Curse

Legendary Shiz · Dec 03, 2006, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Critical chop is the only thing making axes remotely good anymore. Scythes are just so much better than axes. As soon as my war finds a good scythe, I will stop using my axes.

Meh, I can't really agree with this tbh. Maybe in PvE land scythes are better, but how could you want a scythe on a warrior? Sure they have a few good attack skills, but they don't have the spike potential or the same amount of pressure. Especially considering you'd only be able to spec up scythe mastery to 12 instead of 15-16.

TheOneMephisto · Dec 03, 2006, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by shardfenix

Critical chop is the only thing making axes remotely good anymore. Scythes are just so much better than axes. As soon as my war finds a good scythe, I will stop using my axes.

Scythes on warrior's is absolutely ftl. Have fun with energy.

If you want to use a scythe, use a dervish or a ranger with expertise.

But I agree with you to an extent. Warriors with axes are still good because they have a quick deepwound and +damage even without their elite and even more with their elite and because they can overextend more.

Symbol · Dec 03, 2006, 05:35 PM // 17:35

[email protected] with scythes.

But really, this bitching about axes sucking without crit chop-really is it any different from axes sucking without eviscerate pre nightfall?

Greedy Gus · Dec 04, 2006, 03:45 AM // 03:45

Crit chop is a great skill, but it's not god's gift to axe warriors. The reason it's not as royal as a gift of health or images of remorse is that it's not really filling a spot that was lacking before.

Recharge isn't short enough to fill your prot strike/frenzy slot. It costs energy so you don't necessarily want to replace executioner's strike and only run with a single adren skill on an energy heavy bar. It's really generally going to come down to replacing one of the other good utility skills you'd like to put on an axe war, namely d-blow, bulls strike, shock, healsig, etc., to add more damage as a 3rd straight attack skill.

In my opinion, the strength of pressure/spike axe wars (not talking about the retards who run around tapping enemy warriors and then telespiking) generally was being able to fit your deep wound and enough +damage into just two attack skills, and being able to fill up the rest of your bar on utility (3 slots, assuming you also use IAS, run buff, and res sig). And again, utility doesn't mean you're less offensive, many times disruption, knockdown chaining, self-heals, etc. make you a more potent threat than running a lot of +damage. Which is why I still run a lot of axe wars without crit chop, and still use eviscerate.

I Brother Bloood I · Dec 04, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Eviscerate is still nice but ive been looking at decapitate and its something that i see good potential with. 1. Use burst of aggresion over frenzy in this case. 2. Use things like Executioners strike and Critical chop BEFORE decapitate. 3. Zealous weapons are very helpful with this. So far i have a bar like this Burst of Aggresion, Critical Chop, Executioners Strike, Decapitate, Remedy Signet, Healing Signet, Ressurection Signet, Open.

Patccmoi · Dec 04, 2006, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Crit chop is a great skill, but it's not god's gift to axe warriors. The reason it's not as royal as a gift of health or images of remorse is that it's not really filling a spot that was lacking before.

Recharge isn't short enough to fill your prot strike/frenzy slot. It costs energy so you don't necessarily want to replace executioner's strike and only run with a single adren skill on an energy heavy bar. It's really generally going to come down to replacing one of the other good utility skills you'd like to put on an axe war, namely d-blow, bulls strike, shock, healsig, etc., to add more damage as a 3rd straight attack skill.

In my opinion, the strength of pressure/spike axe wars (not talking about the retards who run around tapping enemy warriors and then telespiking) generally was being able to fit your deep wound and enough +damage into just two attack skills, and being able to fill up the rest of your bar on utility (3 slots, assuming you also use IAS, run buff, and res sig). And again, utility doesn't mean you're less offensive, many times disruption, knockdown chaining, self-heals, etc. make you a more potent threat than running a lot of +damage. Which is why I still run a lot of axe wars without crit chop, and still use eviscerate.

Well it's a tradeoff. You keep a similar spike power with 3 skill slots instead of 2 (usually something like Dismember-Crit Chop-Exec Strike, which is slightly stronger than Evis-Exec but takes slightly longer though the DW is activated faster) but on the other hand you free your elite slot.

Shadow Prison is a teleport/snare that is used a lot just cause it makes it much easier to coordinate a spike, and while the hex gives away the target at the same time you save the part where you run to target (which gave away target to good monks anyway). But it's not the only elite available. Now you can do Axe warrior with Charge!, Bull's Charge, Charging Strike, any /X elite that fits on a war, etc.

So basically, you can keep Axe's spiking power by sacrificing a utility skill but without using your elite. It doesn't mean every axe build should include Crit Chop, and honestly i think that if you use something like Eviscerate-Executioner's Strike utility is better than Crit Chop because your spike is already strong enough (well, depends on the rest of the team but it usually is). But if you want another elite, Crit Chop makes axe still a viable spiking weapon whereas before without your elite Axe had a bad spiking power (because Dismember-Executioner's wasn't quite enough and if you went for 3 attacks Sever-Gash-Final was a better option).

Wasteland Squidget · Dec 04, 2006, 09:43 PM // 21:43

An axe warrior with Dismember + Crit Chop + Executioners doesn't have any less utility slots than a sword warrior with Sever + Gash + Final, though he does have a bit less energy. Assuming 14 weapon mastery, the sword combo beats the axe combo by 26 points if Final Thrust triggers, and loses by 11 if FT doesn't trigger.

What's really nice about this guy is his ability to spike quickly and eat up a lot of prot. Dismember is charged in 5 hits, so you can unleash Dismember + Crit Chop twice before the sword guy can unleash his combo once. Deep Wounds and quick health drops tend to draw a lot of prot - if you get a caster buddy to throw a random lightning orb or Eburn at the target you're hitting with Dismember + Crit Chop, he'll usually draw Prot Spirits and Spirit Bonds that eat up a lot of monk energy. 5 hits later you're ready to spike again with your full combo.

If you don't need the elite, Eviscerate slides nicely into the Dismember slot. The only place where I think Crit Chop is a little weaker is when I want to run Eviscerate, but only have two skillslots to spend on attacks. I'd rather take Eviscerate + Executioners than Eviscerate + Crit Chop, because both the adrenal skills will be charged at the same time and randomly Crit Chopping people just because it's up isn't that hot.

The other place Crit Chop really shines is three-warrior builds. When pressuring it's a nice skill that makes every attempt at unleashing adrenaline scarier, but when you spike it looks really good because you can drop a character in the space of one attack. The warriors converge and each one unleashes a single attack skill + Crit Chop/Protector's Strike and the target is dead without having to wait for the second attack to land. I guess this comes back to "Crit Chop is good in spike", but even pressure builds want to spike at some point and being able to kill before the second attack hits is great for damaging before monks can heal.

I'll agree that it doesn't fit everywhere, but it's by far the most impressive non-elite skill warriors have been given in either chapter.

Greedy Gus · Dec 05, 2006, 06:04 AM // 06:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Well it's a tradeoff. You keep a similar spike power with 3 skill slots instead of 2 (usually something like Dismember-Crit Chop-Exec Strike, which is slightly stronger than Evis-Exec but takes slightly longer though the DW is activated faster) but on the other hand you free your elite slot.

Shadow Prison is a teleport/snare that is used a lot just cause it makes it much easier to coordinate a spike, and while the hex gives away the target at the same time you save the part where you run to target (which gave away target to good monks anyway). But it's not the only elite available. Now you can do Axe warrior with Charge!, Bull's Charge, Charging Strike, any /X elite that fits on a war, etc.

So basically, you can keep Axe's spiking power by sacrificing a utility skill but without using your elite. It doesn't mean every axe build should include Crit Chop, and honestly i think that if you use something like Eviscerate-Executioner's Strike utility is better than Crit Chop because your spike is already strong enough (well, depends on the rest of the team but it usually is). But if you want another elite, Crit Chop makes axe still a viable spiking weapon whereas before without your elite Axe had a bad spiking power (because Dismember-Executioner's wasn't quite enough and if you went for 3 attacks Sever-Gash-Final was a better option).

Absolutely, I'm under no delusions that this bar isn't fantastic for adren spiking. Warriors have always desired to teleport and adren spike, but the problem was that all of the factions tele skills like death's charge had long recharges and forced you away from ele secondary so the target could kite the spike (unless you run hammer which ended up the only thing people ran on death's charge guys). Now here comes a-net's gift to adrenaline spike, shadow prison, which solves both problems easily. I wouldn't be surprised to see it get balanced to 10e on the next round of updates.

However, your point about crit chop 'freeing up' the elite slot I'd argue against. You don't really have a goal of getting to use other elites, rather you come at the build from the start with "do I want to use other elites, or do I want to run a strong attack elite?" If you don't have another elite you need to use, you bring eviscerate or dev hammer, or cleave/decapitate if you're MH. And if you want to run another elite, now at least you have a decent alternative to sword for a non-elite warrior bar. So to clarify, you don't run crit chop to enable you to run shadow prison, SP is what drives your bar in the first place and you improvise on how to make it work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squidget

What's really nice about this guy is his ability to spike quickly and eat up a lot of prot. Dismember is charged in 5 hits, so you can unleash Dismember + Crit Chop twice before the sword guy can unleash his combo once. Deep Wounds and quick health drops tend to draw a lot of prot - if you get a caster buddy to throw a random lightning orb or Eburn at the target you're hitting with Dismember + Crit Chop, he'll usually draw Prot Spirits and Spirit Bonds that eat up a lot of monk energy. 5 hits later you're ready to spike again with your full combo.

Well maybe if crit chop had a faster recharge, but in actuality you'll only get about 1.5 dis/crit combos in the time of one final thrust. Although it's really comparing apples and oranges, which brings me back to my first point in this thread (I think). I feel that people aren't very good at playing sword warriors effectively, and probably would just unleash their sever/gash/final when it's built. I probably am underestimating the dismember bar a bit, but I feel that it's just way outclassed unless you're talking about team spiking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squidget

If you don't need the elite, Eviscerate slides nicely into the Dismember slot. The only place where I think Crit Chop is a little weaker is when I want to run Eviscerate, but only have two skillslots to spend on attacks.

For me, only needing to use 2 skill slots on attack skills is one of the main reasons to bring eviscerate. I'm not sacrificing by only bringing 2 attack skills, I'm celebrating that I can pack 3 strong utility skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squidget

I'd rather take Eviscerate + Executioners than Eviscerate + Crit Chop, because both the adrenal skills will be charged at the same time and randomly Crit Chopping people just because it's up isn't that hot.

I saw iQ tonight running (I believe) crit chop in place of executioners, and disrupting chop in place of distracting blow, which seems to be a good way of keeping the balance of adren vs. energy.

Quote:

I'll agree that it doesn't fit everywhere, but it's by far the most impressive non-elite skill warriors have been given in either chapter.

No doubt, finally something other than fierce blow that people may run