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.

 

[seph1roth5]

I agree cleave/great cleave are pretty lacking. I usually take them at lv 1 and ditch them by 10 (maybe even far before that) once I have a couple active attacks. Like people have mentioned, the cleave animation is often very slow and bad.

 

[Xgya]

I tend to take Cleaves on builds I WON'T have Strikethrough on.
If I can rely on Strikethrough to take care of trash, then all I have left is to focus on the boss.
Meanwhile, my SWF Swash Bard needs all the help he needs not to end up having to kill every mob one by one.

I don't think giving 100% Strikethrough to builds that normally have none is equal to giving 100% Strikethrough to builds that have a ton. Even getting to USE the stat is a T5 enhancement. Replacing most of its bonus with two feats available as soon as level 3 sounds like a BIT much, yet giving less would feel absolutely atrocious.

 

[popejubal]

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.

It comes from the AoE explosions that happen as I cleave through my enemies with my mighty sword of explosionness.

 

[Zaszgul]

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.

If someone is spending up to 6 feats for cleaves/WW, it should be a worthwhile investment regardless of what style they're using. Right now cleaves are a downright terrible choice for TWF in particular, which means there's really no choice at all and that's not good for the game. It's just a matter of finding the right balance that allows THF to still be the best, while allowing other styles to optionally spend those 6 feats and not still suck at AoE because they hit like wet noodles.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

If someone is spending up to 6 feats for cleaves/WW, it should be a worthwhile investment regardless of what style they're using. Right now cleaves are a downright terrible choice for TWF in particular, which means there's really no choice at all and that's not good for the game. It's just a matter of finding the right balance that allows THF to still be the best, while allowing other styles to optionally spend those 6 feats and not still suck at AoE because they hit like wet noodles.

I fundamentally disagree with your first statement. There should always be a consequence of choosing your fighting style and TWF and SWF enjoy their distinctive advantages there, whilst THF's is effectively eroded.

All those feats are better than Strikethrough.

TWF and SWF shouldn't get any improvement to AOE. It's not what they are supposed to be good at.

If you choose to invest in feats to partially address that, that's fine, it's your choice, but it shouldn't put you on a par with THF in terms of AOE when they choose to spend on the same feats, as effectively it currently does.

If you want the best AOE as melee, go THF. That should be the choice.

 

[LurkingVeteran]

I fundamentally disagree with your first statement. There should always be a consequence of choosing your fighting style and TWF and SWF enjoy their distinctive advantages there, whilst THF's is effectively eroded.

All those feats are better than Strikethrough.

TWF and SWF shouldn't get any improvement to AOE. It's not what they are supposed to be good at.

If you choose to invest in feats to partially address that, that's fine, it's your choice, but it shouldn't put you on a par with THF in terms of AOE when they choose to spend on the same feats, as effectively it currently does.

If you want the best AOE as melee, go THF. That should be the choice.

That boat sailed a long time ago. There are too many large crowds of enemies in modern DDO quest design for a class to be completely without AoE and still be playable for solo / new players.

THF should have strongest AoE, but everyone needs some kind of AoE option (and not just via stupidly good Shadar-Kai chains).

 

[FuzzyDuck81]

In PnP, cleave gives a free attack when you make a kill.. maybe for DDO it could becomee a passive feat that activates for 6sec after killing an enemy & grants say 50% strikethrough regardless of weapon type (so lets you attack multiple enemies, or if already using a 2hander you can spread it around even more effectively), then have greater cleave upgrade it to also add an extra +50% ability modifier to damage with attacks for that duration too.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

That boat sailed a long time ago. There are too many large crowds of enemies in modern DDO quest design for a class to be completely without AoE and still be playable for solo / new players.

THF should have strongest AoE, but everyone needs some kind of AoE option (and not just via stupidly good Shadar-Kai chains).

I don't disagree. This isn't about turning the clock back. But it doesn't then follow that non THF should now be given access to even more AOE. Any improvements should be gated to THF only to reddress the erosion of what should be THFs advantage.

 

[Visik]

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.

As I understand it, there's already a difference in the size of the hitbox based on the weapon used.

 

[Visik]

If someone is spending up to 6 feats for cleaves/WW, it should be a worthwhile investment regardless of what style they're using. Right now cleaves are a downright terrible choice for TWF in particular, which means there's really no choice at all and that's not good for the game. It's just a matter of finding the right balance that allows THF to still be the best, while allowing other styles to optionally spend those 6 feats and not still suck at AoE because they hit like wet noodles.

Or.. you could just accept that if you're using a style not designed for cleaving, that your results are going to be meh. Cleaves are a bad choice for TWF because it's largely illogical to give TWF cleaves in the first place. The weapons aren't heavy enough to cut through one enemy to hit another.

 

[gurth83]

I fundamentally disagree with your first statement. There should always be a consequence of choosing your fighting style and TWF and SWF enjoy their distinctive advantages there, whilst THF's is effectively eroded.

All those feats are better than Strikethrough.

TWF and SWF shouldn't get any improvement to AOE. It's not what they are supposed to be good at.

If you choose to invest in feats to partially address that, that's fine, it's your choice, but it shouldn't put you on a par with THF in terms of AOE when they choose to spend on the same feats, as effectively it currently does.

If you want the best AOE as melee, go THF. That should be the choice.

I think you are forgetting about Vanguard where you get Strikethrough and 20% combat speed, so like Improved SWF feat and can use shield. I would say its superior compared to SWF and TWF. Yes it is 20 lev fighter but I want to notice that right now there is no real distinction. Some fighting styles mix their features by some enhancements. But I must agree on THF line, benefits for it are less rewarding than other fighting styles. It is hard to increase TWF sinlge target dps while not increasing multi target dps and thats issue with this line. Even if clave would give 10% base stat dmg and g.clave additional 10% base stat dmg (or combat speed 5%/10%) only when THF it would boost multi target dmg more than single.
Anyway those feats are quite useless right now and require Power Attack so its weak option. Some improvment would be nice, but there are many other feats that are even more useless.

 

[Elminster]

Make all the cleaves have +3 expanded crit range per type. +3 for regular cleave, +6 for great cleave, +9 expanded crit range for mighty? cleave etc.

 

[Visik]

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.

The problem with Whirlwind Attack for a heavily-armored toon (a huge fraction of THF toons) is that you have to take Dodge to get it.. and the Dodge cap on heavy armor is low enough that it's quite likely many such toons already get more Dodge than they can use on gear and the like... which makes the Dodge Feat essentially a wasted one, taken only to get to Whirlwind Attack. (Mobility doesn't have the same problem because it grants both Dodge and increased Max Dodge.)