Tactical Axes or Knives?

[Derpro]

With 3 mks of tactical axe and two mks for the catachan knives, there's plenty of nice mobile weapon options for the 3 classes.

Which has the best line-up of weapons overall?

Although I acknowledge the strengths of the knives and lacerate and other very strong blessings, I lean on the axes being better options overall if you can get brutal momentum at any tier. I find them to be more versatile with their inherent armor piercing, fast attacks for cleaning out hordes and with better shove and special attacks for crowd control.

[Tactical Drongo]

tactical axes are in a weird spot, they are not a horrible weapon per se, butgenerally underperform

knives on the other hand, while having among the lowest base damage, have some pretty nasty weakpoint multipliers that can be further leveraged with the right combination of traits

they are also pretty nasty bleed stackers of build for that


that said, the blessings for tac axes (taxes lol) are very different and might be more what you are looking for - in the end, whatever weapon you can play with, what feels best for you, that is what you should play

[shnappy]

The new Mk 6 combat knife isn't terrible at horde clear. It actually gets some cleave through on lights and heavies. I find its combo's less suitable though single target damage. Mk 3 is always solid for fast movement and high single target damage. The combo for heavies is super basic and the special attack (same on mk 6) is easy to use as well. Light attacks will shred a horde...slowly. You will one shot them but one at a time. A fun way to use knife is with 100% rending on backstab. with the insane movement speed (especially on zealot) you can hit back attacks all day long. Vet - stamina and overall lower movement speed might be an issue here. Otherwise classic +rending on weak spot and +weak spot damage on bleeding enemies shreds even crushers (again more a zealot thing because of passive talents bleeding on crit and all them extra crit buffs).

Vet probably gets more out of axes though. I don't have much experience with them. Knife on vet is still viable for sure, it just has a lot more synergy with zealot. Zealot takes all the things knife is good at, and amplifies it, but doesn't really shore up any of its weaknesses.

[Diakoptes]

damn, neither

[Пеyнiк]

Tactical axe on crit zealot may be better, brutal momentum is noob trap though.

[Qua2ar]

The axes won't get you kicked.

[Ravs]

Originally posted by Пеyнiк:

Tactical axe on crit zealot may be better, brutal momentum is noob trap though.

Why do you consider it a noob trap?

[2D > 3D WEEB 4 LIFE]

Axes can ~1-2 shot most elites and specials with light attacks depending on the Blessings while the Combat Blades need to pick between a loop of heavy attacks or special into light attack which is a bit tedious to pull off with the poor hit registration.

[Пеyнiк]

Originally posted by Ravel:

Originally posted by Пеyнiк:

Tactical axe on crit zealot may be better, brutal momentum is noob trap though.

Why do you consider it a noob trap?

Crits and power give cleave damage, better against everything else then horde.

[Derpro]

Originally posted by Пеyнiк:

Originally posted by Ravel:

Why do you consider it a noob trap?

Crits and power give cleave damage, better against everything else then horde.

Given the attack pattern of the tactical axes, the added weak-point damage is very consistent in the weapon's performance. I'll have to test the difference with and without to be sure, but with brutal momentum on the mk II it's been a top performing weapon against hordes and single-targets (being able to oneshot most enemies with the first attack in the mk II's chain is nice. It might also be the weapon's attack pattern that plays into it, as almost all the attacks it does are aiming for the top

[insufferable-child]

on my zealot and with skilled play the knivea outperform the axes. I prefer the mk6 for having great horde clear on heavy spam while maintaining similar damage single target, though the wide sweeps sometimes clock the shoulder instead of the head.

Success with the knife is very blessing and weak spot hit dependent. If you're struggling with either the tacaxes might be easier to use. On any other class? I couldn't tell you because I don't really wanna replicate my zelly build when playing them, I pick other weapons for variety.

[tools guy-kun]

I run both, depending on my mood. I’d say knives perform better especially with their push attack, but taxes (tactical axes) are fun to use and aren’t too bad. You just have to work a bit harder for your elite kills.

Go to brunt’s and get a few copies of each to see which suits your fancy, then take them out on runs to see how they really perform and stuff.

[Cylixx]

Atrox MkIV could 2 shot muties even before the recent update.

That base crit dmg, mmmmmm.

[Licher.Rus]

Vanilla Knife (the new one is meh)
Better for everything, than tactical axes

[Vicid]

tac 2 axe with BM and Head Taker. On the right zealot or vet build you can chain heavies and kill 4 dreg and scab melee per swing (and pox walkers and newly infected) combine that with 7.5% toughness per heavy kill and it is very nice

[Derpro]

Originally posted by Vicid:

tac 2 axe with BM and Head Taker. On the right zealot or vet build you can chain heavies and kill 4 dreg and scab melee per swing (and pox walkers and newly infected) combine that with 7.5% toughness per heavy kill and it is very nice

I run that axe with those blessings on my weapons expert vet. It's a very potent weapon against any enemy in the game you can get close enough to.