So lets talk about cleave and one hand weapons.

Hello,

As we all remember the good old days before the act 3x patch, cleave was deemed to be the best racing skill in the game by a majority (although I'd argue leap slam has always been better). After the nerfs its deemed to be useless even at end game. The Act 3x introduced spectral throw, a skill which in my opinion and many others, 300 times better than the old cleave.

I would love it if you reverted the cleave changes and possibly the dual wield penalty was removed and here are the reasons why:

-- Spectral throw will still be better for every class until 2 handers get nerfed
-- Leap slammers will be better than cleave in every situation except from levels 1 to 10 (because you can't leapslam lololol).
-- The new IPD recipe is actually still amazing with cleave, but it requires you to craft 2 weapons. This makes it so a 2 hand user has another clear advantage over a one hand user as they only need to craft one for their upgrades.
-- Attack speed vs physical damage ratio on 2 handers vs 1 handers greatly favors 2 handers as well.

Cleave in my opinion was never overpowered, people were really less knowledgeable about racing, spectral throw wasn't introduced yet, and 2 handers were buffed for no reason once cleave was nerfed.

I'd love it if GGG could relook 1 handed weapons, cleave, and try to balance 2 handers (Its a bit sad that shadows, rangers are going 2 hand specs in racing).

Dear Path of Exile player,

Thank you for your interest in the game.
We greatly appreciate your suggestions and feedback, and will look into this matter in 8 to 12 months.

Sincerely

GGG

Seriously though, the racing scene BADLY needs more competitive skills. I am feeling so suffocated by the idiotic spectral throw, and growing tired of leap slamming.

That's why lately I've really grown to appreciate Descents, where you are forced into class relevant skills (I know you won't agree here Riths :p), but of course the response was to completely remove the classic descent.


imo if you are too lazy to balance the skills for early game/racing GGG, introduce more modes where you are given skills via chests or something similar. Even disable non-support skill gem drops.
Hell, at this point I'd even love to see muling disabled in regular races.

I was one of the guys who thought Cleave was OP in racing and wanted a nerf.

Even though Leap Slam was arguably the best skill, shadows, templars and rangers (after the ptree changes) were able to keep up with Leap Slam using Cleave.

The thing with Leap Slam is its very slow. It does combine moving + attacking which kinda makes up for it but if you don't 1shot whites you would fall behind vs cleave.

I think cleave had less variance, you attack quite fast and, for the most part, you could do well with ele rolls or phys rolls and you had a wide range of weapons to use because no1 picked weapon-specific nodes for cleave. Also you could compensate for your weapons being supbar if you had good rings/gloves/ammy.

Leap slam wasnt as consistent.

And im talking about dual wield cleave, no1 really used cleave with 2h.

I think part of the problem was what came after.
Huge buffs to physical damage on the tree, rustic sash from 5% to 24%, 2h affixes buffs and now the IPD recipe.

Leap Slam is very consistent now and with average RNG you can 1shot whites the entire race.

That being said, for me personally (and i guess this is kind of a stupid argument) the problem with cleave was: classes that aren't "supposed" to use cleave would use it because it was the best. I really wanted RoA to be the best option for Rangers, for example.
Cleave was almost the best option for witches.

It was a essentially a new "poison arrow + fire trap" where it doesnt matter what class you are, gem rewards you get and what ptree you have, you could still make it work somehow. Also, being lvl1 makes it easy to mule which aggravates the problem.

I think if Leap Slam were a lvl1 skill (easily mulable) you would see the same negative vibe from the community because "everyone" would mule it. But being restricted to Maras and Duelists (classes that kinda make sense to be leap slamming) we don't see it as being a big problem.

This sort of discrepancy between whats the best gem for a class and what that class actually gets is more evident in races like Descent where shadows getting cleave or witches getting ice nova changed the race entirely.

Spectral Throw is the new Cleave except its way more overpowered than Cleave ever was.
I think if enough ppl would try it, the top witch sig record (both last season and this one) would be done with ST and witch has the worst possible ptree for ST.
Even shadows that aren't usually associated with 2h weapons use ST as you know way better than i do.

tldr: I think Cleave was deemed OP because it warped racing. It was too consistent compared to other skills and it forced classes that aren't associated with dual weilding to use it because their "natural" options aren't as strong.
The versatility and scaling of attacking with both weapons at the same time meant you could easily achieve high dps values compared to alternative skills.

Thats exactly what we are seeing with ST except way worse.
Funny enough, ST is actually decent single target aswell and arguably the best single target vs bosses when comparing dps vs safety (dat sweetspotting).
Also, scions have the option of going leap slam or ST and they choose ST.

But the real problem is 2handed melee weapons. A Long Bow with 75% IPD is still less DPS than a white Jade Chopper. ST would be trash if it didnt work with 2hers.

I wouldn't mind if they revert the Cleave nerf. Templars would use it for sure but i'm not even sure if shadows would use cleave even if they revert. You tell me.

But lets be realistic, ST (or 2hs) will eventually be nerfed. It will take 2/3/4/whatever seasons but it will eventually come. They probably didnt want to nerf it too soon because it was part of the release hype and dom/nemesis.
I expect it to be nerfed when the next 4month leagues start. I think the Cleave nerf was more about everyone using it to lvl to Merc as opposed to 1h/2h/3h races. ST is even worse.
The difference between using ST and 2h cleave or ground slam or sweep is somewhere between hilarious and sad.

So as it is now, i don't mind they unnerfing Cleave. I don't think it will change much (except for templars) and maybe shadows and rangers have the option to go cleave and still compete with ST.
But the nerfs that imho will eventually come to ST/2hers means they would probably have to adjust cleave again once the nerfs come.

Or maybe just leave ST as is, unnerf Cleave, unnerf Ground Slam, unnerf PA+FT and buff the base dmg of low lvl bows and the early damage of spells...that might actualy make racing interesting for a change.

Give me back Ele Cleave or RIOT

7/7 classes using 2h melee weapon attack builds in every race 90 minutes or longer~

Working as intended?

"

boof wrote:

Dear Path of Exile player,

Thank you for your interest in the game.
We greatly appreciate your suggestions and feedback, and will look into this matter in 8 to 12 months.

Sincerely

GGG

"

Patch notes 1.2.0
Spectral dow does 33% less damage at early levels 10% less damage at level 15
Spectral Throw is now avaiblable at level 10.

We introduced a new Scion Starter skill named Spectral Weapon. It generates a spectral copy of your weapons and allows you instantly to switch the position like smoke mine. It has a big AoE radius

The skill is overpowered now so we added Lasersword spectral weapon MTX, Crystal spectral weapon MTX and chosen color spectral weapon.

This skill will be nerfed in 8-12 months after we sold enough MTX.

"

7/7 classes using 2h melee weapon attack builds in every race 90 minutes or longer~

Working as intended?

Totally intended remember when GGG told us that the Scion should be the most played character because inner paths are blocked and you are forced to take useless nodes for keystones?

Oh wait GGG said that every character should play everything. But then they changed requirements on pure gems and introduced the scion.....

The issue isn't two-handed weapons, just dual wielding skills. Spectral Throw is way better with a one-handed weapon and shield, because of its interaction with added elemental damage. I had a dual wield dagger st build that got significantly more dps than when I was using a staff.

Cleave was way over-nerfed and needs fixing.

just delete this thread ggg doesnt care. if they change the st it will be for endgame.

"

anubite wrote:

The issue isn't two-handed weapons, just dual wielding skills. Spectral Throw is way better with a one-handed weapon and shield, because of its interaction with added elemental damage. I had a dual wield dagger st build that got significantly more dps than when I was using a staff.

Cleave was way over-nerfed and needs fixing.

We're not talking about end game here we are talking about racing. 2 hand spectral throw is far superior than 1 hand because the physical damage is insane on 2 handers.


I made a shadow and speced into all the one handed damage nodes equipped a antique raiper (level 26 sword.) my spectral dps was about the same as an etched greatsword, and ornate sword with no damage nodes in it at all. That to me is just plain retarded.