Cleave and Great Cleave changes to make it worth picking.

[gurth83]

With Strikethrought mechanic introduction this feats became not worth to pick. THF line is better becase it gives hp and its passive feat instead of active and I really think there is to many active feats/enhancements etc.
Consider making Cleave and G.Cleave following.
First of all G.Clave replace Cleave. Like Imp Sunder and Imp Trip do to their normal versions.
Second:
Cleave
For 10 seconds, you gain the ability to Strikethrough regardless of combat style. You also gain +50% Strikethrough for the duration. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)
G.Clave
Replace Cleave and for 10 seconds, you gain the ability to Strikethrough regardless of combat style. You also gain +100% Strikethrough for the duration. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)
Similar to Ranger Tempest T5 Dance of Death and it would stack with it so bonus for eveyrone Tempest, THF, TWF, SWF.

 

[Visik]

I'm upvoting this because while I'm not sure about the numbers, I love the idea of a Feat or Feats that improve Strikethrough beyond just the THF ones. And, as you mention, the Cleave line has basically become newb fodder.

Some options:
1. Make it passive, rather than active: just like Strikethrough Enhancements it simply happens all the time.
2. Add half the Strikethrough value to the offhand if TWF.
3. You could even make it a feat like Toughness that you could take over and over, adding +20% Strikethrough per instance, for example.
4. You could have it provide a higher Strikethrough on heavier weapons (THF vs Martial vs Simple).
5. You could have it add your Str to your Strikethrough percentage.

Some of these ideas might best be mutually exclusive.

 

[Sympl]

I'm upvoting this because while I'm not sure about the numbers, I love the idea of a Feat or Feats that improve Strikethrough beyond just the THF ones. And, as you mention, the Cleave line has basically become newb fodder.

Some options:
1. Make it passive, rather than active: just like Strikethrough Enhancements it simply happens all the time.
2. Add half the Strikethrough value to the offhand if TWF.
3. You could even make it a feat like Toughness that you could take over and over, adding +20% Strikethrough per instance, for example.
4. You could have it provide a higher Strikethrough on heavier weapons (THF vs Martial vs Simple).
5. You could have it add your Str to your Strikethrough percentage.

Some of these ideas might best be mutually exclusive.

See this is where you are both wrong. Strikethrough has always been.....lacking.....Cleave and Great Cleave are still superior.

Cleave and Great Cleave hit everything in it's arc. Strikethrough is limited. And in a comparative sense, doublestrike is a far better investment. Cleave/GCleave/doublestrike is really the way to go.

Strikethrough effectively caps at 400%, just getting the basic line of feats (THF,ITHF,GTHF,PTHF) puts you in the ballpark of 170%.

400% guarantees you hit 5 targets (if they are in range). 170% guarantees you'll hit 2 targets and maybe a third if they are in range.

Cleave hits everyone in an arc in front of you. Out of the gate, and always, with +20% damage, full effect procs, it can doublestrike, and is affected by your attack speed. Great Cleave does the same but in a wider arc and +40% damage. This can be more than 5 targets....out of the gate. Way more than 5 targets.

Thinking that Cleave/Great Cleave are "antiquated" is the newb move. Strikethrough replaced Glancing blows. Which was never meant to deal full damage anyways. You can't really make it way stronger without changing it into something other than a glancing blows replacement. And then you have to rebalance everything else because power increase in one place = power decrease someplace else.....or just straight up power creep which is going to affect every other class/combat feat chain as well.

 

[Visik]

See this is where you are both wrong. Strikethrough has always been.....lacking.....Cleave and Great Cleave are still superior.

Cleave and Great Cleave hit everything in it's arc. Strikethrough is limited. And in a comparative sense, doublestrike is a far better investment. Cleave/GCleave/doublestrike is really the way to go.

Strikethrough effectively caps at 400%, just getting the basic line of feats (THF,ITHF,GTHF,PTHF) puts you in the ballpark of 170%.

400% guarantees you hit 5 targets (if they are in range). 170% guarantees you'll hit 2 targets and maybe a third if they are in range.

Cleave hits everyone in an arc in front of you. Out of the gate, and always, with +20% damage, full effect procs, it can doublestrike, and is affected by your attack speed. Great Cleave does the same but in a wider arc and +40% damage. This can be more than 5 targets....out of the gate. Way more than 5 targets.

Thinking that Cleave/Great Cleave are "antiquated" is the newb move. Strikethrough replaced Glancing blows. Which was never meant to deal full damage anyways. You can't really make it way stronger without changing it into something other than a glancing blows replacement. And then you have to rebalance everything else because power increase in one place = power decrease someplace else.....or just straight up power creep which is going to affect every other class/combat feat chain as well.

Not sure I agree. Cleave/Great Cleave interrupt your swing pattern, generating a delay. I think that if someone crunches the numbers, they'll probably find that they outperform THF options at lower levels (where one has slower swings AND a lower Strikethrough value) and that that flips at higher levels. And, ofc, doublestrike works on both cleaves AND strikethroughs, which makes that effect moot to this discussion. Then you have to consider the opportunity cost: You've used two feats for what might be a trivial DPS boost some fraction of the time.

And there's a playstyle difference: if you're aiming to Cleave, you will specifically and deliberately set yourself up to be surrounded by mobs. If you're using Strikethrough, you'll be more likely to work to stay on the edge of a group of mobs, which is likely to make a substantial difference in the damage you take, too.

I'm not alone:
"Cleaves have a wider arc than Strikethrough, but they've still been rendered largely moot for THF builds and bear druids. There won't be that many times when you hit enough extra targets with Cleaves to be worth interrupting your regular attack's animation chain."

Unfortunately, I can't find an actual comparison between the two atm.

 

[Sympl]

Not sure I agree. Cleave/Great Cleave interrupt your swing pattern, generating a delay. I think that if someone crunches the numbers, they'll probably find that they outperform THF options at lower levels (where one has slower swings AND a lower Strikethrough value) and that that flips at higher levels. And, ofc, doublestrike works on both cleaves AND strikethroughs, which makes that effect moot to this discussion. Then you have to consider the opportunity cost: You've used two feats for what might be a trivial DPS boost some fraction of the time.

And there's a playstyle difference: if you're aiming to Cleave, you will specifically and deliberately set yourself up to be surrounded by mobs. If you're using Strikethrough, you'll be more likely to work to stay on the edge of a group of mobs, which is likely to make a substantial difference in the damage you take, too.

I'm not alone:
"Cleaves have a wider arc than Strikethrough, but they've still been rendered largely moot for THF builds and bear druids. There won't be that many times when you hit enough extra targets with Cleaves to be worth interrupting your regular attack's animation chain."

Unfortunately, I can't find an actual comparison between the two atm.

To clarify, many (if not all) ED multi-selectors are either Strikethrough bonuses OR Doublestrike. Making the increases mutually exclusive. and every point of doublestrike is a percentage chance of double damage per swing vs every 100 points of strikethrough being a single extra attack.

And you may be right, I'll concede that the math makes all the difference and I'm not doing it for this....but even if, I'm still of the school of thought that there's a line where extra dps on paper is irrelevant because you'll do just fine IRL without it.

 

[Visik]

To clarify, many (if not all) ED multi-selectors are either Strikethrough bonuses OR Doublestrike. Making the increases mutually exclusive. and every point of doublestrike is a percentage chance of double damage per swing vs every 100 points of strikethrough being a single extra attack.

And you may be right, I'll concede that the math makes all the difference and I'm not doing it for this....but even if, I'm still of the school of thought that there's a line where extra dps on paper is irrelevant because you'll do just fine IRL without it.

You should always prioritize doublestrike over strikethrough. Among other reasons, it's a better choice when battling bosses. It's just irrelevant to the discussion of cleaves vs strikethrough... unless you're right and there's an opportunity cost where you have to choose between strikethrough and doublestrike.

However, I looked at all the melee EDs (literally all except the Arcane Sphere ones) and I don't find a single instance where that's the case.

 

[Sympl]

You should always prioritize doublestrike over strikethrough. Among other reasons, it's a better choice when battling bosses. It's just irrelevant to the discussion of cleaves vs strikethrough... unless you're right and there's an opportunity cost where you have to choose between strikethrough and doublestrike.

However, I looked at all the melee EDs (literally all except the Arcane Sphere ones) and I don't find a single instance where that's the case.

You made me go look. I stand slightly corrected. It's only one ED tree, Fury.

Fury of the Wild, T3, Wild Weapons
Fury of the Wild, T4, Wilder Weapons

That being said, though, the ED gains from the non-multiselector (for strikethrough) options are only +10% increases at best......hardly enough to make the 100% breakpoints and IMHO, better spent elsewhere in said trees.

 

[Visik]

You made me go look. I stand slightly corrected. It's only one ED tree, Fury.

Fury of the Wild, T3, Wild Weapons
Fury of the Wild, T4, Wilder Weapons

That being said, though, the ED gains from the non-multiselector (for strikethrough) options are only +10% increases at best......hardly enough to make the 100% breakpoints and IMHO, better spent elsewhere in said trees.

I stand corrected.

 

[gurth83]

I think the developers have access to statistics on how many active players have selected Cleave and G.Cleave, and that's a really good approximation for the utility of feats.

Note that if you really want to attack multiple mobs, you still have the Whirlwind Attack. It hits twice with 360 arc and +20% damage, so you could say it's even better than Cleave and G.Cleave combined. it cost one more feat tho, but from my observations people use it instead of Cleave and G.Cleave.

To attack a group of mobs and make the difference between Strikethrough and Cleave you really need to be super tanky or have someone to do CC for you or play on easy difficulty. In my opinion if you play on higher difficulties you will pay more attention to CC and that is why Strikethrough is much better than any pure aoe attack. Can hit multiple targets with single target CC feat like Trip or similar.

 

[RayRay Ramone]

I avoid cleaves and take Whirlwind Attack.

 

[gravisrs]

Nope.

I like the mechanic behind Cleave and GCleave where your char is actively swipes that weapon through every enemy.

If you feel it's not worth taking or it actually slows down your DPS - maybe lobby for quicker animation (removing that pre- and post- pause) or for making them double tap (or just doublestrike) during swipes.

 

[droid327]

WWA is definitely the superior option for melee AOE. Two hits, and 360 deg, while only requiring one button on your toolbar. The only real point for Cleave now is that its got a +20/40% damage component, but yeah that's offset by the animation delay. And the inability to hit mobs alongside you or behind you is a significant disadvantage.

I think Cleaves do need a bit of a tuneup to make them more relevant. I like the idea of Great Cleave improving Cleave rather than have both buttons...maybe Great Cleave could simply increase Cleave from 20% to 40%, and reduce the CD from 5 sec to 3 so you could use it more often. Then make it a single-hit 360 deg AOE with a quick animation. Also, decouple it from requiring Power Attack, since at this point that's just an unnecessary feat tax.

That would really make it a spectrum of options...Cleave is cheap but least powerful, Great Cleave lets you invest a second feat for more power, or WWA lets you spend 3 feats for the most power (plus Dodge+MDB).

I would worry that giving everyone a DoD-like ability so cheaply would end up devaluing THF itself, since sustained multihit is kinda the whole point

 

[Visik]

WWA is definitely the superior option for melee AOE. Two hits, and 360 deg, while only requiring one button on your toolbar. The only real point for Cleave now is that its got a +20/40% damage component, but yeah that's offset by the animation delay. And the inability to hit mobs alongside you or behind you is a significant disadvantage.

I think Cleaves do need a bit of a tuneup to make them more relevant. I like the idea of Great Cleave improving Cleave rather than have both buttons...maybe Great Cleave could simply increase Cleave from 20% to 40%, and reduce the CD from 5 sec to 3 so you could use it more often. Then make it a single-hit 360 deg AOE with a quick animation. Also, decouple it from requiring Power Attack, since at this point that's just an unnecessary feat tax.

That would really make it a spectrum of options...Cleave is cheap but least powerful, Great Cleave lets you invest a second feat for more power, or WWA lets you spend 3 feats for the most power (plus Dodge+MDB).

I would worry that giving everyone a DoD-like ability so cheaply would end up devaluing THF itself, since sustained multihit is kinda the whole point

As someone noted, Cleave will never match Strikethrough in at least one area: Trips and the like can hit multiple targets with Strikethrough. Been running a Dragon Lord and tripping and sundering everything in groups is pretty useful, even without the additional elemental damage procs.

 

[popejubal]

Simple fix: Let Strikethrough trigger on targets hit with Cleave, Great Cleave, and WWA.

 

[droid327]

Simple fix: Let Strikethrough trigger on targets hit with Cleave, Great Cleave, and WWA.

Haha this would be awesome but never in a million years will they let a multi-hit proc multi hits

Imagine a DoD Tempest hitting WWA against a pack of 8 mobs...each hit would trigger 4 other hits, and it hits twice, so you'd do 80 hits in a single swing

 

[Visik]

Simple fix: Let Strikethrough trigger on targets hit with Cleave, Great Cleave, and WWA.

The mind boggles at the logic (or more accurately, the lack thereof.

 

[popejubal]

The mind boggles at the logic (or more accurately, the lack thereof.

THF will still have the worst single target boss DOS, so people will still complain that it’s underpowered compared to SWF and TWF.

 

[Visik]

THF will still have the worst single target boss DOS, so people will still complain that it’s underpowered compared to SWF and TWF.

Not the logic issue. The idea that your cleave swing (which hits all targets in range) could strikethrough to.. what?.. hit some of them twice somehow? .. is the logic issue.

 

[Zaszgul]

The only change I think these feats (and Whirlwind too) need is a (reduced) chance to proc offhand attacks/shield bashes. They don't need to favor THF so strongly, esp when aoe is so important in the current game.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

Whilst I agree with the principle of the OP, I'm not in favour of any changes that further erode access to Strikethrough by THF.

The accessing of AOE by non THF styles via cleaves etc., significantly erodes the distinctive advantage THF is supposed to enjoy over other styles in terms of it's aptitude for AOE.

Any added benefits accruing to cleave attacks should be gated solely to THF deployment.

Adding improved AOE to other fighting styles is wrong headed IMO.

Personally I'd make both cleaves have 40% damage and make Great Cleave a 360 arc hit (like whirlwind attack, but only one hit), however both of these changes should apply only when a THF weapon is wielded, otherwise the current versions of these feats continue to apply.