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, you 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
Enjoy
Long discussion
To prove my point about "effectiveness," I had a friend of mine respec his level 78 shadow Reave last night, probably with unoptimal nodes lol, and he hit 80k dps with nearly 50% crit chance.
Most of what you said wasn't very responsive. I play a crit maurader successfully, which certainly doesn't fall under your "shadow ranger witch crit only" criteria. I know people that play dual wield crit swords successfully, and even if they aren't shooting for end game, a lot of people have mirrored Jin 2h crit axe, his crit sword, ventor's crit corsair, the crit foil etc. It's possible and effective is all I'm confident and care about.
And quite honestly that you couldn't eclipse 40% crit with at least like 4k HP just tells me your build/gear was not optimal lol. This is why people go RT first and reskill crit once they have the GG gear to do so. And as a point of information, GG crit jewelry tailored towards life didn't exist until very recently.
At any rate, the dps is still the highest for people that want to use it for RT but retain the flexibility to change their minds later or even just try crit for fun. If they really hate crit so much they never want to even try it, need/want chaos res so badly, and have the patience to wait for another axe craft (or go sword), that's their prerogative.
I won't entertain the discussion further, but I appreciate your input.
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
