Feat choices for a multi-class

[Thrudh]

So my melee guy is mostly barbarian, and only partly fighter, but I decided to come here instead of the barbarian boards because you guys know all about combat feats...

He's a 10/4/2 Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger with 9 feats

(Core feats)

• Power Attack
• Khopesh
• Combat Expertise
• Improved Trip
• Stunning Blow
• Improved Crit: Slash
• Toughness

(Feats I'm thinking about swapping)

• Weapon Focus: Slash
• Weapon Specialization: Slash

He's an intimitank dwarven tactical fighter who rages Excellent AC when needed ( of course, I can't use Combat Expertise when raging - only downfall with this build)

So my question....

What do you think about replacing Weapon Focus: Slash and Weapon Specialization with Cleave and Great Cleave? Remember, I often intimidate and so have a nice group of baddies around me.

[KIELBASEE555]

do you use trip often?? do you use stun blow often? whirle wind is a 360 D cleave with a 15 cool down
If you dont want that... do you like the sword/board? kopesh's are good for two weapon fighting. you could go TWF

[Thrudh]

Yep I use stunning blow and trip ALL the time... I don't really have enough feats for whirlwind... wouldn't being able to use Cleave AND Great Cleave (different timers, only two feats instead of four) be better than Whirlwand?

I have two levels of ranger so yes I can kinda two-weapon fight... But I'll never get Improved and Greater Two-weapon fighting because they both need 17 Dex (I have 15 base right now with a +2 tome, so until I find a +4 tome, those are out)

How good are Cleave and Great Cleave I guess is what I'm asking...

[sigtrent]

I like cleave and great cleave for sword and shield characters, especialy intimi tanks (since it can help a bit with agro and you tend to get monsters packed in around you. They are especialy good if you use power 5 type weapons since the procs go off on everything you hit. The damage is pretty decent, just normal attacks. DPS characters don't use them because they don't replace attacks like the tactics feats do, instead they have thier own animation and interupt your attack chain which can slow you down a bit and they don't do any additinal damage to your primary target.

The timer on cleave is pretty decent, about the same as improved trip or stunning blow. Between the three I think you would be pretty busy clicking stuff.

While I've used them on my own intimi tank he isn't yet all that high level. Cleave is amazing on a low level tank, especialy in places like the harbor and tangleroot.

Basicaly you will loose a bit of single target damage but could gain some overall dps in group fights. I think the better reason to grab it is agro generation or power 5 / debuf use. (nice with a cursespewer as a tank)

[Ralmeth]

I've used cleave and great cleave on my 14th level S&B Pally intimitank because I wanted to know how these worked...I thought it worked okay, but I personally was not overly impressed. Hitting that intimidate button is what is going to get you the agro. With the new 6 second cooldown timer we're going to get on intimidate you should really be able to hold agro well.

I tested out a vorpal and disruptor with cleave and great cleave. Essentially you are still doing your normal attacks, but just on more mobs. So these landed a little more often, but it didn't seem like that much more, and it was very rare to see two guys get killed on the same swing (this happened once or twice and was very cool when it did). Where cleave and great cleave shine are when you are surrounded by weak trash mobs...but then they're not going to give you a problem anyway.

With intimidate, trip and stunning blow you're using on a regular basis, if you add cleave and great cleave to the mix that will end up being a lot of buttons you have to hit in a good sequence. Remember that you'll be hitting intimidate every 6 seconds very soon. However if you don't think it would be a big deal for you, then these might be fun to play with. If it was me to not make my life any more complicated I would probably opt for WF and WS and just increase your overall DPS...However having said that you may want to wait and see what other cool things they're going to add to mod 7.

[Irongutz2000]

There is nothing in the game like holding a door full of badies an spaming cleave, an greatcleave. All the pretty numbers