My debate

[Sidanoir]

If you have sword merits I'd say axe/joy is better because you'll get a much higher TP output.

In the long run, the more hits that you land and the more rampages that you churn out compensate for the lower damage in the offhand.

And as someone mentioned before, delay on Joytoy is very hot.

Honestly the only reason I am against axe/joy is, to be fully effective you would need 8 axe/8 sword merits....
Axe/axe you need 8 merits and can where a fort torque too! zomg

Axe/sword merits to me are only justifiable with a ridill..

Personally having multiple 75 melees, if I did not have a ridill i would have only merited axe and did axe/axe for WAR..then again that probably would be Great Axe now.

I have 16 merits devoted pretty much purely to my WAR in combat skills out of 20...thats a lot to give up for the minimal benfits of a joyeuse...but well worth it for a ridill

[Eratosthenes]

What about Great Axe?

[Judai]

Axe still hit harder then Joy on Birds in my experience, which pretty much negates the piercing bonus. Maybe I'm wrong but that's what I remember from the two times I used Axe/Joy on G.Colibri.

[Alleya]

Shit is situational.

[Stolin]

Axe still hit harder then Joy on Birds in my experience, which pretty much negates the piercing bonus.

Joyeuse delay:224-almost like a dagger
Axe delay:uhhh was it 276? I don't remember sold axes ages ago

Anyway hitting harder each single hit doesn't automatically=highest potential damage output

[Berdysh]

What about Great Axe?

Great Axe WAR/SAM is particularly brutal, especially with a nice GAxe like a Perdu Voulge or Rune Chopper. I've become very fond of WAR/SAM, SAM/WAR, MNK/WAR, BRD, BRD, WHM parties lately; stuff just dies too fast for you to miss Utsusemi. Fortitude Axe is a nice option when you have to go /NIN, because of the DOT.

Axe/Axe vs. Axe/Joy was always situational, and I ended up going Axe/Axe full-time (after being an Axe/Joy user for a long, long while) because the parse results were basically the same and I had a lot more fun with Axe/Axe. The other bonus to dual axes, I think, is that it lends itself to a 3 Berserk, 3 Aggressor, 4 Double Attack build, whereas Axe/Joy probably gets more out of a 5 Berserk, 5 Aggressor Ridill-style build. The advantage of the first build is that it works much better with GAxe, and with how things are now, I'm not sure why a WAR would not want 8 merits into GAxe skill.

[Marsala]

It's very close and depends on merits I think. Personally, I like Axe/Axe myself and I have 2 parses against far superior WARs (both merit and gearwise, Ebodies to my Hauby+1, Full merits when I had very little, Haidate while I dont have) and although I was beaten by both WARs it was by very little. Now, both WARs should have stomped me by looking at gear/merits and such but I held my own very well, which leads me to believe Axe/Axe is stronger.

I think Axe/Axe is better but Axe/Joy can be just as strong. Really, in merits if you are a good WAR you can use most anything and perform fine, not like it's a hard merit job.

btw, one Party was on G.Colibri and the other at Mamool Ja North Camp, so very different camps.

Phfff, You so lost...*mumbles about d/c*

[moguri]

Basically it breaks down to this:

If you're retarded and don't understand how the game works: Axe/Axe

If you're slightly less retarded and understand that attack speed is a big factor in this game: Axe/Joy

If you're of normal intelligence you can pretty much figure out when to use each.