2h melee weapon balance is crap

Maces have no place in the game, especially with the guaranteed stun from Vaal Ground Slam and 4 charges. It is sad that you currently don't even remotely associate the term 'bonk' with a blunt weapon. Axes are associated with DECAPITATION, not bonking...


2H Swords get slaughtered by restrictions and lack of Warcry synergy.
You basically don't get to pick your skill if you pick swords, that's how bad it feels.

Swords can use Close Combat support, but so can Axes without having any restrictions at all, it feels. You even get onslaught on kill and even non-axe bleed builds would take the axe node, Slaughter.



All in all, for a game that's about theory crafting, there ain't jack shit to be had here.
But sure, let's just wait with all of that too for PoE2. Time flies when you're waiting for a game that comes out in an undetermined year.

I'd agree about maces. They suck as there are axes with better damage per hit than any mace, which is important for slams. Maybe the Imperial Maul can work with very high base strength, but I'm not sure as I haven't run the numbers...

But swords aren't out of the game, on the contrary. They work better for certain skills and approaches. Especially for critical builds, the +50% crit multiplier from Exquisite Blade is massive damage boost.

The Tidebreaker is decent for budget stun locking builds... yeah that's all I have for maces.

Star Citizen will release earlier then PoE2 xD

Replica Kongors is pretty underrated.

GGG should have reworked Maces a long time ago. Even all the mace related skill gems and mace skill nodes are among the worst in the game. Plus the way GGG reworked stun on bosses it isnt even viable to make a stun build. I had better game experience with Ruthless procs in that regard.

Mace crit nodes are crazy good which is Ironic in a way.

I actually don't think its Maces that are the problem its Axes, Axes have been the consistently best weapon type on most patches for 2h. To work it out all you have to do is remove the weapon restrictions from skills and ask yourself what you'd use.

Inevitably Axe would be the choice, best passives best damage - Swords would be second for anything that had an attack speed or crit bias and Maces would come last, especially as they somewhat share their space with Staves.

A crit base mace might help things tbh infact I think the implicits are what needs work - I used a meatgrinder or whatever they are called in Harvest league which was reasonable for its chance to do double damage but it loses the same percent simply by being a mace.

I will say Tidebreaker is probably the best 2H unique left that isn't weird like voidforge you need something like 800dps + for a weapon to be better if your an endurance charge user. Stun is still viable though I agree with the original poster that vaal groundslam being made so cheap and reliable diminishes the value of stun investment substantially as you can get it on an axe build with 1 2 gem slots.

I mean yes, but they have the advantage that everyone knows maces are trash.

So you can buy maces & mace jewels that're better than other options for a tiny fraction of the price of anything else.

Getting a 1 exalt mace+jewels that's about 80-90% of the dps of a 20+ ex axe+jewels is a 100% realistic option.

(Obviously this depends somewhat on build.. not gonna be bleeding much with a mace, but ele conversion stuff works just fine. skills that benefit from area damage also have an easier time.)

maces..

passive tree nodes for maces are GARBAGE. they have anti synergy within. half of the crit cluster is elemental.. while elemental has lower stun coefficient. quite sad because all other mace clusters are stun focused. like wtf?

then there is the stun itself - stun is a worthless mechanic since bosses got stun immunity periods and you can waste it on micro-stuns thus robbing yourself out of your only 'feature' picking maces over anything else has

then there is a problem where mace nodes are all over the place in a part of the tree where you dont get that many 'generic' damage nodes. going clusters is an option, but even then, the cluster mace notables are not mindblowing (excluding explody and fortify one - good luck getting these)

then there are uniques. brainrattler.. again, anti synergy with stun, it is better battlemage weapon than melee one. tidebreaker is good, but how many Tectonic Slam builds you want to play? esp when TS is garbo compared to Ground Slam? seriously, comparing these two is not even funny.

then there is the crit or lack thereof. you can make mace crit build, you sure can. but why bother if staves are just better? and you wont make non-crit build (bleed) because axes are just miles better and have way better nodes.

maces have TERRIBLE implicits. half of them are stun-related, aka COMPLETELY worthless, then there are 3 interesting ones:

- 10% strength. fantastic zombie weapon for baron necros.
- 5% double damage. on a base that just happens to be 5% worse than average. cool deal
- +1 exert. this one is GREAT and seriously makes maces worth talking about. Warcries + Vaal Ground Slam + this mace == bonk bonk bonk



but thats f.. it. one base, few good passives (in sea of worthless stun-related ones). no wonder noone gives a damn

fix the stun, make it actually useful, then maces might have a place. right now if i need crowd control cold damage + crit + blast-freeze gives me all i need.


sad note: jewelled foils make pretty much every other 1h weapon obsolete and noone gives a damn. diversity in this game is a long standing myth


ps. if you actually check maces and axes prices - these are almost identical, you wont save much if anything purchasing sub par

I don't think Jewelled foils make balance discussions irrelevant though I think its a good point to bring up, they've needed to address the mods vs attack speed thing for ages and they don't lol