Choosing a path

WannaBM pretty much nailed it. Each path has its strengths and weaknesses. Axes are really great for their aoes and spike damage, but have very poor chi gain. Fists really excel when stacked with -int gear against single targets and you can stay permasparked, which meams permanent 500% damage, massive bloodpaint heals, and a wealth of chi to use things like HF, Glacial Spike, your stuns, and other combos.

They also have their weaknesses. Axe only BMs suck at chi gain and don't build enough chi to HF on schedule or keep up crowd control. They also can't backup tank bosses because of their poor damage, everything else would get aggro before them. Fists also have their weaknesses. They only have about 60% the base damage of axes and have a slightly lower refine rate, too, so any skill spam (aoes, stuns) that are based on weapon damage are lower with fists.

The only thing I'd disagree with is this:

WannaBM - Archosaur wrote: »

If for financial reasons you have to choose which to get first, i'd say axe.

If you have to choose only 1... go farm until you can afford to gear/play your character appropriately.

WannaBM - Archosaur wrote: »

I also do advise you to stat 100 vit instead and take those away from str. Later when you are rich and well geared, you can restat those to str.

This is good advice, and somewhat a hot subject in the BM forums, but I typically suggest only 53 vit. The reason being 100 vit is 1.5k hp and a bit of defense. Not really a game changer amount but still useful. If you stat 50 vit you get 750 hp which is again nothing major, but nice to have, and it comes off in one -50 point restat note (or two -25 restat-all notes). It will save you a couple million coin you can put toward actual refines.

The other reasons I'm not vit crazy are:
~about 85% of the damage you'll take as a melee char is physical (in pve). Yes, magic damage hurts but it's much less common. Strength gives more defense against physical damage than vit does, meaning you'll take less damage even though you have slightly less hp.
~More strength means more paints heals. Paint heals keep you alive, while once your 750 hp is going it needs to be replaced some how.
~Mobs die quicker, meaning you take less damage. That's a good way to survive.
~You need 3 strength per level for axes and 2 dex per level for fists. That's all 5 of your stat points right there. Any point you place in vit has to come from somewhere. This means you either are using weapons a few levels bellow you (meaning mobs live longer, hit you more, you get less paint heals...) or you are finding stat points from other gear. I have +112 strength and dex stat points on my aps gear, so it is possible, but I also have a 600m tome and expensive engravings on my gear while you wont for a long time. 50 stat points will be hard enough to find.

Now, if you PvP and are usually charmed I'd weigh more heavily on vit. It can save you from ganks and your more deadly opponents are magic DDs. Especially since with a charm every hp point is more like 1.5 hp, so 1.5k is more like 2.25k hp with a charm and makes you harder to kill and charm bipass.

Eventually, almost every BM restats down to only 3 vitality at endgame.

WannaBM - Archosaur wrote: »

A BM does not choose between fist and axe. He gets them both.

siggy'ed

If u go demon = Axe(AoE and 9secs HF), Fist(APS), pike(FarStrike ranged 18meter atk)
If u go Sage = Axe(AoE fire debuff good for mass PK), Sword(DPH;Flash and Atmos), Pike(DPH;Far Strike)

Choose one and be happy.

Slivaf - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Axes are far better for pvp, as they will (as they said) allow for more spike damage, and you will need that in pvp, fists quite simply do not cut it at all

Really, all weapons have a place in pvp. Axes are the best choice most the time, but fists have their place. Keeping your chi up with fists helps alot, and even r9t3 axes don't keep up with the damage that G16 fists can do against high hp opponents. Against a vit barb or a seeker that I can keep stun locked down I'll often switch to fists to mow them down.

Slivaf - Dreamweaver wrote: »

its hard FOR most to pinpoint at what point DPH combined with a decent dps will outshine pure dps. (Meaning at what attack rate with axes does the extra damage with axes, outshine full 5.0?<--- Hypothetical...

It's not really that hypothetical against single targets. Skill spam really doesn't increase single target dps that much. So axes have a base attack rate of .83, fists 1.43. They damage output is actually about equal because while axes hit about 42% slower, fists hit 42% weaker. So roughly it equals out.

But fist also refine decently well, refining at only about 30% less than axes which means even with comparative attack rates the fists will start pulling ahead as they both are refined, even before aps are added.

So, now you start adding -int. Add one piece of -int and axes go from .83 to .87, a 4.8% gain. Add on piece of -int to fists and they go from 1.33 to 1.43, a 7.5% gain. Do this 8 more times -.- Fully stack your -int for -4 and fists gain 50.1% with their last piece of -int while axes gain 14.4% just with the last piece. In the end you are comparing 1.43 and 5 aps sparked (assuming both in aps gear) so fist will do 350% more damage.

After 15 seconds, axes have gained105 chi, fists have gained 350. Axes triple spark dies and they are back to roughly 40% of their sparked damage while fist users continue to triple spark. This isn't even a comparison. Fist users will be hitting about 2.2x harder and 3.5 times faster for nearly 8x the damage of axes. I'm not going to even breakdown crit rates because when you are sparked crit and weapon damage matter more than the strength a pure-axe build would add.

At no point should axes ever come close to the same damage as equal quality fists against a single opponent. My argument about fists in pk is even comparing r9t3 axes and G16 fists my r9t3 would need a 70-80% zerk rate to equal the same dps as a cycloned apsing.

As a bm u shouldnt choose your path.

Lower levels below 85, use axes

After 85, start gearing up. Start with gorenox vanities. You might want to get a pangu giant axe or a gatherstorm. Eitherway is fine. I used a gatherstorm till 100.

Gather other weps if u have the cash like fcc 85 poleblade and fcc85 dual swords.

Fists are a necessity if u wanna survive fcc pulls. Once you fail to chain your aoes and bp doesnt keep up, you will die. I usually fissure,sweep,highland,fan flames,cyclone heel,rinse and repeat and adding the occasional stun.

I soloed a full exp room pull with captains at lvl 89 when i got my demon spark. Sketchy but doable. Marrows save your *** too.

Now, at lvl 100, more mobs kite and hit you harder so you will have to go all path bm or you will be at a disadvantage. Get calamitous claymore from your morai quest instead of **** pve axes. Use it till you come across some dirt cheap tt 99 unbound dual swords which u can g15 it for sweg and lulz. Thats what i did. Get those and start kiting those kiters with drake ray, spirit chaser, far strike and smack. Its fun and AA users in NW will be pissed provided you dont get 1 shotted.

But we don't go one path or two, we go all 4; it's just that we only refine and hotkey 2 because the other 2 are utility weapons (purge/def level pole + some sword) that don't need work, but that we do use regularly (purge pole + ranging, sword to knockback in WS + MSS in full metal pulls, poles to GS with and ranging in pvp)

And I like how you assume a bm swapping 2 weapons and 2 gearsets + 2 extra weapons to a BM that can only plod along with one weapon b:laugh

Oh man aura runs; mana 2 sustains my barrage so I get to afk on the eye from W4-W8 lol

lotta posts so i skimmed but read OP and wannas first post

heres how i rank the different types of weapons
AXE-aoe skill spam and pvp
POLE-not important but fun to mess around with
SWORD-only used it in lunar bh valley with those magic mobs on a full pull. so idk much bout it
FIST-solo work/need chi fast on bosses

AXE/FIST is most popular to build but i like to **** around with the different weapons. Pole is the most fun TBH. best range not bad APS and noone expects it.
as an up and coming bm however
AXE FIRST
idk how to emphasize that more
fist second
pole third
sword last
axes are ur heavy weapons fists are ur quick solo weapons. so u want to make sure u get those up before u do anything else. i didnt even have a real pole till i was lvl 101 and farmed the tt99 purge pole

VKnightV - Lost City wrote: »

ur just axe/fist bm not all path bm unles you use them for more then poking and purging

I am a sin b:surrender b:cry. You poke me with your pole b:dirty.

You misunderstand our thoughts, i am sure the threads are burried where we have talked about when, where, how to use different weapons. It depends on your playstyle, you use a pole, awesome, but if you don't have the str/dex to use a pole because you are an all path axe bm only. That is why when we refer to all path, we are referring to the str and dex required to equip all the weapons when needed. Not whether you use them or not.

VKnightV - Lost City wrote: »

ur talking BULL using fist axe dosent mean ur using all paths

using pole just to purge dont quallify to say your using pole sorry

and same goes for sword

at least i dont lie about how i play compare to you ppl shame on you

Come down from that high horse and talk to us lowly all path users for a second...

We stat to use all weapons. We carry all weapons. We select the best weapon to use for the best situation. The fact that about 97% of the time the best weapon to use is either axe or fists isn't a fault with us, more with the skill tree itself.

For PvE, axes have the best aoes and the highest base damage for skill spam so are the best tool when there are multiple mobs. For PvE, fists with -int experience exponential growth and the best dps so become the best single target weapon. So axes for multiple targets, fists for single targets.... doesn't leave much room for other weapons right? Even our fists tree is largely neglected when most skill use actually reduces dps rather than helps.

So we find other adverse situations where our weapons aren't strictly used "offensively" but more for support. Our swords are pretty much only used for defense, not offense, when a bubble drops and a quick MSS can save a squad by reducing damage of all nearby enemies. Or knocking back a mob group with a pole while we fight another melee group. Why would we push anything in range when we're a melee class? Just for defense. Or because we're demon and we've exhausted every other stun in the general or axe path and need to go to pole for one more stun.

Or for support, like combining HF and GS. GS is pretty much always gonna be the weaker of the two, so axes and HF get priority, but depending on your squad GS+HF can massively increase 5 peoples damage. GS and the rarely used fist skill Drakes Breath Bash then become more important for crit or fire damage, even though we may not keep the same weapon once the buff is applied (ie. GS then swap to axes for 95% axe crit rate).

Or just adversity. Opponents now have purify proc which means no controling them and they are perma holy pathed (I was watching a pk video where the cleric just kept holy pathing 3 meters away then attacking the seeker and the seeker would have to move forward at 5 m/s in between skills allowing the cleric's charm to constantly recover). So we have to use skills like Drake's Ray-> (pole) Far Strike-> (axes)Blade Hurl-> Reckless Rush->aoe. We just became a ranged dd for about 10 seconds.

So I gave you several general situations where pole/sword might be best used but that still is gonna be < 3% of the time you're attacking. Anytime you use an "any melee weapon" skill, swap to axes. Axes have your best base damage and refine rate. This means if you're going to use Drake's Ray with either a +10 G16 pole or a +10 G16 dual axe, use the dual axe because it will hit harder.

Sorry if you don't feel we're using pole or sword enough to be considered all paths. We can't invent situations where they'd be more useful, and we'd feel as stupid as we call other BMs if we were using pole/sword constantly in the wrong situation. If you want to have fun and using pole/sword is your version of 'thrilling' then have at it. If you want to be effective, then use your head for whats really best in those situations.

Edit: Oh, and it's been discussed multiple times debating whether purge pole or purge axe is better. Inc attack rate of pole gives it much better odds of purging sooner, while axe has the potential of aoe purge but since most axe skills have a debuff on them that would block the purge. Also, purging a kiting opponent with Drake/Far Strike is just gold So I doubt too many of us would switch to purge axe considering many of us already have that option with the r8 axe.

i like swords