Benefits of Cleave skill or the lack thereof

[Antison]

With all the increased talk of skilling-up Cleave (I have no interest in doing so at this time), it got me thinking about the benefits of the skill or the lack thereof.

The following arguments/discussions/opinions (whatever you choose to call it) are based on the assumption that your hero is wearing the Jewel of Fallhaven(JoF) (which subtracts 1 from the weapon’s AP) and you are fighting 2 monsters at once.
Case 1:
Hero’s AP = 10
Hero’s weapon’s AP = 4 (Example: RoL, remember that he is wearing JoF)

Monster1 is killed in 2 attacks, thus leaving hero with 2 AP as each attack cost the hero 4 AP. Now because the hero doesn’t have enough AP left to attack again, his round is
over. Now let’s say the user has skilled-up Cleave once. After killing Monster1, Cleave will add 3 AP to give the hero 5AP, thus enough to attack Monster2 one time.
Thus, there is a noticeable and valuable benefit to Cleave in this case.

Case 2:
Hero’s AP = 12 (Skilled-up Combat Speed twice)
Hero’s weapon’s AP = 4 (Example: RoL remember that he is wearing JoF)

Monster1 is killed in 2 attacks, thus leaving hero with 4 AP as each attack cost the hero 4 AP and he had 12 to start with. This extra 4 AP gives the hero the ability to attack
Monster2 once before his round is over. Now let’s say the user has skilled-up Cleave once. After killing Monster1, Cleave will add 3 AP to give the hero 3AP, which is NOT enough to
attack Monster2 a second time before it can attack, so his round it over. You can see that the extra 3 AP given by Cleave skill is WASTED.

Case 3:
Hero’s AP = 10
Hero’s weapon’s AP = 3 (Example: Flagstone’s pride, remember that he is wearing JoF)

Monster1 is killed in 2 attacks, thus leaving hero with 1 AP as each attack cost the hero 3 AP. Now because the hero doesn’t have enough AP left to attack again, his round is
over. Now let’s say the user has skilled-up Cleave once. After killing Monster1, Cleave will add 3 AP to give the hero 4AP, thus enough to attack Monster2 one time.
There is a noticeable and valuable benefit to Cleave in this case.

Case 4:
Hero’s AP = 12 (Skilled-up Combat Speed twice)
Hero’s weapon’s AP = 3 (Example: Flagstone’s pride, remember that he is wearing JoF)

Monster1 is killed in 2 attacks, thus leaving hero with 6 AP as each attack cost the hero 3 AP as he had 12 to start with. The hero stills has enough AP left to attack Monster2 twice.
Now let’s say the user has skilled-up Cleave once. After killing Monster1, Cleave will add 3 AP to give the hero 9 AP, which IS enough to attack Monster2 3 times before it can attack.
There is a noticeable and valuable benefit to Cleave in this case.

[Mino]

Nice analysis, and a good read, but there's 2 scenarios that you left out.

Case 5:
Hero’s AP = 10
Hero’s weapon’s AP = 2 (Either Quickstrike dagger or unarmed, remember that he is wearing JoF)

Monster1 is killed in 3 attacks, thus leaving hero with 4 AP as each attack cost the hero 2 AP. The hero has enough AP left to attack twice. Now let’s say the user has skilled-up Cleave once. After killing Monster1, Cleave will add 3 AP to give the hero 7 AP, thus enough to attack Monster2 3 times.
There is a noticeable and valuable benefit to Cleave in this case.

Case 6:
Hero’s AP = 12 (Skilled-up Combat Speed twice)
Hero’s weapon’s AP = 2 (Either Quickstrike dagger or unarmed, remember that he is wearing JoF)

Monster1 is killed in 3 attacks, thus leaving hero with 6 AP as each attack cost the hero 2 AP as he had 12 to start with. The hero stills has enough AP left to attack Monster2 three times.
Now let’s say the user has skilled-up Cleave once. After killing Monster1, Cleave will add 3 AP to give the hero 9 AP, which IS enough to attack Monster2 4 times before it can attack.
There is a noticeable and valuable benefit to Cleave in this case.

Also, if using a weapon that costs 2AP (or going unarmed), the benefit of Cleave level 1 increases if you attack a mob of 3, because you'll get 3 AP from killing Monster 1 & 2 for a total of 6 AP added (for 3 more attacks), instead of an odd number of 3 AP from attacking a mob of 2.

But I agree that the benefit is more for weapons with an AP cost of 3 or less, assuming you've used the Combat Speed skills.

For case 2, you can still see a benefit from Cleave, if you take a speed potion to bring your initial AP up to 14, so then you'd still get an extra attack out of Cleave. Or, in the case of the ElyR, you'd already have 14 AP because it adds 2 as one of its stats.

Level 2 of Cleave seems to more than just double the benefit from level 1.

[Sarumar]

And the fun part

Hero hitting 4 times on round with critical weapon. It feels so goood... when you wipeout 5 mobs in single turn in Ighan cave

[nyktos]

@tek - case 2

i was using speed potions to make use of cleave 1 & the RoL
(with the added AP you will have enough to attack again)

so with cleave 2 you get an extra attack
and drinking a speed potion will give you two extra attacks
(with a RoL, JoF & CS 2)

thats five hits with the RoL & i dunno - it's just fun!


cleave 2 is less than two levels away!
looking foreward to it too...


edit:

Well said Nyktos...how is that cleave 2 working out? Two levels away from it myself.

cleave 2 is astounding & very worth it
but let me say this - i would avoid getting it too early in your build...
too many other crucial skills needed before i would spend 12 levels worth of XP
but at high levels, not much else can make you stronger

[Treadmore]

^ I'm going for cleave 2 at level 44 (level 40 now)

[phydeaux]

Lol, cleave 4 is crazy... Specially since by the time one can get it, stats are so high you kill everything in one round, so nothing can even get a turn attacking you unless extremely lucky, or you get stepped on...

[Antison]

Lol, cleave 4 is crazy... Specially since by the time one can get it, stats are so high you kill everything in one round, so nothing can even get a turn attacking you unless extremely lucky, or you get stepped on...

There is no challenge in that, hence no fun.

[phydeaux]

Lol, cleave 4 is crazy... Specially since by the time one can get it, stats are so high you kill everything in one round, so nothing can even get a turn attacking you unless extremely lucky, or you get stepped on...

There is no challenge in that, hence no fun.

I am aware of that, tek, but there is no cap on cleave... I was testing something else on that particular game, don't remember what it was at this point, but if someone wanted to, they *could* level cleave to 5 or more...which would be utterly pointless as cleave will only restore up to your max ap... As a matter of fact, I think that was what I was testing... But, leveling one's character past a certain point also leaves no challenge, since one could one hit more or less any mob encountered, even unarmed... At some point in leveling, there is no point other than status on the highscores list. Imho

[Sarumar]

Lol, cleave 4 is crazy... Specially since by the time one can get it, stats are so high you kill everything in one round, so nothing can even get a turn attacking you unless extremely lucky, or you get stepped on...

There is no challenge in that, hence no fun.

I am aware of that, tek, but there is no cap on cleave... I was testing something else on that particular game, don't remember what it was at this point, but if someone wanted to, they *could* level cleave to 5 or more...which would be utterly pointless as cleave will only restore up to your max ap... As a matter of fact, I think that was what I was testing... But, leveling one's character past a certain point also leaves no challenge, since one could one hit more or less any mob encountered, even unarmed... At some point in leveling, there is no point other than status on the highscores list. Imho

+1 for attitude - the status on higscore

[Antison]

Lol, cleave 4 is crazy... Specially since by the time one can get it, stats are so high you kill everything in one round, so nothing can even get a turn attacking you unless extremely lucky, or you get stepped on...

There is no challenge in that, hence no fun.

I am aware of that, tek, but there is no cap on cleave... I was testing something else on that particular game, don't remember what it was at this point, but if someone wanted to, they *could* level cleave to 5 or more...which would be utterly pointless as cleave will only restore up to your max ap... As a matter of fact, I think that was what I was testing... But, leveling one's character past a certain point also leaves no challenge, since one could one hit more or less any mob encountered, even unarmed... At some point in leveling, there is no point other than status on the highscores list. Imho

I agree with all of your points, but I wanted to mention that even at my high level, I am not one hit killing anybody in the Iqhan cave. Defense is and has been my focus on my character build. I am blocking everybody in the Iqhan cave at 88% to 92% of the time.