Crimsonstorm

Axe vs Sword vs Mace:

Axe and Sword specs both provide a 5% chance to crit/get extra attack, resulting in increased damage and increase chance of burst damage (which is how you kill people in pvp). Maces provide stuns, giving extra control and utility.

Comparing Axe vs Sword is fairly easy.

Axe gives +5% crit. A crit is double damage before resilience, but only 80% extra damage after resilience, against a 400 resilience target. Accounting for impale and resilience, its +80% for white attacks and +100% for specials. That’s about 4.5% or so added damage. For burst damage, it increases the chance of a string of crits.

Swords give a 5% chance to give a free attack, which could crit. A free attack is worth more than 100% bonus damage on average. If it’s a normal hit then its +100%. But if it’s a crit then its +180% (accounting for resilience. Not sure if it counts as a special attack, if it does then its +200%). Given a 25-30% crit chance against a 400 resilience target, that means that a free extra attack is really worth like 120% or so extra damage. And thus sword spec increases damage by like 6% or so.

Conclusion #1: Sword spec provides more extra damage on average, than axe spec.

Second we look at burst damage. Axe spec can only provide a crit, for about double damage. But with sword spec, either the normal attack or the extra attack or both could crit, yielding 3 or even 4 times as much damage, on rare occasions. Say you have 30% crit after resilience reduction. Each time sword spec procs, the chance that exactly one of the two attacks is a crit, is 42%! The chance that both crit is 9%. (51% chance of at least one critting).

The result is more burst damage, and burst damage wins games. If you were giving up some overall damage to get the extra burst (like trading str for crit), then it would be unclear which was better.

Conclusion #2: Sword spec ALSO provides more burst damage than axe spec, in addition to more average damage.

Third, we look at hamstring. You should be spamming hamstring at least every 15 seocnds, probably more. Axe spec increases the crit chance of hamstring by 5%, with a crit yielding an extra 63 damage lol! Sword spec gives it a 5% chance of giving a free swing, for around a THOUSAND damage (vs low armor target), which could even crit for close to two thousand. Given the frequent use of hamstring, this is another way that sword spec is clearly superior.

So Sword is obviously massively better than axes. The next question is mace vs sword. Here, you have to evaluate the value of a 3 second stun vs a free attack. Generally in 5s the sword is better because you just want to kill your focus target quickly. In 2s, you are generally fighting to stay engaged with your target, and a stun gives you a free 3 seconds where you can attack them, and they cant do anything. It can also support your partner by preventing damage to them, let your partner run away, or interrupt casts or heals. Thus Maces tend to be best in 2s. For 2s it probably depends on group makeup.


Switching from the best weapon type to the worst would be very bad, even if the weapon stats themselves are somewhat better.