The Broken Balance between Swords and Axes

Swords just need a better elite, maybe a combination of final thrust and sever artery?

I love my axe though. An axe's damage spikes are the best, especialy when I did a crit eviscerate on another warrior for 192 dmg.

Swinging your weapon around in a big circle to cut lots of guys at once is a really bad idea no matter what kind of weapon it is. Unless it's like a lightsaber or something, I guess. But a plain old metal sword or axe? No way.


Offhand? I've never even heard of someone using an axe in their off-hand other than in fantasy RPGs. It seems terribly impractical. Axes were usually used with shields, or two-handed... much like swords and hammers, really...

Let's bring some sanity back into this thread:

Realism is irrelevant. In real life, axes dont do more damage than swords. If you hit someone on the head with an axe OR a sword, THEY DIE. They dont take 40 damage out of 400. They DIE. Trying to use realism as any sort of argument is pointless. (Besides, something like a Fellblade or Brute Sword is easily just as big, fat and heavy as an axe. In fact, there are NO light swords in this game, except short sword/gladius)

Why are we comparing CA to Hundred Blades? Regardless of CA/HB, the fact remains that swords are much poorer than axes. Empirically speaking, the accepted wisdom is that if you want to run a standard damage Warrior in pvp, you use an axe, and you use Eviscerate, Executioners, Penetrating, Sprint, Frenzy, etc.

As for the point that "Damage isnt everything"... unfortunately, swords dont have any useful utility that might make up for their lack of damage. The Riposte skills aren't particularly useful as damage -or- defense. Hamstring is probably the closest there is, but it's far from so good that it makes swords worth using all by itself.


And now for my own bit of insanity:

My personal fix (from another sanitarium thread) is to make swords have a faster attack speed than axe. I like faster attack speeds. And it'll help with sword's high adren skills.
- Also make HB recharge every 5 secs.
- Make riposte a 2 adren cost, but reduce its damage somewhat. Reduce the recharge of deadly riposte. Make them block projectiles too, but not deal damage back to them.
- Make flourish a sword skill again. And make it non-elite.

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Sword has one Elite. Axe has 2. Hammer has 3.

The condition which most Axe skills function off of is "Deep Wound". The non-elite Axe skill used to give deep wound is called "Dismember". The primary non-elite Damaging skill used is "Executioner's Axe". "Eviscerate" is a combination of "Dismember" and "Executioner's Axe".

The condition which most Hammer skills function off of is "Weakness". The non-elite Hammer skill used to give weakness is called "Staggering Blow". The primary non-elite Knockdown skill used is "Hammer Bash". "Devestating Hammer" is a combination of "Staggering Blow" and "Hammer Bash".

Why not give Sword an equivelent to Eviscerate or Devastating Hammer? Though I'd prefer it Galrath+Sever Artery (yet have low adren. cost) because if your health is below 50% and you get hit by a final thrust, I don't think bleeding would do much more to you at this point.

speak for yourself...I want a combination of Hundred Blades and Final Thrust

ie. 2 final thrusts on all adjacent foes ^^;

The only thing sword is good for is looks. I posted that before.

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You don't need an elite for sword.

People use it more for utility warriors as opposed to straight up damage.

Sweeping generalizations gain you no marks.

Hundred blades sucks. What else is there to say?

Guys all i am seeing here is a bunch of people.. cept a few... who are saying.. swords need to be the new UBER 1337 weapon for warriors.

First.. swords should be faster than axes(i agree here..., but the speed must be balanced, and you cannot have skills that would make you do more damage than an axe for the following reason..). Swords do receive a few utility/defense skills. Swords arent meant to be the ultimate kill all weapon that is a mix of all idealogies. Basically this weapon is used defensively and also for quick strikes that SUPRISE the opponent.

Second.. axes should be the in between of swords and hammers for speed. Axes in general terms are better for hacking, ie the damage spikes they do is what they should be doing.. mass damage, and having the ability to wound you.

Third.. hammers should be the obvious slowest weapon because of sheer weight/arc or damage. These weapons are meant to disrupt the opponent/ crush them under their weight( i personally believe hammers are the most balanced for their purpose).

what needs to happen.. a sword req skill that gives you the suprise and one that give you the defense option. (you already have two defenses in tactics i believe.. they require swords...)

After this no one should have a reason to piss and moan

Why? Swords DPS from natural swings isn't that much lower than Axe. Doing this would possibly make sword much more common than axes because of damage mods such as SoH, Conjure X, and Order X.

Don't think defensive skills will help establish Sword as a PvP worthy warrior weapon...

Galrath + bleeding just wouldn't be as good as Eviscerate or Devastating Hammer. Deep wound is a much more significant condition than bleeding, for one, and combining it with a high damage bonus makes a very large spike. As for Devastating Hammer, the weakness on that is just a small bonus; people take it because it's a knockdown with no conditions or drawbacks, and can be chained with Hammer Bash.

I'm not sure what would make a good sword elite, but I wouldn't base it around bleeding. Sword warriors need bleeding in order to apply deep wounds, so a bleed skill that's harder to use than Sever Artery just seems like a bad idea.

one easy way to help out the poor swords is to simply bump up the attack rate

Don't forget Final Thrust, I've taken down many an adversary with it.
I don't think the other branches of weapons offers this off the top of my head.
If I'm wrong, sorry in advance.

Mind

sowrds do little damage but are quick
axes do a fair amount of damage and are fairly quick
hammers do loats of damage but are slow
making swords do more damage would brake the balance making 100 blades no elite would break the balance makind cyclon axe elit would brake the balance

if u think swords are underpowered and a cyclon overpowered stop moaning about how unfair it is i have a 3 step plain

1: get money
2:buy axe
3:hit stuff with it using the 'overpowered' cyclone axe


but think about this say ur target is running u would not hit it with cyclone axe but HB would hit it and on a previous post about making swords more like fencers all i say is riptose and deadly riptose
Also if u think very hard ull remeber that people use axes to cut down tress not swords because there thicker and if u swung a sword at it
1: it would brake caus its to thin
2; ud never get wnough swing in a sword un less it was 2 handed

Simple solution is make Cyclone Axe elite - it hits more than one foe at a time, and the equivelent sword (hundred blades) and bow (barrage) skills are elites so why not the axe one?

Actually i think the recharge is just going to be increased to 10/15s. Putting three elites in a comparatively small line seems a bit crappy, and frankly thats not the problem, people would still pve tank for teammates with live/bonetties/ca etc. On the dais with ootv cyclone also kicks ass. Its spammability is the main problem in terms of actual usage. Same goes for duel shot.
As for Hb i agree with everous, there is no problem with it being returned to non-elite. If people start ganking with iW mesmers and Hb then that isnt a lot different than spiking with 106 orbs (after 60al ap). In fact its worse, its less damage, body blocking ftl, and enchant stripping owns you in the face. Not to mention that shielding hands puts a huge dent in iW single handedly.

A new Sword elite would have to be finely balanced. With the final thrust in there a big front up damage skill like Eviscerate would make sword too good (finisher/starter skills in one... galrath in the middle... three hit kill no problem). Any sword elite is going to be utilitorious, or similar enough to final thrust that a combo of damageelite-galrath-final wont just kill someone when youve got ji on you.

Either change sword around a lot, or leave it as it is, which is more or less fine when you look hard.

How about this? Change Hundred Blades back to 75%, non elite. Change Final Thrust to an elite. Give it +42, (or whatever), instead of +34. Now everyone's happy, right?

wouldn't bother me i don't use any elite so i guess i'd be using one if you changed it

i think hundred blades should strike more times if it's gonna be a elite it should atleast be strong

I vote for increasing the attack speed of swords. I know realism is irrelevant, but wouldn't you attack slower with an axe, since it would get stuck in everything it hits?

Also, this would give sword warriors, like myself, the role as "DPS"-warriors. Axe warriors spike, hammer warriors disrupt and sword warriors...Kick enemies when they're down? Come on...

Faster attack speed wouldn't be realistic because: E=MC^2
Energy = Weight x Speed ^2

That means that the faster you move your sword the more damage you'll do. So faster attack speed would actually give you a damage increase of... something like 25%... I dunno, it isn't relevant anyway.

The point is that making swords attack faster would help alot!

Boosting Hundred Blades, making it non-elite and lower damage, sounds fine but I'd rather have the universal, constant faster attack speed.

My 2 cents.

This is a better alternative than having hundred blades the shit elite that it is currently. although it does have its uses. its a great way to energy regen with a zealous weapon