Talk:Anniversary Axe "Engrave"

The anomaly note

Is there anyone who wants to check if it can be applied with a different elemental mod, just to perfect salvage that new element off again? It would establish if the damage type is actually inherent to the item and not a one-time bug deal until replaced with a "regular" elemental mod. Not just that, we would also see what the real damage type is without the cold "ghost" mod if overwriting it makes it go away. - Infinite - talk 00:05, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I checked this last night before making my bug edit. When I applied a air mod to the axe and then tried to apply the sunder mod, it would then revert the axe to cold damage and add the sundering mod. Gladiator Motoko (talk) 01:24, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Not a bug

It's just an Axe that deals cold damage as its natural damage type. It is inconsistent with Fiery swords which cannot be upgraded with a sword hilt, but is that really worthy a bug status?--Ruine Eternelle 08:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

With the above comment by Gladiator Motoko as the only source of information right now, I'm inclined to agree. Fiery/Icy Axes and the likes very clearly don't take new mods that would otherwise overwrite the elemental damage, which implies that the respective mod is already applied and untouchable. Here we have a weapon that does take a mod that would normally replace the damage type, yet the cold damage doesn't go away. When replaced with a Fiery mod it does only deal Fire damage, but as soon as the Fiery mod is salvaged off or is overwritten with a non-elemental mod, the cold damage comes back. That's anomalous, not a bug. - Infinite - talk 09:05, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

It makes sense that a "fiery" dragon sword could not be made "not fiery". There's nothing about this weapon inherently related to cold damage. I too think this is an anomaly, not a bug. --DANDY ^_^ -- 10:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Hey Marc. Wanted to add my reasoning after my edit but RL can be a she-dog.

Why I think this is either a bug or a cool new feature (pun intended):

We know that there are unreplicable unique items in teh game: [[1]]. So it wouldn't be unheard of for ANet to introduce somthing new.

But if you look closely, all of them are still balanced. For example, Flint's Artifact sports two inscriptions, but at the cost of the focus core. Gorrel's Staff sacrifices the inherent bonus 20%HSR for a second inscription. And so on.

Now, in case of The Rockmolder, we had a unique item which originally was "overpowered". This was fixed, also for already existing Rockmolders.

The Imperial Dragon Spear originally had an additional +30 health, basically a second spear grip. This was also fixed retroactively.

When you look at the 8 anniversary weapons, I get the impession that people were implementing stuff on legacy source code who hadn't been coding GW1 15 or 10 years ago.

Long story short: If the capabaility to have up to two axe hafts were balanced by not allowing an axe grip I'd call it a new feature. Similar to Glint's Artifact. Then it would be neither bug nor anomaly.

Since that's not the case, it can become a weapon with one more mod than usually allowed. We have seen with the Imperial Dragon Spear that this is most likely not intended. Then it's a bug.

Now if ANet decides not to fix this, since an axe wielding Elementalist who needs to invest in E Storage and Axe Mastery in order to inflict melée damage is so underpowered in itself that an additional axe mod won't make much of a difference, then I'll also call it an anomaly. Steve1 (talk) 11:24, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

The question is more about how strong a second axe haft would be? The energy storage requirement already limits that to primary elementalists. If you are going melee with ele, you are already putting yourself at risk. Now what makes cold damage different from slashing damage? What axe hafts would be worth adding? In PvE, it will make mirror of ice builds better by allowing a 20/20 mod on axe in addition to Conjure Frost, and El/W builds as well. Are axe hafts a very strong upgrade here? Heavy is a bit useful for earth magic skills. Now in PvP maybe it matters more ? 40% more damage against warriors, the sundering mod reduce armor to 64 20%of the time. It's a boost, but is that really unfair? Isn't the issue about having an axe with energy storage req in PvP to begin with? - - Ruine Eternelle 12:29, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Since we never classified additional mods as bugs, we don't need to start now. The anomaly isn't the ability to have two prefix effects simultaneously, but that it's the only martial weapon that inherently deals elemental damage instead of via a mod. That's all. - Infinite - talk 13:04, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Marc, all of the a weapons (w/ the exception of the Me shield) are gimmicky. I already acknowledged that in my last sentence.

No, we didn't. Didn't really have much of a chance since that was fixed real quick. And that fact "only martial weapon that inherently deals elemental damage instead of via a mod." imo is a bug. But it doesn't really matter, does it. Steve1 (talk) 17:30, 24 April 2020 (UTC)