Heavy Strike

Well I noticed the knockback may save u from volatiles , have to test more to see if its consistent. The knockback is also good for bleeds. Question regarding the jewel "weight of an empire" 10% chance to do double damage , does bleed and poison double dip on this damage ?

Disclaimer: Herein, I will be discussing some problems with Heavy Strike when we compare it to other skills. One of the biggest comparisons I will be making about Heavy Strike has to do with its Threshold Jewel and how it stacks up to another, eerily similar Threshold Jewel, namely Might and Influence. A similar, yet lesser comparison is that of Heavy Strike and Ground Slam. These are not perfect comparisons, but I am trying to just highlight an issue I have with the skill gem and its Threshold Jewel here.

I think we can all agree that Heavy Strike, Ground Slam, and Dual Strike aren't super-meta, uber-powerful skills. They were underutilized and not well regarded by players wanting to get to the top. Hence, they received Threshold Jewels. Heavy Strike and Ground Slam got their Threshold Jewels quite some time ago. Ground Slam did fairly well with its jewel and, while not top tier, it was pretty good. I tried it and liked it a lot and found it comparable to Earthquake in fact if you didn't do double-dipping bleed+poison.

Heavy Strike lagged considerably. Where Ground Slam got a huge AoE boost, Heavy Strike got a 10% chance to deal double damage. Essentially... 10% increased base damage per gem. (Doubled base damage 10% of the time roughly equates to a 10% base damage boost if it procced 1 out of 10 times. Some shoddy math here, and my apologies for it. I am mentally preparing to be corrected by a few dozen people in the comments.) With the new Threshold Jewel reworks, I was expecting something big for Heavy Strike.

Ground Slam got 35% increased Ground Slam angle (Not to mention the AoE of Ground Slam gets better as it levels now. It also got a 25% chance to gain an endurance charge on Stun and is limited to 3 jewels. So, 105% increased GS angle and 75% chance for endurance charge on Stun and a much larger AoE for leveling. Pretty sweet stuff here.

Heavy Strike got: 20% chance for double damage and is limited to 2 jewels. With 2 jewels, you average out to 40% increased base damage, which is a bit underwhelming. But it could be okay, I guess.
Here's where things get really weird for me. Dual Strike, which I know is an underutilized and pretty mediocre skill, gets an almost identical Threshold Jewel, except with even more buffs. I should go ahead and mention here, that Heavy Strike is limited to 2, but Dual Strike is limited to 1.
Dual Strike's Threshold Jewel, Might and Influence, gets 20% chance for double damage in the main hand, and Melee Splash effect with the off-hand weapon. So, it gets a gem slot freed up and 20% increased base damage (Averaged, once again, sorry if this confuses people or is just bad math on my part).

At this point, I am trying to figure out the place for Heavy Strike. Dual Strike's base damage is 104% at level 20. Multiply that by x2 and you get 208% base damage (Because dual weapons. In my friend's case, dual Bino's for some pretty insane damage and pretty decent clearspeed, although still not T1 by any means).

Heavy Strike gets 193.7% base damage. Now, Heavy Strike could do 1-handed with a shield, so maybe there is some potential for better defense with Heavy Strike. But Heavy Strike's Threshold Jewel, unlike Dual Strike's jewel, doesn't give it free Melee Splash. It has to sacrifice 1 gem slot for Melee Splash. And then, there's that one thing about Heavy Strike. You know, that thing that people hate about it.

Heavy Strike knocks enemies back. This is okay defensively, but it ends up with annoying clearing and infuriating boss killing unless you use Empire's Grasp, which adds 0 dps, 0 life, and ~750-ish armor with a good roll to bypass the annoying knock-back. So, you have to either endure the frustration of Heavy Strike, or use a unique that adds pure utility, but no extra defense or damage to this gem. Point for Dual Strike, no points for Heavy Strike.
So, at this point I am thinking: Maybe for the Stun? True, Heavy Strike does have 25% reduced enemy Stun Threshold. But do you remember Ground Slam from eariler? Ground Slam also has 25% reduced enemy Stun Threshold. Heavy Strike does have higher base damage, so it would be better in theory. But Ground Slam can have incredible AoE, and if you are making a Stun build it also has near permanent Endurance Charge up-time for fairly little cost. (Not to mention Stun builds would rather just do Facebreakers and Ancestral Warchief or Mace and EQ for the absolutely insane up-front damage to guarantee the Stun).

I am open to being wrong about something or not seeing a place where Heavy Strike would shine and I would love for someone else to comment and tell me why I am wrong or something I missed. My first 2.0 build was Heavy Strike + Empire's Grasp and it was fun. But God, the damage was awful. I want to find a reason to use this skill because I actually like it. But when I compare it to other skills, or compare its Threshold Jewel to other Threshold jewels, it just seems to come lacking.

TL;DR Heavy Strike still seems to be pretty mediocre at best. It requires some weird building around that few other skills have to do. Heavy Strike's Threshold Jewel is also underwhelming too. I want to be proven wrong though. I want to use this skill and not feel gimped or like a special snowflake trying to make something bad work.

Callinellus Malleus ;)
With stun, you can stun about everything in the game, endgame content included.
Hey, was actualling permastunning Merciless Bosses with SSF gear and a 120 pDPS 3L Mace (Melee Phys + Stun + Heavy Strike)

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Iyacthu wrote:

Callinellus Malleus ;)
With stun, you can stun about everything in the game, endgame content included.
Hey, was actualling permastunning Merciless Bosses with SSF gear and a 120 pDPS 3L Mace (Melee Phys + Stun + Heavy Strike)

Here's my problem:

Heavy Strike breaks the flow of combat by its most basic design. Knocking an enemy back and then having to move towards him makes the skill feel choppy and unpleasant. Do you get any bonuses from this knockback? No, and the Threshold Jewel doesn't offer any bonuses either.

In order to make this skill function and feel fun (Not having to walk towards an enemy every 5 seconds because you knocked him out of range), you have to use EITHER Callinellus or Empire's Grasp. What other skill in the game requires a Unique item to function at it's most basic level? Other skills get improved or made funner by using some unique items. But Heavy Strike requires one of two uniques to feel remotely decent and not frustrating to play.

So, either use one of two uniques to make the skill feel fun to any degree, or don't. That's my problem with this skill and it's Threshold Jewel.

(Also, neither unique are particularly great. Callinellus is at least a good mace, but nothing more. Empire's Grasp feels like gimping my build and shooting myself in the foot in order to make a sub-par skill barely passable. Because no life, resists, and no damage mods are found on Empire's Grasp. For a unique required to make a life centric skill work, it's a bit odd that there are no life or damage mods on it.)


To my earlier point that the knockback offers no advantages, if you were thinking of mentioning the "Survivability from pushing the enemy away" bit that some people throw around, when you have to walk back towards an enemy you become vulnerable. You are no longer leeching because you are not attacking and you are vulnerable. To top that off, when you knock the enemy back, unless you kill him, you then have to walk towards him again to close the distance to attack again. So any distance gained from Knockback is IMMEDIATELY negated by having to walk back to close the distance. There's just currently no benefit to this mechanic that is applied to Heavy Strike that ever happens in real playing of the game.

@Mark_GGG hope all is well.

Do you think it would be possible to give this skill some love and align this skill and threshold jewel for 3.0 ?

Perhaps heavy strike could have a default stun of 0.8 sec (like ruthless basicly without having to use a support slot) making it a staple skill for a dedicated stun build ?

Additionnaly a embedded XX% chance to bleed (internal bleeding from cracking the skull) would be attractive in conjonction with the natural knockback of the skill proccing the "moving" perk of bleed damage

For the threshold jewel, i was thinking of adding the "reverse knockback" effect on it so we dont "have" to use the graps glove nor the crab mace to make this skill less clunky.

Keep up the good work at GGG 0/

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plasmaszap wrote:

@Mark_GGG hope all is well.

Do you think it would be possible to give this skill some love and align this skill and threshold jewel for 3.0 ?

Perhaps heavy strike could have a default stun of 0.8 sec (like ruthless basicly without having to use a support slot) making it a staple skill for a dedicated stun build ?

Additionnaly a embedded XX% chance to bleed (internal bleeding from cracking the skull) would be attractive in conjonction with the natural knockback of the skill proccing the "moving" perk of bleed damage

For the threshold jewel, i was thinking of adding the "reverse knockback" effect on it so we dont "have" to use the graps glove nor the crab mace to make this skill less clunky.

Keep up the good work at GGG 0/

Yeah puting reverse kb on jewel would be sweet.

Animation-wise it would be nice if there were a few random variants (like the ones on normal attacks). At least swing overhead and swing sideways.

@Vegalyp

Taking into account threshold jewels, heavy strike does more damage. With top tier gear in PoB heavy strike will push around 20% more. Keep in mind hS is purely single target.

The threshold jewel for heavy strike is really strong, because with helm enchant you can reach 52% chance to deal double damage. The jewel for dual strike is essentially only 10% more damage with some splash assuming two identical weapons.

Is the double damage from the treshold jewel affecting bleeding (and other dot) damage, too, or only the direct damage of Heavy Strike?

A neat mechanic this skill (or possible a Vaal version of this skill) could have:

- Enemies knocked back by this skill deal X% of their max health as physical damage to enemies they collied with
- This skill deals X% more melee damage against enemies who are not knocked back (either due to immunity or being against a wall)