Guild Wars 2

This is my build
http://tinyurl.com/ckqnjm9

Swords seems to be scaled with condition damage , however axes is scaled with power.
Which of them is stronger ? what are the Pros and Cons of each of them ?

I’ve experimented with both. Axes are by far the most damaging for us because their damage is not halved between direct and condition. Therefore, when you get +% damage modifiers, you are maximizing gains. Also, eviserate in a glass cannon build is absolutely nasty! Having said that, I have 1 idea for a sword build, but I know it will never rival what the axe can do. Pros for axes: I’m going to kill you RIGHT now. Pros for swords: mobility and a CC burst. I’m not a huge fan of either off-hand. Axe 4 does some nice damage with a short duration fury and 5 is the whirl finisher good for building adrenaline. Sword 4 can give nice burst, but on a 20 second CD, and accompanied by a 1-block 5 skill, the off-hand sword becomes extremely useless in the event of an evade, blind, block, obstructed, out of range… well, you get the point.

I recommend mace as an offhand. The utility it provides is far better than either axe or sword as an offhand.

1200 range knockdown/interupt? Yes please.

Hey DemonicSpirit try this dualwielding combo:
Axe+mace / Sword+axe.

Axe+mace is best for fighting 1 on 1 (stacking vulnerability, stun and eviscerate as burst)
Sword+axe for some AOE … immobilise and bleed 3 foes and then build up adrenaline back via axe’s #5. And of course, with that much of cripple and sword’s leap, noone will run very far.

crow.2709:

Hey DemonicSpirit try this dualwielding combo:
Axe+mace / Sword+axe.

Axe+mace is best for fighting 1 on 1 (stacking vulnerability, stun and eviscerate as burst)
Sword+axe for some AOE … immobilise and bleed 3 foes and then build up adrenaline back via axe’s #5. And of course, with that much of cripple and sword’s leap, noone will run very far.

Hi Crow , you were too helpful , thanks.
But with your idea , I won’t have ranged weapon which is bad against champions.
2nd , should I be hybrid ( axe = power , sword = condition ) ?
What stun are you talking about ? you mean ( immobilize and knock down ) ?

Stay away from conditions as a warrior. The only damaging condition we apply with regularity is bleeding which has a 5% scale. 100 condition dmg stat = 5 damage per second per stack = bad. Sword does more damage with berserker gear than rampager. That is indicative of condition damage being terrible for us. Don’t go hybrid.

Veritas.6071:

Stay away from conditions as a warrior. The only damaging condition we apply with regularity is bleeding which has a 5% scale. 100 condition dmg stat = 5 damage per second per stack = bad. Sword does more damage with berserker gear than rampager. That is indicative of condition damage being terrible for us. Don’t go hybrid.

Without condition damage , axes will be much stronger than sword , won’t it ?
Long Bow has the strongest AOE damage , so has its burst.
What are the strongest weapons can I equip ?

Bad against champions…I understand. I mostly don’t have problems facing champions with this, but I am not running a GlassCannon build.

What about axe+mace / longbow (power based) then?
Axe+mace for hot 1 on 1 melee action, longbow for some ranged AOE.
Also, axe’s #2 is a whirl finisher which goes well together with our only combo field from longbow burst skill.

And a bit different Sword+axe/ rifle (condition based) go well together.
Sword+axe for melee AOE and rifle for 1on1 sniping.

(I also tested both sets and liked them both. Axe+mace and longbow a bit more as I tend to run with Powerful banner which provides good synergy)

Which one you choose is just dependant on your play style.
As warriors go, I tend to run around with ~8 weapons in pack and change sets as I wish or situation demands. Being a weaponsmith helps ;-)

EDIT: under the stun I mean mace’s #5.

And yes. He is referring to mace 5 kd. I’d recommend trying shield. 3 seconds of block and a 300 range gap closer/stun. I often use axe 3 to cripple then shield bash while out of range and immediately que up the eviscerate for a quick 600 range gap closer that crushes a runner. To be clear, I’m not using it to chase. It’s just enough for that last little strain when someone is juuuust out of reach. That technique isn’t preferred over landing the shield bash, but it’s something the mace can’t do.

The Demonic Spirit.3157:

Veritas.6071:

Stay away from conditions as a warrior. The only damaging condition we apply with regularity is bleeding which has a 5% scale. 100 condition dmg stat = 5 damage per second per stack = bad. Sword does more damage with berserker gear than rampager. That is indicative of condition damage being terrible for us. Don’t go hybrid.

Without condition damage , axes will be much stronger than sword , won’t it ?
Long Bow has the strongest AOE damage , so has its burst.
What are the strongest weapons can I equip ?

Your most damaging weapons will be the axe or GS. I don’t go GS because it relies heavily on 100b to do it’s best damage. Whirlwind Attack is a nice skill but not enough to pull me away from MH axe.

MH axe has all of its damage loaded into its auto-attack. Axe 2 and 3 are just tools to increase damage and control the fight, respectively.

Rifle is the most bursty ranged weapon with its volley and kill shot, but the bow does respectable steady damage with its auto-attack. The bow 3 arching shot can be devastating too. I crit a lowbie once for 11.5k. He was probably a level 1 or something haha, but I was totally unaware that skill was even capable of damage like that. I use the bow 5 immobilize to set up for the bow 3 arching shot and weapon swap to eviscerate. IMO, these two weapons are all about flavor. I actually run a longbow, but I believe myself to be in the minority. I used to use the rifle, and closing with a volley >weapon swap >eviscerate is equally deadly.

If I had to recommend a ranged weapon, I would probably say rifle. I believe it to be a more forgiving weapon. I started with the rifle and played into the bow and still make mistakes with it. I’ve even lost fights because I use the bow, but I’ve also won some fights because I use the bow. The rifle is just a good dependable weapon but a little outside my playstyle.

If you elect to go MH axe, you have to be creative about closing distance due to its lack of a significant gap closer. While I have SPvPed in the past, I mainly WvW. Using terrain mask your approach and holding your SoR til just before you expose yourself go a long way in catching your target in an unprepared state. If I’m unable to pop up within a comfortable distance, I’ll swap to bow, immobilize, arching shot, and I’m on target. If you are zerging, look for players who will need to retreat soon and head that direction. If you can arrive with full adrenaline just before they turn back in retreat, often times you’ll down them; the exception would be if they have a defensive CD in pocket.

If you aren’t stacking any kind of condition damage, I recommend staying away from the bow’s burst. It’s good for area denial, but it isn’t anything great. I run full berserker’s and 0 in arms so my damage with it is pretty meh, but that plays into my build because I hold all my adrenaline for +12% damage and +9% crit so I can crank out melee damage and finish with a shield bash > eviscerate.

Veritas and Crow , you were the most helpful , one last question >> What is the strongest burst skill to use ? Is it Combustive shot or Flurry ?

The strongest burst skill warriors have is eviscerate, which is for the axe. And by strongest I mean does the most damage. But combustive shot does very nice damage as well.

Back in the betas eviscerate was able to 1 shot people and since then it’s been nerfed quite heavily but under the right conditions it can still crit for 12-15k damage.

Eviscerate level 3 adrenaline damage is around 1023 , while Combustive Shot Level 3 adrenaline damage is 5(1968). >> according to wiki .
How does Eviscerate do more damage ?

Damage is calculated by:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Wiki is only showing you a piece of the picture. Beyond that, it gets modified heavily if you have +% dmg traits and gear.

Eviscerate hits hard. It’s a game changer. I hit for about 5k against tanky builds with protection up and 9-11k reliably against more dps focused builds. I’ve reached into the mid-15ks a handful of times, but again… probably just lowbies.

As a side-note, it works wonders against thieves. You can take a bite out of them so big it’s difficult for them to recover. The exception would be p/d venom builds.

I will test them at Heart of the mists

You won’t hit those #s in the mists. Just so you know =) You get more stats in WvW and PvE. Just pay attention to what does more damage. Take into account also that Combustive Shot is a DoT field. It isn’t difficult to evade out of it, and you only get max damage if the target stands in it for the duration… which hardly ever happens. It’s great against downed players haha

I have played both dual swords and dual axes, and for each I had traited for it. I like dual swords better because it was far more survivable than dual axes.

Let’s say I was facing 4 trash mobs. With dual axes, it is mostly single target. It takes time to kill all of those mobs. With dual swords, I can hit 3 of them at once. As a result, I would kill all of the mobs much quicker. Which means I took less damage.

I died a lot more often with dual axes than I did with dual swords. Personally, I am completely convinced that dual swords is far better.

I better add that I am only talking about open world pve, here. I don’t do dungeons or pvp, so I don’t care what works or not with them.

redcomyn.4651:

I have played both dual swords and dual axes, and for each I had traited for it. I like dual swords better because it was far more survivable than dual axes.

Let’s say I was facing 4 trash mobs. With dual axes, it is mostly single target. It takes time to kill all of those mobs. With dual swords, I can hit 3 of them at once. As a result, I would kill all of the mobs much quicker. Which means I took less damage.

I died a lot more often with dual axes than I did with dual swords. Personally, I am completely convinced that dual swords is far better.

I better add that I am only talking about open world pve, here. I don’t do dungeons or pvp, so I don’t care what works or not with them.

Axes definitely don’t attack single target.
Axe 1: Frontal cone AoE
Axe 2: 360 degree AoE
Axe 3: Single target cripple
Axe 4: Frontal cone AoE
Axe 5: 360 degree AoE
Burst: Single target

Sword 1: Frontal cone AoE
Sword 2: Single target leap
Sword 3: Frontal cone AoE
Sword 4: Single target bleed w/ single target direct damage on rip
Sword 5: Frontal cone AoE if you block
Burst: Frontal cone AoE

Yeah that guy has things a bit backwards. Taking the cleave into consideration axe auto attack is quite a bit faster than sword. And all of the axe abilities are more potent than the sword abilities.

Ok, I guess I was wrong about the single target bit. However, it still took longer for me to kill multiple mobs with the dual axes than the dual swords, which is why, I guess, that I thought axes were single target. Single targets, sure the axes did better, but multiple targets, axes just didn’t do as well as swords. In two same situations with multiples, I would die, or nearly die, with dual axes, but be no lower than about 2/3 health with dual swords. How would you explain that?

I don’t know. Perhaps I am just more talented with swords than axes. But still, I have had dramatically different results with the different weapon sets.

Could have been difference in trait point distribution, major trait selection, stats, weapon level, mob type, mob level, mob stats, maybe the mobs got more crits. Lot of variables there.

One thing I can tell you for certain, Axe attacks faster and hits harder than sword with the exception of the sword’s 3rd auto-attack chain. That hits pretty hard. However, the axe just attacks multiple times. So it’s a less bursty attack but you do more damage if you land all 3 parts of Axe’s 3rd auto-attack chain.

Competing for blood stacks, aka someone(s) is getting their dps kittened in the end.. no thanks.

Also DUAL axe is really really kittening bad.