As Lethal as it Needs to Be - Axes (Patreon)

 Contents:

1. Series Introduction 

2. Axes 

Overview

Axes are, in general terms one of the most overrated damage dealing weapons in the game, they are mostly buoyed by a wealth of powerful options that combines with a solid weapon specialisation and a somewhat questionable mastery. Yes, I am sure that many of you are racing to your keyboards to defend axe mastery, and I have read (and heard) it all before - my position isn't changing on this one. 

As one of the few mastery with a tangible downside I consider Axe mastery to be less desirable than Katar, Spear, Club, Bow, F&T, Shield and Grand Weapon.  Spear, F&T and Shield are sacrosanct 'almost every settlement needs these' options so there is no way you'd compare Axe to those. But Bow, Club, Katar and Grand Weapon are all in the 'offensive weapons that are powerful' club, and I prefer every single one of those over aiming for axe mastery.

Persistent Injuries are one of those things that looks incredibly tempting and powerful and there are benefits to these locations, however each persistent injury that you score not only weakens the monster, but also makes it more dangerous. The reactions that sit on the non-critical portion of a persistent injury are typically less nasty than the ones that are on other cards. Additionally, each persistent injury removes a non-trap HL from the deck and increases the odds of hitting the trap in future draws/reshuffles. It's a very subtle effect, but it is there and it does make the fight harder. 

So Axe cannot be in my top 3 or 4 - because it increases variance towards the nastiest possible results.That written, I still consider Axe Mastery something worth aiming for with the right monsters after I've gotten locked in a few of the more essential damage dealing masteries. It's the very definition of a late game weapon mastery, and it's probably the second best late game offensive mastery (after Club). It's just not something you should be trying to rush early on.

Now that we've placed Axe firmly in the top half of weapon masteries and established roughly where its priority to train is (decent, but there are a lot of better options). Now it's time to take a look at the progression the axe has.

Progression

In the base game you have the following axes:

• Bone Axe
• Counter-weighted Axe
• Sonic Tomahawk
• Lantern Glaive

Expansions bring the following extra options

• Gaxe - Gorm
• Greater Gaxe - Gorm
• Amber Poleaxe - Spidicules
• Denticle Axe - Sunstalker
• Xmaxe - Promotional

On the whole these weapons are very solid, but before I look in detail at the best ones, we're going to just brush over the few that don't make the list.  

The Xmaxe is a ridiculous weapon that's obscenely overpowered in the same way that the Gloom Katana is - in a game where you can (thought multiple different unlimited loops) set your insanity to whatever number you like, weapons with strength = insanity are obscenely powerful unless you have your insanity set to 0 by occurrences on the hunt. 

The Bone Axe is a decent weapon, but honestly it is overcosted for what it is - the doubling of its resource costs in the early game makes it an inferior choice to the bone darts and the bone sword - especially because bone weapons typically will be discarded within 1-2 lantern years of their crafting. And as one bone + one organ = 1 darts + 1 monster grease/lucky charm/fecal salve I just can't justify the cost of that weapon under any circumstances. (And that's all without considering how Savage is actually a drawback early on when the metagame is about farming for resources).

The Sonic Tomahawk is just absolutely terrible stats for the price and the difficulty in making it (plus it's linked to Paired, which is one of the most problematic abilities in the game) and the Gaxe is a fine weapon - but it's cost is prohibitive and you should always be building the far superior Greater Gaxe anyway. Now it's time to move onto looking at the five axes that are the typical meta choices.

Amber Poleaxe - Spidicules/Silk Mill 

Power Level: Early Game with Late Game exploits possible

Speed: 2 is the typical speed for an axe and it's within the normal threshold for being a good weapon (1-2 is ideal, 3 is good for certain weapons).

Accuracy:  6+ is very strong for a weapon that can be crafted in LY2, but as you'll see when we discuss accuracy throughout this series, there are not a lot of options for what accuracy can be, typically it ranges between 5+ and 7+. Accuracy is not a very wide variable because of the use of a d10 for attacking.Strength: 3 strength is sufficient to be of use against most toughness 8 monsters without any survivor stats buffing it, and you can use these kind of weapons against the Phoenix tier of monsters as well if you have a few strength buffs.

Affinities: The down green half affinity is a very rare one that has a lot of benefits when combined with monster grease and the leather shield. 

Ability: This is where the Amber Poleaxe really shines, any ability that allows you to wound a monster without drawing hit locations has to be very seriously considered for its applications. In this case getting the monster to pass over you and collide.Well it turns out that shield specialization allows you to ignore the worst of a collision because you are no longer knocked down and Fecal salves (or Cycloid Scale Armor) allow you to not be a threat. So monsters can be encouraged to run past your survivor to reach an out of range threat, taking damage in the process.  This process is called 'punji sticking' or 'picket fencing' and it can be used to beat the more flawed AIs in the game very easily, the prime example would be the King's Man, but the White Lion is another one who's hurt very hard by this strategy.  It also causes a lot of problems for monsters who like to collide with you such as the Phoenix.  So this weapon becomes very powerful when you build around it.Oh and it also counts as a spear and has reach 2. All of which is great!

Summary:The Amber Poleaxe is one of the more powerful options you can construct from Spidicules, its hybrid spear/axe design means that in the early game it can be used to train up spear (and that's the better use for it early on), but also it can be crafted in multiples and used alongside Cycloid Scale armor as part of a punji stick/non-threat/blind spot strategy that honestly demonstrates how the AI in the game can be broken and exploited if you're that way inclined.

Greater Gaxe 

Power Level: Early to Mid game.

Speed: 2 Speed makes this one a solid and desirable weapon.

Accuracy:  6+ accuracy is solid, and the norm for axes.

Strength: It is worth pointing out that the Greater Gaxe is in the same costing category as the King's Spear and way cheaper than the Amber Poleaxe. In that it costs 2 early monster specific resources to build (and one of which can even be 'tutored' via critical hits. However it has more strength and abilities than the King's Spear could ever dream of.Affinities: Left red half-affinity is a pretty normal early game affinity and not that valuable outside of its ability to join onto the Monster Tooth Necklace.

Ability: The Greater Gaxe features a bunch of very desirable abilities. It is the (currently) only Deadly axe in the game, which is a huge bonus in the early game farming meta. It also has Reach 2, which is important against monsters like the Butcher, White Lion, Flower Knight and Screaming Antelope plus on top of all of that, with a red and green affinity in your grid it gains a potent 'scrap' +4 strength on perfect hits - and considering that Timeless Eye is one of the most desirable 'sculpture' targets in the game, if you get a hold of those that combo this weapon can carry you a long way.

Summary: As one of the best early game farming weapons (if not the best) the Greater Gaxe is something you'll typically be aiming to build every single game that you have the Gorm as an option. Its existence keeps the admittedly rather solid Gaxe out of the meta completely, due to it's combination of being superior in every aspect ranging from cost to stats and abilities. It's a weapon that you'll end up wanting to use for a long time and you may even transfer it into a critical wound build with the warlord armor for the late game. 

GG Axe indeed.

Counterweighted Axe 

Power Level: Mid to End Game

Speed: Slightly above average for an axe, but 2 is the norm.

Accuracy:  6+ is normal.Strength: 4 strength is a little low for a weapon crafter weapon, it is rather eye opening that most weapon crafter weapons have such little strength progression when compared to the Tier 1 (White Lion) and are pretty bad when compared to Gorm ones. However, the CWAxe does not worry about this, it has other plans.

Affinities: The red affinity on this weapon is awkwardly placed for a good reason, the ability that this weapon has is one of the most powerful in the entire game. It is potentially unlimited automatic wounds, the player base has become very good at manipulating automatic wounds and the CWAxe is culprit numero uno.

Ability: Automatic wounds are obscenely powerful, and the CWAxe one is no exception. Due to mechanics like the Bone Witch and ways of increasing your speed, you can build survivors that ignore monster toughness and literally only hit on Perfect hits. The upper limit of this is building a survivor who can one shot any (non-Slenderman) monster in the game (choose your unlimited insanity gaining method + Butcher's Blood). Suffice to say, it's not healthy for the game experience if you choose to do this.

Summary: One of the most powerful and abusable weapons in the entire game, the Counterweighted Axe remains a flagship weapon from the moment you get it until the moment the Final Nemesis monster falls to the power of its stone faces. 

Lantern Glaive 

Power Level: Late Game

Speed: A bit worse than average because 2 speed + Early Iron sometimes = 0 Speed.

Accuracy: Again a bit worse than average because 19% of the time the accuracy = 0

Strength: 4+1d10 is a very high level of strength, much higher than any other weapon you'll see in the Axe category. 

Affinities: The down green half affinity is very relevant in a number of different builds, in particular it makes it a great match with the Leather Shield and Monster Grease which creates a very solid combination.

Ability: Sharp is amazing, one of the most powerful abilities in the game - however it's presence on the Cycloid Scale Sleeves means that in campaigns where you have access to the Sunstalker you are better served taking a different axe (Greater Gaxe or Denticle) and using those instead - this is because Early Iron is a horrifically bad drawback, a 10% chance per dice of all your attacks missing means that even on a 2 speed weapon 19% of your attack activations will result in nothing at all happening. 

The Early Iron price would be fine if it was always tied to Sharp, but Sharp crops up a lot elsewhere without the same balancing (I'm looking at you Cycloid Scale and Cult Speaker Knife). In addition, this weapon is a Spear/Axe which is very relevant and powerful in the late game and it can be turned into an Oxidized version which removes the drawback of Early Iron and buffs it further. This is one of many reasons why you should always pop the Watcher as early as possible, you need the time to gather resources to make the Oxidised versions of so many amazing pieces of gear.

Summary: The fact that this weapon is meta despite having Early Iron (which makes most of the other Blacksmith weapons useless) is a testament to how powerful this weapon is. The combination of Spear + Axe + Sharp + Reach makes this an incredibly powerful late game weapon. It's one of my preferred Dragon Armor weapons for example. It's obscene on a Dragon Armor survivor and I'd call it the best late game axe if not for the existence of one more weapon. 

Denticle Axe 

Power Level: Late Game

Speed: Solid and very average for an axe.

Accuracy:  6+ is pretty much the norm across the board here.

Strength: 5 is not that much for a late game weapon, but you have to remember that this weapon does not exist in isolation. It is intrinsically linked on a design level with the Cycloid Scale Armor and this is one of the few situations where balancing the weapon around the Cycloid Scale Sleeves is a great move.

Affinities: This weapon has two rare affinities that I have a great deal of appreciation for. 

Ability: Oh boy, this is the ability that every Dagger wishes it had and it makes me wonder if during the design phase if the Denticle Axe was actually a Dagger at first. This is the primo assassin backstab weapon in Kingdom Death, it is an absolutely devastating weapon when combined with Cycloid Scale and it's really powerful even when used with other armor like Dragon or Warlord. 

7 base Strength is solid enough for most L2 monsters and ample for L3s when combined with Sharp. Devastating also switches from being a 'do not want' ability in the early game to an amazing boon in the late game where the monsters require less farming because of the higher resource rewards and higher risk.

Summary: This weapon has it all, it's an incredible tool and one of the most desirable DPS weapons in the game. For people who want to feel like a powerhouse as they cripple and destroy a scary monster, the Denticle axe has it all. Oh and it's one handed, so it can be wielded with Ambidextrous or Blood Paint (though the multiple weapons rule still sucks the fun out of that).

About the only downside to the Denticle Axe is that it uses the same strange resource as the top tier Skleaver and that can only be gotten from the L2 Sunstalker, so if you want 1x Denticle Axe and 1x Skleaver in the same campaign you're going to need to hunt at least 3x L2 Sunstalkers (and as you'll see when we look at Bows/Swords you're going to be hunting L1s and L3s as well when you have the chance).

It's hard to not hunt the Sunstalker over and over because of how varied and rewarding its gear is.

Conclusion:

Axes are not the king of damage dealing weapons, but they are a respectable semi off-meta choice for those of you who have exhausted all the amazing things you can do with Clubs, Grand weapons, Bows and Katars. However, it is going to feel like Axes are always meta because of the extreme dominance of the Counterweighted Axe combined with the lack of good Blacksmith weapon options outside of Grand, Shield and Axe/Spear.

While this weapon type is one of the few with an inbuilt downside, it is still a powerful choice and considerably mainstream despite my ranking it as the 5th choice for DPS characters. Ultimately Axes are constrained by a very linear progression, huge potential for abuse and an attack profile that hardly varies from one item to the next. It is very rare that an axe isn't 2 speed, 6+ accuracy and 3-5 strength for its baseline stats. It's a rather homogeneous weapon. 

Next time we return to this series we'll take a deep dive into the king of all weapons, Bows and I'll also explain why they are so, so, so much more powerful than any other attacking weapon type in this game!

Note: I'd also like to quickly point out that for some reason the Lantern Halberd rare gear is just a spear, whereas in Kingdom Death halberds have been established as being a spear/axe hybrid weapon. I think this is a shame because that gear is hardly overpowered as it is.