Heavy Strike

I've been using this as the boss-killer on my 2H skullcracker build, because it has Reduced Enemy Stun Threshold. I also like the pure weapon damage for all the life/mana leech it gives. The knockback is not very big, but it definitely wastes valuable stun time as you step forward. Maybe this is an intended penalty.

Knockback *can* be used defensively in melee, in theory. For instance in Diablo 2, you could make yourself practically untouchable in melee with Bash or Smite at maximum speed, just knocking the monsters away as they got close. But in PoE the knockback distance is less, so it doesn't buy you very much time, and the targeting is much less forgiving, so it's harder to just swipe at whatever comes into range.

I think the attacking range for HS has some issue, due to the knockback effect. Constantly, when the enermy got knockback, I will hit the air for several times, I think this shouldnt happen. Please see if you can do anything on this.

We seriously need a way to take knockback away from this ability. Maybe a support gem or a keystone passive or an item or ANYTHING pretty much. The knockback on this ability makes it borderline unusable in group play not to mention the fact that you can knock enemies into walls.

I stopped using Heavy Strike in merciless when I saw how much it lowers my whole party's dps by causing their attacks to miss and/or forcing them to reposition etc.

The tooltip dps for this ability simply isn't accurate because you lose so much by running up to the mob after every hit, especially if you start stacking attack speed. And then you start thinking about stacking more movement speed to increase your dps by decreasing the time you chase a monster after every hit...

It can also cause you to knock rare monsters through walls and make it impossible to kill them. This is especially bad because when using heavy strike you want to trap something against a wall to prevent the knockback and increase DPS

I was in a party with 3 heavy strike marauders fighting general gravicius and we pushed him like 4 screens away before finally killing him. Merciless Ledge runs with heavy strikers are fun too when you push the giant totem monster all over the map

Even though I had found a 11% heavy strike, for single target I have switched to glacial hammer which is lower damage for me, especially vs resist mobs, but the ability to shatter enemies below 30% actually makes up for it, especially in group games vs high HP rare monsters.

IMO heavy strike is only worth using if the high damage effectiveness is enough to make you 1-shot everything wherever you happen to be farming.

It's a hard hitter in PVP though, but I got rid of it when I realized I could use 3 flicker strike gems instead of a normal spammable melee attack.

I said it before and I will say it again. Please remove knockback mechanic from the game totally ! it's useless.

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skarrmania wrote:

I said it before and I will say it again. Please remove knockback mechanic from the game totally ! it's useless.

Signed, while party hunting team lose DPS, because need to move and move after each knockback.

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Simeonus wrote:

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skarrmania wrote:

I said it before and I will say it again. Please remove knockback mechanic from the game totally ! it's useless.

Signed, while party hunting team lose DPS, because need to move and move after each knockback.

Double-Signed.
When it comes to single-target physical damage, Heavy Strike is all that strength users have and the KB aspect makes it entirely unusable for damage. Sure we could use Dominating Blow but that is a utility skill, not damage.
Heavy Strike is too crappy to fill the hole it was designed to fill. Either we need a new, similar power with no KB involved or HS needs its KB removed.

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Vipermagi wrote:

Double Strike deals just a smidge less damage (70%*2 vs. 150%). It doesn't require much Dex, so even without actually going for Dex you'll be able to get a little damage bonus out of it (doesn't matter too much either way, but you know).

Heavy Strike is the strongest single-target skill in the game. Enormous damage and ridiculous Stun potential. It features Knockback, which can be useful or less preferrable. There is an alternative. Ergo, I don't see the issue.

Double-Strike is an undeniably amazing skill and puts Heavy Strike to shame. I use it one one of my characters rather happily.
The problem with Double-Strike is at high levels it requires around 150 Dex which is an absolutely huge investment to a non dex-based character.
Heavy Strike is supposed to be the str-based alternative to Double Strike byut in that regard, it fails miserably. The KB effect makes it one of the worst DPS abilities in the game. Glacial Hammer converts 50% of my physical damage to Cold Damage and yet I still inflict more physical damage (more non-gem based life leech) per second using it than I do with Heavy Strike.
Heavy Strike is broken, it either needs fixed or replaced by an equivalent, non-broken skill.

i love the knockback

it makes me untouchable

dont remove it, not everything needs to be equal