Reave

"

raics wrote:

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

Not at all the point. You're comparing a single target skill to an aoe skill. This just goes to show how bullshit this skill's design is. With cleave, sweep, freezing pulse, fire trap, whatever the aoe you choose to go with is... it doesn't require two gems to do so. You're comparing a SINGLE TARGET ABILITY with an AOE ability, in dps for AOE with the same number of gems.
The only thing I agree with here is that the actual area of the ability is fine.

A very good observation, I'm not comparing skills, I'm comparing skill setups and for a reason. You can't really use conc effect with splash as the area will get too gimped while anyone can put it on reave without losing much. So it's two commonly used gems vs two commonly used gems for area asskicking, fair and square.

Now, if we took some AoE nodes, that would enable us to put conc on splash but at the same it would make Reave trump it heavily area-wise even if it heavily loses in damage. Unfortunately, AoE nodes are pretty far away from dex part of the tree (master of arena presumably doesn't work with reave as the skill has its own base area radius).

The thing that kills the skill right now is desync, not bad design. Funny, it's exactly the same kind of bug/desync I noticed on playing Puncture-Splash, you get a muffled hit sound. like a thud and nothing happens. On Reave it's not such a big issue but on puncturer which hits slow and moves a lot you're already at other enemy cluster when you notice the first one isn't hit at all, hence not bleeding as much as a finger cut.

And again with your example, comparing the AOE of a single target ability vs the aoe of an ability that was actually designed to do aoe damage, the single target ability wins by a large margin for a number of reasons, the least of which is the fact that you have to attack 8 times before you can reach that aoe, and you can't stop to cast a curse, a buff, or a movement ability with reave while you are free to do so with the single target ability. I'm not sure how you think this is even comparable and the sad part is one of these is DESIGNED to be aoe.

And that's all saying nothing about the huge MASSIVE design issues this ability has, what with expecting daggers and claws users to be using a shield with this ability which is ridiculous.

Style aside, I don't see any problem using a Shield + Dagger shadow. This is more or less standard for CI Shadows, and for a Life Build, I don't see why not (especially since the Ranger and Duelist have awesome Block Nodes). For an EB user, an ES Shield helps a TON.

What's funny, I'm quite sure I'll be taking the Master of the Arena anyway (maybe a bit later, though), because it's on the way to other stuff. It would be so nice to actually get it to WORK PROPERLY on my Reave, though...

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

And again with your example, comparing the AOE of a single target ability vs the aoe of an ability that was actually designed to do aoe damage, the single target ability wins by a large margin for a number of reasons, the least of which is the fact that you have to attack 8 times before you can reach that aoe, and you can't stop to cast a curse, a buff, or a movement ability with reave while you are free to do so with the single target ability. I'm not sure how you think this is even comparable and the sad part is one of these is DESIGNED to be aoe.

And that's all saying nothing about the huge MASSIVE design issues this ability has, what with expecting daggers and claws users to be using a shield with this ability which is ridiculous.

Keep in mind the damage of Dual Strike is a bit broken, it more than doubles your normal attack damage, that's the skill that needs redesign. I've rarely seen games that double your damage output if dual-wielding, you usually have some kind of penalties and restrictions. Just remember D&D rules, you needed three perks to make it work and even then you had 10% reduced chance to hit with both weapons if offhand weapon is light, 20% if heavy, also you needed high dexterity score to get required perks and it only granted two extra attacks per round compared to 3 or 4 you get normally.

Mentioning dual-wielding, I think you have some hard misconceptions about it. First of all, it's useless in mass open battle, you can't block nearly as good as with a shield and you have no range advantage of 2h weapons or spears. Dual-wielding is a modern fairytale that hasn't seen much usage through history except seldom in duels or small-scale combat. Truth be told, even styles that teach dual weapons treat is as a gimmick, used to show skill and training level then as a tool for actual combat. And even those that teach it seriously use offhand weapon mostly for parrying, attacking with it requires an extremely talented and almost ambidextrous individuals and those are extremely rare.

"

CantripN wrote:

I tried it on my Cleave Duelist just now. Looks like it does nothing for Reave, neither the Amulet, not the Master of the Arena node. That's not very fair, imo, but that's the way it is right now. Increased AoE from Nodes / Gems / Items works just fine, though.

At least I know now, before I get my Shadow all the way there...

So, what do you think is the best set-up for a Reave Dagger Shadow?
I was thinking using Bringer of Rain with Reave-Multistrike-Increased AoE-Concentrated AoE-Faster Attacks-Melee Physical. Or just use Increased AoE with IIQ gem?

Single target / Rare farming would be Double Strike/Crit Damage/IIQ/IIR on a 4L.

Well, it would be too much if those worked, I'm guesing base radius of Reave is 10 or something, so with daresso and arena you would have 14, with 100% increased radius you could get on passive, gear and supports that would be28, now multiplying that with 2,6 for 8 charges would give you a radius of 72. Just to compare, max range of arrows is 120 and that reaches well offscreen, you would sweep half of the screen with it easily.

Seems like a nice setup for BoR, Reave-Multi-IncAoE-Conc,, you got Faster and Melee on helm, Blind does wonders for survivabilty too if you hit fast. When they fix hit detection with it the skill will simply rock for dagger+shield users.

"

sidtherat wrote:

if you dont position, mobs that surrounded you will kill you. melee splash hits around you so you can stand still.

unless you knockback so they can never get close to surround you

Using it on onslaught on my character, took off my secondary weapon since dps was higher with a shield on, since the weapons aren't even. I kill faster now than in video as using a better weapon. But you get the idea, it works ok. Keep in mind this is with I think 3 damage nodes if you don't count frenzy charges, and those nodes were just to get to other stuff. Will have more damage nodes later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LfgmOTwcMA

edit: lvl 53 i think in vid.

if you are using pure-phys weapons multistrike is butchering your real (after mitigation) dps. it looks cool and is ok with Life on Hit but when it comes to damage multistrike is a real aadvantage only when you deal lots of ele dmg (due to how armor gets stronger the weaker the hit and resists doing flat reduction) or when you want to auto-aquire targets.

"

sidtherat wrote:

if you are using pure-phys weapons multistrike is butchering your real (after mitigation) dps. it looks cool and is ok with Life on Hit but when it comes to damage multistrike is a real aadvantage only when you deal lots of ele dmg (due to how armor gets stronger the weaker the hit and resists doing flat reduction) or when you want to auto-aquire targets.

Armour is just % reduction, no?

"

sidtherat wrote:

if you are using pure-phys weapons multistrike is butchering your real (after mitigation) dps. it looks cool and is ok with Life on Hit but when it comes to damage multistrike is a real aadvantage only when you deal lots of ele dmg (due to how armor gets stronger the weaker the hit and resists doing flat reduction) or when you want to auto-aquire targets.

That would hold true, yes, but only if the enemies had any more armor then a common garden slug, which they fortunately don't.

"

MortalKombat3 wrote:

Armour is just % reduction, no?

Not really, at least not flat reduction that enduring cry offers. Armor is dynamically compared to the hit damage to determine reduction percentage. The mitigation on your char screen is gotten by comparing your armor value to the damage of an average enemy of your level, it's there just for reference, same holds true for evade. So, if your char screen says 50% damage reduction it might go as far as 80% on common monkey or larvae blows or as low as 20% vs heavy-hitters.

Read up on that sticky game mechanics thread, it's dead useful as far as basics are concerned.

"

MortalKombat3 wrote:

"

sidtherat wrote:

if you are using pure-phys weapons multistrike is butchering your real (after mitigation) dps. it looks cool and is ok with Life on Hit but when it comes to damage multistrike is a real aadvantage only when you deal lots of ele dmg (due to how armor gets stronger the weaker the hit and resists doing flat reduction) or when you want to auto-aquire targets.

Armour is just % reduction, no?

+ is easily negated because people keep trying to pump damage to akward numbers.

highest case event so far
damage reduction in % = 960 / (960 + 12 * damage per hit average)
an actual physical character would need to deal average of 720 damage per hit to have 10% loss in damage from foe's reductions.

this is NOT dps, people tend to have dps far higher due to attacking twice or more times a second and/for roughly 1k damage or higher. which is the problem about damage reflect, don't hit so hard guys =p and vaal pact wouldn't be so "required".