14 replies to this topic

[Reverse Ghost]

So I am trying to work out what to use for my secondary set in my hybrid build: Axe or Dagger.

I've spent basically my whole time as a Necromancer using Scepter and Staff. So I come to you asking for a discussion on the pros and cons of each of these weapons.

From what I gather, Dagger does more damage (at least for the auto-attack) but you have to be in melee range. Axe stacks vulnerability and has a solid #2 skill.

What do you guys think? What's the better choice here? I'm leaning toward Axe right now because my build does not have defense, so I'd prefer to stay at range.


For the record, these would be paired with a Focus off-hand. I just can't see myself using the Warhorn. The cooldowns are preposterous and I don't really have room in my build to trait them.

[Malganis]

I use axe/focus for the reasons you described.   I survive better in medium range than I do in melee range.   I let my minions handle the melee range.   And I have a sigil on my axe that gives +vulnerability.

[God Pain]

I use dagger/warhorn, it's great for general pve. You have good dmg on skill 1, extra heal in skill 2, control on skill 3 and 4, and speed boost plus aoe dmg in skill 5! I think it's great. I'm spec'd for Power, precision and thougness.

This set is really good for WvW too on 1v1, as you can control your enemy very well with all the skills (daze, paralyze, fear, blind, knockdown)

ALSO! xD with all my precision and crit chance i have perma bleeding with my skill 1. You need sigils and traits though

[Elrathan]

The problem with axe is it offers nothing to your build. Your bleeds don't benefit from vaunrability, its raw damage will be less then your scepter and its shorter range then your scepter. The daggers fast attack speed will give you lots of crit bleeds but your build is very glassy so you may have trouble surviving in melee. To be honest, staff sounds like your best bet. It's auto attack and putrid mark scale with power and and you get regen, fear, chill and a blast finisher.

[Reverse Ghost]

Elrathan, on 02 February 2013 - 01:57 AM, said:

The problem with axe is it offers nothing to your build. Your bleeds don't benefit from vaunrability, its raw damage will be less then your scepter and its shorter range then your scepter. The daggers fast attack speed will give you lots of crit bleeds but your build is very glassy so you may have trouble surviving in melee. To be honest, staff sounds like your best bet. It's auto attack and putrid mark scale with power and and you get regen, fear, chill and a blast finisher.

It's true that bleeds won't get any benefit from the vulnerability stacks, but my current build is a little too condition-heavy for a hybrid build. I'm looking for ways to add more direct damage, and vulnerability does just that. Of course, the Axe isn't necessary for that -- I have traited Life Blast to do so, but that's a much slower application.

I've been on the fence about the Staff for a while now. I do like the utility it offers, but the cooldowns are crazy long and I don't have any room to trait them. It's like, you swap to it and spam all your marks (I know, I know, you don't always want to do that) then just auto-attack and Mark of Blood until you can get back to your "good" weapon set.

But right now I'm thinking about what options I will have in a very large fight where the bleed cap is reached. Because of the cooldowns on the Staff it's not practical in that situation. Mark of Blood becomes half as useful (bleed cap) and the cooldowns prevent any longevity.

So with Axe I could stack on some bonus vulnerability which helps everyone else and boosts my own damage. And I do expect the Axe to get a damage buff at some point in the future anyway... hopefully...

- - -

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has posted so far. I love to hear personal experiences like that. Once I put a little more time in with all my options I'll have a much better idea of which I personally prefer.

[Ara]

If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend this video (hybrid with axe) although a bit long on his stat balancing:


The synergy of the axe for that build is well explained. It needs some adjustments with condition duration because the author has +90% bleed duration w/o food with 3 krait + 3 afflicted (and he thought the 33% increase on scepter conditions was additive and list a wrong +123% duration). Maybe going for 6 undead runes and using 40% pizza would be better, or something like that.

[Neova]

I think using an axe just for the vulnerability stacks would depend on what utilities you are using. If you are running well of suffering, that combined with focus #4 gives you almost 25 stacks of vulnerability very quickly, so either an axe or dagger would still work.
Going with axe I would mostly use axe for its damage on #2 on a short cooldown and #3 for the cripple in your case, and while waiting for the cooldown to switch back to scepter you go into DS for some decent damage and a few possible might stacks if traited.

Personally, I would probably go with either a dagger or a staff since you already have a medium range weapon for kiting with. If you go with the axe you would be doubling up and missing out on either the range from the staff, or the close range damage from the dagger. And even then with a dagger, the #2 and focus abilities will still keep you at a medium range distance similar to that of the axe, except with more control with the immobilize and a small heal with the life siphon.

If you don't really like the staff, I would probably go with a dagger (and keeping a staff in inventory just in case).

[Puandro]

Scepter does more damage than axe. Staff does more damage than axe too. Axe blows.

[Onerios]

Puandro, on 07 February 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

Scepter does more damage than axe. Staff does more damage than axe too. Axe blows.

Not quite true. Axe 1 is awefull, but the other two skills are actualy fairly decent. If your going to use an axe, you use deathshroud 1 in place of axe 1, and use your secondary set when you can are unable to get enough lifeforce in order to use deathshroud effectively. The extra vun it stacks as well is not too bad in a pinch, since although your personal dps is lower it may be enough to help bring up party dps to make up for it.

[Puandro]

Onerios, on 07 February 2013 - 05:31 PM, said:

Not quite true. Axe 1 is awefull, but the other two skills are actualy fairly decent. If your going to use an axe, you use deathshroud 1 in place of axe 1, and use your secondary set when you can are unable to get enough lifeforce in order to use deathshroud effectively. The extra vun it stacks as well is not too bad in a pinch, since although your personal dps is lower it may be enough to help bring up party dps to make up for it.

Spamming #2 and #1 off cooldown in staff with full berserker gear does more damage than Axe, thats how bad it is.

[Falfyrel]

Puandro, on 07 February 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

Spamming #2 and #1 off cooldown in staff with full berserker gear does more damage than Axe, thats how bad it is.

Did you even read his post? He explicitly addressed that staying in axe to auto-attack is a dumb idea, so your complaint is rather moot if you're actually trying to respond to him.

I use a bulky Shroudmancer build with axe/staff and the easy Life Force from Ghastly Claws plus the situational perma-retaliation is a godsend. It's also far easier to utilize the range on Death Shroud when you aren't constantly in the opponent's face.

IMO Dagger is better for non-Death Shroud power builds, and is in many cases the superior weapon due to that; however, the axe is also invaluable for its kiting ability, relatively painless Life Force buildup with Ghastly Claws, and perma-retaliation. Dismissing the axe solely based on its auto-attack is a bit premature, though I do agree it's one of the absolute worst auto-attacks in the game.

Note, however, that running both Axe and Dagger mainhands in a split-weapon setup and forgoing Staff leaves the Necromancer with extremely few AoE options, so that's not terribly optimal either. Again, use Axe for Death Shroud-focused builds, Dagger for everything else.

[Puandro]

Falfyrel, on 08 February 2013 - 07:48 PM, said:

Did you even read his post? He explicitly addressed that staying in axe to auto-attack is a dumb idea, so your complaint is rather moot if you're actually trying to respond to him.

I use a bulky Shroudmancer build with axe/staff and the easy Life Force from Ghastly Claws plus the situational perma-retaliation is a godsend. It's also far easier to utilize the range on Death Shroud when you aren't constantly in the opponent's face.

IMO Dagger is better for non-Death Shroud power builds, and is in many cases the superior weapon due to that; however, the axe is also invaluable for its kiting ability, relatively painless Life Force buildup with Ghastly Claws, and perma-retaliation. Dismissing the axe solely based on its auto-attack is a bit premature, though I do agree it's one of the absolute worst auto-attacks in the game.

Note, however, that running both Axe and Dagger mainhands in a split-weapon setup and forgoing Staff leaves the Necromancer with extremely few AoE options, so that's not terribly optimal either. Again, use Axe for Death Shroud-focused builds, Dagger for everything else.

Only thing Axe has going for it is retaliation and the life force gain from #2, #2 is so bad for dps though that mark of blood and spamming #1 on staff is much better than #2 on Axe.

Also Using a staff will boost your Life Blast damage over using any other 1-hander.

[Falfyrel]

Puandro, on 08 February 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

Only thing Axe has going for it is retaliation and the life force gain from #2, #2 is so bad for dps though that mark of blood and spamming #1 on staff is much better than #2 on Axe.

Also Using a staff will boost your Life Blast damage over using any other 1-hander.

That's not the point. Skills shouldn't be based solely by worth on DPS because that'd lead to a lot of extremely good burst skills being considered terrible because they have low DPS.

If you use an axe with a Death Shroud build, you'd just use #2/3 on axe, then use your utilities/use your offhand/go into Death Shroud/change weapon sets.

I don't understand what you're trying to argue here. Yes, #1 on axe is really bad. But the DPS of a burst skill compared to an auto-attack AND another decently damaging skill combined matters...why?

Also, staves don't offer any direct improvements to Life Blast damage.

[Puandro]

Falfyrel, on 08 February 2013 - 09:07 PM, said:

That's not the point. Skills shouldn't be based solely by worth on DPS because that'd lead to a lot of extremely good burst skills being considered terrible because they have low DPS.

If you use an axe with a Death Shroud build, you'd just use #2/3 on axe, then use your utilities/use your offhand/go into Death Shroud/change weapon sets.

I don't understand what you're trying to argue here. Yes, #1 on axe is really bad. But the DPS of a burst skill compared to an auto-attack AND another decently damaging skill combined matters...why?

Also, staves don't offer any direct improvements to Life Blast damage.

OP wants a ranged weapon for defense, Staff > Axe with chills/fears, also higher damage. Lifeblast scales of weapon damage and is higher when using a staff than a 1-hander, go test it yourself.

[Falfyrel]

Puandro, on 08 February 2013 - 09:59 PM, said:

OP wants a ranged weapon for defense, Staff > Axe with chills/fears, also higher damage. Lifeblast scales of weapon damage and is higher when using a staff than a 1-hander, go test it yourself.

Tested and confirmed. The damage difference was an awe-inspiring 4%, as the axe has relatively high base damage to begin with. Add in a focus for Reaper's Mark vulnerability stacking and this difference shifts to about 8% in the axe's favor.

Amusingly, the axe's base damage is higher than the dagger's, so that's another pro in favor of the axe over the dagger. Also, the OP was asking whether he should choose the axe or dagger for the alternate weapon, and I am fairly sure that a staff is neither.

Regardless, point well taken, but this discussion is axe vs. dagger, not axe vs. dagger vs. staff.