Reave

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Caustic wrote:

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mazul wrote:

Explain to me how you are doing less damage?

With a level 18 double strike and melee splash I do 15k damage. With a level 9 Reave and level 16 added fire I do 12k. I seriously doubt that an extra 9 levels which will be 36% increased melee damage is going to do jack shit to span that 3k gap. And conc effect will only make the aoe so so much worse than it already is.

Ok then, you think that AoE range of Reave would not be good enough if you were to use
Concentrated Effect, that's a reasonable statemnet given that Reave is a Cone while Melee splash is a circle.

Yeah, if you don't use concentrated effect, yeah I wouldn't see a real point to use Reave in that case.

Maybe also melee splash only shows the tooltip dps from the main target and not the aoe dmg?
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Double strike does two attacks at 70% dmg efficiency. Reave does one attack at 100% dmg efficiency.

Added fire dmg adds 39% fire dmg from phys dmg. However, you usually run 25% cold hatred at least in parties, which means that you get about (1 + 0.25 + 0.39)/1.25 = roughly 31.2% more dmg from Added Fire Dmg.

Added Melee splashs lv20 yields 57% increased melee dmg and 31% less dmg against secondary targets.

Assuming we got about 400% increased total melee dmg prior to melee splash bonus through skills and other things, we can approximate the Melee Splash effect from "57% increased melee dmg" to roughly "11.4% more dmg".

This leaves us at:

Factor from Reave + AFD: 1*1*1.312 = 1.312

Factor from Double Strike + Melee splash: 2*0.7*(1 - 0.31)*1.114 = 1.076
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So yeah Reave comes up on top. My guess is that you aren't high level enough yet to reach that 400% increased total melee dmg prior to melee splash bonus.

I am assuming though physical based builds.

Really does seem there is a bug going on with reave's AoE, guys in the middle of my animation do the getting hit animation without taking damage all the time. This sort of thing doesn't happen with cleave, at least not to this degree.

Have played many CI crit dagger builds on HC for past several months, and here are my thoughts.

basically this skill has been projected at Claw/Dagger CI builds and for that to take priority as a skill used for it, it has to provide more appeal specifically to the claw/crit dagger user and its rough mobile play style.
AKA has to trump Mele Splash + "Selected skill"

As a crit dagger build my play style is built around my mobility, being able to dodge around and zip duck and dive and flicker in to those priority targets and kill, dash out if need be and position my self. While at the same time dropping curses, extra enduring cry's etc.

But with reave it just wants me to Reave/Shift then procede to move forward as fast as possible and reave some more. Kinda takes away from the true play style of a mele shadow, one skill i will not be using despite its hype for the physical mele shadow players.

IF the aoe charges lasted longer and didnt reset upon skill use's, opening doors, opening chests, clicking on barrels, blinking your god dam eye i could possibly see my self using this skill.

Currently i dont really see a benefit to change from Double strike/mele splash to reave. I will probably go back to just using LS with LMP, WED, Faster attacks for a more secure AOE skill.

Basically i give it a 2/10 would not bang rating, but its fun to play around with in the mean time.

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mazul wrote:

Maybe also melee splash only shows the tooltip dps from the main target and not the aoe dmg?
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Double strike does two attacks at 70% dmg efficiency. Reave does one attack at 100% dmg efficiency.

Added fire dmg adds 39% fire dmg from phys dmg. However, you usually run 25% cold hatred at least in parties, which means that you get about (1 + 0.25 + 0.39)/1.25 = roughly 31.2% more dmg from Added Fire Dmg.

Added Melee splashs lv20 yields 57% increased melee dmg and 31% less dmg against secondary targets.

Right. Melee splash lists direct damage, splash itself deals around 18% less damage than listed on the tooltip and direct damage is 16% less than normal skill damage. Increased physical damage from gem levelling helps a bit but not too much. I kinda got dissapointed in splash because of very buggy combo with puncture but that's just me, it's a decent support.

Anyway, this skill could and should work well with dual wielding as all supported weapons are a dual-wield favorite. It just needs DW penalty and a nice custom animation, something like a scissor motion spreading blades outward, that would fit for releasing a wave of nicely canned and pickled evil.

I find this skill to be completely unusable in its current state.

The initial hit seems to have a smaller range that any of my other skills. I almost have to be in the middle of a mob to get the first hit to start off the aoe buff. This could just be a perceived issue, but that is how it seemed when I was testing it last night.

I don't know how/if this is possible, but it seems that this gem causes an absurd amount of desync. I constantly found myself desync'd and nowhere near the mobs I was trying to hit. I was not doing anything different than normal, other than not using whirling blades between packs. This was getting extremely frustrating. This may or may not lead into the next issue.

Shift + Attack is absolutely broken with this skill. It just does not work. When I have 8 stacks up and I'm attacking, there are mobs within range and they just are not taking any damage at all. I'm at 86% chance to hit, so a small amount is missing, but when I'm attacking for 6 seconds (after using /oos to make sure I am not desync'd) and nothing has taken damage, then there is a problem.

Attacking without shift. LOL. GL with working a frontal cone effectively like that.

Seriously GGG, this was such a let down I can't even begin to explain. Myself and countless others have been patiently waiting for this new skill to try it out, and it flat out does not work. It would be one thing if the skill was simply shit, like searing bond, but its just broken.


edit: In case it matters, I have used multiple combination of support gems on a 6L setup, including the following supports:

Melee Physical Damage
Melee Damage on Full Life
Multistrike
Faster Attacks
Added Fire
Concentrated Effect
Increased Area of Effect
Power Charge on Crit

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Kthx wrote:

It would be one thing if the skill was simply shit, like searing bond, but its just broken.

However, warp bonder is crazy fun and that redeems it in my eyes.
Besides, it's actually not half bad with Elemental equilibrium and Searing touch, especially since that last patch that increased burn area around beam ends.

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Alhoon wrote:

People are being very ignorant about dual wield weapon alternating skills. I guess it's natural that whining is simpler than thinking.

Let me show you how you make the most out of it. Here's a few quick pointers about Reave:

Only works with Daggers, Claws and One Handed Swords.
When dual wielding, alternates between weapons if both weapons are one of the above.
If not, only hits with appropriate weapon.

This doesn't mean that non-appropriate weapon is as good as nothing. All global modifiers (Attack Speed, Global Crit, Increased Elemental Damage, Resistances, Stats etc.) apply to the attack, and that includes modifiers from your "stat stick" weapon.

Now, take a look at this beauty that costs 1 Alch:

50% Increased Attack Speed
30% Fire Res
30% Lightning Res

Damage sucks but who cares, Reave doesn't hit with Maces so only the damage from your other weapon counts. Also saves from having to get two godlike weapons.

Now suddenly the argument is whether a Shield is better than 10% MORE Attack Speed, 50% Increased Attack Speed and bunch of resistances.

And it doesn't end here. That's just one example of a weapon. You can use anything depending on build, a good rare, Supreme Truth for ele builds, even Soul Taker.

Nice post. Good read.

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Alhoon wrote:

People are being very ignorant about dual wield weapon alternating skills. I guess it's natural that whining is simpler than thinking.

Let me show you how you make the most out of it. Here's a few quick pointers about Reave:

Only works with Daggers, Claws and One Handed Swords.
When dual wielding, alternates between weapons if both weapons are one of the above.
If not, only hits with appropriate weapon.

This doesn't mean that non-appropriate weapon is as good as nothing. All global modifiers (Attack Speed, Global Crit, Increased Elemental Damage, Resistances, Stats etc.) apply to the attack, and that includes modifiers from your "stat stick" weapon.

Now, take a look at this beauty that costs 1 Alch:

50% Increased Attack Speed
30% Fire Res
30% Lightning Res

Damage sucks but who cares, Reave doesn't hit with Maces so only the damage from your other weapon counts. Also saves from having to get two godlike weapons.

Now suddenly the argument is whether a Shield is better than 10% MORE Attack Speed, 50% Increased Attack Speed and bunch of resistances.

And it doesn't end here. That's just one example of a weapon. You can use anything depending on build, a good rare, Supreme Truth for ele builds, even Soul Taker.

I've got two builds that could effectively use Reave, one of which is Dual Wielding.

So, I went and stacked all these DW damage/block nodes and what do I have to show for it? Well, This.


But I have something to surprise people with, even more than Brightbeak. That's This sucker right here:




You notice, Reave is meant to work with claws. So, with this claw you could run a low life build and have 10% MORE Speed, 25% INCREASED Speed, 100% INCREASED damage, and 100% INCREASED Accuracy.


Let's say you have two really good claws. 300 DPS each. If you gave it a cleave-like effect you're looking at what 30% decreased damage on the weapons? 210DPS each now, and together they give your 420DPs.

With Last Resort and a Single 300DPS claw, You're looking at around 600DPS for the main claw. Since the skill alternates though, that crummy 50dps from last resort is added into the mix and it makes it terrible.


The issue everyone has with the skill isn't that it doesn't use both weapons, it's that the skill -alternates- if it had a cleave like effect or it just used the main hand weapon it'd be much better. The alternating effect forces you to have two powerful claws/daggers/swords or to go with a single weapon and a shield.


So for those who've built for Dual wielding, Reave is bad, even though it was said to be "compatible" for Dual Wielding when it was teased.


Until Reave is "Fixed" Dual Wielders should use Brightbeak, definitely, or perhaps an awesome mace or something. Sadly, Last Resort seems perfect for Reave, but the mechanics prevent it from being useful currently.


GGG you have the ability to make this skill amazing while still being very balanced in comparison to other skills and support combos. I trust the right decision will be made.

My feedback on reave so far.

lvl 79 CI IR ranger using dagger and aegis aurora and specced for crit (dont have much crit multiplier yet)

Previously I was running double strike/ melee splash/ increased aoe/ power charge on crit/ melee damage on full life.

Now im using reave/ multistrike/ increased AOE/ Power charge on crit/ melee damage on full life.

So far I really like the skill, its only level 8 but the damage is almost the same as before (at least on tooltip). It has a cool animation and opens lots of possibilities as you dont require melee splash. I can also use multistrike without worrying about have 2 'less' multipliers. I wonder if the damage might be lower against rares due to high attack speed and lower phys damage per hit, thus mitigating less armour but havent fully tested yet and may change some gems.

Critisism:

1). Sometimes the skill hits but does no damage to monsters directly infront of me. Hit animation plays but they take zero damage.

2). I really wish the stacks were not reset on using another skill. Previously I was using flicker strike to jump between mobs and clear much faster. It seems logical to use a skill usch as flicker/whirling blades to quickyly move between mobs to keep reave stacks up. I dont understand the necessity of losing stacks on alternate skill use other than to limit the clear speed of reave, which is unnecessary as it still clears alot slower than any ranged skill would.

I think it isn't terribad, but honestly:

Why make a Melee Skill that is just "okay"? You got shit like Spark, Discharge, Freeze Pulse, EK which aren't "okay", they are really fucking strong, the first two are actually really op.
So instead of bringing out a Melee Skill that can at least compete with them you introduce Reave, which is kinda viable but by no means good. So far from being as strong as Caster Choices that it hurts.

Yeah, really disappointed.