Marauder 2h DPS Axe vs. Sword

Building a 2h Marauder and I would like to hear from anyone with experience if they have experimented with both axes and swords and found if one is superior over the other.

Any insight on the subject is welcome, thanks.

http://www.pathofexile.com/item-data/weapon

If you compare the lvl 60 2-H Axe and the lvl 60 2-H Sword, you'll see that the base, unmodded axe will out-DPS the sword 214 to 194. Of course, any mods on the weapons themselves will be the biggest factor, along with whatever passives you take. Bottom line, the axe will give higher DPS than the sword in most cases, but swords have an inherent 25% bonus to accuracy. Extra accuracy is very helpful on a Marauder, which tends to have lower accuracy in general than other classes. Personally, on my lvl 70 2-H Axe Marauder, I compensated for the lower accuracy with equipment and passives; I prefer the higher DPS.

TL;DR version: both are viable and depend entirely on the build as to which would have higher DPS.

Personally I swear by maces... the innate stun chance is utterly deadly against most champions and bosses, if you get a stun chain going they barely get a chance to respond to your attacks.

Swords are good for the innate accuracy, but for the extra small DPS increase (+ 20 odd dps) I dont rate axes at all. If it were substantially more damage I might use them but 20 odd dps is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Also they are one of the rarer drops in my experience (axes)

Maces all the way. Stun ftw.

I prefer axes over either swords or maces. Take the same level item of each, give them 20% quality and 100% Increased Physical Damage. On a level 60 weapon, an axe will have closer to 150 more dps than the mace or sword. With more damage mods/passives and attack speed the disparity gets larger. Also, with axes, not only do you get more dps but you also get an increased chance to stun due to that extra damage. Maces may still stun a bit more/longer.. but to me, what good is stun on an enemy that's already dead? As for swords.. unless you're specifically looking for the highest attack speed I would just avoid them. The small accuracy boost is largely negligible and with the lowest dps swords are altogether ignorable(except for 1h dex swords but we're talking 2h). If you have enough dex to equip swords then chances are, but not always, your accuracy is fine anyway. And if you're really worried about accuracy then you should take Res Tech, in which case the accuracy bonus on swords is useless anyway. Axes or Maces are the way to go. Not sure about staves though and how they fit in with the other 2h's.. I've never used 'em.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

Maces all the way. Stun ftw.

Agreed^^

Depends

AoF Mara: Staff you can get much better mods
+ 10-15% block
Rest: Staff/Mace cus heavy strike/ground slam

I still haven't seen a mob stunned.

Am I blind, I've just seen some standing still but thought it was lag or some bug.

How can I notice?

When you see a monster recoil from your hit.. that's a stun. It's not like in other games where you see little stars circling the head.

I went for the passive that gives 100% accuracy but removes crits. Because of that, the innate accuracy on swords was pretty much moot for me, so axes and maces were a better choice. Personally I went 2H axe since I'm a sucker for higher DPS, but the stun on maces is very useful at keeping enemies from dishing out too much damage on you while you wail away on them.