Great Axes got new amazing animations effectively turning them from a sluggish spin-to-win weapon
(with exception of few legendary weapons) to a diverse weapon with fast light attacks, heavy high damage attacks, and a blocking feature.
As I tested them out for several hours however I found them to be rather restricting and underwhelming than its divergent expectations.
Blocking
with the special attack key (kick) you can now block with Great Axes, but not only does it block melee it also blocks arrows, thrown weapons and other projectiles. I think being able to block projectiles should solely be a shield’s function.
There are delays between holding up blocks and lowering the defence. this delay does not provide enough time for an opportunity to attack or escape, which leads it to only a stamina penalty on the blocking side, making dodging a more fast, reliable option.
Heavy attacks
As opposed to the previous version of great axes heavy attacks are not fully Hyper-armoured. I found out during 3rd to final heavy attack motions you can get interrupted. This negates the crowd control aspect of great axes. With the given delays between heavy attacks, I think it should be fully uninterruptible.
Damage / Stamina
While I like the idea of Great Axe’s overhaul into a utilitarian weapon, combined with its higher stamina usage than any other weapon, no armor penetration, and the new slow, interruptible movesets makes it a weapon almost only dedicated to fighting against humanoid enemies as many enemies ignore stuns, and players can easily out DPS with same grade weapon or simply dodge away.
I think it needs an edge either by getting armor penetration or less stamina usage, or by adding a debuff effect on hit.
out of all, I think the blocking and stamina usage needs addressing the most.
I’d like any opinions on great axes or related combat mechanics.
And thanks to funcom for all their hard work.
I liked your detailed review but I thought I would ad that a Great Axe is about the same size as a buckler shield and feel it definitely deserves similar privileges.
I am pretty sure they just used the shield block coding on the great axes, so it can pretty much block anything.
Personally, I am for anything defense, as it gives greater variety to the game, and the only real defense we have is blocking and rolling. Rolling IMO still uses to much stamina.
My fear to this update is the Grey ones great axe, I believe it’s starting 93 dmg casting extra bleeding. I don’t have in Siptah master reinforcements recipe yet, so I can’t say where it will reach. If the stamina loss is not significant different from other 2h weapons I believe we speak about a really op weapon. So if I combine @Mefistos post about new fighting difficulties and this post, I can understand that devs want players to pay attention finally to a buried weapon. I feel we experience the horse technique here, at the beginning they were decorative, now they are must . Either way, I always wanted an op weapon to solo dungeons, for me I guess this is my chance (not yet I am console ), but I am really worried about the pvp community reactions.
In any case I support this change, I love changes.
Grey one’s weapons consume way more stamina than normal ones. Full grit attribute stat only gives 2 heavy combos with the Grey one’s GA.
ever since the patch, the bleed effect not deriving from movesets (daggers, punch swords, 1h axes, pikes…etc) can’t be stacked, so the bleed on Greay one’s GA has miniscule effect in combat now…
also found out the Grey one’s short sword’s Heavy + light x5 combo has been ridiculously powerful in comparison to the stamina usage. Glad they made it un-chainable in this patch.
Upon further testing I did found out that great axes fail to block arrows in certain vertical angles compared to shields. I’m not sure if this was intended, but if shields can still remain as a superior way of blocking, I’ll be more than satisfied with weapon balancing point of view.
I completely agree and approve of the idea of more variety in defence, albeit it is not as useful as rolling in combat in this version of the game… It would be a nice addition if they rewarded a well-timed blocking, as they have removed constant stamina consumption while holding block, If I’m not mistaken.
Rolling too still requires some polish since even with its invincible frame it is only mainly used to gain distances from attacks. not dodge into it.
. Either way, I always wanted an op weapon to solo dungeons, for me I guess this is my chance (not yet I am console 
), but I am really worried about the pvp community reactions.