I have no experience with it on Bardin, but Saltz axe absolutely need love. AFAIK it has the worst hordeclear / cleave in the game, bar none. If it’s supposed to be that bad at cleave, it needs significantly more damage and armor /superarmor damage.
The Axe definitely needs something, ideally I think higher raw damage in addition to its armor piercing to compensate for its low cleave. It should be something different from the mace, but in its current state it isn’t a great choice.
I use Axe exclusively on grudge RV and it’s gd amazing so I really don’t think Bardin axe needs any love. It’s a high mobility, medium stamina, armour penetrating, high damage weapon with great accuracy and attack speed. Its lmb spam wrecks CW. It has a good amount of cleave relative to the damage it deals such that you’re getting temp health with virtually every swing, and its mobility means you can dance with the hordes h/e much you need to. It compliments grudge perfectly.
I think, to a degree (lolshields), it’s a mistake to assess melee weapons solely on their own strengths/weaknesses in that it’s more important one’s melee and ranged choices compliment one another.
Just for the record, the 1h axe is the same on bardin and saltz. They are the same weapon.
It’s cleave is the lowest, on par with dual daggers/dual axes (all of them only having single target attacks). Although i suppose some weapon needs to be the worst, i’d say the 1h axe isn’t that bad at horde clear, due to it’s fairly high damage and attack speed.
While i agree, i do think it’s charged is a little weak. It’s identical in damage compared to the 1h hammer, just slightly slower.
I personally would say though, making the 1h axe too good at AP would neuter the dedicated 2h AP weapons (2h axe/2h hammer).
Basically I’d argue, the heavies on the 1h axe and the lights on 2h axe/2h hammer need either just straight up more damage or more pen (maybe even bonus damage to super armor to solidify their role).
I can def agree on that. I see virtually no reason to ever use the charged attack since I’m pretty sure the lmb spam is better DPS and penetrates armour just as well. I only use overhead to initiate combat sometimes for a minor spike in damage or if I’m trying to hit a specific special mixed in with trash.
Actually pretty sure dual daggers have better hordeclear. They might be similar with 2 target max on paper, but in practice dual daggers are much easier to use against a horde than the axe, imo.
Personally, I feel a lot safer with the axe in that I watch stuff die more. When I’m using DD I’m always nervous I haven’t stabbed something enough and that it’s gonna poke me where with the axe I can watch the blade deal nice choppy killing blows in a decent sweep angle. I’m less worried about my peripherals since the axe has a nice wide angle to its pattern where on DD I’m a lot less relaxed. Probably just subjective though. Since DD can do SS better you’re probably right whereas on Axe I only run +2 stam +30% block cost reduction (plus the additional 30% from necklace), something I’d never do on DD.
Yeah it might be personal opinion, but for me if I play axe Zealot for a while and then switch to DD keri, suddenly it feels like DD has good hordeclear it’s just something about how the swings look like they should be chopping through anything, yet stop dead on the first rat that gives me horde PTSD even quicker than daggers do.
Edit: I don’t do SS on daggers and they still feel better to me. CDR is the name of the game for shade and HM I feel.
I’m gonna repeat myself from other 1h axe discussions.
My only problem with axe is that the charged hit is rarely usefull because normal hits kill things faster even if they require 1 or 2 more hits to kill. The only upside of charged is that it has quite high knockdown power so you can cancel stormvermin overheads with it and stuff but i wish there was more reason to commit to them, esspecially when normal hits are very safe with block cancelling and heavy hits not so much.
But it’s up to you to wanna run another trait, in fact I see SS, RC and Parry prety usefull for all elven careers, it’s more about playstyle and build you run.
Yeah parry can be super useful, and I know people who swear by it for certain weapons and builds. Like you said, it’s more about how you play and what kind of playstyle you want.
I think 1h Axe needs a Damage\AS buff and moveset change, so it still lacks some hordeclear, but actually excels at single target dps and armor pen. Right now flail and falch are just straight up superior as a melee choice on salty, and 1h hammer is a better weapon overall on bardin.
And i don’t mean that its very bad(it probably is), or unusable, you can be relatively effective with it if you’re playing either IB or Zealot, but even on those careers there are just better options.
Also its never a good thing for a melee weapon, if heavy, light and pushstab attacks do the exact same thing. Best melee weapons are best because of their thought-out, and versatile movesets(good armor pen on some attacks, and good cleave on other). Heavily specialized melee weapons will always be bad(niche best case scenario) on legend, and this goes for both armor pen only(axe) and hordeclear only(2-handed sword, flamesword, etc…).
Dual axes get a dodge count of 6 and no movement penalty when blocking yet the 1h axe only gets 3. I think the axe should get an unlimited dodge count like the elf 1h sword, this will make up for lack of cleave with good mobility. No need to change any other stats, it will also give the slayer class a reason to use the 1h axe over the dual axes which is currently a must pick.
It has a 15% movement penatly, 1h axe has 20% for some reference point, rapier has 10%, 2h sword has 50%.
I’d have said that dual axes are kinda meant to be a thing every slayer picks, like part of the reason for the existence of the class are the dual axes.
many people don’t take into account that you’re supposed to complement melee weapons with abilities talents, gear and your ranged weapon, and just fully focus on how balanced a melee weapon is on it’s own - they’re gonna get frustrated.
it’s just something about how the swings look like they should be chopping through anything, yet stop dead on the first rat that gives me horde PTSD even quicker than daggers do.