Are they going to fix Cleave Skill?

[Rexmundis]

Apparently, it's a totally useless skill. I don't understand this since in PnP it's a meat and potatoes skill that almost every melee combat person uses/has. Will Turbine ever fix cleave so it's actually useful (even in situational fights it's pretty useless unless you got the right weapon that casts paralyze) ?

[Maxson]

Cleave is great, apparently whoever told you it was apparently useless is a chode.

It's great for gaining aggro if you have a high thread bonus, it's also amazing for killing BATS (bats in this game fly around buggily meaning you can swing right through them and not even register a hit) but as cleave does a cone of hits it will strike them all, v great cleave is awesome too.

Whirlwind attack sucks though, unless the cooldown has been reduced, far more feats needed to get it, some of them not useful at all to the average WW attack user and a cooldown that's double that of cleave. Want whirlwind attacK? clean, turn round, cleave again, it has the same effect without having to take the mobility feat. Or combat expertise for that matter.

edit: or great cleave, cleave, cleave, great cleave - takes about 10 seconds, compared to the 12 seconds of a WW.

[Club'in]

I've also found cleave to be handy in trying to hit monsters you are chasing. I'm sure you've been in a situation where you're chasing a monster that is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and your swings aren't even registering as hit/miss. Sometimes cleave can catch those elusive cowards.

I also use it on my monk as a quick ki generator. Not a great feat (could have been implemented better, I like the way it works in Neverwinter Nights), but certainly not useless.

Oh, and it's a feat, not a skill.

[Maxson]

I've also found cleave to be handy in trying to hit monsters you are chasing. I'm sure you've been in a situation where you're chasing a monster that is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and your swings aren't even registering as hit/miss. Sometimes cleave can catch those elusive cowards.

I also use it on my monk as a quick ki generator. Not a great feat (could have been implemented better, I like the way it works in Neverwinter Nights), but certainly not useless.

Oh, and it's a feat, not a skill.

YES. I forgot to mention this, cleave's cone also seems to be slightly longer ranged than your normal swings which makes it cover mobs you're chasing, it's ace.

[Tuney]

Whirl Wind is about a 6 second CD now just so you know

[Impaqt]

Apparently, it's a totally useless skill. I don't understand this since in PnP it's a meat and potatoes skill that almost every melee combat person uses/has. Will Turbine ever fix cleave so it's actually useful (even in situational fights it's pretty useless unless you got the right weapon that casts paralyze) ?

What do you find wrong with it? seems to work perfectly fine to me.

[Angelus_dead]

It's not totally useless, but it's true that feats like Cleave do not perform the game design role they should be: Improve the performance of melee characters when battling multiple enemies.

The unfortunate reality is that even if the melee guy is being attacked by two or three enemies at once, clicking the Cleave icon will probably reduce his effectiveness. If there are more enemies in range (which is unusual) then Cleave can be a net DPS gain, but only by a little.

There are circumstances where Cleave may be beneficial, but they are just a limited subset of the "Fighting Multiple Enemies" scenarios. Of course, the problems also apply to Great Cleave, Supreme Cleave, and Whirlwind Attack. There have been many suggestions to improve Cleave effects, such as this one: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=211259

[elraido]

Cleave is a waste. You interupt your normal attack sequence to activate it, so in the long run you are doing a lot less DPS vs just swinging away like normal.

[Angelus_dead]

What do you find wrong with it? seems to work perfectly fine to me.
If Cleave was working fine, then it would be a good idea for any warrior with Cleave (which currently includes 90% of Barbarians) to click the Cleave icon when he has 2+ enemies near him.

Cleave is only functioning correctly from a very simplistic standpoint: it's supposed to be an active AOE melee attack, and it is. The failure becomes apparent when you look at it from a higher level: it's supposed to help fight multiple enemies, and it usually doesn't.

[Skull_49]

Cleave is a waste. You interupt your normal attack sequence to activate it, so in the long run you are doing a lot less DPS vs just swinging away like normal.

Depends on when you use it during the chain and its only less against multiple monsters IF you have a crappy plus to hit

[EKKM]

Cleave is a waste. You interupt your normal attack sequence to activate it, so in the long run you are doing a lot less DPS vs just swinging away like normal.

Cleave and great cleave are useful for an intimtank that is shield blocking to do some damage as it either doesnt interupt blocking or it has a minimal interuption.

Also good for hate tanking as they have trouble aggroing multiple mobs.

It's not useless, its just a lot less useful than the PnP version.

[Angelus_dead]

its only less against multiple monsters IF you have a crappy plus to hit
That's backwards from reality. The truth is that if your attack bonus is bad, Cleave becomes relative more effective compared to normal attacks.

[Shade]

You might like cleave at levels1-10 on a sword and board fighter.

Beyond that using it ever is pretty much straight a waste of time.

Reason is pretty simple:
In this game you become more powerful by being able to swing faster. Every level increaes how fast you swing.

Cleave is not part of that system. Cleave is a pretty much fixxed animation that never gets anywhere as fast as your real attacks at the endgame.

You can attack 4-8 times in the same time it takes you to perform 1 cleave, depending on weapon style. Really you'll always do allot more dps just swining normally.

If you want big AOE damage, get the two handed fighting line instead. You'll generate allot of glancing blows which will deal far more damage then cleave ever would.

Even supreme cleave (1 second cooldown) is garbage. Unless your in a pack of 5+ enemies clustered, its less DPS then attacking with a two hander. And if you do that on a FB, you'll lose 10 HP per cleave every 1 second + 2d3 self damage times 5 (1 set for every monster you hit) .. IE: You'll probably die, or at least waste allot of the healers mana doing something thats otherwise barely useful.

Just has so many major problems:
-It's area of effect is exactly the same as swinging with any other two hander.. It really should be larger, but it is not.
-Even supreme cleave, which should be fast.. Is slow as hell.
-After using it, there's a massive delay before you can attack again normally, further destroying your DPS.
-Greatcleave does nothing useful either. It's the exact same feat, just on a different cooldown timer. Huge waste of 2 feats.

In other games like NWN, cleave actualy simply increased the amounts of attacks you can do over a short period of time. In DDO, it works completely the opposite.

Pretty much only noobs ever use it, or think it's ever worthwhile to use.

[Isolani]

I think Angelus is saying it's useless because Cleave has the stupid cooldown just like using a haste boost, for a class that attacks fast like a wind stance monk, you are losing a lot of normal hits on a single target by using Cleave. So unless you are hitting 5 or 6 mobs with your cleave, you are better off not even using it. If they took out the pause where you can't attack after using it, or if they made it on next attack with no pause like a monk ki strike, then it would be an increase in dps when fighting 2+ mobs.

[Angelus_dead]

I guess I'll repeat my suggestions to fix Cleave, in case someone doesn't read the link above (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=211259). These changes are meant to solve the problem that Cleave attacks don't benefit from effects that improve regular attacks, and they would apply to all four Cleave-like abilities.

1. The animation speed, cooldown, and interruption delay are affected by bonuses to attack speed (such as Haste, Tempest 1, Fighter capstone, and increased BAB)

2. If using an appropriate weapon, Cleave attacks have a chance to produce glancing blows on all nearby enemies (probability equal to the percentage of your full attack animation which has glancing blows). That means if you Cleave on three monsters, each of them can be hit with one regular attack and up to three glances.

3. If using two weapons, Cleave attacks have a chance to also attack with the offhand weapon (probability equal to the percentage of your full attack animation which has double attacks). That means if a standard Ranger20 uses Cleave on three monsters he'll get six attack rolls. The TWF penalty on attack rolls only applies if you actually get an offhand attempt on that target.