Axe Tree W's could use some love

I've spent nearly all 500 hours of my playtime as of late using the Axe Tree of weapons. I dunno, I just like axes. I think the tree can be pretty versatile, with each weapon in the tree having it's purpose and set type of content that it's made and suited for.

However, across all of these weapons I've noticed that the 2nd slot skills, for the most part can be pretty trash.
Everyone and their momma uses Adrenaline Rush because it is just by far the best option out there for nearly all types of content: A 25% boost to damage, and a 40% increase to movement and attack speed that lasts for a respectable duration. It's simply the safest, and 9 times out of 10, the best option to go, always.

For the sake of variety, I'm not a big fan of this. There's a bunch of other options to take in your 2nd slot, but for the most part, they're all outshined by Adrenaline Rush.

  • Deadly Chop
    • A very clunky and slow skill. It delivers a power blow that deals a sizeable amount of damage that also reduces damage resistances on the target. The issue is that this skill is a very high cooldown single target skill. To put it bluntly, it can theoretically have a longer cooldown than Adrenaline Rush if you get the max duration out of that buff. 15 seconds is a little heavy handed for a skill that can damage one target at maximum while also having short range and a cast time. Oh and it also makes you stop dead in your tracks for a good second so good luck using it against any mobile targets in pvp.
  • Battle Rush
    • Is just weird. It is a pretty sizeable dash that does nothing other than reduce the healing received by enemies while amping the healing received by friendlies in a 5m radius on arrival. The issue I take with this skill is that the Axe is already good at reducing incoming healing by stacking rend charges, so why would anyone need to use a skill to do something that the axe just does intrinsically? Secondly, the skill does nothing by itself. It is entirely reliant on the niche that you use it in, mainly settings where you have a healer and he can take advantage of that 20% increased heal received, but either way, there's no silence, no slow, no root, nothing attached to this skill, so you're pretty much giving up an entire means of damage for pretty bad utility.
  • Internal Bleeding
    • Sounds great on paper. Hit someone with this ability and they take damage when they move. Problem is, you have to be close enough to someone to use the skill in the first place obviously, and that's something that Axe actually struggles with. Getting to people. Yet another reason why Adrenaline Rush is so good is the increase in move speed on demand. Anyways, the skill also deals very low damage by itself and relies on targets hit by it to actually move around in order to take the full potential of it's damage. The only problem is that it's way too matchup dependent. Sometimes, you don't really move around a lot in a fight, rather just standing there to brawl. If that's the case, you've gimped yourself because now you have a skill that doesn't do a lot of damage, and the passive damage over time doesn't come into play enough to justify it's use.
  • Raging Blades
    • Is just used for PvE clump killing or large scale PvP. If you're lucky you can hit up to 10 targets with it and get an extra 40% damage, but other than that, it's pretty meh. You don't see this used a lot outside of group environments. Numbers wise, this skill is pretty good dealing a good amount of damage if something gets hit by a blade for it's entire duration, it's just in practice that rarely happens so it's best to choose something else.

I think SBI should look towards making some of the Axe's W abilities less niche and more reliable in a lot more content. Currently, you use Adrenaline Rush most of the time in every scenario. If you don't really have to move around a whole lot, you can get away with something else.

I do think, for instance, Deadly Chop could get away with a lower cooldown, making your character not stand in place after the attack, or even just the removal of the cast time.
Battle Rush could probably use some sort other debuff for enemies hit, such as a slow or something of the sort to make it more attractive to pick.
Internal Bleeding could be reworked overall to do more damage directly and less damage over time in order for the skill to have more front loaded impact.
I think raging blades is fine.