Axe Stab Buff?

Everyone who's looked into Heroes knows that axes are basically just worse swords. There are multiple reasons for this, but a key one is the slash/stab differential. I've seen slightly varying numbers, but it essentially boils down to swords doing 1/1 damage on a slash/stab, while axes do something like 1.2/.7, which means on balance axes will do less damage with all other stats being equal. If we could buff the stab damage to be .8, or whatever the equivalent counter to the buffed slash damage is, axes would still not be the meta but at least it would be less of a clear-cut "wrong" choice.

I know this has been a known and discussed feature in the community for a while so I'm sure there's a fair reason it hasn't been changed up to this point, but I searched through the rejected and impossible suggestion subforums and didn't see anything relating to this so I thought I'd post one. Worst case scenario, this post will hopefully be easy to find for anybody wondering about this issue and the related debate in the future.

 

That actually sounds pretty cool. I'm not sure how exaggerated people would want to get with it, but even like 1.5 and .5 would make for fun possibilities. The only possible complaints that are apparent to me (admittedly not a very experienced player) would be people considering it too custom or not wanting to risk the element of chance that might bring to their boss run.

 

Added a poll to gauge interest in possible changes. I'm curious to see what the community as a whole thinks about it.

 

That's an interesting point, and if we didn't want to mess with the slash/stab formula for one reason or another then putting a bonus at 20th level of axe mastery could be enough. A 5% crit chance for double damage would effectively translate to a 5% overall DPM buff and occasional pins. If we were going down that path, we could potentially do something similar for Pallys with BWs except with +1 weapon speed instead. This would put 1h BWs on more equal footing with swords and give 2h BWs a chance at viability.