Quarterstaff Cleavage

[hrmn8r]

I have one life (monk) until completionist and was planning an unarmed life but recently pulled a TOEE Elemental Bloom (w Mythic bonus) (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Elemental_Bloom) and a Light Unending (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Light_Unending) so deciding to do quarterstaff build to enjoy them. Most likely a monk/rogue/pally human.

I've been reading a ton on various build options and one of my key decisions is whether to take the cleave/great cleave feats. From what I can tell it has been glitched in the past as far as glancing blows with quarterstaffs but some more recent posts seem to indicate it can be worth having. Others say it interrupts the attack sequence too much.

Here's my thinking - with paralyzing and bodyfeeder on the Bloom staff, a good cleave ought to proc a lot of mayhem and if I'm understanding correctly with the human 2hf enhancement (6%) and the acrobat enhance (12%) that will be an 18% chance of paralyzing mobs off the glancing blows alone, even without the direct blows. I should be getting hit with bodyfeeder off the crits pretty regularly in a crowd.

Will meteoric star ruby in the augment slot have an 18% chance of a 2% chance of going off on glancing blows? If so, that's some serious sweetness. Banishing on the cleaves and then 18% banishing on the glancing blows from Light Unending seems pretty dang good situationally.

I might also run Carnifex until level 7 and we all know the murderous chaos those cleaves produce. I could also use the pally enhancement for the 1st cleave and not take either of the feats.

So with all that said ... monk/rogue/pally life ... to cleave or not to cleave?

[gwonbush]

Elemental Bloom is absolutely devastating in heroics (I recommend getting the adamantine ritual on it so the stick lasts through more quests without needing repair), and cleaves will help with your defense against multiple enemies. The problem with cleaves for quarterstaffs is that cleaves can't doublestrike and have a set attack speed, which means that against a single target cleaving is a net loss of dps.

Something else to note: I'm pretty sure you cannot banish on glancing blows with light unending since a vorpal hit requires a confirmed critical and glancing blows can't crit.

[Sunnie]

In my experience with Q-staves, cleaving is not really worth it dps-wise. Sure, you get full damage against the targets in your immediate vicinity, but the animation is a lot slower than your attack chain and you lose all the doublestrike, and rogues get a lot of bonuses to both attack speed and DS from TA. But since you'll be multiclassing with a plurality in monk you miss out on at least 3 TA cores that are worth 25% DS and 5% Attack Speed.

Possible exception could be if you plan to run through epics in LD and use Momentum Swing and Lay Waste. I haven't done that myself, though, so I can't actually say how that works out with q-staves. Last time I used a staff in epics I was in FotW. If you only plan to run heroics and then TR, I'd say skip the cleaves and take something fun, if you want to go to 30, get more input.

[Lence]

Don't forget you can actually pick up better cleaves from the Paladin enhancement tree. I rolled my Rogue/Pali/Monk through at least 8 epic past lives just prior to the recent lag causing my entire group to quit. It was effective. I never had either of the two sticks your rolling, however, once I hit 23 I equipped a Sireth and never switched after til I ETR'd. If anything I would only pick up the cleave. Like mentioned previously, the animations are slower than attacks, but its ok for trash either way. I switched back and forth on that a few times myself, usually ditching it in favor of the Paladin better cleaves (higher xW damage) when I wanted them. Its a pretty survivable build with lots of options.