Wheres the Battle Axe love?

[Cysticfury]

I'm kinda new to CoH have a level 50 SD/BA and Its so rare to see BA as tanker secondary..  but almost every BA power has knockdown  am I missing something? why is BA so unpopular for a tank? and it hits REALLY hard!! I mean it does have slow cool down but still... I have been looking for guides on how to slot and  there is Nothing.. should i just use a SD/WarMace guide? 

[Hopeling]

Battle Axe is unpopular because it's basically War Mace, but slightly worse. It's still perfectly playable though, and the two sets are nearly clones, so an SD/WM guide will work fine.

[MrAxe]

My first proper character on live was Axewrath, my Ice/Axe Tank. Remade him as an alt and still love all the knock down goodness.

[JCMcBoo]

My main on live was an Inv/Axe tanker but I went with Inv/TW on Homecoming because it was more in line with what I thought tanker secondaries should be.

[RobotLove]

On 9/25/2019 at 7:57 AM, Cysticfury said:

why is BA so unpopular for a tank?

Nerd answer: Axe is Mace but lethal. Smashing and lethal are the most commonly resisted damage types by players and NPCs in the game. Of note, robots resist lethal particularly hard, and there are ALOT of robots at high levels and some of them are actually weak to smashing. The difference in performance isn't huge, but min/maxers do as they do and it disseminates.

 

Other kind of Nerd answer: Axe isn't a sword and 'swords are cool'. Filthy commoners got no taste in badass weaponry. Axe on, brother.

[Sailboat]

Back on Live I had a Shield/BattleAxe Tanker who was thematically a lot of fun, if not the fastest-killing guy around.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Because battle axe and war mace are so similar (they even both have a shovel for a weapon), you need to make a decision as to which one you want.  If you are going thematic, that’s all you need.  Choose whatever looks good.  But if you want to eke out a smidgen of performance, war mace is slightly better.  Smashing is better than lethal for the most part.  And very rarely, the knock up on battle axe turns into knock back.  It’s mostly when you are fighting lower level mobs, but sometimes at even or higher level.  I’ve never seen knock back on war mace at even level.

[Sinfinite]

I have my Dark/Axe tanker at level 40 and started noticing something strange. I was doing the Tina McEntire (sp???) arc and was going after Clockwork king. Since the map had a LOT of flying Clockwork, every time I would hit them, they would get knocked back a LOT. The ground targets were knocked down (as the power should do), but is it normal to have KD turn into KB on flying mobs? They were even con (White/Yellow), so it wasn't because they were lower level. I have some IO's slotted but nothing that does any type of KB...more damage procs.

[Mercurias]

I really like all the KD in Battle Axe. It doesn’t kill extremely fast, even for a tanker, but that extra level of mitigation isn’t really nice.

 

Also you look like a barbarian, and that’s awesome.

 

Back on live, my older brother had an Axe/WP Brute that he really enjoyed.

[SaintD]

1 hour ago, Sinfinite said:

I have my Dark/Axe tanker at level 40 and started noticing something strange. I was doing the Tina McEntire (sp???) arc and was going after Clockwork king. Since the map had a LOT of flying Clockwork, every time I would hit them, they would get knocked back a LOT. The ground targets were knocked down (as the power should do), but is it normal to have KD turn into KB on flying mobs? They were even con (White/Yellow), so it wasn't because they were lower level.

Clockwork (the smaller ones at least, dunno about Cog+ sized) are actually vulnerable to knockdown effects, it's possible for them to increase to knockback and start battering the little shits around even at equal levels.

 

EDIT: It's the magnitude that matters. Look at the Battle Axe stats and it's all 0.67 or so magnitude for the knockdowns, because any knock magnitude 0.99 or less just causes 'knockdown' on the spot. If anything pushes the magnitude to 1+, it launches the enemy as knockback. The Clockwork vulnerability increases the magnitude of your knockdown over 1.

Edited October 22, 2019 by SaintD

[Sinfinite]

1 hour ago, SaintD said:

Clockwork (the smaller ones at least, dunno about Cog+ sized) are actually vulnerable to knockdown effects, it's possible for them to increase to knockback and start battering the little shits around even at equal levels.

 

EDIT: It's the magnitude that matters. Look at the Battle Axe stats and it's all 0.67 or so magnitude for the knockdowns, because any knock magnitude 0.99 or less just causes 'knockdown' on the spot. If anything pushes the magnitude to 1+, it launches the enemy as knockback. The Clockwork vulnerability increases the magnitude of your knockdown over 1.

Awesome, thank you for the answer!