Numbers for the Cleave / Eviscerate Debate

Not that I really think it's a debate - the gratuitious spike damage from Eviscerate is the scariest thing an Axe has to offer. But the mathematics behind the over time debate have a lot of useful information that I'd like to go over.

First off, an adrenal attack *does* charge itself. So while every adrenal skill is going to require an extra hit up front, over time a given skill can be used as often as its adrenal cost. Cleave gets used every four hits, Eviscerate every 7. Since that first hit is universal it doesn't skew the balance for anyone and can safely be ignored.

Since we're working over time we're interested in average damage. Since every Axe Warrior worth talking about has a 16 in Axe Mastery we'll use that as our basis, with a 10 in Strength as that's a pretty typical value for that attribute. The critical hit percentage of an axe at level 16 is roughly 24% (critical percentage is roughly 1.5% * attribute level for level 20 on level 20, with a minimum chance of around 1-2%. The percentage when there's a level disparity is a nightmare that I'm still working on.)

Thus we get these numbers:

Average Axe Hit (No Skill): 35.55 damage
Average Axe Skill (No Bonus Damage): 39.44 damage
Average Cleave: 65.44 damage
Average Eviscerate: 81.44 damage
Average Penetrating Blow: 64.76 damage
Average Executioner's Strike: 81.44 damage

It's trivial to get the average per hit damage if you only have one of these skills, being spammed as often as it comes up. It's just the damage from the skill, plus the damage from all of the strikes up to that skill (adrenaline cost -1 times), divided by the adrenal cost of the skill:

Average Cleave Series: 43.02 Damage
Average Eviscerate Series: 42.10 Damage
Average Penetrating Blow Series: 41.39 Damage
Average Executioner's Strike Series: 41.28 Damage

Or in terms of the bonus:

Average Cleave Bonus: 7.47 Damage
Average Eviscerate Bonus: 6.56 Damage
Average Penetrating Bonus: 5.84 Damage
Average Executioner's Bonus: 5.74 Damage

So if you're just using a single attack elite, Cleave will eke out just over an extra DPS over Eviscerate under Frenzy.


With me so far? Good. Now it's time to start mixing in multiple attack skills. Again, we're using attaks as often as they come up and averaging over the number of attacks.

For two adrenal skills with adrenaline costs A1 and A2, the maximally efficient over time attack chain involves ((A1-1)*(A2-1)) normal attacks, (A2-1) uses of adrenal skill #1, and (A1-1) uses of adrenal skill #2. Dividing by the number of total attacks gives the following average damages:

Average Cleave + Penetrating Series: 46.45 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's Series: 46.74 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Penetrating Series: 46.10 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Executioner's Series: 46.39 Damage
Average Penetrating + Executioner's Series: 45.50 Damage

Or in terms of the bonus:

Average Cleave + Penetrating Bonus: 10.91 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's Bonus: 11.19 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Penetrating Bonus: 10.56 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Executioner's Bonus: 10.85 Damage
Average Penetrating + Executioner's Bonus: 9.95 Damage

The gap between Cleave and Eviscerate narrows when you add a second skill to the mix, and Executioner's, while slightly weaker than Penetrating over time by itself, is suddenly a noticible upgrade. What changed? The interactions between the adrenal skills.

When you're using more than one adrenal skill, each of your adrenal skills is used less frequently than it would be if it was the only adrenal skill on your bar. This is simply because each use of an adrenal skill costs you a strike of adrenaline from each of your skills, and even though you'll get that strike back if the attack hits you're just breaking even.

The lower an adrenal skill's cost, the more frequently it is used, and the bigger a tax it puts upon the rest of your adrenal skills. On the other hand, attacks with a high adrenal cost are used less frequently, and end up having a much smaller impact on your other attack skills. On the other hand, the higher cost adrenal skills are hit harder by the more spammable attack skills - the needier attacks get spammed more often, and the high cost skills take longer and longer to charge.

Some attack percentages to illustrate:

Cleave % when used alone: 25%
Cleave % with Penetrating Attack: 21.05%
Cleave % with Executioner's Strike: 22.58%
Eviscerate % when used alone: 14.3%
Eviscerate % with Penetrating Attack: 11.76%
Eviscerate % with Executioner's Strike: 12.73%

Cleave Usage Reduction from Penetrating Attack: 15.79%
Cleave Usage Reduction from Executioner's Strike: 9.68%
Eviscerate Usage Reduction from Penetrating Attack: 17.65%
Eviscerate Usage Reduction from Executioner's Strike: 10.91%

So Eviscerate, with its higher adrenal cost, gets cut into more by adding another skill than Cleave, while Penetrating Attack cuts into the effectiveness of your elite more than Executioner's Strike. Cleave, of course, similarly cuts into the effectiveness of your other attack skills.

From this the initial numbers start to make more sense - While Cleave and Penetrating Attack were the best two by themselves, their low adrenal costs conflict with each other and create for a much weaker combination overall. Eviscerate and Executioner's Strike, on the other hand, interfere with each other minimally so their combination is that much stronger.

What's telling in the debate is how close all of these numbers are. The elite spammable Cleave, in combination with the low impact Executioner's, is only 1.24 damage per hit stronger than just using the two non-elite attacks.


Ok, now it's time for the show: mixing up three damage skills for maximum damage output.

Same assumptions as before - you use your adrenal skills as often as possible. The math is a little messy. For adrenal skills 1, 2, and 3 with adrenaline costs A1, A2, and A3, respectively, you end up with an attack series containing ((A1-1)*(A2-1)*(A3-1)) normal attacks, ((A2-1)*(A3-1)) uses of skill 1, ((A1-1)*(A3-1)) uses of skill 2, and ((A1-1)*(A2-1)) uses of skill 3. Divide by the total attacks for the average damage. That gives us the following combinations:

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Executioner's Series: 49.35 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Penetrating + Executioner's Series: 49.34 Damage

and bonuses:

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Executioner's Bonus: 13.80 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Penetrating + Executioner's Bonus: 13.79 Damage

Virtually identical. What happened here? Cleave playing poorly with other damage skills really started to take a toll, it's spammability cutting into your other attack skills enough to wipe out any benefit you'd get over using the slower but more synergistic Eviscerate. While Cleave is still the best damage over time tool in a max damage configuration, it's grip on that distinction is tenuous at best.

There's one more set of numbers I'd like to go over since I think it demonstrates the all of the issues in one nice little package - an elite attack plus a normal attack, plus Disrupting Chop:

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Disrupting Series: 45.67 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's + Disrupting Series: 45.87 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Penetrating + Disrupting Series: 45.28 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Executioner's + Disrupting Series: 45.47 Damage

The bonus damage over normal attacks yet again:

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Disrupting Series: 10.12 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's + Disrupting Series: 10.32 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Penetrating + Disrupting Series: 9.73 Damage
Average Eviscerate + Executioner's + Disrupting Series: 9.93 Damage

And one last statistic - the percentage of your attacks that interrupt if you use all three attacks as often as they come up:

Disrupting Chop Percentage with Cleave + Penetrating: 11.21%
Disrupting Chop Percentage with Cleave + Executioner's: 11.93%
Disrupting Chop Percentage with Eviscerate + Penetrating: 12.37%
Disrupting Chop Percentage with Eviscerate + Executioner's: 13.25%

There's a lot to look at here so we'll go over it piece by piece. First off, all of the conbinations with Penetrating Blow are strictly worse than the combinations with Executioner's Strike - they do less damage and disrupt less often. The taxing effects of multiple adrenal attacks does that combination in, so we can pretty much ignore those.

If we look at the gap between the Cleave and Eviscerate combos, it actually widens by adding Disrupting Chop into the series. Why is that? Well look at what we know already. Lower cost adrenal skills weaken higher cost skills more than lower cost skills are weakened by higher cost ones. Cleave, being more spammable than Eviscerate, has it's damage boost toned down noticibly less than Eviscerate's. The difference is in the Disrupting Chop, as seen in the percentages. While Disrupting Chop weakens Cleave far less than Eviscerate, Cleave weakens Disrupting Chop far more than Eviscerate does. So in the whole, the effect is that the lower cost adrenal skills tend to express themselves more - in this case, Disrupting Chop is the dominant feature of a Chop + Eviscerate series, while Cleave is the key feature of its own series. Thus, Eviscerate creates a more disruptive chain with Disrupting Chop, while Cleave tends to keep its damage up better.


There are the numbers that are relevant to this debate. While they might not solve anything, they should at least serve as a guide, with the general principles outlined here giving some perspective on how these skills work, on their own and with each other.

Take care.

Peace,
-CxE


***Addendum - Adrenaline Boosts***

The use of adrenaline boosting skills can create some interesting chains, since hitting with an adrenal attack will end up charging your other adrenal skills in the process. This section will look at triple-attack chains while under two excellent adrenaline buffs, "For Great Justice!" and Dark Fury.

Under "For Great Justice!" you'll gain 150% of normal adrenaline from each hit (the skill description is bugged). Because of the fractional adrenaline costs and gains, it takes several hits for you to establish a repeating rhythm with multiple attack skills. There are several repeating sequences you can use, but the ones with the highest average damage output for each skill are as follows:

Cleave:

Hit, Cleave, Hit, Penetrating, Cleave, Hit, Executioner's, Cleave, Hit, Penetrating, Cleave, Hit, Hit, Cleave, Executioner's, Penetrating.

Average Damage of the Cleave Sequence: 56.10 Damage Per Hit

Eviscerate:

Hit, Hit, Penetrating, Hit, Eviscerate, Hit, Executioner's, Penetrating, Hit, Hit, Eviscerate, Penetrating, Hit, Hit, Executioner's, Penetrating, Hit, Eviscerate, Hit, Penetrating, Hit, Hit, Executioner's, Eviscerate, Penetrating, Hit, Hit, Hit, Eviscerate, Penetrating, Executioner's.

Average Damage for the Eviscerate Sequence: 55.47 Damage Per Hit

So Cleave comes out slightly ahead under sustained use of "For Great Justice!".


Then there's Dark Fury, which gives you an extra strike of adrenaline with each hit you land. Like with "For Great Justice!", there are several repeating options that you can use but these are the best ones:

For Cleave:

Hit, Cleave, Penetrating, Hit, Cleave, Hit, Executioner's, Cleave, Penetrating, Hit, Cleave, Hit, Cleave, Executioner's, Penetrating, Hit, Cleave, Hit, Cleave, Penetrating, Executioner's.

Average Damage of the Cleave Sequence: 57.63 Damage Per Hit

For Eviscerate:

Hit, Hit, Eviscerate, Penetrating, Hit, Executioner's, Hit, Eviscerate, Penetrating, Hit, Hit, Executioner's, Eviscerate, Penetrating, Hit, Hit, Eviscerate, Penetrating, Executioner's.

Average Damage of the Eviscerate Sequence: 58.61 Damage Per Hit

Which elite is better under an adrenaline boost? On the whole an adrenaline boost doesn't affect either elite more. Which elite comes out ahead in numical analysis depends entirely upon which sustainable sequence you choose to use, and each one fluctuates by 1-2 damage per hit. In other words, one performing better than the other under an adrenal boost is a product of noise, not one being fundamentally superior under an adrenal boost, so just use the results without an adrenal boost when making your comparisons.

VERY nice info.

Good reference for making builds using bonuses from secondary since their durations would effect the series for each combo deifferently.

I'd say sticky this and make one for the popular sword and hammer attacks each.

If you need help crunching numbers I'll do some if you do decide to do that.

Why did they nerf Cleave and adrenaline gain? Wasn't it enough to nerf the conjures and Warrrior's Cunning (among some other things)? I just never remembered warriors being complained about alot in beta, except the W/Mo....... which was a class of it's own.

Ensign, have my babiez plx nice info

... I'm sry but i didn't understand much of it after reading it 4 times I got up to Understood it till their. Got a bit into what you meant about the skills weakening

So if you're just using a single attack elite, Cleave will eke out just over an extra DPS over Eviscerate under Frenzy
Then it went down hill with the percentages. lol

So, if you're an axe warrior, what're the best skills for you to use in a spike, in order? Eviscerate, Executioner's, Penetrating? Where should the Deep Wound come into play?

Muwahaha, I was right, cleave does better in the 3 adren dmg skill setup by .01 dps! Take that eviserate lovers

Basically, the math says that Eviscerate is a much better choice.

eviscerate should be the first skill used in the spike chain, doing even "more" damage with its deepwound by decreasing max hitpoints by 20%

At the end of the chain adding axe rake would be wise, after that they'll want to run.

Ensign: was the 20% max health from deep wound figured into average damage calculations with eviscerate? If not, then from the math (if it's correct) eviscerate would be the better elite to take, if only for the deep wound. On a teambuild, I think I'd only have one person bring evisc while any other axe warriors would bring cleave for the extra (if slight) DPS over time.

Nice article except this unsupported line. I recall reading about damage amplification with attributes - you reach 100% at a certain number, at 9% increments, and then the increment drops to +4.5% damage per point and isn't really worth it.

Insignificant increase for skills compared to the sacrifice.

Critical Hits are why you always want 16 in the primary weapon attribute.

I'm of the belief that the Deep Wound needs to come the attack before the fatal blow. This is because the health loss from a Deep Wound does not trigger until the next hit on the target (bug?), so putting it on the target right before the killing blow gives you the strongest 'spike', as well as giving your opponent the least time to remove the Deep Wound. So to spike the hardest, I'd want to use Penetrating, Eviscerate, then Executioner's Strike, in that order. Eviscerate -> Executioner's is the strongest spike available, and I can see arguements for putting the Penetrating on either end of it (whittle them down a bit before the big spike, or get a stronger hit to finish 'em off if the spike doesn't do it)


It's actually 0.009881381 damage per *hit* better. Total WTFPWNage if I ever saw it.


No, that's just raw damage. The 20% health drop from Eviscerate, or the constant re-application of Deep Wound on the target over time, was left out of these numbers entirely.


Yep.


That's the popular viewpoint. Personally, I don't understand why someone would give up the ability to absolutely mangle someone with upwards of 200 damage in less than a second, as well as weaken all of their other adrenal skills, for .5 DPS or whatever trivial over time boost they might get from Cleave. Can anyone explain why anyone would play Cleave over Eviscerate, well, ever?

Peace,
-CxE

Spreading the points around on a warrior doesnt make alot of sense, due to the nature of most other skill lines not having a lasting effect in amplifying the damage. There are a select few that do, but are better used on a different character, which allows the warrior to focus on moving and applying melee attacks.

Raw weapon damage is boosted by 9.05% per attribute level until attribute 12. After that, it's boosted by 3.53% per attribute level, for a net base damage bonus of 14.87% You also get another four attribute levels worth of damage out of your attack skills, and your critical hit chance rises from 18% at level 12 to 24% at level 16. Not counting the skills, you're looking at an aggregate 18.86% damage boost from going to level 16 over level 12.

An average Eviscerate / Executioner's Spike at 12/12 Weapon/Strength will deal 127.35 damage. That same spike at 16/10 deals 153.09 damage. That's a 20.2% damage increase. For the sake of comparison, the difference between a level 16 Chain Lightning and a level 12 Chain Lightning is 29.3% damage.


What are you sacrificing? Tactics? Not a whole lot of skills you want there. Strength? The passive benefit is trivial and you get a bigger boost from your weapon skills, too. Health for the Superior rune? Please. Your secondary attribute? Just what are you doing that requires a secondary attribute level over 10? No, running a PvP Warrior without 16 in his weapon attribute is akin to running an Air Spiker without 16 in Air Magic - the only 'sacrifice' is when you're not dealing max damage because you wanted to be cute. Real Warriors pump that weapon to 16 and never look back.

Peace,
-CxE

Correct me if I'm wrong but deep wound doesn't stack. If there are multiple axe warriors (hypothetical) focus hitting a single target in an 8v8 situation, wouldn't the extra deep wound effects be wasted? You yourself recommend deep wound be put on the next-to-last hit on the target, so I would think that the extra bit of DPS from Cleave chains would make it a quicker finish.

On the other hand, would tasking the warriors to each go after a separate target and destroy them with evisc be more effective?

I've been able to solo most monks with a buffed cleave warrior, but it looks like I'm gonna have to switch to eviscerate now

Yep. The second Deep Wound doesn't do anything. That really doesn't bother me but I guess it bothers some people.


That's where the misunderstanding is, then. The extra DPS that everyone seems to care so much about only matters over the very long term. Over the course of 30 seconds, with Frenzy running nonstop against a stationary target, Cleave + Executioner's is going to deal around 12 more damage than Eviscerate + Executioner's. When you're looking at dealing well over 1500 damage in that timeframe, I don't think that +12 damage is particularly relevant.

Now, what I do find interesting is the amount of damage that a Warrior can deal in less than a second. That would be a Cleave/Eviscerate followed by an Executioner's Strike while under Frenzy. Eviscerate is going to deal 16 more damage in that one second spike than Cleave will.

If you want to be more abstract and actually look at the long term plan, instead of spiking people out, I still think that Eviscerate is better. Why? Because dropping a Deep Wound on your target four times over the course of 30 seconds is going to do a whole lot more than an extra 12 damage. More guys on the same target? More Deep Wounds to remove. We're talking about 12 damage on a target that's taking 1500+ damage per Warrior.

Personally? I'd use Eviscerate over Cleave even if it didn't give Deep Wound. Sustained damage over time isn't nearly as scary as gross damage spikes, and Eviscerate simply does spike better. If I had 3 Axe Warriors on the same target, I'd prefer that they all had Eviscerate, and used it all at the same time, because that's 32 more damage to pile onto a spike in under a second.


If I wanted to do that I'd use hammers. Hammers are for getting solo kills because they bring their own disruption. Axes are for WTFPWNing people with gross damage spikes in focus fire situations. Cleave is for...eh, I really don't know what Cleave is for. That's why I don't use it.

Peace,
-CxE

The thing is that extra DPS overall is very small compared to what you lose in spikes.The deep wounds won't stack but combined with another axe warrior spiking, eviscerate has a much greater chance of taking down the target.

In a perfect world yes, the deep wounds would be wasted. In the real world deep wounds get removed so having 3 guys constantly applying them is probably the better way to go. If those deep wounds are getting removed it's also costing their monks 5 energy a shot

Very informative.

Just out of curiosity, what did Cleave do before it was nerfed?

anyone wanna calc in the deep wound against a warrior with 480 health?
i think this would put evicerate on top because that comes out to a....actually i dont know

how exactly do deep wounds work?

Hehe, poor Cleave* then.

Could you please do an analysis for swords too? ^_^

okay more specifically what happens when it wears off....does the health get remultiplied or what....for a little while i noticed that the health went the other way and the damage got multiplied again(twas quite devistating when i noticed i killed someone by using sever then gash....then switching targets....this was in pve tho...)

when deepo wound wears off, the target regains the 20% health.

It was a 2 Adrenaline attack that added 17 damage per use at level 16. That proved to be a scary amount of damage, so it was nerfed to 4A. That of course was weak, so the damage got buffed up to what it is now.

Also, Eviscerate recieved a slight buff just before retail, from 34 max to 42 max, I believe.

Peace,
-CxE

Good article, I've always sorta had an intuition that low cost spammable adrenaline skills weren't good due to the fact that it interferes with your other skills. Never really went indepth with it though. Cleave needs a buff! Even if cleave had a decent dps lead there'd still be the lack of saving a skill slot for deepwound factor holding it back. It's just all around not even remotely close to eviscerate. Spike factor is always important and that alone is basically enough to warrant evis over cleave even if you have 3+ warriors.

A good potential article to me would be whether or not it's beneficial enough to bother going with a swords warrior to combo with an eviscerate spiker or just to stick with 2 axers. Only problem is I don't know what elite to use to go with galrath/FT. I guess hundred blades would suffice, just swap out the 3 skill combo from axes with those 3 sword skills and see how the damage matches up.

Hopefully Anet starts reworking skills... I think warriors are on the road to becoming very one-dimensional soon...

And the high quality information of Ensign/iQ just keeps coming...
I can only imagine the tedious testing it took to come up with these numbers.
I take my hat of for you.
thank you for this information.

~ Makk.

way too much time on your hands

Good thread, but I'd like to see a couple more situations.

A cleave string with 4 attacks (maintaining the deep wound), and the eviscerate string with 3. Also like to see a 5 adrenal string (adding disrupting), and then the eviscerate string with 4.

I think when you're dealing with cleave, it has to be an additional attack you stick in the chain with adrenal buffers. You keep the attacks you have, and instead of eviscerate replacing dismember, you have cleave just being added in. That's how I personally use cleave builds.

Whoa very nice data here Ensign.. as to waht cleave is for, heres a little theroy - i currently dont have Evis, but i have grabbed me self cleave, and use it as my only true "attack" skill in the skill bar - i use a Zealots fire + Fear Me/Watch Yourself/Cyclone axe for the rest of damage.. nwo because of this, Cleave is much better - i can reguraly spam it, with good effect... however thats PvE, so who knows what Cleave is for in PvP.. In any case, nice post - Kudos to you for the number crunching!

Very interesting data.

There is one assumption that, IMO, needs to be written in big bold italic whatever number, it's 10 in Strenght.

It would be interesting to see what result we would get with say 0 in Strenght, or with 12/13, and if that changes really anything.

I play mostly PvE, a warrior who take either Cleave or Evis... depending on ... well, overall feeling and what I got to do in the map. I am fully aware that PvE may not be the most interesting part of the game for you guys...

Still, I feel entitled to give my opinion.

If I go down to 0 in strenght, I go for Eviscerate and Executioner.

If I got 10 or more, and my job is to hold/kill mobs then my skill bar will be cyclone axe, penetrating, cleave... If I fight groups one by one, chance are cyclone axe will fills up penetrating and cleave right away, so I'd go; cyclone, penetrating, cleave, cyclone, penetrating, cleave, etc... With Strenght bonus applying to all attacks. With a normal size group (3/4 baddies), I can't get Evis or Executioner filled right away. In Ensign very interesting analysis, the missing part might be cyclone axe when it comes to adrenaline boost. At least for PvE. (for PvP... not sure you want to cyclone that much). With cyclone and in a very large mob environement, maybe eviscerate would be better, since the very large mob would provide the adrenaline.

If my job is to kill one specific target, who got some chances to be alone (like.... a priest in thirsty river to kill in 20 secs), I'd go for frenzy/ berserker stance, executioner, eviscerate, fill the adrenaline and spike
But, in PvE, it's not the most frequent situation.

Louis,

I would say the main reason people use Cleave over Eviscerate is simple that Cleave is easier to unlock!!!

I have never heard of anyone in a pvp guild using Cleave that also had Eviscerate unlocked, but because there are hours of difference in unlocking Eviscerate compared to Cleave, it still get use from time to time (less efter faction was implemented though).

That's great, but at the same time you gotta take into consideration that cleave, other than having raw DPS, doesn't consolidate competitve damage with the utility of a deepwound chain. If you want to have good dps with cleave and at the same time you want to drop an axe rake in, you have to use three skill slots rather than the two you'd have with eviscerate. Why axe rake? How does it influence DPS? Well, until the cripple is removed, you won't lose DPS to chasing, and it's a cripple that requires no outside help.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that numbers are great, but in actual play, there's MUCH more going on than meets the eye. People run, people use protection spells, have different armor levels in different situations, you can lose adrenaline in one of many ways, etc.

Evisc + Penetrating + Exec
49.33823586

Cleave + Penetrating + Dismember + Exec
48.47575536

Evisc + Penetrating + Exec + Disrupting
48.21319771

Cleave + Penetrating + Dismember + Exec + Disrupting
47.61232552


Well Cleave + Dismember is worse in every way than just running Eviscerate, lower damage, worse on your adrenal skills, more skill slots - it's just suboptimal. The only reason you would even think about using Cleave is because you don't want the Deep Wound, and don't want to damage spike, and don't want to use other adrenal skills. Ah, I really can't tapdance around it, Cleave sucks, don't use it. =/


You're using Cleave with Fear Me and Watch Yourself? Eviscerate is so much better than Cleave in that situation it isn't even funny. Your adrenaline is smoother, you'll deal more damage, you'll get free Deep Wounds on top of all of that, and you'll spike harder. I don't see how Cleave is better given what you've told me. In fact the only reason I'd even consider running Cleave in that build is exactly what you mentioned - you have yet to acquire Eviscerate.


It really doesn't. The Cleave sequences gain roughly 8-10 damage per minute over Eviscerate sequences if you pump Strength up into the 11-13 range - The Eviscerate sequences gain 8-10 damage per minute over Cleave sequences if you drop down into the 5-7 range. I'm not sure of the break points because I haven't tested all the rounding, but the net result is not particularly significant.

In fact the insignificance of the differences is perhaps the most striking thing about these results - as far as damage over time goes there isn't a meaningful difference between the various adrenal axe attacks over long timeframes, so just take the ones with the most perks.


Well, I'm not about to run all of those permutations again with Cyclone Axe being used every fourth attack without any attack speed boost.

I will put this out there, though - Cyclone Axe does not help Cleave charge faster at all. No matter how many enemies you're fighting, you're going to get to use Cleave once every four attacks, so Cyclone Axe doesn't help Cleave in the slightest. What it does do is help you use other skills while using Cleave - Cyclone Axe hitting 3 targets per use will let you use Cleave at its normal frequency, and Penetrating Blow at an increased frequency as well. On the other hand, Cyclone Axe does help Eviscerate immensely, allowing it to be used more frequently, and thus making the skill proportionally better. From some cursory numbers it would appear that Eviscerate outperforms Cleave under Cyclone Axe, in terms of sustainable damage, as long as the number of targets hit by Cyclone Axe is greater than or equal to two.


Well it doesn't appear that way, but keep trying. The Cleave fanatics need to find some straw to grasp at, because accepting that they're using an inferior skill certainly isn't an option.


Right, in PvE you're much more interested in sustainability that spiking because healing in PvE tends to be terrible and you just want to save resources. Which, of course, is what this analysis focused upon and the numbers are sitting out there for public consumption.


Peace,
-CxE

Hmmm, this might not be the time or place, but I wonder if swords, or low cost axe adren skills, have their place in builds that need more skill slots for other things?

Just to pull an example off the top of my head, would Cleave then be the skill to use if that was the only Adren skill you're carrying? As for what else you'd be carrying, I dunno... maybe a Mo/W packing multiple enchantments, or a E/W with armor spells+pbaoe spells or something.

As a side note, most people say that axes are superior in damage due to the skills that you can use for it. Does that mean swords are better if you are mostly using it for normal attacks, and are carrying a lot of other types of skills? For warrior secondaries, for example.

That is indeed surprising. Does that mean Strenght is not working as advertised? or as I understand it (ie, on attack skills only, meaning that with high strenght it's better to have lot of skill attacks over a few powerfull attacks) ?
Or maybe % penetration of armour is overrated... Without hard number to suport it, I'd have thought the difference would have been wider. Thanks for having looked at that, given the range of difference (10dmg/ min), it's probably not worth spending a lot of times searching for the break point.


Given cyclone axe recharge time (... well it would be too good otherwise), I *think* (need to check it) that there is time for 3 attacks in between 2 cyclones.

You are right that I can only Cleave once in between 2 cyclones and that makes Cleave happen only 1 per 4 attacks. Cyclone does not change cleave dps alone, but it does change cleave dps when combined with other adrenaline skills, mainly penetrating blow. If there were another non eliteaxe attack in 4/5 adrenaline cost ranges, it would be possible to get all attacks with attack skills and so get strenght bonus on all of them.

You mentionned the Cleave sequence beats the Eviscerate sequence with higher Strenght... Is that a hit/hit/hit/cleave sequence? or a mixed sequence with other adrenaline skills too? (which would make strenght probably more valuable then).

As far as cyclone axe helping Eviscerate immensly: no doubt, cyclone axe helps any adrenalin skills immensely!

What I am pointing at is: when using cyclone axe as a mean to gather adrenaline, I try to empty all adrenaline pools in between two cyclones... Because cyclone refill them up really well.

Given the average mob size, it's difficult to do that with 7/8 adrenaline cost skills. With that philosophy, and knowing that I don't gain adrenaline in between two cyclones (because I use adrenaline skills at every attack... or try to... so am locked in +1/-1=0 adrenaline gain), I have to wait for cyclone axe to recharge if I want to use eviscerate/executioner.
The alternative would be to cyclone, then hit/hit/hit/eviscerate/executioner/ cyclone (by then it would have recharged) and drop all the small adrenaline skills that I can use today with 1 cyclone axe, because they would stand in the way of adrenaline gain before eviscerate/executioner.


I am not a Cleave fanatic, hey I use both skills

Given the low influence of Strenght on Cleave sequence, I think I will review my builds and probably use Eviscerate more, which also means dropping low adre cost spammable that feel free in between two cyclones (stuff like penetrating blow but also skills like Watch yourself).


Yes, you're right on that. I know I go evi/exe for Thirsty desert because of the monk/ priest combination, or because of some specific mursaat boss.
Also there are a few cases where one does not want to give conditions to opposition in PvE... It looks like every necro past the desert got Plague Touch/ Signet built in, so deep wound is kind of self inflicting.
But that would be a poor argument to use against eviscerate like saying Enchant are bad because of shatter enchant

Louis,

If no one knows this by now, im just stating fyi, Strength doesnt add armor penetration to normal hits, only gives the armor penetration to skills that are on the strength attribute line. So when you look over strength skills and see that they dont do as much damage as you're other -leet- sword or hammer or axe skills, just remember the strength skills get armor penetration. Which can do alot to casters and also do more damage on warriors than normal weapon skills.

When I was analysing pO build I tried to use Irresistible blow with hammer 16 and strength 13, and hammer 16 / strength 10. The first one deals 122 when critical, the second 118.

So... it seems Strength bonus applies to whatever attack skill you use, not only those who are in the Strength attribute line.

Yah, I don't agree with that. With more adrenal skills, and adrenal buffs, you have fewer normal attacks, which is what you'd be shooting for. More attacks, each with their own pool being recharged while using the other adrenal skills. I'm not sure the math illustrates how you'd actually use the skills either. Cleave would really have the lowest priority in the chain, but it would be recharged to avoid less normal hits. Skill slot saving's fine, but I think that build would be a 16/15 build with not much coming from the secondary.

Pretty obvious cleave is worse in most situations though, maybe someone will see this and realize it needs a buff. I think it also shows that strength is underpowered. If it was adequately powerful, the strength bonus would be enough to make the quicker recharging adrenal attacks more powerful (in high str situations) even if the bonus damage from the skill itself wasn't that great.