as it would remove warrior from a lot of content groups. (thread doesnt specify pve or pvp, so going to assume pve).

Khailyn.6248:

If AN removed the ability for GS to apply stacks of might so it wouldnt work so well with PS then you might see some more weapon diversity. But it wont happen unfortunately as it would remove warrior from a lot of content groups. (thread doesnt specify pve or pvp, so going to assume pve).

While Greatsword is certainly the easiest Might-builder, warriors have been generating 25 stacks of might with Sword+Torch/Longbow for a while now, meaning that niche isn’t wholly dominated. And now Axe generates might as well on its burst skill.

Honestly, though, I don’t think that’s a good thing. Greatsword’s place as the Party Power Support weapon has been a strong identity. I’m afraid that the changes are diluting that. By having every weapon fill the same niche, only the one best at that will ever be meta. Then again… we do have weapon swap, so Greatsword+Axe being the Power PvE meta isn’t awful. Other weapons have other roles.

Warriors only have a few weapons (Even though it’s the largest selection in the game), and they’re almost in a good place:
Mace has its value in PvP and WvW as a defensive weapon, and as CC. It’s not supposed to be a high-damage weapon, but it’s still valuable for its ability to break bars when paired with shield (Though less than it used to be, thanks to the stupid shield bash nerf.) With Body Blow, it also becomes a strong condition weapon.
Sword is our Condition weapon, and is currently Meta because of it – We offset the lack of Greatsword’s might generation with FGJ and Sigils+Runes.
Greatsword is our Might Engine.
Hammer needs to see some love – having its trait be moved to one that actually benefits the weapon’s a good place for that.

Axe is the highest single-damage Power-Based DPS weapon Warriors have, at the cost of all defense. Unfortunately, its power is not strong enough to give it a slot as a Damage class in group content, and with its current traitline, it can’t be buffed properly to be that without making it obscenely overpowered in PvP (Right now, Axe is fueled by Strength only. With my suggestion, it would require Discipline AND Strength to reach full potential, stripping it out of PvP due to the mandate for Defense there)

I’d like to see Warriors finally get a strong Selfish Power DPS build, and I think Axe would be the perfect weapon for such (Especially if we can finally have Axe Mastery and Berzerker’s Power together)

leave it in strength but swap it with body blow ;-)

nah dude would be too op.