War Mace or Battle Axe which is better ??

It isn't only the higher percentages of mitigating secondary effects that favor BA, but as you say it's the drunken wandering animation that reduces a stuns effectiveness in WM.
Because typically, as with the fear in Burn, it turns an npc's melee attacks, which favor your Tank, into ranged attacks which is seldom an advantage for this AT or the team.


Anyone here would suggest not giving up on the set until you at least have a full slotted Clobber, and ideally Crowd Control, the two gems in the secondary.

That has not been my experience with two DA characters, a Inv/Mace and a Inv/EM. NPCs don't always wander out of melee range when stunned, but if they do and the stun wears off, IME they typically either run back into melee range immediately, or take one ranged shot, then run back into melee range.

I agree. I would also throw in that presenting Axe as having KD is a little misleading, as not one of the powers in Axe has 100% chance for KD. There's mitigation there certainly, but it's unpredictable.

As you mention it's in the 8 and 9 powers that Mace really separates itself from Axe. Cone sizes are a huge difference at 8 (a 10 degree cone is a cone in name only) and the max targets is massive at tier 9. Mace already has an advantage from those stats. Add on though that Mace (not Axe which is supposedly the KD set) gets 100% KD on the tier 8 and 9 and Mace's pretty clearly better than Axe.

I actually think the max targets on Cleave and Pendulum got swapped. Why make a 10 degree cone with a max targets of 10? I doubt it's even possible to hit 5, much less 10 with that narrow of a cone. In the meantime the 180 degree cone gets a max targets of 5. I gotta think those things got transposed.

When Castle set out to upgrade War Mace starting in Dec 07 he stated that he wanted the set to be more of a smashing AoE set, to that end in Feb 08 Crowd Controls radius was increased from 5’ to 8’, while Shatters radius was decreased from 10’ to 8’ but it's arc of attack went from 20 degrees to 45 degrees.
This is also when Crowd Control and Shatter were changed from knock back to knock down.


The last big update to the set came in Dec 08 (one minor change came in Jan 09 range and radius of CC WM and Shatt were corrected to 8') when Clobbers damage scale was changed to 2.29 and it's base endurance cost to 15.18 and Shatters Max Targets Hit were reduced from 10 to 5, while
Crowd Controls m/t went from 5 to 10.



So mace has been quite a project in recent years, basically up until late 07 Battle Axe, and every other Tanker secondary for that matter, were far superior to War Mace in nearly all measurable areas, which only makes using it as the standard BA should now be 'lifted' to, chuckle worthy.

Keep in mind, that in addition to modifying BA attack times and rooted portion of animations with the general sweep of melee sets back in 07, Axe is one of the few strong Tanker sets that hasn't had a reduction since 04 and rarely has come up as needing a buff of whatever flavor through the years.



"There's mitigation there certainly, but it's unpredictable."

Experience with both Axe and Mace at 50 suggests to most players that a mix of somewhat effective mitigation is inferior to a single focus on a secondary knockdown effect with literally every attack that has the potential to keep an entire mob off it's feet for a portion of time, something that isn't remotely possible with most War Mace attacks at mag 2 stun.

In other words a solid chain of an effective control is not "unpredictable" when compared to a mix of mediocre stuns and knock down, the former simply presents superior damage mitigation.


The type of mitigation one set has over the other is not a minor detail when comparing two virtually identical secondaries, especially when perceived deficiencies with BA are slightly exaggerated, consider the sets as a whole.




Bash has the same Damage, Endurance Cost, and Recharge Time as Beheader. It has the same chance to Stun as Barrage [EM].

Pulverize has the same Damage, Endurance Cost, and Recharge Time as Chop. Pulverize has a 20% Stun mag 2 chance. Energy Punch [EM] has a 30% Stun mag 2 chance. This power has the same dps as Axe but has a less effective Stun than EM.

Jawbreaker has the same Damage, Endurance Cost, and Recharge Time as Gash. Jawbreaker has a 75% Knockup chance while Gash has a 50% Knockdown chance. This power has the same dps as it's equivalent in Axe but has a better chance of Knockup.

Clobber does more Damage, with higher Endurance Cost and slightly slower Recharge Time then Swoop. Clobber has a mag 3 Stun, while Swoop has a 70% Knockup chance.

Whirling Mace has the same Endurance Cost and Recharge Time as Whirling axe. Whirling Axe has a 50% chance to knock down, while Whirling Mace has higher damage but only a 30% chance to disorient (the same % as Energy Melee's Whirling Hands).

Shatter does less damage, but costs less endurance (11. to 14.) and has a faster recharge than Cleave (12s to 15s). Both powers have an 80% chance of Knockdown, while shatter has a much larger cone (45 to 20).

Crowd Control does less damage, but costs less endurance and has a faster recharge (12s to 15s) than Pendulum. Crowd Control has a 60% chance of knockdown while Pendulum has a 50%. Crowd Control has a higher Range, Radius, and hits twice as many Max Targets (10 to 5) as Pendulum.


You end up with just what Castle set out to do from 07 through 09, to make two carbon copied sets slightly distinct by enhancing AoE for the once bottom dweller Mace and Axe maintains strong ST damage with reliable mitigation.

-bed time, make what you want and have fun OP. =]

Just in case anyone took Plas seriously here.
Don't. This is complete fabrication.

Plas likes to mix reality with his fantasies, and often forgets which is which :/

Castle popped into the scrapper forums a while back and we discussed a couple things concerning FA and SD, but nowhere did he say that he was buffing FA, or how, for that matter.

We just let him know that it's seriously underperforming, since the bar has been raised, anyway.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze I hate to be the bringer of bad news... but Willpower sucks!!! you're better off rolling a regen

lol
Really if you want to push Battle Axe for some type of buff you're selling yourself short by trying to make it an exact statistical copy of War Mace, a set it's already virtually the equivalent of.

What your argument should be directed at is Stone Melee which has a higher ST and AoE score compared to both Axe and Mace while it gets a complete pass on the weapon redraw animation that lowers dps on both of those sets.


Heavy Mallet does 101. damage with a 75% chance for knockdown while it's equivalent in Axe has roughly the same end cost but does 87. damage with a 50% knockdown chance, and it suffers from the weapon redraw on top of that, like WM, BS etc.



I'm not opposed to Axe getting some type of buff though I don't think it underperforms at all, but making War Mace out to be the boogyman to that end is just beyond silly because Mace has had a stigma for such a long time as a terrible power set that even after it's buff it's seldom seen on new Tanks and rarely comes up for build advice in these forums.

If someone were going to push for anything, it should be to have Axe and Mace statistically closer to Stone in damage, and all weapon sets should have the redraw hitch removed with its dps penalty, just like Stone Melee already has (well never had, an issue Castle and BaBs have tackled in the past with only a 'maybe someday').

For my part I'm 99% happy with Axe the way it is. I recognize that I was happy before I read anything about comparisons, and that comparisons shouldn't reduce that. Would I like to see positive changes to Axe (and Mace)? Abosolutely. But I'd be lieing if I said I was upset with Axe, or with Mace as some kind of competitor.

I admit I sure do wish that 10 max targets was on Pendulum though. That's one thing that bugs me when I'm buried in a mass of mooks and would really like to Pendulum and let the Zig sort them out. That nice big cone and that low target limit! Argh!

I'd be happy to lend my support to any movements to get Axe and Mace brought up toward Stone.

I think I was right there with you getting Flack for my belief that FA is a good power set.

Some people just dont like to work for there Power is all.

The Change to Fire Aura would be good in 1 way, and the rest I dont feel needs a tweak.

They need to give FA a new teir 9.Almost everyone skips taking Rise of the Pheonix.Including my self.Death isnt a option for a Tanker.Atleast its not for mine anyway.

Indeed. The 10 target max on Cleave has to be a typo or a transposition. Since they fixed the stacking bug all those many years ago there is simply no way to hit ten with cleave. Now, it'd be nice to bump cleave up, say give it a twenty foot range? That would be a nice thing, in my book.

Heck, give it a 40 foot range, with the idea you're flinging the axe at them. Who hasn't seen a throwing axe?


Sssshhh! Stone melee is one of those well-kept secrets.

I'm not pushing for a buff to Axe. I'm really just noting that it's silly to have the 10 target limit on Cleave -- silly to the point of being a (very minor) irritant. It would be like having a set balanced at slightly lower power "because of that 20th enemy you aggro." But you can't aggro 20 enemies, so that would be a meaningless and mean-spirited penalty.

You can't hit 10 people with Cleave. Ever.

I've labored with training crowds behind me and I've gotten six for sure, but it's hard to do. I don't know if I've ever gotten seven. But having the "benefit" of a cap of ten is just silly.

That's all. It wouldn't hurt the set, or me, if it was never touched again. But it remains weird and very slightly irritating that one of the "balance points" is this impossible-to-reach target cap.

The level 1 power has a dumb looking animation (for both). So, if you go brute you can skip that first power. IDK. That's a big selling point for me.

If we're talking brutes, then WM for sure. For Tanks, I'd prefer axe any day. Higher chance of the mitigation taking effect, and lower chance of it being resisted. When I play a WM tank, I put the Stupefy (20% knockdown) proc on the most of the stun powers.

True, except if you take into account the procs you can slot to it. There's Stupefy 20% for KB, and Absolute Amazement 33% chance to dramatically lower the target's toHit. (It's a purple, but often sells at a cheap price... as purples go.)

Because all the attacks in Axe take KB IOs and in Mace, only three of them do? Otherwise, the "IO potential" between the sets is exactly the same.

IMO, the stuns sets have some decent bonuses too, and the problem with slotting more than say, one or two IOs from a KB set is that it's likely to turn the KD of the attacks into KB. Ugh, no thank you! I did a happy dance the day Castle changed the KB in Shatter and Crowd Control into KD instead.