The lack of cleave on the great axe kills it for me. I can’t stand chopping into a horde and having the swing stop midscreen leaving me exposed. In my eyes a great axe should be hewing through hordes like a scythe through wheat.
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^This too
that’s fine, except you can do it on almost any other two handed weapon in the game. those two weapons flat out can not cancel the instant you click LMB. not mid swing, not towards the end of the swing, just the second that button is even tapped. it feels very out of place on a character who is supposed to be the agile one, and it’s especially obnoxious given how squishy she is, while other beefier characters can cancel with no issue. it’s honestly baffling how easy it is to cancel on halberd, 2h hammer and such in comparison.
glaive is a strong weapon so giving it cancels would probably be overpowered, but it’s just a very bad and clunky feeling on her weapons and most of her kit is plagued by such things. dual sword block delay after the 2nd charge move, volley bow getting stuck in the alt fire animation, bow swaps in general, wardancer having the same exact issue with no cancels and having an extremely awkward transition from blocking to swinging, etc.
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The glaive is a beast. The delay to block after a push attack is a bit awkward. Though, I have gotten used to do a push attack, one followup swing, then blocking. I haven’t felt the glaive to be lacking overall - one of the best weapon choices for her. There are weapons that serious need some attention, this is not one of them.
It’s really not the only advantage, it’s crowd damage is far greater. The hammer knocks around a lot of targets, but damages very few and those not very much. The lower single target damage is somewhat off-set with it’s higher attack speed.
same on the elf 2h sword. attack animations and cancelling feel very clunky and not like the other weapons unfortunately
Great Axe:
Increased first target damage on heavy attacks, increased boss damage even more on first target.
Finally home and was able to do some cursory testing on the armored and non-armored practice dummies. Added results of the 2H Axe and 2H Hammer for comparison.
Practice Dummy (Unarmored)
2H Axe
Light Attack - 1050 to body
Light Attack - 1600 to head
Heavy Attack - 1550 to body
Heavy Attack - 2025 to head
2H Hammer
Light Attack - 1250 to body
Light Attack - 1875 to head
Heavy Attack - 875 to body
Heavy Attack - 1300 to head
Practice Dummy (Armored)
2H Axe
Light Attack - 850 to body
Light Attack - 1275 to head
Heavy Attack - 875 to body
Heavy Attack - 1125 to head
2H Hammer
Light Attack - 1000 to body
Light Attack - 1500 to head
Heavy Attack - 425 to body
Heavy Attack - 650 to head
Overall I don’t think this first target damage increase of the 2H Axe is gonna change things much. I’ll test with a boss to see if it’s improved much there, but it’s not looking good. Nothing has changed for light attack damage nor ‘cumbersome-ness’ of the weapon.
The 2H Hammer still appears to have better single target damage and wave clear.
I’ll report back with the boss damage later.
tl;dr - Update helps the charged damage of the axe. It doesn’t do enough though and there’s still a lot better options.
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I use the 2h hammer as slayer and it seems to have great wave clear. It seems to kill at least 2 slave rats per swing, and the damage for 3rd target hit for each weapon is very close to the same. (450 for axe, 300 for hammer)
I wouldn’t exactly say 50% more damage is close to the same.
Anyway, the 2h hammer deals 12.75 damage to the first, 8.5 to the second, 4.25 to the third and 0 to any further one (at 600HP without any boosts). Although it’s cleave is a pitiful 5.6, meaning you won’t even penetrate the 3rd slave rat to apply that 0 damage without some +power. (this is all damage, the hammer will penetrate more targets when it comes to stagger).
The 2h axe, with a cleave of 9.9, deals 23 to the first, 12.75 to the 2nd, 6.25 to the 3rd and 5 to all remaining ones.
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Then perhaps the problem simply lies in cleave for the 2h axe, with the diagonal strike angle it makes it hard to hit a large number, but when you manage it your axe gets stopped.
I’ve played both 2h hammer and 2h axe with the Unstoppable talent against hordes and usually find my damage done is higher overall with the work I’m able to do with the hammer.
I’ll test it out some more.
Yeah, right now the 2h axe is in a really bad spot. The 2h hammer does more damage with light attacks, cleaves more and is just the better weapon there is no reason to pick up the 2h axe other than aesthetics. And like what op said it is clunky as hell.
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2h hammer does more damage with lights, but is slower. I really don’t think the damage advantage is that good compared to the faster speed of the axe.
It cleaves more, but damages fewer and those for far less. The axe is unquestionably the better one for killing with it’s sweep, which i would consider it’s niche, given that bardin lacks horde clearers.
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Here’s info on damage as a lot of the stuff people have posted above is incorrect:
I don’t really care what a spreadsheet says, in practice the 2h hammer is the superior horde clearer, and individual target killer. The Axe straight up stopping its swings due to its cleave limit, or lack of stagger, whatever is causing it, is awful and in my eyes makes it a pointless weapon. You can say this is incorrect as the spreadsheet says otherwise, but its exactly how they work in play.
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I don’t consider the 2h hammer really any good at horde clearing, since it barely kills anything.
Anyway, yes, the axe will stop in it’s swing far before the 2h hammer, but deal damage far more damage to far more targets. In practice and on the sheets.
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In practice the 2-h hammer clears chaffe in one-two heavy swings at head level, while controlling the ones who didn’t die so the follow-up does. I don’t know if we’re playing on different difficulties or what, but on Legend at the least the G-axe is just a liability, whenever you get that stop, you’re open to attacks that you typically eat, and it takes like five to down you.
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Disagreed, while i find it okay vs skaven hordes (even if a little mediocre), against chaos ones it’s lack of damage really shows. Especially with marauders in the mix.
The G-axe certainly is more dangerous to use, you need to be fully aware that your attack will stop fairly regularly. That’s the 2h hammers main advantage in the end, trading killing power for stagger. I play it more with the slayer, staying mobile while you skirt at the outside of the horde.
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The axe is a pretty handy weapon, i use it as ranger, but it does lack in damage on its m1 non-sweaps. It’s okay that it does almost no stagger at all on m2 sweaps since it cleaves and deals alot of damage against smaller foes. For an armor piercing weapon, it really doesn’t have much to show for it. I kill CW, maulers and SV alot faster and easier with two-handed hammer, which arguably has the better sweaps due to immense staggering.
I suppose we have very different play-styles as I have never noticed the issues you have with chaos enemies. I do roll power vs chaos on charms as I think its the most useful power and max crit% on weapon and trinket which helps in the damage department. Outside of that armored enemy’s I’ve always just mixed in a head pop and push. I think if the great-axe had additional stagger (if that is what causes the interrupt to your attack), I would use it over the hammer solely on the grounds that I think they look better.
I don’t think it’s a matter of playstyle, there is very little variance in what you can do, other than swing the weapon and hit the enemies. I believe it’s more a matter of standard, what you want your weapon to be able to do. Requiring 3 swings just to down 1 fanatic in a group of them, is what i would call mediocre.
I would definitely recommend getting some vs skaven to be able to two-shot SV with a head+body, without that it’s just a slower great axe.
I can’t say for CW/Maulers, since they take so many hits counting is a little silly, but SV is definitely not as clear cut.
Both will need 2 hits at least and 3 hits at most (if you have a small damage boost). The only thing the 2h hammer does better vs them is it’s ability to take them down with head+body (for which the great axe requires significantly more investment, i wouldn’t recommend that). Given that the hammer is quite a bit slower, i really wouldn’t consider it “a lot faster” at taking them out.
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