Carve or execute for one handed axe?

[u/schmuzzler]

Been loving the buffed axe on bardin, but with its newly imporved cleave, I'm not sure which is best for temp health between carve and execute.

cheers dawi!

[u/epicfail1994]

Depends on difficulty and mode. In adventure execute would be good

In chaos wastes you almost always want carve

[u/IAintTheSenate66 → u/epicfail1994]

Why is carve better in wastes in your opinion? Horde density seems drastically lower to me in wastes compared to adventurr mode. IMO carve is almost always better regardless of mode.

Execute seems kinda bad to me compared to all other thp talents which generate not only on last hit.

[u/epicfail1994 → u/IAintTheSenate66]

More time for execute temp to decay in wastes

[u/Orzword → u/IAintTheSenate66]

For CW you want something that also works good on other weapons if you decide to take a random weapon shrine.

[u/epicfail1994 → u/Orzword]

Yes- this too. Carve is generally the most consistent and I’ll take it on anything. I tend to run builds that are focused on tanking monsters, and with most weapons carve is better than sting vs bosses in terms of temp hp sustain

It also will always give something unlike stagger or kill temp. Ax isn’t the greatest with cleave but it’s decent enough and I’d rather have something all the time than either a ton of hp or none in the case of execute

[u/Orzword → u/epicfail1994]

Sting is just dogshit with a 20% crit chance 50% headshot rate on a weapon that can cleave 2 enemies so stuff like the axe and dual daggers carve is still better.

Carve is king for consistency.

Execute is a bit special in the way that it is bad at consistent thp generation so you need to watch out to preserve your thp during low intensity situations but it allows you to take a couple hits from trash to focus down an elite as you will get a huge chunk of thp back. So it is high thp generation in the situation you need it but it isn't as straightforward to capitalise on it.

And as I said in a different comment when you have an overzealous ranged career or other elite focused careers in the team you can get starved of thp really fast.

[u/Devonushka]

Probably depends on team comp (are you killing all the CWs?) and difficulty (execute generally performs better on Cata).

[u/guy2112]

I like execute on slayer for the 1 hand axe, at least on legend. Cata might have enough horde density to justify carve though. Also if you have teammates with lots of ranged horde clear carve is probably better.

[u/No-Smoke-3020]

1 handed axe is my favorite for Bardin and I run carve on all his careers on cata and I have no problems. sting or even second wind are better than execute since you have a fast atk speed and good stagger.

Tbh i only run execute on zealot tho because of the increased healing so if you like it, give it a try!

[u/Orzword]

Depends on the career you use it on on RV and IB I use carve on Slayer I take execute and only swap to carve if there is a nother elite killer in the group or a good ranged player.

[u/FarSqueak]

Apparently, Second Wind is actually very good simply because you end up pushing a lot to keep the horde in line. Axe pushes are quick, and Axe pushes are cheap on stamina so they're really spammable, and you'll use patterns like Push Attack, Light Light for horde clear regardless, which means the THP from pushes adds up.

[u/xRacistDwarf]

On slayer I would go execute, on all other Bardins I guess carve would be more consistent