Axe vs Sword

I have been trying different combinations each BPE with my Warrior. I have now tried Hammer, Sword and Axe.

But what I really want to discuss is Axe vs Sword. Both attack at the same speeds so can make good use of stacking benefits, so lets discuss which is better.

Last BPE, for the first time, I tried the Axe. Here is a quick review of my findings, I purchased a max damage axe (6-28 I think it was) from Lion's Arch from a guy that had 6 of them all max damage with different effects. I also didn't have alot of problems finding a +1 on hit -1 energy axe grip to apply. But I was a little disappointed with the results. I tried a number of skills with the axe and found that they had radically different effects. Whilst sometimes, the hit was excellent, the damage variance from an axe really took alot of the consistency out of making this a good weapon choice IMHO.

Penetrating Blow. Knowing the effects of armour penetration, I had really high hopes with this skill. Unfortunately, due to the very large damage variance out of using axe, the 50% pen was oftentimes wasted.

Executioner's Strike. I found this to be a good skill since it delivered high bonus damage each time it was used and didn't rely on Axe's variance for good damage as Penetrating Blow does.

Axe Twist, Axe Rake and Dismember were all staple skills and very good for delivering conditions (which the axe does well).

In summary, I really like the conditions, speed and the ease of getting a good axe. however I found the damage a little too unpredictable at times. I would prefer to do consistent damage that I can rely on, rather than hitting for 36, then hitting for 8 the very next attack.

Sword.
Well Everyone seems to use one these days ... and the skills have all been very well publicised and analysed. So I will keep it breif.

There is something to say about low damage variance, you know what you are going to do and you can rely on it. Conditions are considerably harder to inflict than those on the axe, however there is a very large sword skill pool to choose from. Skills like Final Thrust, Galrath Slash etc.. are staple to sword wielder and with good reason. Finding a good sword is very hard to do, and the prices are greatly inflated.

I really think the sword is a much better option than an axe in its current form.

I really think the Devs need to look at the axe and narrow the damage variance a little to make the axe more of a valid choice in comparison with the sword. 50% damage penetration has the potential to be an excellent skill, but doesn't help alot if you hit for minimum damage.

in my personal opinion i like the sword better, but in reality i think it depends on the build u r running at the moment. I mean with axe there are a lot of skills to make it effective, where sword i find that u only need 3 skills (sever artery, gash, final thrust) and uve got a good combo there. this lets u run off into other attributes for extra damage defense, etc. like with a sword a shield is always useful. so go tactics, and there u go u hve room for healing signet, and a good skill u can only use with swords(riposte), u block the next attack and your attacker takes 1-32 damage, only 4 adren. then u can branch off into your other proffesion and take skills from there. Where with axe the way u want to go u hve 5 skills listed, and if u dont go with penetrating u hve four. Good with conditions i agree with your 3 other attacks. u can then go elite for cleave, extra 1-16 damaage, only 2 adren. then the rest can go into your other proffesion. plus if u want u need some tactics and get some good health with healign signet that way. then u hve 2 skills left for a secondary proffesion, which way will u go then. although i think when going warrior/ranger with the axe u can put like some into beast mastery for a pet and then have one skill, comfort animal for pve prob and then in pvp u can use one that effects your pets damage output, defense, or theone where your pet gains health with every blow. well theres my opinions...

I'd still like to see one handed and two handed variants of ALL the Warriors weapons, personally. I've never understood why the Axe has such a spread with it's damage... I can't logically explain why this would be so, unless it's just make it unique to that weapon.

But yeah, a two handed axe, and 2 handed sword, and a one handed hammer would be nice... if just to add variety. I dunno, maybe it's balance issues or something... not really a big deal, it just would be nice.

Until cleave gets fixed (if it ever gets fixed) I don't see much reason in taking swords over axes.

I always choose axes over swords for one simple reason:

Disrupting Chop.

The sword is nice, what with all that reliable damage and their high-powered skills like Final Thrust and Galrath Slash, but once you witness a bunch of warriors lose to a heal-spamming monk because none of the warriors have any disrupting skills. That low adren requiring, high cooldown inducing skill looks better and better.

i agree i think they should have variances of the weapons

like a 1 handed and 2 handed sword and then 1 and 2 handed axes. Although i think the 1 haned hammer would look kind of weird, instead of that i guess a one handed type hammer could maybe be like a mace weapon. maces are kind of like hammers, so that would prob work. this would give everyone more options and would be cool.

Er, what exactly do you mean? Cleave sucks right now, it's in no way a reason to take axes over swords.

He means cleave sucks, so axes are better than swords. If cleave were to be fixed ie; made stronger then maybe swords would be better than axes.

Cleave needs a slight adjustment in the amount of damage it does (more), or a set state of armor penetration. Right now, there are ways to abuse cleave and get it to be used every other swing of yours, which already makes it a far better choice than executioners axe, but that is my opinion of the skill. It does need something more to make it elite other wise it is a gimped power attack that uses adrenaline instead.

Basically, if Cleave is good, Axes are good. If Cleave sucks (which it does, hard. 4 adrenaline makes it worse than most other Axe skills), then Axes are worse than swords.

In the abstract, the two weapons are virtually identical in terms of damage per time and swing speed. It really comes down to which skill line you like better, and if you'd rather have variance or predictability in your DPS.

Peace,
-CxE

Didn't cleave used to be 2 adrenaline? When was that changed? (Yeah, I've been busy).

The main problem I find with the axe is when you start using timed skills etc... that use armour penetration. When you use other skills in conjuction with an attack, then you expect it to be nice. The damage variance with axe can mean that you are using multiple skills to little effect, or "wasting" them. Swords don't have the same drawback.

Cleave was changed about a month ago - the change was a 'leak', so it wasn't widely talked about, but it got nerfed, hard. It's pretty much unusable now.

Regarding skills with axes - for every time you get a low roll and you end up doing very little, you'll get a high damage hit and more than make up for it. The average is still the same - just the variance changes. You'll remember the time you hit for 6 3 times in a row, but don't forget the times when you land 3 straight criticals and absolutely rock someone with it. Over time, it all balances out.

Peace,
-CxE

I’ve been thinking about making an axe warrior lately. Disrupting Chop looks very nice. Use Skull crack for elite spot, won't have the dilemma about whether to use Final thrust or not once Skull crack finally filled up.

So far all good.

The problem is of course damage, yes in the long run the avg. dps is solid, but in a 30 sec battle one could be really unlucky. What about exec strike, is it really worth a spot then? And damage buffs is an even bigger question mark.

A buff like Berserker Stance looks really interesting though, the two energy skills in the axe line aren't looking too hot, you need something to do while adrenaline charges, so let it charge faster. And axes could possibly be the melee weapon that benefits the most from increased attack speed, by getting more of those precious critical hits in a given timeframe.

Beserker Stance is nice, but I'm a little put off by the 'end once you use skill' aspect of it.

While I have never used it, Battle Rage seems to be the epitome of all things Warriors want, speed boosts and adren-spamming.

Make that Exec Strike go for every 4 strikes instead, so you effectively do the same dps as the Cleave elite, except now you are far more versatile due to the additional benefits of Battle Rage, and less damage delivered in small chunks means less of it is absorbed by AL.

Edit: silly me, you actually do TWICE as much damage with Exec + Rage than Cleave.

[COLOR=DarkSlateGray]although once battle rage ends, dont u lose all your adren., isnt that kind of a drawback, what are u dong when all your adren runs out and u hve to wait for battle rage to recharge, i guess u would hve to just let it charge by its self...[/COLOR]

To my knowledge, Battle Rage only requires 4 strikes of adren to activate - meaning you can just activate Battle Rage again to overlap it, thus never facing the adren penalty (unless of course, it turns out that Battle Rage 'blacks out' while it's activated, in which case you will suffer the penalty).

ok the best axes are 6-28 from memory ... what are the stats on the best swords?

best sword is 15-22 or 16-22.

anyway, axe vs sword, i usually go axe mainly for its interuptions, damage is secondary. if i ever wanted to do both damage and interupt, ide go hammer - which i do.

basicly

sword for quick damage
axe for interuptions

Or one can be lucky and end it in 20 seconds. You're not going to go too far in this game if you aren't willing to play the percentages.


Yep, you can do that. It's a bit tricky to get the timing down, but if you do the drawback isn't that severe - you use it right after your big adrenal skills, costing you one strike of adrenaline on your other skills in the process, usually.


15-22.

Swords are 15-22, Axes 6-28, Hammers 19-35, Bows 16-28, Wands/Staves 12-22.

Peace,
-CxE

If the variance of swords is 15-22 and Axes are 6-28 then it would seem that Swords should come out ahead damage wise. To give you the same average damage, the axe would need to be 9-28.
22-15 = 7 7/2 + 15 = Average damage (18.5)
28-6 = 22 22/2 + 6 = Average Damage (17)

It seems to me that given these calculations, that sword has a higher average damage per swing.

You need to take critical hits into account to compare the two reasonably. Axes come out slightly ahead when you do so.

Peace,
-CxE

To clarify on Charles' post, critical hits only take into effect the maximum damage on your weapon(1.41*max damage, iirc). Thus, a critical hit with an axe does considerably more damage than a critical it with a sword.

Thanks, it is something that I have never been very clear on and have read contradictory statements so many times that I am not quite sure what is correct anymore.
Is there anywhere where this is covered in more detail?
How often critical strikes hit?

The equation is a mess. I need to sit down and do some raw tests just to parameterize the critical hit percentage equation. Stuff like 'does it trigger off of AL' still haven't been done - the statistical analysis part scared me off. But I guess if I just knew the factors I could probably kludge the right equation together at this point.

For now, just use something like 20% across the board, that's relatively accurate.

Peace,
-CxE

To clarify my earlier comment; I meant swords are better at the moment. I think I got the wording screwed up .

When I played with rage in the Jan event, you lost all your adren when you re-activate rage (because it technically ends). Have they changed this, or is there a way you can time it to avoid it?

You can't avoid the adrenaline loss from re-activating Battle Rage - you still lose it all when it ends. I'm just saying that if you time things right that doesn't affect you all that much - if all of your adrenal skills are discharged, or just have like one strike of adrenaline on them, then losing all adrenaline isn't a big deal. It's just like Final Thrust - it's the last one you use so you don't really care if you lose all adrenaline in the process.

Basically you can work around the lose all adrenaline part. The bigger drawback of Battle Rage is that it is a stance that doesn't boost your attack rate. =)

Peace,
-CxE

axe= 6-28dmg
sword= 15-22dmg

when you average them out, yes sword might have the higher dmg over time.
Only thing is, axes do higher critical hit damage then sword. Also i would like to mention, when you have a sword that is 15-22dmg +15%dmg when above 50% health and customized +20%dmg, compared to an axe 6-28dmg +15% when above 50% health +20% when costomized, and the fact its critical damage is higher, axes do quite a bit more. 35%dmg of axe dmg is alot more then 35%dmg of a sword. so you can gain up to 10 extra damage from your axe, and 8 from your sword. Overall, axes do more damage.

I am a lover of the axe. Cyclone axe is a great skill that can litterly deal out craploads of damage accross large amounts of enemies. kicks the ass out of hundred blades (although you can deal some cool damage to a more focused group).

I find that with the axe you can get a better damage-dealing balance of energy and adrenalin skills than you can with swords. swords seem to be more energy based for high damage, but thanks to the axes potential for higher damage, I have 2 adrenal and 2 energy attack skills that allows me to almost constantly deal out skill damage (thanks to zealous upgrade)

Old threads die hard. Why post to a 4 month old thread?

Say 'no' and use a hammer.

Lmao, the post is 4 months old but anyway, Axe's are king now.
1. Executioner strike requires same adreniline as galrath slash, but does better damage. Conclusion? [ Executioner strike > Galrath Slash ]

2. The most damaging Sword skill requires 10 adreniline and you LOSE all you're adreniline when you cast it, conclusion? You can't spam attack skills, you're damage cannot be spammed, you have little to no effect most of the time.

3. Gash requires Severe artery to be used, you cannot always bleed an opponent.

4. What other damaging sword skills do you see? Nothing, Final thrust & Galrath slash, already pointed out the obvious flaws to these.

Time to just compare the skills
Axe --------- Sword
Executioners Axe > Galrath Slash
Dismember > Gash
Cyclone Axe > Hundred Blades
Swift Chop = Sweeping Blade
Axe Rake > Cripple
Disrupting Chop > Savage Slash
Penetrating Blow > Final Thrust
------------------------------
Current Score = Axe: 7, Sword:1

Add the unique benefits for each Side

Swords = Pure Strike (It costs 5 energy and 8 recharge, can't spam) and Severe Artery (Axe doesn't have Bleed)

Axe = Cleave (4 adreniline to spam another +2x damage is worth it), Axe Twist (Add 16 damage and weakness), and Eviscrete (Another damage spam skill).

So in total, if the axe skill isn't better than sword, then it's the same.
Ending Score = Axe:10, Sword:3
Axe has better attack skills, their disruption is better, the cripples are better, and the elite is DEFINETLY better than hundred blades. Unless you think 15 minimum damage will replace all of these factors, axe will result in coming out on top.

Pshhh disagree with you there. The cripple is an 7 adren skill that requires a deep wound and the disrupt is a 6 adren, swords equivalents are both energy. Disrupt and cripple are both something I don't want to be screwing around with adren to pull off.

is it just me or has everyone forgotten about savage slash?

only interupt sword has but does great damage and interrupts if you smack them during a skill/spell.

only draw back is the interupt doesn't cause a 20sec cast delay to the skill/spell you interupt.


but of course i just haven't found the right axe yet

need one with +15 while in stance to satisfy my battle rage addiction lol

I did notice savage slash. Unfortunately if you try to compare disrupting chop and savage slash on how to kill a monk, you'll be forced to accept that Preventing him from using his main healing skill for 20 seconds will help alot more than doing 32 extra damage.

The swords cripple requires 10 energy (Wtf is that?) considering that even if you aren't wearing gladiator, you just wasted half your energy on a foe that may not flee. You can always rebuild adreniline and use it on multiple foes, compare that to 10 energy and 15 recharge time.

1-handed and 2-handed variants will never come. It would totally unbalance the skill sets. Personally, I think it would be amazing to use a 1-handed hammer with knock down and tactics shield stances and so forth... but if you ask me, it wouldn't be balanced.

I switched from Sword to Axe and I greatly prefer Axe.