Anyone test cleave/great cleave?

[Synthetic]

Why is that? The glancing blows helps, but it isn't close to what I'd consider a CAPITAL LETTERS improvement. Is there something else good?

Clicking the Cleave icon in battle still seems like it'll be only a marginal improvement, or sometimes even put you behind the outcome of attacking normally.

Because Acrobats get sneak attacks with cleave.

My numbers say it's .7seconds (dwarf acrobat with staff) according to Vanshilar's attack speed numbers the fastest attack speed for staves only gives you 2.25 attacks per second - hasted with max haste boost for 55% - the second best attack speed is giving 1.8 attacks per second. So .7 seconds is worth only 1.2 attacks vs a single target plus some glancing blow damage. If they fix glancing blows you'll get a full base attack damage plus glancing blow damage plus full sneak attack damage against each target losing very little single target dps.

Granted it's only once every ~5 seconds and you have to manage the aggro, but it's almost always a net gain if you have at least 2 targets.

Cheers

S

[Cardtrick]

Because Acrobats get sneak attacks with cleave.

Yeah. It almost makes up for our losing the utility of our glorious woo sticks. I actually already have cleave on my Acrobat, and find it occasionally useful for getting 4 or 5 sneak attacks at a time. (Although I mainly use it for bats.) With this change, it becomes a lot more appealing, and it looks like I'll be taking Great Cleave as well.

[sigtrent]

The odd thing I noticed with cleave on live is that its animation speed didn't vary. To illustrate, cleave and great cleave are just as fast as if I'm hasted or slowed while my normal attacks are much slower or faster.

Because I have the feats on a slow plodding dwarven tank, they often are a tiny boost to my overall attack speed if I time them right. When slowed they are really handy. (though not as handy as drinking a haste pot but in a pinch...)

I've always found it too slow for my liking on two handers while it feels just right (with practice) when using a shield and one hander. (never tried it with a TWF character)

I really like cleave and great cleave on the character that has them. They do what I intended them to (help grab and hold agro) and they also help clean up the trash faster with extra damage on secondary targets. The proposed change sounded like a nice boon for a character already using the THF feats for glancing damage on dwarven axe so I hope they get it working as advertised.

[Angelus_dead]

The odd thing I noticed with cleave on live is that its animation speed didn't vary. To illustrate, cleave and great cleave are just as fast as if I'm hasted or slowed while my normal attacks are much slower or faster.

Yes, they should figure out some way to get Cleave to benefit from increases to your attack speed.

Characters naturally gain increased attack speed from several sources as they advance from level 1 to 20. That means that clicking Cleave at high level has a bigger cost in lost regular attacks than when you were using it at low level. That's bad because it means Cleave becomes a worse action as you advance, something that the design should avoid.

[sigtrent]

I just popped on to try it out...

I have a dwarf, no two handed fighting, using a dwarven axe and shield.

I went to giant hold and blocked, then threw only cleave and great cleave at a group of hobgoblins and giants.

I did show glancing blow damage on the cleave attacks (at about the rate I normally proc them which is pretty limited).

I took the great axe to the next group. Same results, glancing blows on cleave and great cleave attacks.

Sometimes there seemed some delay from the main hit to the glancing blow, sometimes not (say a tenth of a second so there was just more space in the floating numbers from main hit to glancing blow damage)

The animations didn't strike me as any different than live... but I don't have them side by side. It did re-boot my attack sequence, so if I do cleave on animation 3, I go back to animation 1 instead of 4 on the next swing. THF animations do seem slower than one handed, same for TWF, each seems to have a little up front pause while the one handed animation is just a quick spin with no wind up. Then agian this is perception, not measuring them precicely.

And ya, the haste issue is still a problem. Cleave animations seem timed for non hasted swing rates and don't adjust with overall attack speed.

[Noelemahc]

You need to specificy your race/weapon when your saying how horrible/great the new cleave is. As they are all different, and vary greatly. While it might now be good for human monk/wraps, does not mean its good for others.

For Half-Orc with a Greataxe:
It's horrible. Worse then before. Incredibly slow animation, and it does nothing at all.. For a good 1.5+ seconds.. Then the damage finally shows up, long after the animation. It also fully resets your chain as before, and does not deal glancing blows as the rlease notes state.

You'd think theyd test it for such a popular combination (one of the most popular race/weapon for a barb, who MUST take cleave)

The same is true with Supreme Cleave atm as well. I haven't tested it on Lamannia, but on Live it is severely bugged. There is an incredible delay between the animation and the hits connecting. You can hit Supreme Cleave on a group of 5 mobs, wait about 2 seconds or a little longer and see the attack finally land. Some times in those 2 seconds a mob can/will be killed and the hit will never actually land on that mob before it was killed. This is not due to lag, because it can be reproduced 100% of the time in any situation.

Also the cooldown for it is pretty bugged too it seems. Though the cool down is 1 second or so (hotbar actually shows no cooldown), if you try to use it again immediately you still have a 3 second or longer delay before you can actually use it again.

I'm not sure if this is exclusive to Half-Orc barbs or not, but I know I just got done with a human Barbarian life not too long ago while TRing my Paladin and never had this issue before. I could spam Supreme Cleaves near nonstop (1 second cooldown in between as per the universal cool down on using stuff) and the hits land immediately as I'm cleaving, not 2-3 seconds after. I like using Supreme Cleave but it's just super broken on live atm, so I settle for plain Cleave. However if Cleave is broken as well now too in the update, I'm going to be a sad Barbarian.

Can anyone with a non Half-Orc barb confirm this issue? I'm just curious if it's another animation issue with Half-Orcs, or if Cleave and Supreme Cleave are actually broken/bugged. The generic attack animations for Half-Orc finally got fixed, but the run speed animations are still broken. I wouldn't be surprised if the Cleave and Supreme Cleave animations are broken as well.

[Synthetic]

The animation change is at the end. On live you go to a ready stance for a couple tenths of a second before you start your attack chain. On Lam if you are holding down the mouse you'll immediately attack without that pause at the end of the cleave animation. The transition to your attack chain looked good to me. I didn't test with auto-attack so not sure if that would make a difference.

Cheers

S