1H axes both for Bardin and Victor are meh, at best these days; even with the recent buff to the attack speed and cleave they are decent but not much better I think, and really require your team to make up for it during hordes, and if you face one by yourself it gets really tough, where as the falchion or rapier would allow you to cleave through them even if they are dense.
I’d like to see one of two things happen to the one handed axes:
Increase its damage, make it a proper hard hitter in exchange for less cleave (which it already has considerably)
or give it more cleaving power
I 'd definitely love to see the former, but yeah, opinions.
Any thoughts on the current state of the one handed axe, and its competitors? Say 1H axe/mace for Bardin, rapier/falchion/axe for Victor?
1h axes feel nearly about right. I wish there was a bit more reason to choose between light and heavy hits because most of the time there isn’t. Even if heavy hit results in less hits to kill the less attack speed usually results in same time to kill. I noticed the heavy has quite good knockdown power, it seems to be able to stop a stormvermin mid-overhead but i’d like to see something more. The cleave feels allright now imo. I manage to top melee kills quite consistently with those.
It doesn’t to me at least, especially not when compared to the falchion which is flat out just a better weapon.
It offers the same amount of damage to unarmored, with less armor penetration and way more cleave/horde control. The Axe should compensate for the reduced cleave with more damage, not just armor penetration.
1-Handed Axe needs something pretty good to compensate for its horrendous horde clear. While its cleave could be increased a bit to make it more versatile, I think that would kind of defeat its purpose as a specialist anti-armor weapon. Instead, its base damage should, in my opinion, be increased, just like OP says.
As it is now, if you stack everything you can on WHC, you can hit one significant breakpoint: one-hitting stormvermin on headshot. That is one breakpoint that should be reachable by any career using it, especially since WHC is just about the worst choice to use it (okay, maybe Slayer is still worse, but whatever). One-hitting Fanatics (on heavy attack bodyshots or light attack headshots) would be another significant breakpoint. If either of those (or preferably both) could be reached without using Talents (so that all Victor’s and Bardin’s careers could hit them) 1-handed Axe would start being an actual choice, instead of being just overridden by Falchion, Flail, 2-H Axe or Axe and Shield. Those weapons currently offer similar (or even better) anti-armor capability and are capable of handling hordes too.
You might have confused the 1h hammer with the 1h axe, then.
I’ve used the 1h axe for shiz and a giggles here and there and its just not very useful. I’m actually not sure which is worse between it and the hammer+shield. They both have a massive drawback with little to make up for it.
This is what it was before what it is now, but feedback got it changed. It only hit 2 targets but for higher damage which also resulted in it being more effective against armor. It had a niche and I liked it that way. Apparently I was crazy.
Bardin and Saltz have other weapons, not all of them have to be all-in-one’s.
My issue with single target high damage is with mob stacking you spend forever trying to hack that Stormvermin as clan/slaverats stack into the model and eat your swings.
There are many situations where one can strafe to not deal with clumps of enemies. Create space and go for the big targets. Bardin can also use his Disengage to create space and go for the armor. You also have a team that can handle the fodder.
I’m not saying every weapon needs to have this kind of niche, and I point out that the characters have other weapon choices, but there should at least be something for those who want to benefit from tactical maneuvers and not just stand and spam.
To me it sounds like some want to use an axe, but they don’t like how it plays, so they aim to change it to be like the weapons they do like so they can use the axe and still play like they did with the other weapons. Why even have weapon choices at that point?
I dont think improving dmg will save this weapon. The lack of cleave will get you killed so often. Killing more mobs on one swing seems crucial in this game.
There are plenty of other weapons that have cleave, on all the characters. Why not leave a niche weapon for those of us who can use it effectively? It’s not like you’re being forced to use it.
No, 1h axe is a really good weapon to use on bardin, on par with the 1h hammer. I use it on RV and it works really, really well. You can’t use it the same way as the 1h hammer, of course, it’s a weapon you take along to balance out your ranged weapon’s lack of CW and armoured power. Also works pretty well on IB with drakefire weapons. 1h axe is fast, has reasonable cleave against enemies, satisfactory dodge range and the charged attacks absolutely wreck chaos warriors. 1h axe is, I admit, more dependend on your overall setup, what you rolled on it, etc. Bardin’s hammers are both bread and butter weapons, you can do anything with them and they are always good, they have no really strong points but no weaknesses either. The axes are more specialized in this regard and I do find them to be better against armour.
I hope they add a bunch of cleave to the 1h axe - feels good, but that cleave makes me choose the lower damage, and much higher cleave 1h hammer every time
1h hammer is to 1h axe the same as 2h hammer is to 2h axe: Hammers are better allaround weapons with no weaknesses (and 1h hammer honestely has one of the best push-attacks of any weapon currently in the game), while the axes are more specialized. I do wish they’d simply do even more damage against armoured targets, because they are simply not as pronounced as they should be imho, but at least for 1h axe compared to 1h hammer, the light attacks have armour pen.
Its charged attack is too slow and not damaging enough - it shares the same old profile with 1h hammer charged, halberd push-stab, and these attacks have much higher attack rate.
Its the same problem as in Vermintide 1 - charged attacks are close to pointless. When theres lights that do the same thing but better+faster. Also the weapon feels more boring due to both these facts.
