Guild Wars 2

As we all know, Axe is the worst weapon in terms of statistics for a Necro, which is sad considering our only other ranged weapons available is Staff and Scepter, which are both primarily Condition-based and would serve best on likewise builds. The Axe, however, was clearly created to be a Power-based ranged weapon, which also clearly failed miserably. Lets take a look at how it is now, and how I believe it should be ‘fixed’:

Currently:
Axe 1 (autos) has a solid 1s attack speed with around 800 damage per swing with a full Exotic Power Build (Zerker gear) or around 880 with the Axe Trait trained. The only benefit from the autos is stacks of Vulnerability.

Axe 2 is the only ‘good’ Axe skill that dishes out a frenzy of slashes designed to regen a nice 13.5% lifeforce while providing a sharp dps spike for a few seconds. This skill would be great, if it weren’t so easily interrupted/dodged and if it did more than simply stuff our faces full of lifeforce.

Axe 3 is by far the worst skill, it’s melee-oriented and requires the enemy to surround you in order to receive the full benefit of the Retaliation effect. Only 1 enemy, the Boon is practically non-existant. 2 or 3 enemies and you’ll be able to benefit from the Boon briefly. The only other added benefit of this skill is the additional Boon Conversion on enemies, but yet again this requires you to be within melee range (defeating the purpose of a ranged weapon).

My propositions:

Axe 1 should regen lifeforce per strike while maintaining the added Vulnerability stacks. The attack speed should also be reduced to 3/4s per strike or the damage should be increased to compensate for the slower DPS (I personally think it should be closer to around 1000-1200 per swing at the very, very least), doing so would justify the slower, more vulnerable attack chain.

Axe 2 should keep the lifeforce regen (though with the regen now on autos I believe the lifeforce regen on this skill should be reduced to compensate) and either Weakness, Cripple or Vulnerability stacks should be applied per strike. Any of the 3 works best for a Power build.

Axe 3 needs a complete rework, and I propose turning it into a one shot Axe throw designed to transfer Conditions from yourself onto your enemy. Max number of Conditions transferred: 3 (like Dagger off-hand). Outside of this effect, this could be where a healthy stack of Weakness or Cripple is applied (whichever it is can’t be on Axe 2).

This is how I believe Axe should be, as it currently stands Axe is a confused Power Weapon that needs to be sharpened and polished. What are you thoughts?

(My Power Build btw: GS (Main) and Axe/Focus (Secondary) with full emphasis on Shroud and lifeforce regen while maintaining maximum Power (Strength stacks) and Crit Rate/Damage (Decimate Defenses, Death Perception). I use Axe only when I have to disengage and regen lifeforce when the GS puts me in a difficult situation, then I’m back in with Shroud to cut away. The only other times I’ve used my Secondary set is just for quick weak mob clears or when I need to regen lifeforce on the fly.)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Short story: sigil of blood and sigil of leeching on the same weapon set work together.

However, the OP didn’t mention what sigils were on their second weapon set and that could matter. The short version of that is:

• Don’t use two stacking sigils.
• It’s okay to the same “on swap” sigil on both sets (e.g. leeching)
• You can use matching sigils on both sets, so e.g. leech+blood and leech+blood will work (using one cooldown for both ‘bloods’).
• Be sure to use a main-hand weapon in both sets: there’s a bug that causes loss of weapon strength and (sometimes) sigil use when in shroud or other transformations.

(I am not addressing whether any of this is efficient or not —that’s a different sort of discussion. I’m just trying to cover how the mechanics work and leaving the OP to make their own choices.)

For those who want the full details, voila: everyone’s favorite thing on the forums (a wall of text!).

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Sigil of leching + blood on the first weapon set: no problem and it’s even covered directly in the wiki (although I can’t blame the OP for missing it; the examples are currently wordier than they need to be).

From the wiki (emphasis is mine)

…the two sigils … provide their effects independently as long as the base sigil is different. The exceptions to this are the stacking sigils: only one stack effect can be active at a time. Additionally, sigils with the same base sigil will share cooldowns between weapon sets.

EXAMPLES

• A warrior is wielding a greatsword with … a Superior Sigil of Air (…damage …on crit…) and a Superior Sigil of Earth (chance to … Bleed… on crit…)… Both sigils will roll their chance to activate on every attack the warrior makes, and each sigil will run its own cooldown timer after it activates.

The wiki’s example is a narrower case than the OP’s scenario: two on-crit sigils, which end up using a different cooldown, because the only exceptions to “both sigils working” are stacking sigils and sigils with identical base properties

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Second weapon set interactions

The choice of sigils on the second weapon set matter as follows. There are three scenarios and I’ll cover them separately:

1. Two complete weapon sets, within non-matching sigil pairs.
2. Two complete weapon sets, with identical sigil pairs.
3. The money-saving option of (a) Main-Hand & Off-hand plus (b) just the off-hand (one less weapon, one less sigil to acquire).

1 — Two complete weapon sets, within non-matching sigil pairs.
The simplest. This follows the wiki’s example: as long as there aren’t two or more stacking sigils (or matching base effects), all four sigil effects will work. Each on-crit effect will have its own cooldown.

2 — Two complete weapon sets, with identical sigil pairs.
In the OP’s case of blood + leeching on both sets:

• Every crit hit causes life steal via Sigil of Blood, but the cooldown remains even after swapping weapons.
• Every attack after swapping will steal some health. The cooldown is 9 seconds, regardless of how many times you swap, but since the default swap time is 10 seconds, that usually doesn’t affect necros.

3 — (a) Main-Hand & Off-hand plus (b) just the off-hand
This should be identical to scenario 1, but due to a bug, it’s not when you go into Shroud or other transformations. You only get the benefit of some of the sigils (which slightly depends on where the sigils are).

Someone on reddit covered the details and you can read up if you want. The short story is: equip two full weapon sets; the money saved isn’t worth it until the bug is fixed.

Wow, thanks a bunch for all the info! I also found something else out (I don’t think you mentioned it) while I was running my tests: Shouts activate Sigil of Leeching. I’m guessing it’s because you’re doing damage without using a weapon, so the system counts it as a ‘swap’ but whatever the reason, it actually helps a bit (“Your Soul Is Min” with Leeching is really effective for a glass cannon like me). I’m probably going to do what you suggested though, which is not having identicals. I found that Sigil of Generosity and Blood on Greatsword works better than Leeching and Blood; since I’m using a Staff second set I figured Sigil of Purity would work better than Leeching (still figuring out the last one that works with my playstyle).

Thanks again for all the info! Not only for me, but for everyone else that comes to this thread. Your effort and time are beyond appreciated my friend!

Thank you! I did not know about the Golems, sorry I don’t PvP cuz I’m still a noob, just recently got into the game. I’ll give it a try though, thanks my friend!

I know there are some older posts about Sigils and how the internal cooldowns work and whatnot, but I have a specific question regarding Sigil stacking. I plan on trying to make a viable lifesteal Reaper, and that means most of my Sigils/Runes are going to have to also possess some form of lifesteal (along with Blood Magic, which I wish would get a little update). My main question is this: how would Sigil of Blood and Sigil of Leeching work since they both have internal cooldowns, but work off of different systems? Since Blood has a chance to activate on crits, while Leeching activates on wep swaps, would it be possible to activate Blood on a crit before swapping (or switching into Shroud) weps and activate Leeching? The Wiki doesn’t exactly answer my question, so sorry if I’m simply repeating something that someone else asked eons ago, I tried searching but couldn’t find what I was looking for out of the flood of info out there.

Thanks in advance for your time and help!