A lot of reasons. One is the same reason that people run crit swords. It's not like there are great sword crit nodes. End-game, crit is generally (can't speak about pvp) better than RT for those that optimize their gear appropriately. Sword is slightly better in this regard, because it's higher attack speed, but it's not too far off siege axe AS, and of course there are advantages to going a little slower with higher base damage (sustainably running blood rage, needing less mana leech, block penetration (?), etc.)
Another reason is that the only decent alternative would have been chaos resistance (or some other resistance), which would really be useful only for PVP imo. In terms of damage (the only thing that standard folk care about :)), this Axe is the best for RT builds as well unless you rly wanted some resists, so going crit was better in terms of wider audience appeal. It's the best DPS axe for both RT and crit builds. On a similar note note, it's more appealing to mirror, because it gives the person who mirrors an option to go RT or crit, and thus flexibility in changing their mind after they have mirrored the axe.
Last reason was that I knew I would have to blow a stupidly large amount of currency on the hybrid mod, and I got crit before I rolled any sort of resistance, and T1 chaos resist is rather hard to roll. So it was a better decision for me monetarily as I don't have infinite currency.
That was my thought process and conclusion after discussing with some others. Hope that answers your question.
Fair enough, thanks for the explanation.
But, in my opinion, going crit out of daggers/claws/wands isn't a good idea, the base crit is just too low with axes/swords, but at least swords have 2+ APS, so that helps a bit, but they still suck for crit builds.
I've yet to see a good crit build with axe/sword, in fact, I've never seen a crit late end game axe build.
And I believe it's for a reason.
With that "low" APS and low crit base, it's just a horrible idea to do a crit build.
Of course, T1 chaos res would be the best, but a T1 ele res or dexterity is also much better than crit, which is useless, it only "looks good".
A lot of reasons. One is the same reason that people run crit swords. It's not like there are great sword crit nodes. End-game, crit is generally (can't speak about pvp) better than RT for those that optimize their gear appropriately. Sword is slightly better in this regard, because it's higher attack speed, but it's not too far off siege axe AS, and of course there are advantages to going a little slower with higher base damage (sustainably running blood rage, needing less mana leech, block penetration (?), etc.)
Another reason is that the only decent alternative would have been chaos resistance (or some other resistance), which would really be useful only for PVP imo. In terms of damage (the only thing that standard folk care about :)), this Axe is the best for RT builds as well unless you rly wanted some resists, so going crit was better in terms of wider audience appeal. It's the best DPS axe for both RT and crit builds. On a similar note note, it's more appealing to mirror, because it gives the person who mirrors an option to go RT or crit, and thus flexibility in changing their mind after they have mirrored the axe.
Last reason was that I knew I would have to blow a stupidly large amount of currency on the hybrid mod, and I got crit before I rolled any sort of resistance, and T1 chaos resist is rather hard to roll. So it was a better decision for me monetarily as I don't have infinite currency.
That was my thought process and conclusion after discussing with some others. Hope that answers your question.
Fair enough, thanks for the explanation.
But, in my opinion, going crit out of daggers/claws/wands isn't a good idea, the base crit is just too low with axes/swords, but at least swords have 2+ APS, so that helps a bit, but they still suck for crit builds.
I've yet to see a good crit build with axe/sword, in fact, I've never seen a crit late end game axe build.
And I believe it's for a reason.
With that "low" APS and low crit base, it's just a horrible idea to do a crit build.
Of course, T1 chaos res would be the best, but a T1 ele res or dexterity is also much better than crit, which is useless, it only "looks good".
If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.
I do agree with a lot of what you said. If you want the highest PVE damage, then sure, go do a crit flicker strike build. That will give you the highest DPS. If you want to win PvP, do a sword BoR Aegis build. You mention claws, but fuck claws lol, all they got is leech going for them, and if u build right, u don't need more leech and dagger is much better.
What is ignored in this kind of thinking is play-style and what people enjoy. Some people think claws look sick and that's why they use them. Some people like life builds a lot better than the cookie cutter LowLife/CI and VaalPact builds, and tailor builds around that. I'm currently running a double 6L Crit Staff build. I can afford Leg Kaoms, and I understand this would be more "efficient," but I like the flexibility and playstyle of two main active skills.
Back to axes, I think you can still make highly efficient crit builds with axes. IAS from nodes, low life, gear, etc. scales better with axes than any other weapon. This can let you do Low Life Crit builds with still very high crit, and even when u don't crit, you will still very likely hit and (unlike with daggers) do massive damage. This is complemented by the fact that there are lots of axe node that have inherent acc built in, which also means you have more flexibility in speccing acc in gear, which is nice as well. There are also some really sweet dual-wield crit nodes which, if paired with 1H crit nodes + gearing well + power charges, I would think would allow you to hit near 60% crit chance. Maybe with block rework and big patch coming, high base damage will find a better niche with block pen, more stun chance, or something.
There is a long history of people going crit with weapons that you didn't mention as "good" (including the previous #1 1H Axe, most of Jin's 2H weapons, lots of swords), and being successful/efficient with it, even if it's not the "best" from a technical standpoint. I'm not actually incredibly knowledgeable about gameplay, but my understanding from others is still that endgame sword and axe would be better crit than RT if you had optimal gear (at least for pve). And I can honestly see why - if you were to ask me intuitively which was better, critting 50% of the time with 95% accuracy or hitting 100% of the time, I would pick the former. That's a little oversimplified but still... The "either-or" idea that you have to either go ES and max out on crit chance or go life RT seems to me a little naive and antiquated. I guess hopefully having an axe like this available will create more room for creativity and fun gameplay, and encourage departure from cookie-cutter builds :)
IGN: KiPad
Mirror Services (/view-thread/778747): #1 Crit Rings for *ALL* builds (Low-life, CI, and Life), #1 1H Axe, #1 Ar Boots, #1 Life Rustic
Last edited by KiPad#7456 on Feb 12, 2014, 11:12:34 PM
I do agree with a lot of what you said. If you want the highest PVE damage, then sure, go do a crit flicker strike build. That will give you the highest DPS. If you want to win PvP, do a sword BoR Aegis build. You mention claws, but fuck claws lol, all they got is leech going for them, and if u build right, u don't need more leech and dagger is much better.
What is ignored in this kind of thinking is play-style and what people enjoy. Some people think claws look sick and that's why they use them. Some people like life builds a lot better than the cookie cutter LowLife/CI and VaalPact builds, and tailor builds around that. I'm currently running a double 6L Crit Staff build. I can afford Leg Kaoms, and I understand this would be more "efficient," but I like the flexibility and playstyle of two main active skills.
Back to axes, I think you can still make highly efficient crit builds with axes. IAS from nodes, low life, gear, etc. scales better with axes than any other weapon. This can let you do Low Life Crit builds with still very high crit, and even when u don't crit, you will still very likely hit and (unlike with daggers) do massive damage. This is complemented by the fact that there are lots of axe node that have inherent acc built in, which also means you have more flexibility in speccing acc in gear, which is nice as well. There are also some really sweet dual-wield crit nodes which, if paired with 1H crit nodes + gearing well + power charges, I would think would allow you to hit near 60% crit chance. Maybe with block rework and big patch coming, high base damage will find a better niche with block pen, more stun chance, or something.
There is a long history of people going crit with weapons that you didn't mention as "good" (including the previous #1 1H Axe, most of Jin's 2H weapons, lots of swords), and being successful/efficient with it, even if it's not the "best" from a technical standpoint. I'm not actually incredibly knowledgeable about gameplay, but my understanding from others is still that endgame sword and axe would be better crit than RT if you had optimal gear (at least for pve). And I can honestly see why - if you were to ask me intuitively which was better, critting 50% of the time with 95% accuracy or hitting 100% of the time, I would pick the former. That's a little oversimplified but still... The "either-or" idea that you have to either go ES and max out on crit chance or go life RT seems to me a little naive and antiquated. I guess hopefully having an axe like this available will create more room for creativity and fun gameplay, and encourage departure from cookie-cutter builds :)
But, do you know anyone who plays a late end game crit build with an axe or sword? That's not worse than RT?
I have never seen that, and I think it's for a reason.
Getting 50% crit chance with axes would require some serious requirements, and the most important part of investment is the shadow tree area.
And we all know that crit shadows play with claws/daggers, for a reason.
Playing with any other build other than witch/shadow/ranger and going crit is a bad idea.
Duelist has a good option of getting up there to collect the crit nodes, but, we'll have a life/ES issue, and in order to go up there, going ES/CI is essential to be much more effective, which is the most important par of the late end game.
I don't know, don't get me wrong, I've mirrored a crit foil just because of the DPS, and I'm happy with it even now, 3-4 months after.
But, going crit even with a foil is a bad idea, compared to a claw/dagger.
I tried, it sucked badly, ~35% crit chance, not high enough multiplier, severely gimped survivability due to life nodes on the tree.
Got back to RT, DPS few thousands lower (un-noticeable), survivability much much higher, etc.
Although I'm playing with a duelist, that's why I'm saying this.
Claws being crappy as they are, they are still X times better for crits than axes/swords.
Overall, crit is a wasted mod, until I see someone going crit by that axe, and not failing at it :P
