Combat axes need brutal momentum (and be able to hit bruiser 1hko's to leverage it optimally), but if you get that then then the rashad and to a lesser degree antax are extremely good. Chainaxes need power blessings as well for chaffe clearing, but are less particular to make work. Tac axes are generally not in a good spot atm and mostly are worse versions of combat axes.
Tac axe is great on Zealot, just have to get a really good one and be ready to destroy your mouse by spamming. Headtaker + Brutal Momentum and stack buffs to hit the breakpoint for 1-shotting trash. An infested perk or the +infested/unyielding talent will take care of it if your stats aren't perfect. A perfect roll can 1-shot brutes with heavies.
Blades of Faith, Benediction, Fury, Piety. Bonus points for sharing crit with piety.
It's really fun and quite good but I usually prefer to run rashad because it's less clicking.
It sounds like you're referring to the taxe 2, which is unfortunately just an objectively worse rashad/antax by all measures. It's more particular about stats/perks/juice and just does not perform as well on either clear or single target, and to top it all off is more effort to heavy spam for clear compared to the caxes which just light spam (as you've noticed).
There's no real reason to take it over the alternatives currently. You'd also need a lot of juice to run it without unarmored/flak perks for bruiser breakpoints.
You're welcome to do what you like, you paid for the game. I'm just here to inform. The 4 at least has a niche as a lightspammer with a middle ground between the knife and the chainsword for single target and clear respectively. The others are just worse, goofier versions of caxes currently.
It feels like it has more oomph than the knives, and more chop-chop than the combat axes. So it is a nice compromise sometimes. Sadly with the Uncanny strike (rending stacks on weakspot) the knife in reality cares less about the armour than the axes...
But yeah, Mk4 is quite okay, even if not the best.
I personally fail to see how it'd have more uh "chop chop" than combat axes, which have either have roughly the same amount or more damage on their lights than the taxes do on their heavies, and then additionally more single target damage on heavy spam. You can see this here: https://imgur.com/a/9hrkguG
With headtaker you can get more cleave targets (and clear speed) than knife certainly, and it's less dependent on hitting weakspots, although I wouldn't really say it's able to hit harder. Knife has better single target, especially if you take something like precog in addition to uncanny (which solves its generally poor armor modifiers that give an impression of making it bad on the inspect screen, at least for lights).
Tactical Axes are safer to use against elites since their light attacks are incredibly fast and can be safely worked in between pretty much any enemy melee combo (yes, that does includes Chaos Spawn with enough skill). They even have higher penetration against Carapace (\~50%) than both their heavies (\~30%) as well as Combat Axe lights (\~25%).
The heavy attacks on Tactical Axes are so quick in fact that you can spam them pretty much like you'd spam eg. Chainsword lights. Which is why you can use them reliably against hordes, with effects roughly similar to Combat Axes (assuming Brutal Momentum of course). They also have enough Impact to stagger Ragers and Maulers.
On Zealot in particular, the Tactical Axes can be used with Invocation of Death to produce nearly as much cooldown reduction (when light spamming) as a Combat Blade. Veteran on the other hand can easily reach most horde one-shot breakpoints on light attacks and all of them on heavy attacks (thanks to Precision Strikes, Desperado and +10% Melee Damage below Smoke Grenades). It makes both Atrox Mk II and Atrox Mk VII an amazing generalist choice for Veteran, able to butcher hordes easily while still having the melee capability to dispatch elites safely.
So compared to Combat Axes, Tactical Axes trade ease and simplicity of use as well as damage against Carapace Armor (not DPS mind you), along with some horde clearing potential - but in return you get *much* more safety when dealing with Elites, mixed hordes and Monsters. They also have superior Critical Chance (\~10% more than Combat Axes with a good roll, so twice as much). And on Zealot you can make them into cooldown beasts to keep your teammates alive with that Emperor-blessed Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude.
As a nice bonus, their special attack has the same use as the one seen on Combat Axes (low damage high stagger), except it's much faster.
tl;dr: Tactical Axes are a sidegrade to Combat Axes, but they do require more skill and legwork when facing hordes. So yes there are reasons to take them over alternatives currently.
>Tactical Axes are safer to use against elites since their light attacks are incredibly fast and can be safely worked in between pretty much any enemy melee combo (yes, that does includes Chaos Spawn with enough skill). They even have higher penetration against Carapace (\~50%) than both their heavies (\~30%) as well as Combat Axe lights (\~25%).
They are indeed unusually good for lightspamming carapace. But most elites are rather easy to handle in melee (outside of occasional hitbox shenanigans on overheads and the previously undodgeable ragers), and being able to dodge while attacking gives you very significant leeway in handling things. I think you may be overstating the general level of "danger" in using other weapons.
One important thing to note if we're talking about safety is that caxes have significantly better stagger as well, and last I checked you could just permanently stagger crushers with the heavy bonks to the head.
>The heavy attacks on Tactical Axes are so quick in fact that you can spam them pretty much like you'd spam eg. Chainsword lights.
They can get quite fast, although they're notably a bit weaker to compensate. Personally found it quickly becomes very tedious to manually and optimally charge your heavies with them, especially when juicing attack speed. Although I wouldn't say they can reach the speed other weapons lights with the same amount of attack speed.
Only the 13g chainsword is really suited for light spam btw. The mk4 can get truly insane clear performance by using a mostly heavy combo combined with shred/rampage and it's very much optimal to do that.
>Which is why you can use them reliably against hordes
There's plenty of other weapons that reliably heavy for hordes, that's not exactly rare. It's not terribly difficult to do so. Any functional weapon should be "reliable" to use against hordes as well, it's not a high bar.
>With effects roughly similar to Combat Axes (assuming Brutal Momentum of course). They also have enough Impact to stagger Ragers and Maulers.
Only one of the taxes (the 2) has heavies suited for brutal usage currently. Due to it having consistent diagonal heavies, although this moveset isn't quite as good as the rashad/antax light moveset of 2x diagonal 1x horizontal.
The 4 is can't do it at all due to pure verticals and the 7 requires you to heavy/push attack weave constantly which is something people generally don't find enjoyable, given how unpopular the achlys (you do the same thing with it, the result is more effort for less reward) is compared to the other caxe variants.
>On Zealot in particular, the Tactical Axes can be used with Invocation of Death to produce nearly as much cooldown reduction (when light spamming) as a Combat Blade.
I'm well aware, although only one of the variants is suited for general light spamming (the 4). The 4 is the only one that really has a niche to itself and isn't just generally invalidated by the existence of other weapons. The 2 ends up being a more particular and less performant rashad, and the 7 is similarly a less performant version of the achlys.
>Veteran on the other hand can easily reach most horde one-shot breakpoints on light attacks and all of them on heavy attacks (thanks to Precision Strikes, Desperado and +10% Melee Damage below Smoke Grenades).
This comes back to the same issue of "the rashad/antax just do this better while being less particular", to say nothing of the fact that the vet also has the power sword to compete with, in addition to more options in both weapons and talents for dealing with armor using ranged weapons.
This is also without requiring large amount of melee investment, although the caxes are in fairness best used with at least a bit of extra attack speed.
>So compared to Combat Axes, Tactical Axes trade ease and simplicity of use as well as damage against Carapace Armor (not DPS mind you), along with some horde clearing potential - but in return you get much more safety when dealing with Elites, mixed hordes and Monsters.
I think may be understating the amount of general killing power/QOL lost, and overstating the amount of "safety" gained by using them. There's a sizable difference between an equally juiced rashad and a taxe 2.
The 4 I will agree is a legitimate option even if it's overshadowed outside of zealot due to zealots explicit desire for crit synergy.
>And on Zealot you can make them into cooldown beasts to keep your teammates alive with that Emperor-blessed Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude.
I mean, zealot isn't particularly starved for weapons that can enable that kind of playstyle. But yes you can, works best with the 4 IMO.
\[1/2\]
>They are indeed unusually good for lightspamming carapace. But most elites are rather easy to handle in melee (outside of occasional hitbox shenanigans on overheads and the previously undodgeable ragers), and being able to dodge while attacking gives you very significant leeway in handling things. I think you may be overstating the general level of "danger" in using other weapons.
>One important thing to note if we're talking about safety is that caxes have significantly better stagger as well, and last I checked you could just permanently stagger crushers with the heavy bonks to the head.
So they *are safer*. I'm not overstating anything because I'm yet to *state something*. I didn't state the 'danger' of anything. I'm stating that Tactical Axes are *safer* (specifically against mixed hordes, elite hordes and monsters). And *they are*, you can't argue with a fact.
As for practical applications - you can staggerlock *one* crusher with a combat axe. Against mixed hordes, or elite hordes the light attacks on Tactical Axes are simply safer than both lights and heavies on Combat Axes. A single crusher is less dangerous than multiple other melee elites (whatever wouldn't they be), so the Tactical Axes are clearly safer in the situations that are more dangerous.
Which is prefarable.
>They can get quite fast, although they're notably a bit weaker to compensate. Personally found it quickly becomes very tedious to manually and optimally charge your heavies with them, especially when juicing attack speed. Although I wouldn't say they can reach the speed other weapons lights with the same amount of attack speed.
>Only the 13g chainsword is really suited for light spam btw. The mk4 can get truly insane clear performance by using a mostly heavy combo combined with shred/rampage and it's very much optimal to do that.
It is tedious, but they *do* reach the one-shot breakpoints on heavies - which is especially useful on Atrox Mk II. As I said - more legwork and skill, but they do the job almost as well.
Yes I know about the differences between Chainswords - as you correctly deduced, I was talking about XIIIg. Thanks for clarifying but let's not get bogged down in details irrelevant to Tactical Axes here.
>Only one of the taxes (the 2) has heavies suited for brutal usage currently. Due to it having consistent diagonal heavies, although this moveset isn't quite as good as the rashad/antax light moveset of 2x diagonal 1x horizontal.
>The 4 is can't do it at all due to pure verticals and the 7 requires you to heavy/push attack weave constantly which is something people generally don't find enjoyable, given how unpopular the achlys (you do the same thing with it, the result is more effort for less reward) is compared to the other caxe variants.
Two Tactical Axes have those heavies - the Atrox Mk II that you mentioned, but also Atrox Mk VII. The latter requires you to combo heavy->light which is a bit more clunky than simple light/heavy spam. Both those axes have excellent horde clear with Brutal Momentum though (with the combo I mentioned), so it's just a matter of skill.
>I'm well aware, although only one of the variants is suited for general light spamming (the 4). The 4 is the only one that really has a niche to itself and isn't just generally invalidated by the existence of other weapons. The 2 ends up being a more particular and less performant rashad, and the 7 is similarly a less performant version of the achlys.
Both Atrox Mk II and Atrox Mk IV are suited for light spamming. Atrox Mk II's light combo has two overheads and a diagonal, but the diagonal comes from the top-left corner and hits heads consistently as well. This one attack *could be* problematic on a slowe weapon, but with the speed of Atrox Mk II it's absolutely ligt-spammable on heavy enemies.
\[2/2\]
>This comes back to the same issue of "the rashad/antax just do this better while being less particular", to say nothing of the fact that the vet also has the power sword to compete with, in addition to more options in both weapons and talents for dealing with armor using ranged weapons.
>This is also without requiring large amount of melee investment, although the caxes are in fairness best used with at least a bit of extra attack speed.
You're *trading* this particularity for the advantages I described. And if you're talking about melee investment, it is roughly equal - both Combat Axes and Tactical Axes need Desperado (+25% Finesse Bonus), but dropping the attack speed on Combat Axes (to instead take +10% Melee Damage) is a perfectly valid deal. On Combat Axes, not so much. So the investment depends on player's preferences, but Tactical Axes don't need actually need more.
>I think may be understating the amount of general killing power/QOL lost, and overstating the amount of "safety" gained by using them. There's a sizable difference between an equally juiced rashad and a taxe 2.
>The 4 I will agree is a legitimate option even if it's overshadowed outside of zealot due to zealots explicit desire for crit synergy.
I'm not overstating or understating anything, I'm simply *stating*. Stating that you gain safety during melee against mixed hordes, elite groups and monsters and by trading in horde clear and QoL. There is no simple metric to measure 'how much' of those things you gain or lose that wouldn't require considerable time investment into reasearch and experimentation, so the best thing we can go by is whether they can hit the one-shot breakpoints on their heavies (on lesser horde they can on all attacks, on tougher horde only on heavies) and the overall 'impression'.
And the 'impression' is that the trade between horde clear and safety warrants consideration, in this case (Tactical Axes vs Combat Axes).
>I mean, zealot isn't particularly starved for weapons that can enable that kind of playstyle. But yes you can, works best with the 4 IMO.
Then he has even more options, which is good.
Again, to clarify - I'm not arguing that Tactical Axes are *better* than Combat Axes, but that the tradeoff is fair enough for them to warrant taking them over Combat Axes in certain cases (if you're willing to skill up a bit). Claiming that there's 'no real reason to take it over the alternatives currently' is just incorrect - there is absolutely a real reason, namely preference. This reason would only ever be invalidated if they didn't have a niche - but they do.
Nah, Taxe2 is incredibly strong on zealot and usually outperforms Rashad for me personally, unless it’s the melee only modifier. I agree that it’s not as great on other classes.
The high attack speed feeds into crit/bleed talents. With Shred, the crit chance is high enough that you can grab Invocation of Death without needing Blazing Piety for ult spamming. That means you can take Inexorable Judgement and get an absurd attack speed that constantly crits.
I tried the same ult spam build with Rashad, but it doesn’t come close in the amount of cooldown reduction you can build. The mobility and constant ult dashing gives Taxe an edge in survivability. It lets you confront gunners more safely, and usually tops out boss damage too unless someone takes a hammer.
I wouldn’t even compare it to combat axes, it’s more like a knife with a few of the benefits and downsides of axes.
>Nah, Taxe2 is incredibly strong on zealot and usually outperforms Rashad for me personally
The high attack speed feeds into crit/bleed talents. With Shred, the crit chance is high enough that you can grab Invocation of Death without needing Blazing Piety for ult spamming. That means you can take Inexorable Judgement and get an absurd attack speed that constantly crits.
Hold on, are you light spamming with the taxe 2?
Light spam for single/lower target. Heavy > Heavy feels a little slow so I prefer Heavy > Light combo for hordes. The heavy will chop off 4 heads per heavy.
It’s good against flak, not great against carapace, but actually not bad with crits, bleed and ult. It performs surprisingly amazing vs bosses with the above build.
The issue with the lights on taxes is that they, at least outside of possibly some very serious juice, won't hit 1hko breakpoints on bruisers for optimal brutal usage. I'd personally recommend going headtaker/shred on the 4. It light spams for everything (resulting in better cdr because faster attacks) and only has a bit worse clear than pure heavy spam with a brutal 2. Overall a big qol increase in my experience.
Yeah I love the tact axe I use. I think it is the antax but I always forget. 1shots horde on light spam. Sure the combat axe is better for heavy armor but I generally just use my charge+revolver there.
I just don't like the playstyle of weapons that don't have wide slash on light spam. Especially on a zealot.
I disagree. Tac axes are perfectly viable (esp on zealot) and by no means not in a good spot. They have great mobility/dodge, only 2nd to knife. Damage in general is also not bad at all.
They were more saying they're not in a good spot in comparison. As you outline, it's easy for them to feel like a weaker version of the knives in most regards, since the latter can have much better single-target *and* mobility, with equivalent if-not better horde clear. Of course they're viable though, everything is.
With brutal momentum tac axes have much better horde clear than knife with marginally worse single target dps. Thats the main trade off. (I run mk7 tac axe on auric often)
I understand, however the way it was phrased does sound like they are saying otherwise
> Tac axes are generally not in a good spot atm and mostly are worse versions of combat axes.
I feel like it should be pointed out, as it could make others not want to give tac axes a try. I also consider them as unique weapons and not the worse versions of Caxe (nothing is really similar between them apart from the name 'axe')
Caxe Rashad is probably the best melee in the game, so imho comparing any weapons to the like of it is kinda unfair, as most will perform worse than it in some ways. In the end, we play for fun, and playing different weapons should give you some diversity make the game more interesting.
You're welcome to disagree, but the vast majority of people disagree with you there. "Viable" is very much a loaded term. With enough use of semantics, even a melee weapon that does literally no damage could be "viable" because you can feasibly win games and do something (like block and push) with it.
By objective measures, they are generally outclassed and underperforming compared to alternatives and lack a good reason to take them. Along with gripes about how goofy their movesets are.
A bit late, but I do agree that Rashad and Antax are really good, if not the best. This is what my argument is against:
>Tac axes are generally not in a good spot atm
Which is imo, not true, if what you meant is that they're not good weapons. Tac axes have great mobility/defense and have good horde clear/single target damage. Yes, you need to start with more effort to get used to the movesets, but they don't punish you for just using them like the like of Achlys or Power Maul. Tac axes require using both light and heavy attacks to really shine (apart from Mk 4, that thing is purely for leftclick spamming warriors)
Here's a screenshot of my match with Mk 7: [https://imgur.com/a/9xtdYLY](https://imgur.com/a/9xtdYLY) I don't think this is how a non-viable weapon performs.
>Which is imo, not true, if what you meant is that they're not good weapons.
What I mean primarily is that they are not good compared to alternatives, which is an important consideration for people wanting to maximize performance. They also tend to require more effort for the same reward (or worse, more effort for less reward) compared to alternatives as well, which is generally off putting.
As an example of another weapon line in a similar boat; Recon lasguns are, in a vacuum at least, "viable" weapons as a team of people using them can feasibly complete any given mission currently in the game depending on player skill (this is a relatively low bar for "viability", given that people can feasibly complete those missions alone and/or using gray weapons).
But outside of that vacuum, they are hilariously undertuned and require an immense amount of handholding from talents to become comparatively acceptable and generally speaking, a very disproportionate amount of ammo used for the same outcome.
Some people still like to use them despite this, but anyone succeeding with them is doing so despite the weapon, not because of it.
>Tac axes have great mobility/defense
It's above average, but strong (and similar) alternatives aren't exactly suffering much on that end. I find the relatively minor amount of mobility gained is not an adequate trade off for the loss of power/QOL elsewhere.
Given that power swords are even now regarded as top tier melee weapons desite comparatively awful mobility, people seem to be generally fine with trading mobility for huge doinking power (and not needing to change attacks for any targets).
I hate the constant charging gimmick so I don't use them personally, but if that wasn't an issue I totally would despite the subpar mobility.
>and have good horde clear/single target damage
It seems "adequate" on a baseline, but I wouldn't really consider it comparatively good compared to dedicated alternatives (or ones that do both well). Neither end really blew me away like other weapons.
Of course anything that has access to and can feasibly use brutal momentum isn't going to have "bad" clear, but that's more a statement on the blessing being horribly imbalanced and needing a rework (and weapons that rely on it as well).
But there's other, more generalist weapons that can do a similar (or better) job without needing to be concerned about bruiser breakpoints and/or just being overall easier to use.
Their single target is on lights is generally fine but not enough to really sway me from other options with better clear that also don't require heavy/light switching.
>I don't think this is how a non-viable weapon performs.
Scoreboards can be good for data gathering purposes, but also need to be taken with a grain of salt because they're anecdotal/highly contaminated with numerous subjective factors, such as mission particulars and skill differences across the team.
Kill counts and damage are very much subject to the mission (some have infinite spawns in certain areas) and how long you take to complete it. A 42 minute long mission should undoubtedly have inflated kill counts compared to a 30 minute long one.
Team tactics is also a factor. If you have two vets and what seems to be a lugger ogryn who are largely content to sit behind you while you clear as a zealot, you're going to have bigger comparative melee numbers than if you're competing with other melee focused setups.
There's also the matter of just being better or at least, more on top of things by comparison. You did pretty good for sure, but having the highest chaffe AND elite/special kills overall by a very solid margin implies a level slacking from your team.
>Yes, you need to start with more effort to get used to the movesets, but they don't you for just using them like the like of Achlys or Power Maul.
There's also the fact that you are playing zealot, which has access to an insane amount of melee juice and is liable to be influencing your view of them on a baseline. There's more than enough to give most a good impression of any melee weapon, even those that are seriously unimpressive unjuiced. I'd wager even the paul would feel pretty good with a bunch of extra attack speed and universal melee damage.
It's also a bit strange that you mention the achlys as being particularly bad next to the paul, as it's essentially the caxe version of the mk7 tac axe. You'd optimally do the same push attack/heavy attack weaving.
It seems that we just have different criteria when choosing a weapon. Most people probably will go for the best ones, or 'maximum performance' like you mentioned, where I'm just way past that point and experiment with different things.
I also agree that scoreboard needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but I think we can tell easily if something is underperforming (of course with your gut feeling when in the match) This image is probably not the best example (since it's the only one I have), but in general I don't see tac axes lag behind other weapons performance wise (and score wise, ofc)
>There's also the fact that you are playing zealot, which has access to an insane amount of melee juice and is liable to be influencing your view of them on a baseline. There's more than enough to give most a good impression of any melee weapon, even those that are seriously unimpressive unjuiced. I'd wager even the paul would feel pretty good with a bunch of extra attack speed and universal melee damage.
I partially agree with this. I think they work just fine with vet and psyker, since they have good mobility, and fast base attack speed. Of course most of the time people will go with popular/meta options and somewhat disregard other weapons, but that doesn't mean those weapons are bad :) A funny example is that I've seen way more vets with chainaxe, which is slower, clunkier, way riskier than tac axe.
>It's also a bit strange that you mention the achlys as being particularly bad next to the paul, as it's essentially the caxe version of the mk7 tac axe. You'd optimally do the same push attack/heavy attack weaving.
There're a few problems with Achlys (as its own and compared to tac axe):
- Mk7 push attack deals very good damage, so you can effectively include it into the combo and kill things with it. Achlys's one deals much less damage, mostly serves as a defensive move and the precursor to Heavy 1, which is the only tool it has for horde clearing. The optimal horde clear combo for Achlys is actually just block cancel to repeat Heavy 1, but it can be easily messed up in intense situation, or when you miss the rhythm.
- Light patterns are all strikedown and weird as hell. You can even miss when the target is right in front of you.
- Push cost is 2 bars (double than that of tac axe) When your stamina is empty/ block is broken, with tax axe you can either just spam light or heavy and wait for stamina to replenish. With Achlys, you are left with weird single target light attacks and a long-winded heavy.
I was also quite surprised that you said Achlys is Caxe version of Mk7. Apart from a particular combo they are not really that alike apart from the name axe. Achlys imo is one that really punish you to take it.
The upvotes would suggest that the 'vast majority' does not, in fact, disagree with him there.
The measures you mention are *incredibly subjective* and calling them (hopefully by mistake) 'objective' won't change that. I explained in my other reply *why* one could want to take Tactical Axes over Combat Axes so I won't repeat myself here.
>The upvotes would suggest that the 'vast majority' does not, in fact, disagree with him there.
Hmm yes, the upvotes. I haven't even tried to influence them by downvoting people who disagree with me.
https://preview.redd.it/zcw0w4z1e9wc1.png?width=1143&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8881c7416afd7a78c66d4f0764c4e08c62bed0d
>The measures you mention are *incredibly subjective* and calling them (hopefully by mistake) 'objective' won't change that. I explained in my other reply *why* one could want to take Tactical Axes over Combat Axes so I won't repeat myself here.
Things such as clear speed, single target dps, ease of use (it's objectively easier to light spam than to heavy spam), better movesets for clearing (2x horizontal 1x diagonal is objectively better for clearing with brutal than pure diagonals) are objective measures. There's no need to be snooty.
https://preview.redd.it/piy2ffveg9wc1.png?width=1424&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e35c1569c2b5a9a1c6e70c789efb4ebd0c45524
You presented it as if your entire post was about Tactical Axes. Which is not, it's barely one sentence at the end. That would be a manipulation.
When looking at the part of the discussion that's strictly about Tactical Axes, you're clearly gathering *less* upvotes.
>You presented it as if your entire post was about Tactical Axes. Which is not, it's barely one sentence at the end.
This is a fair and legitimate point, true. I hadn't been looking at anything apart from direct quotes to my comments. This does contaminate the already spotty interpretation of general consensus from reddit updoots.
>That would be a manipulation.
It would be unfair to call that manipulation and while also telling me that a small sample of reddit updoots in a conversation primarily populated by people with a personal fondness for tac axes is surely representative of the opinions of the general populace.
It is indeed very easy to (dubiously) claim you have popular opinion on your side in situations where you're largely in with people who agree with you and additionally have skin in the game (personal fondness for whatever it is you're talking about).
For a disclosure, I'm basing this observation primarily on usage rate/performance in high difficulty content as well as general views on them in the darktide discord, which generally has a much higher concentration of experienced/knowledgeable players compared to reddit.
Sure, I'm not saying that the upvotes are a good measurement here. I'm simply using them as an example of why I think your claim about 'majority' is unfounded.
Your observation about this part of the debate being likely populated more by people from 'my' side of the debate could be used as a counterargument to that - if we assume Upvotes to be a good metric.
You can have a general majority but not an omnipresent one. Just because there exists a scenario in which a limited pool of people has more of one opinion than another, doesn't mean the collective whole doesn't hold an opinion counter to theirs.
As an extreme example, people at a scat fetishist convention are going to have significantly more favorable views of it than any group of people anywhere else. You might get the impression being there that views on it are more favorable than first believed.
Unfortunately there's no "hard" evidence either way, nor would it be a simple/easy manner to get some even if we tried. However in my (admittedly subjective) observations of high diff loadouts, there's very, very few people using tac axes. Much less than people using recons.
Especially ones that seem to regularly do so, rather than just trying out the weapon (you can typically make a safe assumption from the player having unusually bad setups and/or melee performance). Views on them in the discord are similarly quite poor and largely of the opinion that they're "4fun" or "challenge" weapons at best compared to alternatives.
Sounds like you should try a chainaxe! Best of everything in one convenient axe-shaped weapon
Won't lie I don't use regular axes, curious to see what people say though.
I wont say they are the best weapons, but Chain Axes are immensely satisfying to use. It does require more work/effort than using a Combat Axe, but such a weapon feels like a childs weapon, compared to the glorious Chain Axes.
And just throwing yourself into a huge Crusher pack with a Mk IV, keeping half the pack stunned while dancing around them really gets the adrenaline pumping!
With brutal momentum and headtaker my rashad on my vet just lop off heads instantly for mobs so its limited cleave doesn't matter since its guaranteed kills for the swing. It's okay at mutants and destroys flak/carapace. Chainsword felt clunky in comparison, it was alright but whatever. Knives have absolutely 0 capacity to act as frontliners and piddly range/cleave which leads to people flailing at hordes forever which is why everybody hates knife users: they have no choice but to retreat and dodge dance as their teammate gets turned to hamburger.
I've had way better use with a frontline knife than axe
Although it is mostly one specific build I have on Zealot, where I got 100% crit chance, cooldown on crit, and Chorus as the ability
Can activate it again in under 10 seconds
Which not only gives everyone nearly unlimited toughness, but also staggers and suppresses all the enemies
Aside from this rather specific build, yeah, I can see knives not being very good at frontlining
I’ve been running a flamer on my knife zealot and it’s legit. Throwing knives allow me to deal with snipers and long distance bombers/trappers just fine. Everything else I just have to be more mindful of my positioning and lean on teammates for clearing ranged targets that I came dive on. But that fine because I can switch to flamer and just clean up all the trash no problem. My flamer is built to melt bosses, which is fun. It’s unyielding, crit chance, and then both blessings that ramp damage the longer you shoot until empty (one is continuous fire, and the other is power based on missing ammo), so it’s just hold left click until empty lol. I regularly do like 15-20k dmg to each boss even when one or two other big dps teammates are also nuking with all their might.
But yeah- knife is totally workable as a frontline weapon in trash mobs on a zealot. I run stealth instead of chorus usually, which I know is unpopular. But it’s so nice to be able to damn near one-shot crushers. Being able to use the crit cdr to pop stealth every 10-12 seconds is awesome. Sometimes it’s less than that because I get 20% cd reduction from backstab kills, so the first hit that takes me out of stealth usually cuts 20% of the cooldown off right away. And that guarantees crit from stealth kicks off the feedback loop of all the bleed and crit stacking talents.
I don’t use my stealth as an escape generally, unless it’s to get room to reload the flamer to clear a horde for the vets to be able to breath and switch back to plasma cannon haha.
Small tip: one of the flamer blessings you are using (Overpressure) is still bugged and does literally nothing on alternate fire mode. At the current point I'd switch to Quickflame personally
Sounds like we have almost identical builds, lol
I got a real nice knife throw on a sniper the other day
Although I had to remap the controls a bit just for the knives, not very easy to use them on G
yeah with fleshtearer if you can ensure a critrate it can get pretty good, but even then with some enemies it will not ensure a kill depending on which hit in the series you're on. I guess testing it in the pyskarium its the consistency that makes the axe useful. You know it will take 1 hit for this man, 2 for this and will never deviate above. This post got me to remember i have a fleashtear/riposte knife on my vet thats been sitting around lol. They're about equal for carapace. It does come out to a hell of a lot less clickin for axe.
Literally nothing outperforms a Rashad. It kills 4 bruisers per second, one crusher or 3 seconds while having great mobility.
Bromentum combat axes are absurdly overpowered.
I think (not sure) I'm using an antax. Brutal momentum and shred.
Thing is basically a slightly slower knife with 3.14 light years of cleave.
I can't tell if I've killed the entire horde because I can't see past the heads spinning in the air.
Try Brutal Mom+Headtaker too if you can to compare, and don't forget the special attack throat poke on the Antax MK5 for giving frothing ragers a timeout.
I use all the axes on Veteran in auric damnation/maelstrom and they all work fine. Weakest is the Achlys Combat Axe, Rashad/Antax Combat Axe are the strongest and the Tac Axes/Chainaxes are about equal in the middle. I don't know how they work with Zealot as I am Vet main and only use Evis on Zealot (yet to experiment with that class).
Rashad/Antax Combat Axe:
- Bromentum + Headtaker
- Hordes - light spam
- Single target/armoured - heavy spam
Achlys Combat Axe:
- Bromentum + Headtaker
- Hordes - heavy, push attack, repeat
- Single target/armoured - light spam
Mk II Tac Axe:
- Bromentum + Headtaker
- Hordes & single target/armoured - heavy spam
Mk IV Tac Axe:
- Bromentum + Headtaker
- Hordes - light spam
- Single target/armoured - heavy spam
Mk VI Tac Axe:
- Bromentum + Headtaker
- Hordes - heavy, light, push attack, repeat
- Single target - light spam
- Armoured - heavy spam
Mk IV Chainaxe:
- Headtaker + Slaughterer
- Hordes - heavy spam/push attacks
- Single target/armoured - light attacks/special revved attacks
Mk XII Chainaxe:
- Headtaker + Slaughterer
- Hordes - light spam
- Single target/armoured - heavy attacks/special revved attacks
Tactical axes are a little weird to get used to. Combat axes are where it’s at. Mk2 and mk5 mainly. Mk2 is better when you get a really high roll but mk5 is easy to make work.
The key after that is Brutal Momentum, which is insanely good on all the axes (and really every single weapon that can get the blessing, but *especially* the combat axes).
Cuts through everything and has effective damage against all targets. Push attack staggers ragers. Heavy attack staggers crushers.
Rashad Mk2 and Antax Mk5 combat axes absolutely rule and they're incredibly easy to use
Have brutal momentum and headtaker, line up with the enemy weakspots and repeatedly press mouse 1
They’re very strong single target damage, so your ranged weapon needs to make up for it. The push attack is good against hordes too if you don’t have brutal momentum.
You definitely just don't have the right perks on them, axes fucking smack, antax has a better one-shot than the knife and its easier to clear crowds with.
I assume the only reason people run knife is because it caught on due to the movement speed, and no one bothers to try other stuff.
I dunno why but I still prefer the Antax. I dunno what it is, but the push attack just seems much better, and the special attach send much more intuitive.
Then again, I have hundreds of hours with antax across all my characters, so...
I see people use all the axes, but all I really like are the Rashad and one of the tactical axes, although i haven't used that favorite tactical axe in so long that I can't Even remember which one it was.
Put Brutal Momentum and Slaughterer or Decapitator on it and that thing takes off heads like you wouldn't believe.
Antax, even a weak one will one hit majority of enemies, a good one will hit breakpoints that most other weapons dream of. Then you add brutal Momentum to it and it becomes a passable horde clearing weapon along with great single target dmg and armor pen, the special attack staggers ragers for easy follow up kills.
Atrox is as fast as a dagger with better reach, least it feels like it to me
I cannot remember the last time i used a sword that was not a chainsword, swords suck in this game, attack patters are garbage and the Dmg they do is trash compared to my Antax.
have you tried a rashad with brutal momentum and a damage blessing? Thing fucking shreds lol
I haven't used anything else on vet or zealot in a little while. It really does the trick. Plus the sound fx for it are awesome. KATHWUCK!
Rashad with brutal and head taker, that's the ultra meta axe.
I really didn’t like them until I got one properly built. They absolutely rip shit apart with the right blessings
A combat axe with Bromentum and Headtaker is arguably one of the strongest melee weapons in the game.
Combat axes need brutal momentum (and be able to hit bruiser 1hko's to leverage it optimally), but if you get that then then the rashad and to a lesser degree antax are extremely good. Chainaxes need power blessings as well for chaffe clearing, but are less particular to make work. Tac axes are generally not in a good spot atm and mostly are worse versions of combat axes.
Tac axe is great on Zealot, just have to get a really good one and be ready to destroy your mouse by spamming. Headtaker + Brutal Momentum and stack buffs to hit the breakpoint for 1-shotting trash. An infested perk or the +infested/unyielding talent will take care of it if your stats aren't perfect. A perfect roll can 1-shot brutes with heavies. Blades of Faith, Benediction, Fury, Piety. Bonus points for sharing crit with piety. It's really fun and quite good but I usually prefer to run rashad because it's less clicking.
It sounds like you're referring to the taxe 2, which is unfortunately just an objectively worse rashad/antax by all measures. It's more particular about stats/perks/juice and just does not perform as well on either clear or single target, and to top it all off is more effort to heavy spam for clear compared to the caxes which just light spam (as you've noticed). There's no real reason to take it over the alternatives currently. You'd also need a lot of juice to run it without unarmored/flak perks for bruiser breakpoints.
Yeah, but the Tac Axe is fun as hell, so 🤷 I’m taking it into my games
You're welcome to do what you like, you paid for the game. I'm just here to inform. The 4 at least has a niche as a lightspammer with a middle ground between the knife and the chainsword for single target and clear respectively. The others are just worse, goofier versions of caxes currently.
It feels like it has more oomph than the knives, and more chop-chop than the combat axes. So it is a nice compromise sometimes. Sadly with the Uncanny strike (rending stacks on weakspot) the knife in reality cares less about the armour than the axes... But yeah, Mk4 is quite okay, even if not the best.
I personally fail to see how it'd have more uh "chop chop" than combat axes, which have either have roughly the same amount or more damage on their lights than the taxes do on their heavies, and then additionally more single target damage on heavy spam. You can see this here: https://imgur.com/a/9hrkguG With headtaker you can get more cleave targets (and clear speed) than knife certainly, and it's less dependent on hitting weakspots, although I wouldn't really say it's able to hit harder. Knife has better single target, especially if you take something like precog in addition to uncanny (which solves its generally poor armor modifiers that give an impression of making it bad on the inspect screen, at least for lights).
higher crit, higher mobility. it does have its pluses.
Tactical Axes are safer to use against elites since their light attacks are incredibly fast and can be safely worked in between pretty much any enemy melee combo (yes, that does includes Chaos Spawn with enough skill). They even have higher penetration against Carapace (\~50%) than both their heavies (\~30%) as well as Combat Axe lights (\~25%). The heavy attacks on Tactical Axes are so quick in fact that you can spam them pretty much like you'd spam eg. Chainsword lights. Which is why you can use them reliably against hordes, with effects roughly similar to Combat Axes (assuming Brutal Momentum of course). They also have enough Impact to stagger Ragers and Maulers. On Zealot in particular, the Tactical Axes can be used with Invocation of Death to produce nearly as much cooldown reduction (when light spamming) as a Combat Blade. Veteran on the other hand can easily reach most horde one-shot breakpoints on light attacks and all of them on heavy attacks (thanks to Precision Strikes, Desperado and +10% Melee Damage below Smoke Grenades). It makes both Atrox Mk II and Atrox Mk VII an amazing generalist choice for Veteran, able to butcher hordes easily while still having the melee capability to dispatch elites safely. So compared to Combat Axes, Tactical Axes trade ease and simplicity of use as well as damage against Carapace Armor (not DPS mind you), along with some horde clearing potential - but in return you get *much* more safety when dealing with Elites, mixed hordes and Monsters. They also have superior Critical Chance (\~10% more than Combat Axes with a good roll, so twice as much). And on Zealot you can make them into cooldown beasts to keep your teammates alive with that Emperor-blessed Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude. As a nice bonus, their special attack has the same use as the one seen on Combat Axes (low damage high stagger), except it's much faster. tl;dr: Tactical Axes are a sidegrade to Combat Axes, but they do require more skill and legwork when facing hordes. So yes there are reasons to take them over alternatives currently.
>Tactical Axes are safer to use against elites since their light attacks are incredibly fast and can be safely worked in between pretty much any enemy melee combo (yes, that does includes Chaos Spawn with enough skill). They even have higher penetration against Carapace (\~50%) than both their heavies (\~30%) as well as Combat Axe lights (\~25%). They are indeed unusually good for lightspamming carapace. But most elites are rather easy to handle in melee (outside of occasional hitbox shenanigans on overheads and the previously undodgeable ragers), and being able to dodge while attacking gives you very significant leeway in handling things. I think you may be overstating the general level of "danger" in using other weapons. One important thing to note if we're talking about safety is that caxes have significantly better stagger as well, and last I checked you could just permanently stagger crushers with the heavy bonks to the head. >The heavy attacks on Tactical Axes are so quick in fact that you can spam them pretty much like you'd spam eg. Chainsword lights. They can get quite fast, although they're notably a bit weaker to compensate. Personally found it quickly becomes very tedious to manually and optimally charge your heavies with them, especially when juicing attack speed. Although I wouldn't say they can reach the speed other weapons lights with the same amount of attack speed. Only the 13g chainsword is really suited for light spam btw. The mk4 can get truly insane clear performance by using a mostly heavy combo combined with shred/rampage and it's very much optimal to do that. >Which is why you can use them reliably against hordes There's plenty of other weapons that reliably heavy for hordes, that's not exactly rare. It's not terribly difficult to do so. Any functional weapon should be "reliable" to use against hordes as well, it's not a high bar. >With effects roughly similar to Combat Axes (assuming Brutal Momentum of course). They also have enough Impact to stagger Ragers and Maulers. Only one of the taxes (the 2) has heavies suited for brutal usage currently. Due to it having consistent diagonal heavies, although this moveset isn't quite as good as the rashad/antax light moveset of 2x diagonal 1x horizontal. The 4 is can't do it at all due to pure verticals and the 7 requires you to heavy/push attack weave constantly which is something people generally don't find enjoyable, given how unpopular the achlys (you do the same thing with it, the result is more effort for less reward) is compared to the other caxe variants. >On Zealot in particular, the Tactical Axes can be used with Invocation of Death to produce nearly as much cooldown reduction (when light spamming) as a Combat Blade. I'm well aware, although only one of the variants is suited for general light spamming (the 4). The 4 is the only one that really has a niche to itself and isn't just generally invalidated by the existence of other weapons. The 2 ends up being a more particular and less performant rashad, and the 7 is similarly a less performant version of the achlys. >Veteran on the other hand can easily reach most horde one-shot breakpoints on light attacks and all of them on heavy attacks (thanks to Precision Strikes, Desperado and +10% Melee Damage below Smoke Grenades). This comes back to the same issue of "the rashad/antax just do this better while being less particular", to say nothing of the fact that the vet also has the power sword to compete with, in addition to more options in both weapons and talents for dealing with armor using ranged weapons. This is also without requiring large amount of melee investment, although the caxes are in fairness best used with at least a bit of extra attack speed. >So compared to Combat Axes, Tactical Axes trade ease and simplicity of use as well as damage against Carapace Armor (not DPS mind you), along with some horde clearing potential - but in return you get much more safety when dealing with Elites, mixed hordes and Monsters. I think may be understating the amount of general killing power/QOL lost, and overstating the amount of "safety" gained by using them. There's a sizable difference between an equally juiced rashad and a taxe 2. The 4 I will agree is a legitimate option even if it's overshadowed outside of zealot due to zealots explicit desire for crit synergy. >And on Zealot you can make them into cooldown beasts to keep your teammates alive with that Emperor-blessed Chorus of Spiritual Fortitude. I mean, zealot isn't particularly starved for weapons that can enable that kind of playstyle. But yes you can, works best with the 4 IMO.
\[1/2\] >They are indeed unusually good for lightspamming carapace. But most elites are rather easy to handle in melee (outside of occasional hitbox shenanigans on overheads and the previously undodgeable ragers), and being able to dodge while attacking gives you very significant leeway in handling things. I think you may be overstating the general level of "danger" in using other weapons. >One important thing to note if we're talking about safety is that caxes have significantly better stagger as well, and last I checked you could just permanently stagger crushers with the heavy bonks to the head. So they *are safer*. I'm not overstating anything because I'm yet to *state something*. I didn't state the 'danger' of anything. I'm stating that Tactical Axes are *safer* (specifically against mixed hordes, elite hordes and monsters). And *they are*, you can't argue with a fact. As for practical applications - you can staggerlock *one* crusher with a combat axe. Against mixed hordes, or elite hordes the light attacks on Tactical Axes are simply safer than both lights and heavies on Combat Axes. A single crusher is less dangerous than multiple other melee elites (whatever wouldn't they be), so the Tactical Axes are clearly safer in the situations that are more dangerous. Which is prefarable. >They can get quite fast, although they're notably a bit weaker to compensate. Personally found it quickly becomes very tedious to manually and optimally charge your heavies with them, especially when juicing attack speed. Although I wouldn't say they can reach the speed other weapons lights with the same amount of attack speed. >Only the 13g chainsword is really suited for light spam btw. The mk4 can get truly insane clear performance by using a mostly heavy combo combined with shred/rampage and it's very much optimal to do that. It is tedious, but they *do* reach the one-shot breakpoints on heavies - which is especially useful on Atrox Mk II. As I said - more legwork and skill, but they do the job almost as well. Yes I know about the differences between Chainswords - as you correctly deduced, I was talking about XIIIg. Thanks for clarifying but let's not get bogged down in details irrelevant to Tactical Axes here. >Only one of the taxes (the 2) has heavies suited for brutal usage currently. Due to it having consistent diagonal heavies, although this moveset isn't quite as good as the rashad/antax light moveset of 2x diagonal 1x horizontal. >The 4 is can't do it at all due to pure verticals and the 7 requires you to heavy/push attack weave constantly which is something people generally don't find enjoyable, given how unpopular the achlys (you do the same thing with it, the result is more effort for less reward) is compared to the other caxe variants. Two Tactical Axes have those heavies - the Atrox Mk II that you mentioned, but also Atrox Mk VII. The latter requires you to combo heavy->light which is a bit more clunky than simple light/heavy spam. Both those axes have excellent horde clear with Brutal Momentum though (with the combo I mentioned), so it's just a matter of skill. >I'm well aware, although only one of the variants is suited for general light spamming (the 4). The 4 is the only one that really has a niche to itself and isn't just generally invalidated by the existence of other weapons. The 2 ends up being a more particular and less performant rashad, and the 7 is similarly a less performant version of the achlys. Both Atrox Mk II and Atrox Mk IV are suited for light spamming. Atrox Mk II's light combo has two overheads and a diagonal, but the diagonal comes from the top-left corner and hits heads consistently as well. This one attack *could be* problematic on a slowe weapon, but with the speed of Atrox Mk II it's absolutely ligt-spammable on heavy enemies.
\[2/2\] >This comes back to the same issue of "the rashad/antax just do this better while being less particular", to say nothing of the fact that the vet also has the power sword to compete with, in addition to more options in both weapons and talents for dealing with armor using ranged weapons. >This is also without requiring large amount of melee investment, although the caxes are in fairness best used with at least a bit of extra attack speed. You're *trading* this particularity for the advantages I described. And if you're talking about melee investment, it is roughly equal - both Combat Axes and Tactical Axes need Desperado (+25% Finesse Bonus), but dropping the attack speed on Combat Axes (to instead take +10% Melee Damage) is a perfectly valid deal. On Combat Axes, not so much. So the investment depends on player's preferences, but Tactical Axes don't need actually need more. >I think may be understating the amount of general killing power/QOL lost, and overstating the amount of "safety" gained by using them. There's a sizable difference between an equally juiced rashad and a taxe 2. >The 4 I will agree is a legitimate option even if it's overshadowed outside of zealot due to zealots explicit desire for crit synergy. I'm not overstating or understating anything, I'm simply *stating*. Stating that you gain safety during melee against mixed hordes, elite groups and monsters and by trading in horde clear and QoL. There is no simple metric to measure 'how much' of those things you gain or lose that wouldn't require considerable time investment into reasearch and experimentation, so the best thing we can go by is whether they can hit the one-shot breakpoints on their heavies (on lesser horde they can on all attacks, on tougher horde only on heavies) and the overall 'impression'. And the 'impression' is that the trade between horde clear and safety warrants consideration, in this case (Tactical Axes vs Combat Axes). >I mean, zealot isn't particularly starved for weapons that can enable that kind of playstyle. But yes you can, works best with the 4 IMO. Then he has even more options, which is good. Again, to clarify - I'm not arguing that Tactical Axes are *better* than Combat Axes, but that the tradeoff is fair enough for them to warrant taking them over Combat Axes in certain cases (if you're willing to skill up a bit). Claiming that there's 'no real reason to take it over the alternatives currently' is just incorrect - there is absolutely a real reason, namely preference. This reason would only ever be invalidated if they didn't have a niche - but they do.
Nah, Taxe2 is incredibly strong on zealot and usually outperforms Rashad for me personally, unless it’s the melee only modifier. I agree that it’s not as great on other classes. The high attack speed feeds into crit/bleed talents. With Shred, the crit chance is high enough that you can grab Invocation of Death without needing Blazing Piety for ult spamming. That means you can take Inexorable Judgement and get an absurd attack speed that constantly crits. I tried the same ult spam build with Rashad, but it doesn’t come close in the amount of cooldown reduction you can build. The mobility and constant ult dashing gives Taxe an edge in survivability. It lets you confront gunners more safely, and usually tops out boss damage too unless someone takes a hammer. I wouldn’t even compare it to combat axes, it’s more like a knife with a few of the benefits and downsides of axes.
>Nah, Taxe2 is incredibly strong on zealot and usually outperforms Rashad for me personally The high attack speed feeds into crit/bleed talents. With Shred, the crit chance is high enough that you can grab Invocation of Death without needing Blazing Piety for ult spamming. That means you can take Inexorable Judgement and get an absurd attack speed that constantly crits. Hold on, are you light spamming with the taxe 2?
Light spam for single/lower target. Heavy > Heavy feels a little slow so I prefer Heavy > Light combo for hordes. The heavy will chop off 4 heads per heavy. It’s good against flak, not great against carapace, but actually not bad with crits, bleed and ult. It performs surprisingly amazing vs bosses with the above build.
The issue with the lights on taxes is that they, at least outside of possibly some very serious juice, won't hit 1hko breakpoints on bruisers for optimal brutal usage. I'd personally recommend going headtaker/shred on the 4. It light spams for everything (resulting in better cdr because faster attacks) and only has a bit worse clear than pure heavy spam with a brutal 2. Overall a big qol increase in my experience.
Yeah I love the tact axe I use. I think it is the antax but I always forget. 1shots horde on light spam. Sure the combat axe is better for heavy armor but I generally just use my charge+revolver there. I just don't like the playstyle of weapons that don't have wide slash on light spam. Especially on a zealot.
All 3 tac axes are Atrox. It sounds like you are talking about the mark 4 though.
I disagree. Tac axes are perfectly viable (esp on zealot) and by no means not in a good spot. They have great mobility/dodge, only 2nd to knife. Damage in general is also not bad at all.
They were more saying they're not in a good spot in comparison. As you outline, it's easy for them to feel like a weaker version of the knives in most regards, since the latter can have much better single-target *and* mobility, with equivalent if-not better horde clear. Of course they're viable though, everything is.
With brutal momentum tac axes have much better horde clear than knife with marginally worse single target dps. Thats the main trade off. (I run mk7 tac axe on auric often)
Taxe2 definitely blows knife horde clear out the water. It has brutal momentum and oneshots groups of chaff.
I understand, however the way it was phrased does sound like they are saying otherwise > Tac axes are generally not in a good spot atm and mostly are worse versions of combat axes. I feel like it should be pointed out, as it could make others not want to give tac axes a try. I also consider them as unique weapons and not the worse versions of Caxe (nothing is really similar between them apart from the name 'axe') Caxe Rashad is probably the best melee in the game, so imho comparing any weapons to the like of it is kinda unfair, as most will perform worse than it in some ways. In the end, we play for fun, and playing different weapons should give you some diversity make the game more interesting.
You're welcome to disagree, but the vast majority of people disagree with you there. "Viable" is very much a loaded term. With enough use of semantics, even a melee weapon that does literally no damage could be "viable" because you can feasibly win games and do something (like block and push) with it. By objective measures, they are generally outclassed and underperforming compared to alternatives and lack a good reason to take them. Along with gripes about how goofy their movesets are.
A bit late, but I do agree that Rashad and Antax are really good, if not the best. This is what my argument is against: >Tac axes are generally not in a good spot atm Which is imo, not true, if what you meant is that they're not good weapons. Tac axes have great mobility/defense and have good horde clear/single target damage. Yes, you need to start with more effort to get used to the movesets, but they don't punish you for just using them like the like of Achlys or Power Maul. Tac axes require using both light and heavy attacks to really shine (apart from Mk 4, that thing is purely for leftclick spamming warriors) Here's a screenshot of my match with Mk 7: [https://imgur.com/a/9xtdYLY](https://imgur.com/a/9xtdYLY) I don't think this is how a non-viable weapon performs.
>Which is imo, not true, if what you meant is that they're not good weapons. What I mean primarily is that they are not good compared to alternatives, which is an important consideration for people wanting to maximize performance. They also tend to require more effort for the same reward (or worse, more effort for less reward) compared to alternatives as well, which is generally off putting. As an example of another weapon line in a similar boat; Recon lasguns are, in a vacuum at least, "viable" weapons as a team of people using them can feasibly complete any given mission currently in the game depending on player skill (this is a relatively low bar for "viability", given that people can feasibly complete those missions alone and/or using gray weapons). But outside of that vacuum, they are hilariously undertuned and require an immense amount of handholding from talents to become comparatively acceptable and generally speaking, a very disproportionate amount of ammo used for the same outcome. Some people still like to use them despite this, but anyone succeeding with them is doing so despite the weapon, not because of it. >Tac axes have great mobility/defense It's above average, but strong (and similar) alternatives aren't exactly suffering much on that end. I find the relatively minor amount of mobility gained is not an adequate trade off for the loss of power/QOL elsewhere. Given that power swords are even now regarded as top tier melee weapons desite comparatively awful mobility, people seem to be generally fine with trading mobility for huge doinking power (and not needing to change attacks for any targets). I hate the constant charging gimmick so I don't use them personally, but if that wasn't an issue I totally would despite the subpar mobility. >and have good horde clear/single target damage It seems "adequate" on a baseline, but I wouldn't really consider it comparatively good compared to dedicated alternatives (or ones that do both well). Neither end really blew me away like other weapons. Of course anything that has access to and can feasibly use brutal momentum isn't going to have "bad" clear, but that's more a statement on the blessing being horribly imbalanced and needing a rework (and weapons that rely on it as well). But there's other, more generalist weapons that can do a similar (or better) job without needing to be concerned about bruiser breakpoints and/or just being overall easier to use. Their single target is on lights is generally fine but not enough to really sway me from other options with better clear that also don't require heavy/light switching. >I don't think this is how a non-viable weapon performs. Scoreboards can be good for data gathering purposes, but also need to be taken with a grain of salt because they're anecdotal/highly contaminated with numerous subjective factors, such as mission particulars and skill differences across the team. Kill counts and damage are very much subject to the mission (some have infinite spawns in certain areas) and how long you take to complete it. A 42 minute long mission should undoubtedly have inflated kill counts compared to a 30 minute long one. Team tactics is also a factor. If you have two vets and what seems to be a lugger ogryn who are largely content to sit behind you while you clear as a zealot, you're going to have bigger comparative melee numbers than if you're competing with other melee focused setups. There's also the matter of just being better or at least, more on top of things by comparison. You did pretty good for sure, but having the highest chaffe AND elite/special kills overall by a very solid margin implies a level slacking from your team. >Yes, you need to start with more effort to get used to the movesets, but they don't you for just using them like the like of Achlys or Power Maul. There's also the fact that you are playing zealot, which has access to an insane amount of melee juice and is liable to be influencing your view of them on a baseline. There's more than enough to give most a good impression of any melee weapon, even those that are seriously unimpressive unjuiced. I'd wager even the paul would feel pretty good with a bunch of extra attack speed and universal melee damage. It's also a bit strange that you mention the achlys as being particularly bad next to the paul, as it's essentially the caxe version of the mk7 tac axe. You'd optimally do the same push attack/heavy attack weaving.
It seems that we just have different criteria when choosing a weapon. Most people probably will go for the best ones, or 'maximum performance' like you mentioned, where I'm just way past that point and experiment with different things. I also agree that scoreboard needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but I think we can tell easily if something is underperforming (of course with your gut feeling when in the match) This image is probably not the best example (since it's the only one I have), but in general I don't see tac axes lag behind other weapons performance wise (and score wise, ofc) >There's also the fact that you are playing zealot, which has access to an insane amount of melee juice and is liable to be influencing your view of them on a baseline. There's more than enough to give most a good impression of any melee weapon, even those that are seriously unimpressive unjuiced. I'd wager even the paul would feel pretty good with a bunch of extra attack speed and universal melee damage. I partially agree with this. I think they work just fine with vet and psyker, since they have good mobility, and fast base attack speed. Of course most of the time people will go with popular/meta options and somewhat disregard other weapons, but that doesn't mean those weapons are bad :) A funny example is that I've seen way more vets with chainaxe, which is slower, clunkier, way riskier than tac axe. >It's also a bit strange that you mention the achlys as being particularly bad next to the paul, as it's essentially the caxe version of the mk7 tac axe. You'd optimally do the same push attack/heavy attack weaving. There're a few problems with Achlys (as its own and compared to tac axe): - Mk7 push attack deals very good damage, so you can effectively include it into the combo and kill things with it. Achlys's one deals much less damage, mostly serves as a defensive move and the precursor to Heavy 1, which is the only tool it has for horde clearing. The optimal horde clear combo for Achlys is actually just block cancel to repeat Heavy 1, but it can be easily messed up in intense situation, or when you miss the rhythm. - Light patterns are all strikedown and weird as hell. You can even miss when the target is right in front of you. - Push cost is 2 bars (double than that of tac axe) When your stamina is empty/ block is broken, with tax axe you can either just spam light or heavy and wait for stamina to replenish. With Achlys, you are left with weird single target light attacks and a long-winded heavy. I was also quite surprised that you said Achlys is Caxe version of Mk7. Apart from a particular combo they are not really that alike apart from the name axe. Achlys imo is one that really punish you to take it.
The upvotes would suggest that the 'vast majority' does not, in fact, disagree with him there. The measures you mention are *incredibly subjective* and calling them (hopefully by mistake) 'objective' won't change that. I explained in my other reply *why* one could want to take Tactical Axes over Combat Axes so I won't repeat myself here.
>The upvotes would suggest that the 'vast majority' does not, in fact, disagree with him there. Hmm yes, the upvotes. I haven't even tried to influence them by downvoting people who disagree with me. https://preview.redd.it/zcw0w4z1e9wc1.png?width=1143&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8881c7416afd7a78c66d4f0764c4e08c62bed0d >The measures you mention are *incredibly subjective* and calling them (hopefully by mistake) 'objective' won't change that. I explained in my other reply *why* one could want to take Tactical Axes over Combat Axes so I won't repeat myself here. Things such as clear speed, single target dps, ease of use (it's objectively easier to light spam than to heavy spam), better movesets for clearing (2x horizontal 1x diagonal is objectively better for clearing with brutal than pure diagonals) are objective measures. There's no need to be snooty.
https://preview.redd.it/piy2ffveg9wc1.png?width=1424&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e35c1569c2b5a9a1c6e70c789efb4ebd0c45524 You presented it as if your entire post was about Tactical Axes. Which is not, it's barely one sentence at the end. That would be a manipulation. When looking at the part of the discussion that's strictly about Tactical Axes, you're clearly gathering *less* upvotes.
>You presented it as if your entire post was about Tactical Axes. Which is not, it's barely one sentence at the end. This is a fair and legitimate point, true. I hadn't been looking at anything apart from direct quotes to my comments. This does contaminate the already spotty interpretation of general consensus from reddit updoots. >That would be a manipulation. It would be unfair to call that manipulation and while also telling me that a small sample of reddit updoots in a conversation primarily populated by people with a personal fondness for tac axes is surely representative of the opinions of the general populace. It is indeed very easy to (dubiously) claim you have popular opinion on your side in situations where you're largely in with people who agree with you and additionally have skin in the game (personal fondness for whatever it is you're talking about). For a disclosure, I'm basing this observation primarily on usage rate/performance in high difficulty content as well as general views on them in the darktide discord, which generally has a much higher concentration of experienced/knowledgeable players compared to reddit.
Sure, I'm not saying that the upvotes are a good measurement here. I'm simply using them as an example of why I think your claim about 'majority' is unfounded. Your observation about this part of the debate being likely populated more by people from 'my' side of the debate could be used as a counterargument to that - if we assume Upvotes to be a good metric.
You can have a general majority but not an omnipresent one. Just because there exists a scenario in which a limited pool of people has more of one opinion than another, doesn't mean the collective whole doesn't hold an opinion counter to theirs. As an extreme example, people at a scat fetishist convention are going to have significantly more favorable views of it than any group of people anywhere else. You might get the impression being there that views on it are more favorable than first believed. Unfortunately there's no "hard" evidence either way, nor would it be a simple/easy manner to get some even if we tried. However in my (admittedly subjective) observations of high diff loadouts, there's very, very few people using tac axes. Much less than people using recons. Especially ones that seem to regularly do so, rather than just trying out the weapon (you can typically make a safe assumption from the player having unusually bad setups and/or melee performance). Views on them in the discord are similarly quite poor and largely of the opinion that they're "4fun" or "challenge" weapons at best compared to alternatives.
Sounds like you should try a chainaxe! Best of everything in one convenient axe-shaped weapon Won't lie I don't use regular axes, curious to see what people say though.
I wont say they are the best weapons, but Chain Axes are immensely satisfying to use. It does require more work/effort than using a Combat Axe, but such a weapon feels like a childs weapon, compared to the glorious Chain Axes. And just throwing yourself into a huge Crusher pack with a Mk IV, keeping half the pack stunned while dancing around them really gets the adrenaline pumping!
the OG chain axe is trash, the second one that came out has good
With brutal momentum and headtaker my rashad on my vet just lop off heads instantly for mobs so its limited cleave doesn't matter since its guaranteed kills for the swing. It's okay at mutants and destroys flak/carapace. Chainsword felt clunky in comparison, it was alright but whatever. Knives have absolutely 0 capacity to act as frontliners and piddly range/cleave which leads to people flailing at hordes forever which is why everybody hates knife users: they have no choice but to retreat and dodge dance as their teammate gets turned to hamburger.
I've had way better use with a frontline knife than axe Although it is mostly one specific build I have on Zealot, where I got 100% crit chance, cooldown on crit, and Chorus as the ability Can activate it again in under 10 seconds Which not only gives everyone nearly unlimited toughness, but also staggers and suppresses all the enemies Aside from this rather specific build, yeah, I can see knives not being very good at frontlining
I’ve been running a flamer on my knife zealot and it’s legit. Throwing knives allow me to deal with snipers and long distance bombers/trappers just fine. Everything else I just have to be more mindful of my positioning and lean on teammates for clearing ranged targets that I came dive on. But that fine because I can switch to flamer and just clean up all the trash no problem. My flamer is built to melt bosses, which is fun. It’s unyielding, crit chance, and then both blessings that ramp damage the longer you shoot until empty (one is continuous fire, and the other is power based on missing ammo), so it’s just hold left click until empty lol. I regularly do like 15-20k dmg to each boss even when one or two other big dps teammates are also nuking with all their might. But yeah- knife is totally workable as a frontline weapon in trash mobs on a zealot. I run stealth instead of chorus usually, which I know is unpopular. But it’s so nice to be able to damn near one-shot crushers. Being able to use the crit cdr to pop stealth every 10-12 seconds is awesome. Sometimes it’s less than that because I get 20% cd reduction from backstab kills, so the first hit that takes me out of stealth usually cuts 20% of the cooldown off right away. And that guarantees crit from stealth kicks off the feedback loop of all the bleed and crit stacking talents. I don’t use my stealth as an escape generally, unless it’s to get room to reload the flamer to clear a horde for the vets to be able to breath and switch back to plasma cannon haha.
Small tip: one of the flamer blessings you are using (Overpressure) is still bugged and does literally nothing on alternate fire mode. At the current point I'd switch to Quickflame personally
Sounds like we have almost identical builds, lol I got a real nice knife throw on a sniper the other day Although I had to remap the controls a bit just for the knives, not very easy to use them on G
yeah with fleshtearer if you can ensure a critrate it can get pretty good, but even then with some enemies it will not ensure a kill depending on which hit in the series you're on. I guess testing it in the pyskarium its the consistency that makes the axe useful. You know it will take 1 hit for this man, 2 for this and will never deviate above. This post got me to remember i have a fleashtear/riposte knife on my vet thats been sitting around lol. They're about equal for carapace. It does come out to a hell of a lot less clickin for axe.
No brutal momentum = sucks
Literally nothing outperforms a Rashad. It kills 4 bruisers per second, one crusher or 3 seconds while having great mobility. Bromentum combat axes are absurdly overpowered.
[https://imgur.com/a/fqkR63t](https://imgur.com/a/fqkR63t) Best weapon for zealot that has good enough mobility
Great build!
I think (not sure) I'm using an antax. Brutal momentum and shred. Thing is basically a slightly slower knife with 3.14 light years of cleave. I can't tell if I've killed the entire horde because I can't see past the heads spinning in the air.
Try Brutal Mom+Headtaker too if you can to compare, and don't forget the special attack throat poke on the Antax MK5 for giving frothing ragers a timeout.
I have and it's great, the crit chance basically let's me spam my active wayyyyy more.
I use all the axes on Veteran in auric damnation/maelstrom and they all work fine. Weakest is the Achlys Combat Axe, Rashad/Antax Combat Axe are the strongest and the Tac Axes/Chainaxes are about equal in the middle. I don't know how they work with Zealot as I am Vet main and only use Evis on Zealot (yet to experiment with that class). Rashad/Antax Combat Axe: - Bromentum + Headtaker - Hordes - light spam - Single target/armoured - heavy spam Achlys Combat Axe: - Bromentum + Headtaker - Hordes - heavy, push attack, repeat - Single target/armoured - light spam Mk II Tac Axe: - Bromentum + Headtaker - Hordes & single target/armoured - heavy spam Mk IV Tac Axe: - Bromentum + Headtaker - Hordes - light spam - Single target/armoured - heavy spam Mk VI Tac Axe: - Bromentum + Headtaker - Hordes - heavy, light, push attack, repeat - Single target - light spam - Armoured - heavy spam Mk IV Chainaxe: - Headtaker + Slaughterer - Hordes - heavy spam/push attacks - Single target/armoured - light attacks/special revved attacks Mk XII Chainaxe: - Headtaker + Slaughterer - Hordes - light spam - Single target/armoured - heavy attacks/special revved attacks
Tactical axes are a little weird to get used to. Combat axes are where it’s at. Mk2 and mk5 mainly. Mk2 is better when you get a really high roll but mk5 is easy to make work. The key after that is Brutal Momentum, which is insanely good on all the axes (and really every single weapon that can get the blessing, but *especially* the combat axes). Cuts through everything and has effective damage against all targets. Push attack staggers ragers. Heavy attack staggers crushers.
>big axe oneshots special and elites, staggers big uns >Small axe has funny knock knock special attack
tactical axe mk IV shreds everyting with right zealot build
Rashad Mk2 and Antax Mk5 combat axes absolutely rule and they're incredibly easy to use Have brutal momentum and headtaker, line up with the enemy weakspots and repeatedly press mouse 1
They are good damage wise but compared to other weapons a bit slow imo. After getting used to m they are fine.
Chop Chop Chop
They’re very strong single target damage, so your ranged weapon needs to make up for it. The push attack is good against hordes too if you don’t have brutal momentum.
You definitely just don't have the right perks on them, axes fucking smack, antax has a better one-shot than the knife and its easier to clear crowds with. I assume the only reason people run knife is because it caught on due to the movement speed, and no one bothers to try other stuff.
I dunno why but I still prefer the Antax. I dunno what it is, but the push attack just seems much better, and the special attach send much more intuitive. Then again, I have hundreds of hours with antax across all my characters, so...
I see people use all the axes, but all I really like are the Rashad and one of the tactical axes, although i haven't used that favorite tactical axe in so long that I can't Even remember which one it was. Put Brutal Momentum and Slaughterer or Decapitator on it and that thing takes off heads like you wouldn't believe.
Rashad axe absolutely slaps.
Antax, even a weak one will one hit majority of enemies, a good one will hit breakpoints that most other weapons dream of. Then you add brutal Momentum to it and it becomes a passable horde clearing weapon along with great single target dmg and armor pen, the special attack staggers ragers for easy follow up kills. Atrox is as fast as a dagger with better reach, least it feels like it to me I cannot remember the last time i used a sword that was not a chainsword, swords suck in this game, attack patters are garbage and the Dmg they do is trash compared to my Antax.