Cleave

The threads about cleave because its used by 4/6 classes in standard races (even if one doesnt use it past a1 and the other doesnt use it until a2), is the general go-to in endless ledge and dominated last seasons descent signature even as a drop only gem for half the classes.

Leapslams not nearly as bad due to its level restricting it to 2 classes, and tbh marauder would be in a pretty poor spot atm without it.

Anyway the main point here is that itd be good to be able to go caster templar/shadow or bow ranger again (etc) without forsaking victory in the process.

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Leapslams not nearly as bad due to its level restricting it to 2 classes, and tbh marauder would be in a pretty poor spot atm without it.

Actually it even sucks on mara.

The mara does less damage than a duelist and the attackspeed is abysmal and leather and steal even gives an insane ms bonus.

are we supposed to keep cleaving all the way with rangeR? I usually switch to RoA once lvl 5 D:

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Pam wrote:

are we supposed to keep cleaving all the way with rangeR? I usually switch to RoA once lvl 5 D:

I do that too (the roa at 5 part; i dont start with cleave), because i cant stand melee in this game, but its ultimately suboptimal. Cleave/DS just has so much more dps potential that an archer build keeping a top 3 spot is massively unlikely.

That said, its not impossible. Early stormcloud could certainly pull it off, as could a chain of godly rare bows with solid damage/life/move gear to match.

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Pam wrote:

are we supposed to keep cleaving all the way with rangeR? I usually switch to RoA once lvl 5 D:

I think in longer races where you end up farming docks rain of arrows is better, but I could be wrong..

I know for sure in the shorter races where you farm sins cleave always beats rain

I actually think RoA is worse than Cleave past lvl 25 or so and only better than cleave post lvl 20 (so for about 5 levels it might be superior, it is obviously safer than cleave due to it being ranged so I still prefer it regardless - though that's debatable because the few descent races I did as duelist I felt alot safer with cleave than with RoA ranger), because as ranger you simply run out of dmg nodes to take for RoA past a certain point. So while in act 2 you can still up your dmg on the passive tree, once you hit act 3 your damage won't go up at all unless you find a good bow.

That's how I ended up with just 185 dps at lvl 32 in docks in the race that just ended, after a certain point you just can't increase RoA damage anymore. I took every single damage node and took my first health node at lvl 26, past that point there is nowhere to go and RoA gets worse and worse as time goes on.

I don't personally understand why GGG thinks you shouldn't be able to scale RoA damage past lvl 25, hell I even took all the 3% atk speed nodes because there is nowhere else to go and without a good bow your dmg is still dumpster regardless.

I'm tempted to actually just go ranger cleave in solo races from now on, I only tried it once in an Endless Ledge (got to lvl 20) and the damage was absurd and it is alot less gear dependant than RoA, at least so it seems.

I'm just not a fan of cleave and prefer to play ranged (I mean after all it's called ranger, right?), but I can't help but feel that cleave in the long run will be the more rewarding playstyle. But am I willing to sacrifice my own integrity and love for ranged characters just to play duelist 2.0 and perhaps do a little better? I'm not sure.

And by the way, I'm not suggesting they should nerf cleave, but rather make RoA more consistent, having to rely on a good bow is just too much RNG for me personally. I did a practise run today and had 100 dps on RoA at lvl 21 after 1 hour, now in the actual race I have 185 dps at lvl 32. That just doesn't make sense to me. RoA damage seems so incredibly binary, you find a good bow? You are absolutely gonna rape face, you don't find a good bow? Sorry you can't scale the damage of your mediocre bow in any way, so have fund running through act 2 with 70 dps on your aoe, while cleave users at that point sometimes have more than twice the damage. Basically RoA can only keep up with average cleave damage if you have a good bow, it's very inconsistent.



This is the bow I found in my practise run that resulted in over 100 dps. If you have to find a bow like this just to have roughly the same dps as your average cleave user I really question why I shouldn't just go cleave instead? From my own experience cleave is almost non-gear dependant at all. You can basically destroy merveil with 2 white boarding axes. Try that with a white long bow and no other dmg mods on gear, it actually takes 3x as long.

i've made a few trial runs, what I'll try to follow is: cleave/ds until 5, roa until caverns then switch back to cleave.
a quiver makes roa almost as good as cleave, with a bigger aoe and it's safer, I don't see myself cleaving shit in the prisoners gate
the difference for bosses is huge, and I might be able to be closer to top rangers if I survive this new style
docks tree
If it's below 90 min, I don't think it's worth it to go for point blank, I take the +12 max life on turbo races.
The difference in mana consumption between cleave and roa is so huge, it's not the first time I've mentioned it but roa could use a slight modification in this area

One of the major problems in roa vs cleave is drop opportunity. Cleavers get a wide variety of possible weapons they can use, and that only grows wider should they be able to increase their strength and dexterity to needed levels.
A bow user has one, maaaaaybe two different weapons they could possibly use at any one time, and you have to hope that type of weapon drops and that it is good.

So you have a cleaver who can use a few varieties of rapiers, varieties of axes and varieties of swords. At least two per type at any one time. I'm not even considering ele cleave which further expands the pool. That's a lot of opportunities to get something as you kill things and progress.

The only time a bow user has a choice between different weapon types is around level 20, when the choice is between a composite or a recurve. Either one could possibly be good enough to carry you until a bone bow. There are of course extremely rare exceptions to this, when the drop is godly (like that shortbow above).



Also, not cleave related, but I have a gripe with the 20/20 str/int node placement. It's too out of the way, and really should be something that's on the way for most types of builds. We've already established how gimped you can potentially be as a bow user, and as such you're busy taking up all the damage nodes you can and travelling to more damage/life. A 2 point detour just to get some basic stats so you can wear gear that drops at ledge is really too much. Either that or mix up the highway nodes leading down to iron reflexes and up towards shadow a bit more with str/int.

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boof wrote:

One of the major problems in roa vs cleave is drop opportunity. Cleavers get a wide variety of possible weapons they can use, and that only grows wider should they be able to increase their strength and dexterity to needed levels.
A bow user has one, maaaaaybe two different weapons they could possibly use at any one time, and you have to hope that type of weapon drops and that it is good.

So you have a cleaver who can use a few varieties of rapiers, varieties of axes and varieties of swords. At least two per type at any one time. I'm not even considering ele cleave which further expands the pool. That's a lot of opportunities to get something as you kill things and progress.

The only time a bow user has a choice between different weapon types is around level 20, when the choice is between a composite or a recurve. Either one could possibly be good enough to carry you until a bone bow. There are of course extremely rare exceptions to this, when the drop is godly (like that shortbow above).



Also, not cleave related, but I have a gripe with the 20/20 str/int node placement. It's too out of the way, and really should be something that's on the way for most types of builds. We've already established how gimped you can potentially be as a bow user, and as such you're busy taking up all the damage nodes you can and travelling to more damage/life. A 2 point detour just to get some basic stats so you can wear gear that drops at ledge is really too much. Either that or mix up the highway nodes leading down to iron reflexes and up towards shadow a bit more with str/int.

Unfortunately though, with the recent changes to the ranger skill tree I don't think they will rework the ranger tree again anytime soon, if at all. I think many bow users are very unhappy with the inconsistency of the class in races (descent even amplifies this problem, don't get an iron or quiver in first two zones -> might aswell just log out, hence why I suggested - several times - that there should be a quiver in the first chest... after all duelists start off with cleave)

And yeah, you bring up a very good point. The fact that there is only ever really 1 (2 at max) useful bows on the loot table at any given point in time makes it very difficult for bow users to ever find an upgrade. The longer the race the more unlikely, statistically speaking, you are to find a weapon that allows you to somewhat compete with cleave.

Because while a cleave user always has 2-3 different types of weapons they can find, you only ever have 1 (2 in act 2 like you said) so the chances of a cleave user finding an upgrade are 3x as high as they are for a bow user.

The upcoming release gives them a chance to polish everything up. I'm not holding my breath though.