I'm using a 1handed axe and shield setup for tanking, and I often find myself having trouble keeping aggro. I understand since my weapon is not a conventional tank weapon that instead my main chest piece will have my taunt, but overall I don't have any way of generating threat effectively if one of the creatures happens to be pulled off of me. There is a spell combo on the 1 handed weapon where the E heals 118 damage per bleed charge on the target. (An interesting and useful skill overall IMO). That is on a tier 3 battleaxe.

This comes down to the damage part: Whereas most other weapons have some form of taunt ability that can allow them to help sustain aggro the axe is supposed to do more damage which is the way it would help keep aggro. Despite this I constantly find myself out DPS'd by other single weapons. I'm absolutely fine with having the axe as a dps weapon without a form of taunt, but if I'm not going to have that kind of utility something should be done about the damage model itself.

Something that is GOOD about the axe, especially when tanking, is the W energy shield. By pressing W with a certain skill on the one handed axe you generate a shield around you that, every time you are hit, gives you extra energy. It lets my skills be a bit more spammable and helps me keep up with maintaining energy in the fight.

In PvP the one handed and two handed variants of the axe just don't the ability to match up to other weapons in 1v1's or 2v2's. I haven't had the chance to try anything over 4v4, but even up to then I find myself struggling to justify why PvP parties would take me when they could simply have a CC quarterstaff, or hammer/mace user.

Some thoughts on ways you could attempt to rebalance the axes:
1.) I think the idea of the bleed over time is interesting, but maybe some slight buffs to it?
2.) Overall increase in damage seems to be universal if no options for CC are available.

^ would have to agree, need an increase in dmg due to 0 CC

Learn to play... It's really not that hard to use.

Hi,

I agree that greataxe is underpowered. I think that these two things would help a lot:

1) lower the mana cost on Q and W
2) make E one instance damage spell = instead of 10x 35 dmg ticks that are triggering the antizerg mechanic, you would have 1x 350 dmg swipe

I'm missing 20k fame from trying out scythe. I will report after few days of using it.

Nono, you dont get it at all
You need AXE which have 10% chance to heal you (for 78 HP for me in medium armor)
So E have 10% chance to trigger this passive each time it hit, so when you E big group of mobs it have really huge chance to overheal you,
and as i can deal with random in it i cant agree with ammout of healing from this AXE,
(if you get in 5 mobs then you hit 50 times, so you have 50 x 10% chance of healing 78 hp [too low anyway comparing to healing from 4.1 axe])

it should be just slighty buffed by:

• incerasing healing ammout
or
• incerasing % chance to trigger

So its not mentioned to be anti zerg DPS but anti zerg healing tank! Its cool idea! But once again risk is huge (to group mobs) and heal is too small for now. Buff it or useless

1. Axe isn't a tanking weapon. For tanking use Mace or Hammer. (I prefer mace)
2. The axe debuff not only does damage but also reduces healing received. On shouldn't forget that.
3. There are only 4 weapons with combo spells:
axe: rending strike + vampiric strike (more stacks = more heal)
dagger: sunder armor + slit throat (more stacks = more damage)
curse staff: vile curse + death curse (more stacks = more damage)
spear: low stab + dash (more stacks = more damage)

that's far from "nearly all weapons".^^

PS: I'll make some dps comparisons when I find the time.

The energy skill on w is useless outside of solo pve.
And the energy costs of the skills are way to high.
Atm is the 2haxe and scythe in dungeons and group pvp like 15 secounds fun and dmg and after that time you are an autoattack bot.

"1. Axe isn't a tanking weapon. For tanking use Mace or Hammer. (I prefer mace)"

- The axe can be a great tanking weapon, but it has trouble with the aggro generation from my experience. The E which gives me quite a nice health boost per bleed charge is very useful to keep in the fight, and the W energy shield allows me to spam stack abilities and use my vampiric leech often.

"The energy skill on w is useless outside of solo pve."

- If you're talking about the one handed battleaxe then: Actually, it's insanely good in PvP. In small 1v1 I can outlast my opponent by using my W coupled with my hp regen from my E to keep my energy high enough to constantly stay in the fight. I'm doing almost enough damage to keep up, and my leech gives me the ability to keep fighting longer. In group play when people are healing you it's like getting free energy as normally since you are not a CC user people will not focus you as often.

After some more testing I found some odd happenings. In T4 I was able to take on a guy in T5 armor almost all Masterwork, who was using a Legendary Heavy Mace, and I was able to get him down to under 100 HP each time I dueled him. By using My bleed stacks and leech I was able to consistently bring up my hp equal to his, and my bleeds helped work through is superior armor. My energy shield allowed me to keep using my abilities in a spammable manner while he had to pace himself and would often run out.

In the end he'd always beat me, but with a sliver of health left. Yet when I did damage comparisons in PvE he was dropping mobs significantly faster. I'm going to do some more testing, but I think the battleaxe was able to keep up because my abilities were significantly more spammable because of my large energy pool compared to the CC heavy character who was having to pace himself. I'll post my findings soon.

Sure, but that doesn't apply to the 2H variants. I get what you're trying to say, but there's no denying the Axe tree weapons need some kind of buff/balancing to be as viable as other melee options (mace/staff etc). Another thing to add is that Axes give the LEAST bonus to hitpoints I believe, so making it have better, more sustainable than the defensive mace seems fair right? As of now things feel unbalanced.

There is a big problem with the energy usage though.

I have used staffs and lance, bow, etc, and u almost never go OOM.

With Scythe, you can apply 3 rending strikes and one rending swing, and you get oom. It's just completly underpowered in this aspect to the other weapons.

1 case: spear Q skill - 5 mana.

Please fix.

Couldn't agree more... I have to say that I'd be OK-ish with damage of the scythe but the energy cost of all of its skills is just too much. I have to be very careful and rely more on the autoattacks so I don't run out of mana which is just not fun. As you said I haven't seen other weapons having that big of an issues with mana. Maybe I should have opted for light armor but I'm afraid I'd be just too squishy in PvP.

Oh I absolutely agree the axes need some more work, but the 1h variant does have a way to counteract the ridiculous energy consumption. The 2h variant does not.

Overall both need some changes to help make them a bit more viable in overall scenarios.

So far I like a lot of the skills used on the 1 handed variant, but I feel some number changes might help.

The 2h variant, I agree, needs some help. The energy consumption is a bit too high to justify the damage output it does compared to things like the claymore. Maybe if the Whirlwind ability also gave 10-15 energy back per target hit? This would mean in PvP situations like group skirmishes it awards you for doing your DPS job and being kind of in the thick of it as a DPS (which you probably will be anyway as a melee), and the more saturated a target area is the more you need energy: Hence the more energy you get from using the ability. It seems like that or a flat out reduction to some of the energy cost would be effective.

Going back to the one handed variant: I think it's relatively well balanced in PvP scenarios. I was able to take on a T5 Masterwork Armored guy who was using a legendary T4 Heavy Mace. I wasn't able to beat him, but I was able to get exceptionally close each time by using my overall DPS, bleed stacks, Vampiric leech on Max bleed (to give myself a bit of health to keep going), and the energy shield to keep my abilities on constant rotation. I wasn't necessarily outlasting him through raw defense like someone with a mace/hammer does. I was able to keep up my DPS through the stuns, and in exchange for not getting any CC's I have my leech which can give me 350~ health back which is roughly equivalent to how much I lost DURING the time I was stunned.

The REAL problem I found with PvE was that my weapon was very difficult in keeping aggro on single targets, and that for some reason I was being out DPS'd by other classes relatively easily. I'm not sure how it ties into the mechanics, and I'm trying to do some more testing to figure out why. Now you may think "It's an axe, you shouldn't be able to tank with that weapon", but to be honest if I'm in a full suit of heavy plate armor with taunt skills, a shield to help me get higher incoming heal numbers, the only thing left is my weapon. The only thing it needs to do is generate enough single target aggro if my team is focusing my target like they are supposed to. Yet for some reason I constantly find things pulled off of me like it's nothing.

I suppose I'll give my perspective on this one. There are a few issues with the 2H Greataxe that make it less favorable than other weapons.

1. SIGNIFICANTLY less bonus health in exchange for SLIGHTLY more damage.
   
   • Claymore has ~2x more hp at the same tier.
     
   • Polehammer has ~4x more hp at the same tier.
     
   • Claymore and I auto attacked each other using the same gear, tiers and rarity across the board. He was auto attacking me for 32 damage while I was hitting him for 37 damage. At 5dps it would take me 32 seconds of combat for my advantage in taking an axe to be relevant.
     
     • Yes I understand that there are more to these weapons than auto-attack damage. I'm simply pointing out that the flat stats seem skewed by a small margin in favor of other weapons.
       
2. No CC abilities.
   
3. Ultimate (E) is underwhelming. It adds a mild buff to your team's AoE damage while also adding a stack to the anti-zerg mechanic which may end up being detrimental.
   
4. The healing reduction doesn't seem to work. I tested this morning against a T5 healing mob:
   
   • Auto attacked healing mob until it healed itself. The mob healed for 213.
     
   • Auto attacked the next healing mob and applied 3 stacks of healing reduction. Mob healed himself for... 213
     

so far it seems that the axe was designed for DPS. It gets more damage, and a lot less HP bonus. The problem is that you only get a bit more damage for the big health loss. I'd say keep the low HP bonus but up the damage to make the axe the damage choice, while other melee weapons have their thing (cc, tankiness etc)

Love the idea of dots. Maybe a slight increase in dot damage would make the weapon more unique? It's quite insignificant right now.

Self heal passive + whirlwind seems very potent.

Not as underpowered as other weapons, byt certainly could use some love.

I went light armor and boots and heavy helmet. The damage is quite great actually, but the energy problem is horrible.

For the squishiness you have the defensive skill from your helment, and ice block from armor

@PepeLePudka yeah I can imagine that two light pieces of armor will boost your damage quite well.

I am glad I'm not the only one recognizing the energy issue with axes.

I used the exact same armor setup but the thing is you get CC'd so easily, you can't put out enough dmg at all. In a group fight if you were focused I can't imagine a scenario where you could survive for a few second and take someone down with you.

The mana usage is also a great issue. So far I have duelled with alot of different specs and had alot of problems. To name a few: Against a quarterstaff user I usually can't get out of stun lock and only get him down to %50 at best. Against a frost mage, using the cleanse from plate armor I kind of get close to killing but right at the most crucial moment my mana runs out. Against a great cursed staff, when I'm using 2xlight pieces I just die in 8secs.

The Q ability seems off. It is easy to avoid getting 3 stacks of dot. and has no combination like the t4.1 axe and cost alot of energy. The w spell is nice but it costs alot of energy. I really like Whirlwind but getting cc'ed while using it is terrible, it cost WAY too much mana and the dmg out put is very very low against single target. Did a little testing with my quarter staff using friend; I was wearing heavy full plate, he was wearing full light plate we both used our e abilities and both their damage was 38 per tick. But his ability also knocks back and costs alot less.

So this is my experience so far, thanks for reading

Just roll curse staff for dmg lol

FIX the battle axes OMG! from T4 there is no point in going any further T5 should have a 4th spell atleast !!! the time spent farming to T5 axe is not even worth going battle axes. I have an epic T5 and a Legendary T4 even though its Legendary its only a few points off from doing the EXACT same damage. PLEASE , I have spent countless hours in axes and YET to see why I even have hours into them. TWO THUMBS DOWN