Cleave

I totally fell in love with the new Cleave.

1. it is very comfortable to use.
Unlike Reave or Dual Strike, you don't have to actually click monsters, you can just click in their general direction, as it is an AoE attack like Ground Slam.

2. It is now finally in line with DS+Splash (which was the only true dualwielding skill before).

Cleave = 130% damage
Dual Strike + Splash (lvl20) = around 140% damage AoE, 170% single target

Seems fair, as DS+Splash is two gems.

And you can support Cleave with Conc Effect to get very high "single target" damage (if you so desire).

Cleave is still bad. Much less AOE than splash and much lower dps. I can use double strike, heavy strike, reave, or dual strike and do a lot better when combined with splash. And I get the added benefit of adding an additional gem with cleave, but still no good.


BTW, this is using a 6link and a top tier damage 1h sword.

Cleave does better damage than like every Splash-supported skill.

A 130% damage skill deals 109.2% Damage to the main target, 93.6 damage to secondary targets and has 2/3 the radius of cleave.

Dual Strike is the only skill that has a real damage edge benefit and that's only because it's for all intents and purposes a 180% base damage skill. Reave has better potential AoE, but it doesn't do effectively 130% damage while dual wielding.

And while we're on it. If you're dual wielding there is no reason to use any splash-supported skill over cleave except dual strike, and there you're trading AoE for damage.

So yah. Cleave is in a good spot. The power creep is kinda unsettling though.

Cleave still is completely underwhelming effect and sound wise.

It feels like a really really weak skill when you compare it to the meatiness of a skill like Heavy strike.

Still hoping for some improvements soon!

"

Diablo1reborn wrote:

Cleave still is completely underwhelming effect and sound wise.

That's one of the reasons I love this skill.

Please, for the love of god, do not add more visuals to it. I want a semi-realistic attack, I don't want lightning fireball ground explosions whenever my marauder performs an attack. ;)

effect and sound is perfect! no fancy stuff, no divine interventions each time one swing a sword, no meat balls after each strike. i like it, it is clean and sometimes clean and simple is more telling than flashy plastic gfx

ive made a 'no fus no optimization' cleaver. always wanted to but never had gear for it. started as elemental cleave as i wanted to at least once create such build but realized i still have no ele gear for that (Esp jewelry that supplies biggest part of ele dmg)

went phys dual wield axe, mild crit so to speak

tree (mind you, this is 4fun build, survivability was an afterthought etc):


gear:


it is boatload of fun and skill is SERIOUSLY powerful now, esp when dual wielding

In terms of range, saying that melee splash has 14 radius vs. the 20 radius of cleave is a little misleading. Melee splash is a complete circle, whereas cleave is only a semicircle (the arc of cleave is 180 degrees). Note also that melee splash can get +20% area on quality, so we'd have the following total area calculations, based on the area of a circle

Cleave area = pi*20^2/2 = ~628 square units
Melee splash = pi*14^2 = ~615 square units
Melee splash (+20q) = pi*16^2 = ~804 square units (Path will always round down the base radius AOE)

Let's say now that both players get +20% AOE, either from carcass Jack or from the Templar area:

Cleave area = pi*24^2/2 = ~904 square units
Melee splash = pi*16^2 = ~804 square units
Melee splash (+20q) = pi*19^2 = ~1134 square units

Now, if a bigger radius semi-circle or a larger total area complete circle is better is debatable. But let's check the damage effectivenesses real quick:

Dual strike + melee splash has 180%*.84 = 151% damage effectiveness for a single target and has 90% - 124% damage effectiveness on other targets, based on the gem level. Even on the best case scenario, for single target, dual strike (as a 2L with melee splash), is only 16.2% more damage than cleave for dual wield. It's highly likely that the extra link with cleave is worth far more than a 16.2% damage bonus.

Aoe can be managed. I play without xonc effect but with +range item and passive and some aoe from passives and it is perfectly easy to keep everything in front of me. Tried dual strike with splash but it felt like point/melee skill. Cleave is full blown aoe skill and a very good at that.

Wish 2h were better as making 2h axe/sword cleaver was my goal since at least 10 characters..

"

sidtherat wrote:

Aoe can be managed. I play without xonc effect but with +range item and passive and some aoe from passives and it is perfectly easy to keep everything in front of me. Tried dual strike with splash but it felt like point/melee skill. Cleave is full blown aoe skill and a very good at that.

Wish 2h were better as making 2h axe/sword cleaver was my goal since at least 10 characters..

Well with pretty poop gear im doing fairly high DPS with it. The only beef i have right now with cleave is the range and hit registration. I noticed even when not desynced, cleave sometimes just doesnt register its hits. For a 180 degree attack with such a short range, i think they should buff the range slightly.

Even if melee splash is "less" damage, its actually more damage because youre effectively hitting more targets.

For example, i hit once and only hit 10 mobs in front of me and do 43k damage.

43kx10 = 430,000 damage done in one hit.

Someone else using splash would hit far more targets, lets say he hits 20 for 30k each.

30kx20 = 600,000 damage done in one hit.


If you look at it this way, cleave is actually far less damage than splash. Why ? Because theyre effectively hitting more targets for somewhat lower dps. This means overall theyre doing more dps and theyre going to have a faster clear speed due to their ability covering more area. This is a great example of when tool tip dps isnt correct.

TL;DR - Cleave will do more damage single target than splash, but in AOE situations splash should be dealing substantially more damage than cleave.



Current Gear


on a side note, the reason why 2H is lacking is for completely different reasons, mostly due to the lack of being able to block spells and attacks.