User:Malokai92/Guide Index/prof

I was originally going to post this on Smity's page, but seeing how not-useful that would be after writing so much, I'll put it here.

The issue is vetting the Critical Axe Assassin. Smity made a generalization of my argument of scythe vs. axe on Warrior to Assassins, which particularly irked me since he was using my argument to support his own argument incorrectly. There's really two questions to be answered with this, one that Smity pushed for, and another one relative to it.
 * 1) Is the Critical Axe build viable enough for PvE that it should be vetted as good or great?
 * 2) Given precedence of Enduring Daggers Warrior, is this build worth keeping on the wiki in comparison to Daggers and Scythe?

I feel one of the conditions of comparing builds is that they must be in the same profession. It may still be useful to compare it to similar builds from other professions when possible, e.g. Enduring Axe, because their functions are fundamentally identical. We give priority to same profession builds when deciding since we assume people are choosing a build, not deciding if it's effective.

First Question
So the first question is literally: Does this build work effectively for PvE in general? What smity and most people do is pick the vetted Enduring Axe for comparison since they are quite similar. In fact, you're comparing how effective it is to use an axe on one profession compared to another. This is how we'll answer the first question, since that's why the second question gets ignored when we ask such a question. Warriors have higher Axe Mastery and armor penetration (Difference in damage 0 and 13 armor pen. is like 3 points in damage). Assassins have critical strikes but it's close to the same (You hit lower but critical more often). The damage is still meager when you only hit average 15-25 damage since armor-respecting damage scales to level difference. Most of your damage is coming from attack skills and buffs. The sin's replacement for Power Attack is Malicious Strike, which does the same amount of damage (because critical hit) but twice the recharge. This hurts your damage output compared to warrior. I'll quickly point out a minor disadvantage for the sin, you also don't have access to Dolyak Stance (tanking, ideally for Deep or FoW) or Body Blow (more DW and spammable damage).

Arguably, the first advantage the sin has over Warrior is Critical Agility. This provides a free 33% IAS to whack away while you're free to chase after foes. Warriors use Flail, which has the disadvantage of snaring yourself. However, this is easy to deal with by bringing YMLaD or Brawling Headbutt to prevent the foe from kiting. Most foes will die before kiting, so this is unnecessary much of the time. If you still have a problem (mainly running to the next foe or changing targets, not kiting), just bring Dash. Flail will likely be charged for use again and if you need to cancel flail more than every 8 seconds, you're doing it fucking wrong. Ultimately, Drunken Master makes this argument meaningless. If you really have an issue with using Flail because you're bad, lazy, or don't want to waste a skill slot, buy some alcohol and use Drunken Master for your IAS.
 * Advantages

The second advantage is a free elite slot because Critical Strikes supplies the energy you need. You have a couple worthwhile elites such as Triple Chop, Eviscerate, or Battle Rage. Cleave and Whirling Axe are also plausible for spammable damage. The optimal skill is Triple Chop because of it's AoE damage, all the other skills generally have no advantage over it. This gives you yet another AoE attack to increase damage output and build adrenaline.

The major disadvantage of the sin is lower armor. Critical Agility gives you a nice boost in armor, but not comparable to a Warrior. You can't boost this armor with SYG, great dwarf armor, or dolyak signet (ignoring IAU stack bug) and you don't have a shield (9 spec tactics is viable, but isn't optimal for damage). For a build based around balling up foes and sucking up damage, this can be a significant disadvantage, enough that it impacts the flexibility and effectiveness of the build.
 * Disadvantages

Critical Agility is also prone to enchantment removal if you're not careful. It carries over from group to group, so if it gets stripped, it should be recharged by then. Otherwise be smart and use Protective Spirit or similar for fodder before pulling or run Drunken Master. Critical Agility also takes up a valuable PvE skill slot. When Warriors already have Whirlwind Attack and "Save Yourselves!" taking up slots, Assassins have less wiggle room with no other viable IAS except a different PvE skill. Triple Chop helps by substituting for Whirlwind Attack, but it takes up your elite slot. This makes the bar slightly less flexible but doesn't hurt it significantly.

The other disadvantage is the locked secondary. This comes into play for Necrotic Traversal, using a pet, Conjure x, to name a few. This makes the build less flexible and implausible for Urgoz. You have access to Swap, Recall, Death's Charge that are usually used, unlike other copycat professions.

There isn't a significant difference in damage between the two builds, they both rely on spamming the attack skills and function similarly. The Axe Sin's main disadvantage is that it sacrifices flexibility to be on the same level as using Enduring Axe. In such terms, it can be considered viable that it would be vetted as at least a Good build. For the sake of argument; a mixture of 5-4, 5-3, and 4-3 ratings. Now the real question is how useful this is for players. Do they care that if they run an axe on their Assassin, it will work as good as on a Warrior? If they play the game for fun, they don't give a shit. If they play the game seriously, they don't give a shit. The only thing it establishes is that it's considered a Good build by the vetting system.
 * Summary

Second Question
In the second question, we have two arguments going. The first is the argument with Enduring Daggers and the precedence it gives to an Axe Assassin. The second is whether the Axe Assassin is considered a Great or Good build when compared to other vetted Assassin builds for general PvE. The latter question is given unequal weight in comparison to the first argument and the precedence of Enduring Daggers, almost ignored or put off as superficial.

Precedence Question

 * We have a vetted dagger spam build for the primary profession Assassin.
 * We have a vetted dagger spam build for Warriors.
 * We have a vetted axe build for the primary profession Warrior.
 * We need a vetted axe build for Assassins.

The problem comes with translating builds across professions. The Enduring Dagger build is derived from the dagger spam build. It's been established dagger spam is effective on any profession. You're abusing SoH, orders, and armor-ignoring damage from daggers to kill crap. You'd have to pull crap out off your ass to try and argue that it isn't. Nothing can pump more damage on single targets than daggers. We do lose sacrifice some flexibility to do so, especially the awkwardness with Flail, such is reflected in the ratings. We work backwards for Enduring Axe. We take the build, replace Warrior's Endurance with Critical Strikes and substitute some other skills.

Now while we have established daggers can work on any build, we haven't done so for axes. The dagger spam builds don't rely on PvE skills or secondary profession while the Enduring Axe does. We also require the elite slot to be used since the primary profession uses it. Moving from primary profession to secondary profession is quite simple, moving from secondary to primary profession is a whole different story. It's like saying every square is a rectangle, so every rectangle is a square.

The only point of this argument is to give precedence to the concept of an Axe Assassin, you won't really know if it's effective until you test and/or compare it to other builds (See question 1).

Comparison Argument
To compare the axe to daggers or scythe, we only need to compare/contrast the two vetted build against this one. We could use the weapon triangle for Warrior for comparison, but it's more effective to compare builds directly than generalize from other professions. The arguments are identical in any case. We know how good the Critical Axe build functions in relation to Enduring Axe, so we'll use this to compare it to Dagger Spammer or Critical Scythe.

Axes are suited for spikes because you have Dismember, Malicious Strike, and on-demand AoE attack. Dismember is a free 100 damage and spammable. Malicious Strike provides spammable damage suitable for spiking single targets. Cyclone Axe provides your trigger from SW and building adrenaline. You also have Whirlwind Attack for AoE damage. Your AoE attack skills are primarily for abusing Splinter Weapon, but keep in mind buffs drastically increase the amount of AoE damage you deal as well. This gives much flexibility between AoE attacks and single target damage. The drawbacks of the build are established in the first question.

The main point of using scythe is the AoE effect. This increases DPS from hitting multiple foes with DW from Wounding Strike, Malicious Strike, and Victorious Sweep. Just like the axe, most of your AoE damage comes from Splinter Weapon and SoH in addition to bonus damage from attacks. You also have access to Chilling Victory and Reap Impurities, increase your AoE damage prowess even more. This allows you to train multiple foes to death and trigger Splinter Weapon constantly. The single target damage is inferior to both dagger and axe. The bonus damage from critical hits was reduced, the scythe has a longer attack speed, Deep Wound is less spammable, and your damage output from spamming attack isn't as high.

Daggers totally demolish both axe and scythe for taking down single foes and the AoE damage from Death Blossom isn't too shabby. With buffs, daggers deliver very high single target damage. The downside is they can't trigger Splinter Weapon multiple times at once. You still get plenty of AoE damage out of Splinter Weapon though. Whirlwind Attack needs adrenaline first, so it's not useful spiking groups and getting Splinter Weapon off quickly. The ability to take out key enemies such as healers or nukers quickly allows you to mow through groups.

Conclusion
Professions are most effective with their own weapons because they have access to more options. The Assassin uses daggers more effectively than any other profession. Dervish use scythe more effectively than other professions. Warriors use axes more effectively than other professions. The difference comes in how well these weapons transfer to other professions. In the case of daggers, you can train anything to death as long as you have enough energy to spam your dagger chain. For scythes, you can get by on Wounding Strike or Wearying Strike and spamming scythe attacks.

For the axe, one of your main skills, Power Attack, is in the primary attribute and can't be used for other professions. You don't need to invest points to get armor from your shield. You rely on a balance of spiking power and AoE attacks. Using an axe is much harder to translate to other professions, consensus would be likely to take the position that it isn't worth running over going to either extreme. Warriors are given unique advantages when it comes to using their primary weapon that isn't found with the other weapons.