Lacerate

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Rich85 wrote:

I like the skill mechanics and range, but the damage is very low. I almost doubled my dps by switching to cleave as a duel wield RT character. Despite Cleaves low aoe it clears faster then Lacerate due to the damage difference.

Hoping to see the damage buffed in some way

Don't let the DPS tooltip mislead you. The reason why your DPS dropped was because of the attack speed penalty of the skill itself, but it stil hits for some good damage. Using it on Merciless right now and loving even more.

Kudos to whoever designed this. This is a well-designed skill. It takes away a lot of the things that annoy me about melee skills.

My setup: Currently a level 58 Duelist Slayer using a 2H sword, supported with Multistrike, Melee Physical, and Fortify, playing Hardcore Prophecy.

Autotarget: This is the best thing about the skill. When I click on empty air, the skill chooses a nearby enemy, swings at it, then chooses a different enemy and swings again. I'm not sure how it chooses which one to attack, but it tends to swing around and attack in many different directions. If no enemy is in range, it will walk a short distance toward one, then just attack the air. My usual problem with melee, that it's hard to keep clicking on new targets when old ones die, isn't a problem with Lacerate.

With multistrike, Lacerate attacks 6 times for each button press, but the skill will reset its target after each swipe (possibly). This means that if the enemies in one direction die, I'm not stuck hitting empty air for 5 more swings (unless there are no more enemies nearby). It also means that stuns and knockbacks get sent out in all directions, which is good for jumping into a crowd or opening a strongbox.

Range: Very good range on a melee skill. At low levels I found it frustrating, but I stuck with it, and I was rewarded for my patience. As the gem levels up, the range really gets quite large. It may be larger than four stacks of Reave- I haven't measured it yet- and once the area gets big, there's a lot of stuff in the crossing zones that gets hit by both strikes.

Damage: Plenty. For enemies in the crossing zones, it does the equivalent of 166% damage at level 20 (2x119%, but 30% slower attacks). It's easy to keep things in the crossing zones. I think that's very strong considering the long range that it ends up having at higher levels. You don't get a lot of melee with that kind of range.

What's bad: Being frozen. With multistrike and my 2H sword, I'm stuck in one place for a dangerously long time. I'm about to do the Prison in Merciless, and I'm scared of Brutus. In Cruel, I got hit by Dominus, Voll, and Malachai slams at least once each. I had enough life and mitigation that I survived each hit, but I won't make it through Merciless unless I do something about this. I will try adding Faster Attacks, but if that doesn't work, I'll have to drop multistrike on bosses with a smash.

Autotarget is also bad sometimes. (I know, I know: it's good *and* bad). Trying to do an Elreon mission, my character kept turning around and swinging at things behind him when all I wanted to do was kill that stupid little pillar. (Spoiler: I killed it.)

My verdict: Great skill. I love it. Great range, good damage, fun to play, but difficult because of the slow attack speed. I may change my mind if the Vaal Oversoul smashes me back to Standard, but so far I'm having a blast.

What to change: Maybe give a little more range at lower levels, so people don't get frustrated and give up before they learn how awesome it is. Besides that, I don't think I'd change anything, even the bad parts. Tradeoffs are interesting.

Currently lv 4x, Oh life is so cruel. :(

With Multistrike, Lacerate feels better, though the "perceive" damage is weaker as expected.

I agreed with @zakariusqc. The skills feel amazing with proper setup. The experience is not "Opie OP" since, apart from low damage effectiveness and attack speed, the Support Gems are mostly restricted by Multistrike and Increase AoE. But the double attack make it feels faster

I also highly agreed that positioning is very important. Unlike Reave, I'd not want to whirling / leaping in the middle of a pack.

After seeing the Slayer's Lacerate build recently appeared, I'm hesitating.... should I switch to 2H Slayer instead of 1H+Shield / DW Gladiator. That ascendency class is really a good partner with Lacerate, AoE, Damage, Speed, Culling Strike *o*

ho well...i was praising this skill but i actualy switch back to cleave.

yes the range is awsome but since lacerate attack everywhere, its just annoying and jump from pack to pack with cleave end up faster. cleave also do higther dmg and seem safer because it dont root you in place.

with lacerate you also end up not getting fortify because you dont jump in a pack of monster, you always stay aways in range. range is safer but you get hit much more since you dont use fortify.

so, back to cleave, much more fun also ^^ lacerate is getting boring since you are always in range. jumping in the middle of a pack and making everything explode= more fun :)

gladiator lvl 48 using lacerate atm.. no real complaints i mean the aoe feels small sometimes and ther eis nothing to make aoe bigger in duelist area?? or ranger or marauder! lol. but weapon range seems to not affect this skill... im i wrong? seems like its not working correctly that way

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frostfairblade wrote:

gladiator lvl 48 using lacerate atm.. no real complaints i mean the aoe feels small sometimes and ther eis nothing to make aoe bigger in duelist area?? or ranger or marauder! lol. but weapon range seems to not affect this skill... im i wrong? seems like its not working correctly that way

I haven't played with the ability yet but my plan is to use Lavianga's Wisdom in the off-hand, a Carcass Jack and a quality Lacerate to have a decent amount of AoE. A 20% level 15 Lacerate gives you 24% increased AoE, the off-hand gives 10%, and Carcass Jack gives 20%, that's 54% increased AoE without taking anything on the passive tree. Again, I haven't played the build yet but that seems like it should be adequate.

Is it intended or a bug that non-axe/swords in the off-hand are still used in the swing? Prior to testing, my expected result was that it would work similar to southpaw Reave where if you use a non-compatiable off-hand, it would act just as a stat stick, give you pseudo dual wield and the main hand would attack twice. But with Lacerate, the off-hand is used regardless of the weapon type. I tested this by having a strong 1h axe equipped and a 10 DPS dagger in the off-hand, it definitely uses the dagger in the second swing. Is this intended or a bug?

The negative attack speed feels like a pointless downside that hinders the skill.

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Is it intended or a bug that non-axe/swords in the off-hand are still used in the swing? Prior to testing, my expected result was that it would work similar to southpaw Reave where if you use a non-compatiable off-hand, it would act just as a stat stick, give you pseudo dual wield and the main hand would attack twice. But with Lacerate, the off-hand is used regardless of the weapon type. I tested this by having a strong 1h axe equipped and a 10 DPS dagger in the off-hand, it definitely uses the dagger in the second swing. Is this intended or a bug?

My understanding is that this is VERY MUCH INTENDED. This effect is what give Lacerate a distinction over Reave. You can Southpaw reave, but not so with Lacerate.

To be honest, I still have no idea why I would play this skill over reave. To me Reave is superior in every way. Including the use of Vaal Reave to get ridiculous AOE.

Just not sure why they would make this skill and what function/playstyle it serves that Reave already does not.

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Is it intended or a bug that non-axe/swords in the off-hand are still used in the swing? Prior to testing, my expected result was that it would work similar to southpaw Reave where if you use a non-compatiable off-hand, it would act just as a stat stick, give you pseudo dual wield and the main hand would attack twice. But with Lacerate, the off-hand is used regardless of the weapon type. I tested this by having a strong 1h axe equipped and a 10 DPS dagger in the off-hand, it definitely uses the dagger in the second swing. Is this intended or a bug?

My understanding is that this is VERY MUCH INTENDED. This effect is what give Lacerate a distinction over Reave. You can Southpaw reave, but not so with Lacerate.

To be honest, I still have no idea why I would play this skill over reave. To me Reave is superior in every way. Including the use of Vaal Reave to get ridiculous AOE.

Just not sure why they would make this skill and what function/playstyle it serves that Reave already does not.

Lacerate works with 2H swords and axes. If you're using 1H swords with Lacerate, you should probably just be using Reave instead. Two-handed Swords and Axes benefit quite well from Lacerate. Lacerate also covers a greater area than Reave if you don't have Vaal Reave stacks up, and gains a greater AoE as it levels up or gains quality, which allows you to cover a nice amount of distance without having to travel to the blue section of the tree. Reave depends more heavily, therefore, on other sources of AoE in order to hit a greater area, which is somewhat restrictive. Reave does have the advantage of Vaal Reave to circumvent some of this, but that restricts playstyle quite a bit, demanding an attack at least once every three seconds to keep rolling. I feel like they each have their own good niche.

That being said, Lacerate attacking with your off-hand weapon even if it doesn't meet the weapon restrictions is almost certainly a bug. Switching the hands around results in correct behavior (only the sword/axe will be used to attack if the sword/axe is in the offhand), but if the sword/axe is in the mainhand, incorrect weapons will still attack if placed in the offhand. This is actually problematic for weapons such as Scaeva.