Numbers for the Cleave / Eviscerate Debate

this is the one and only reason i support cleave as my elite instead of eviscerate, we have dismember. you don't need eviscerate for the dmg and deep wound. i can deal huge amounts of dmg fast and then dismember when they are about half life then finish off with pentrating and cleave chain. you get the spike from eviscerate the first time you use it. after that it becomes another executioner's strike that is too expensive to use in a chain.

fgj and tf axe warrior with cleave is devistating. i have single handedly killed boon monks, pro monks, healing monks, and smiters.

hehe now cleave deal +30 dam , that mean that with cleave i deal about +93 dam to monk when with eviscirate +110 ---> eviscirate sucks
for great dam use this combo :
dismember, axe rake , cleave , pentrating and distrupting chop , hola it works

im starting to think cleave (under the new update) would be better in certain circumstances, for example in a degen group as the only warrior, spiking wont get you anywhere since the monks are busy healing the degen anyway. i think a more constant output of damage would be better in that situation at least.

anyway im still testing this stuff out.

i'm using just about the exact same build. using wild blow instead of disrupting chop. i hate rangers with a passion.

No it wasn't, the lowering to +33% is in regards to stacking speed buffs, i.e. stacking Frenzy and I Will Avenge You. But I thought the same thing at first.

Nice unsupported conclusion you have there. Since you totally take everything into consideration, and all.

Hmm, so Cleave does a small bit more damage now. Whoopdee freakin' doo. I think I'll stick with Eviscerate. I love my free deepwound AND damage in one skill. No wasting slots for me. Plus, it still spikes better, and Cleave still wastes adrenaline (because you know you spam it as soon as it's ready; why else would you use a 4 adrenaline skill).

Cleave may be good if you have 2 adrenaline skills only, or Cleave alone. Which means you aren't really an Axe Spiker.

At most, I can see the damage over time of the two possibly breaking even. In this case, you have to decide what you want to do:

a) Take small-to-medium size chunks of health from the enemy, a little at a time...
b) Take huge chunks of health from the enemy, really, really quickly.

IMO:
Eviscerate/Executioners/Penetrating FTW.

But I can see how each may have their uses...

Ensign, care to fill us in with same hard data with this update? So we don't get misinformation spread such as "Eviscerate sucks, Cleave is still crap," etc.

Umm Don't post BS. its was like a 5 points boost OMG CLEAVE IS NOW THE UBER L33T SKILL, right? /sarcasm

Twicky I really find that you still don't understand the point of spiking. Its damage fast. Cleave + dismember is just bad. Its a wannabe eviscerate. Cleave + dismember + executioners just isn't the same type of damage output that Executioners + Eviscerate + Swift chop is. Its constant and constant damage is just shitty for pvp! Great Twicky you killed boon monks. My hammer warrior could kill a boon monk. Many things can kill 1 monk. Nobody is talking about 4vs4 where you can run the sh**iest builds ever and still win. With 2 healing monks and a prot monk I doubht cleave will be enough to spike and good team.

Cro would you like to backup those statements with actual facts? +93 dmg? umm since when does cleave add 93? Your not counting the deep wound. which takes away 20% and reduces healing. Add eviscerate in their and you could run more dmg skills. Cleave +dismember is basically what eviscerate is. 3 more adrenaline is like nothing. Its not a high cost adrenal skill since i never hear anyone say executioners sucks yet its 8 adrenaline. WTF!?!?!?! is it just me or is something wrong with that?

Spiking=QUICK FAST MASSIVE DMG, Adding unnecasarry skills in their only gimps your combo

for 8v8 i would use evis for the massive spiking. for 4v4 cleave rapes.

4v4 has its own challenges. everything isn't always about 8v8.

With alot strenght, i'd say Cleave
(Triggers streght penetration more, calculate THAT ftw, and the diffrence becomes bigger)
Dismember+Cleave ftw

Umm Cleave still won't compare to the spike of eviscerate. DPS is not the issue but if you want dps go with cleave and ur miserly 10% boost with strength... Eviscerate also gets 10% so its even better. The dps has already been debated so your post is pretty useless. DPS is not the issue. Its which one actually kills a person.

The new numbers as found here on the Basin forums. Eviscerate still beats Cleave.

Average Cleave: 70.44 damage

Average Cleave Series: 44.27 Damage

Average Cleave Bonus: 8.72 Damage

Average Cleave + Penetrating Series: 47.51 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's Series: 47.87 Damage

Average Cleave + Penetrating Bonus: 11.96 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's Bonus: 12.32 Damage

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Executioner's Series: 50.32 Damage

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Executioner's Bonus: 14.77 Damage

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Disrupting Series: 46.60 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's + Disrupting Series: 46.86 Damage

Average Cleave + Penetrating + Disrupting Bonus: 11.05 Damage
Average Cleave + Executioner's + Disrupting Bonus: 11.31 Damage

Average Damage of the Cleave Sequence: 57.67 Damage Per Hit (For Great Justice!)

Average Damage of the Cleave Sequence: 59.30 Damage Per Hit (Dark Fury)

Very true, and a great example of the problem with simple number crunching.

When I play my warrior in PvE I prefer cleave.

When I play my warrior in PvP (which isn't often because I usually play an ele, necro or mez in PvP) I prefer eviscerate.

I also like eviscerate when I know I will be facing a lot of difficult enemies in PvE.

Considering the fact that I havn't played the game in a few months now, there's most likely a school of thought out there that I should not be commenting anymore, but here goes anyway.

I obviously can't test this myself, but if memory serves me correctly, shouldn't it be:

Assuming full charge
Cleave, Cyclone, Cleave, hit, hit, hit, Cleave, Cyclone, Cleave ...?

This would one Cleave/3 hits. instead of 4 as stated.

To the guy claiming the dynamic nature of the game would somehow muddy up the picture, I cannot think of a single situation (running, healing, ect.)where superior spiking would not lead to a superior outcome.

To the debate of whether or not the metagame is boiling down to a few select (debatably superior) builds: Those posts were written a while ago, and there seem to have been a couple of earth moving nerfs in between. I said before release that it was inevitable that the metagame would devolve in this manner. I said then that given a stable environment without outside intervention, ALL builds would evolve toward a common form. This is just the way things work. It is the same when designing fighter aircraft or Formula 1 racecars. As long as the rules are stable, everyone has access to the same data, so any good engineer is going to come up with the general answers.

To quote the leading Formula 1 designer concerning 1 aspect (wheelbase): "So you have a variation of less than 175 MM across this year's field."

Out of 26 cars, every one of them falls within 2 centimeters in length. Every single designer came up with more or less the same conclusion. The laws of physics don't change, the rules havn't changed, so the cars are more or less identical.

Back to GW, the skills HAVE changed, but only some of them, and there have been no new skills added. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect something radical to appear in the future.

The devs used to compare this game to Magic the Gathering a lot. The single most important lesson MTG has to teach us is how the metagame operated. There have nearly always been 2 - 3 "superior" builds in any given card set. Generaly 1 single deck boils down as the best of the bunch, and is met by "hate" decks designed specificaly to defeat it.

The only surprise GW has for me is that there seems to be relatively little metagame "hate" going on. I suspect this has mostly to do with the decreasing level of competition, with many of the best designers leaving the game for whatever reasons. This decrease in competition is a much more likely source for many of the "new" builds you see such as the MM builds that seem to be enjoying some sort of revival.

Was this debate ever decided?

Um well seeing it's been dead for months I don't think so.

Times have changed in the with the updates... Plus with all this numbercrunching it doesn't apply to the field.

Okay first off what sayshina said (I'm also a MTG player) is right about the "hate/counter builds" to the builds that's winning a lot.

Look at it like this. This doesn't apply too much in random Arenas.. sense think about all the same build mesmers (or slightly different) they all have the same staples. I.e. Distortion and other blind conditions and hexes to kill the warrior or put him out. Necros have Spiteful Spirit + Empathy etc to stop the Warriors.. Warriors who are adren based are useless unless they have something to be rid of those conditions and hexes which is hard to do to either protect yourself to deal enough damage or go straight out with the damage output.

Basically...with Eviserate monks can rid of that deep wound effect easily so it's useless unless you want to spike it at the last second. Cleave is great but it doesn't have that "CHUNK!" effect like Eviserate.

If we're talking HoH or GvG that's different too. =P Because more or less there's a build that sometimes doesn't concern the whole C. vs. E. debate.

If you want to deal fast, nonstop damage to get them down eventually then C is the way to go..

If you want to deal massive dmg in one quick blow (in a spikish way) this E is the one for you.

It really depends on what you're playing on.

Hey! I also play Magic!

I must say, it's quite true how the metagame in Magic works like. A (few) "better" decks out there, and some hate decks. Usually the hate also forms part of the other types of decks.

I think Guild Wars has less of this because for example, IWAY requires about 1-3 skills of counter, unlike, for example (this just came in my mind), Ravager Affinity, which required, like, 12 cards out of 60 to beat. Not to say Ravager Affinity was by far the most popular deck, too.

Not to say the control players (MEEEEEEE! UB CONTROL FTW!) that were always there from the beginning to end.

I've always wondered how an Axe war with Eviscerate and another with Cleave would do. Cleave's damage + Eviscerate's damage + Deep Wound would be alright, right?

I like both Eviscerate and Cleave, but I can understand both choices, though, what I don't get is that so many people think Cleave isn't worth to be Elite, and Eviscerate is obviously the only Elite Warrior choice. They're very wrong, and both Elites are pretty close to eachother when it comes to good use.

Eviscerate users, get a grip. Don't use Eveiscerate because everyone else does, and don't call Cleave a useless skill because noone does, the only thing that you're proving by saying such a thing, is that you don't think about your skill bar, and that you simply picked it because many others did.

To me, Eviscerate is clearly better in PvP due to the quick "spikes" that you're trying to effect.

To me, Cleave is clearly better in PvE when you are soloing, to preserve as many skill slots as possible for the preservation of your health/providing armor.

If you PvE in a group, then it's probably a matter of preference.

Yay magic discussion.

On the topic of Ravager. God I hated that block, every freaking card was too much artifact and also every card was too freaking good, there was no real balance. I'm glad that set isn't type 2 anymore.

Anyway Ravager was retarded in Worlds Championship... Almost everyone had that stupid deck as well as red hate and green recurring hate for that deck. It wasn't that hard to beat but in Magic when it comes to game metas and tournys it usually becomes a high power deck and then the high power counter deck to beat it.

Oh yeah UB is great but I'm the White B*tch player with life gain and control.
(Wipe the board, bring all my stuff back and gain life.)

Anyway I'm more casual than competitive.. (Maybe that's why I don't do PvP in Guildwars.. =P )

On the subject of C Vs. E: Maxie, and Jetdoc is right. It comes down to what your skillbar is and what you prefer.. =P No real "better" skill out there if you can make it work wonders.

So do I hate that block, but it's one of the most striking ones there is. Everyone had it - just proves the point. Mirrodin is long gone now >

I still don't get why I have four pages of lotus petals, they're not worth much :S

A very interesting read, but I've never had any doubts about Eviscerate's superiority. Eviscerate + Executioner's Strike = Joy.

I have a reason for Cleave. Fighting Necros, which return conditions. Fighting monks, which heal themselves with condition removal. Sacrificiers, which actually GAIN from less max. HP.

This is specific. But it has a point, doesn't it?

This is my view also.
I know the debate probably revolves around PvP but when soloing Jade scarabs (damn you plague touch) Cleave>Evis anyday of the week.

It is also view that many warriors with Cleave>many warriors with Evis focusing on one target because we all know deep wounds dont stack.
The ideal would be a balance of the 2 skills eg 1 Evis warr and 1 Cleave war.

Both has it's uses.

I prefere cleave really, stacked with dismember, works like a charm.

I still like Eviscerate. I'm just careful that when I use it, it's the second to last attack. You take them from somewhere rather high in health and drop them in two blows; they never get a chance to return the condition or otherwise take advantage of it.

or have plauge touch yourself for condition tennis!

You'll lose a plague touch war with a necro

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but Cleave is the better skill to use if you're using Wild Blow, as WB makes you lose all adrenaline and decreases your chances of getting to Eviscerate.

Before Nerf Day, WB was a very valuable skill, since people were using Distortion all the time. With the boosts to the W stances, WB may actually gain in value. I'm sure there will continue to be the regular favorites--Whirling Defense, Tiger's Fury, Mantra of Resolve, Sprint, Storm Chaser, etc--so I'm keeping WB and Cleave on my skillbar for now. Unless I go to Swords.

excuse me, i dont know if anyone has posted this yet, but the reason to use evicerate is for the deep wound (20%)

edit:hmmm now that i think of it... i really think that cleave is more of a pve skill and evicerate is a pvp skill. b/c in pve, more damage over time is better than a spike because the monsters can't heal for sh** anyway. have you ever heard of fow ranger spike groups? no, neither have I. Maybe that is because you dont have to worry about pve monsters healing cuz they really cant.
In pvp, damage over time is horrible because healers can easily heal over it whereas a spike, it is alot harder to get enough heals off.
so, basically my analisis is that: cleave=pve skill, Evicerate=pvp skill
and since im more of a pvp'r i would say Evicerate>Cleave

Yeah, it's been mentioned, but some people keep going about "DPS" this and "more damage over time" that, which generally doesn't help as much as being able to spike out someone.

It is true that since this was originally posted that Cleave got a damage buff and Eviscerate costs one more strike of adrenaline now, but 1. DPS is still not as good as being able to do ~200 damage in a second, and 2. you use Eviscerate with Executioner's Strike anyway.

I think the earlier posts regarding game environment said it best.

Cleave is great with Pen. Blow/Chop for the PvE area where healing and self-sufficiency is more important.

In PvP where you need Death asap, let the sword be the dps king and let the fear of HOLY CRAP WHERE'D MY HP GO own your foes. Evis + Exe. Strike ftw.

Yup i agree, i liked Cleave also, but u cant spike with it in PvP. I mostly PvP so id rather use a skill that gives ALOT of dmg when i can. Giving half of that dmg but then giving that dmg again soon after(cleave) it will prepare the ememy and will have time to heal or run.

What are the numbers like now?

The numbers probily aren't much different. They just lowered the +dmg a little bit. Evis still has the deep wound and it still hits for a lot of damage.

Who cares ? Eviscerate isn't run because of its DPS, even the first post makes that clear.

I posted this over on TGH, but it got dismissed.
Assumptions: both lvl 20, AL60 target, no weapon prefix, only 2 adren skills
DPS of an Evisc+Exec war: 44.0
DPS of a Dismem+Cleve war: 41.9 BUT 50% miore deep wounds

Looking at the GWFC skill usage, most of the evisc+exec wars used the combo about 24 times a match. All things remaining equal, they could do a Dismem+Cleave combo about 36 times a match. 12 more deep wound spikes at the cost of a lower average DPS. Note, I didn't take in to account the health loss from deep wound.

Your still better off following Dismember with Executioner's on 'serious' spikes (you can use your combo on the more regular spikes). If your spamming Cleave around you can fairly easily preceed a Dismember with a Cleave without arousing suspicion. Try comparing Penetrating+Evisc+Exec vs Cleave+Dismember+Exec.

One question...have you tried taking the elite skill that gives adrenaline recharge in conjunction with a few adrenal attacks and a furious weapon to see what the dmg output would be?

Im mostly putting this post in for the person who said that there is only one good skill and build per weapon. I did not see anyone contradict them so I thought I better. I will go on record now saying IMO Neither skill is better for general team PvE. I will explain below, and please understand nothing I am saying is relevant to PvP other than:

"For PvP battles, the spike damage of deep wound is obvously going to make Eviscerate a better choice for at least one Warrior in a group."

Some people seem to think this is debate is relvant to PVE, but there are whole lot of other factors make it theoretical and frivilous (but still fun). The assumptions seems to be that you are supposed to do as much damage as possible and that is the only consideration. In a perfect world with you own personal monk running behind you to keep you alive that might be true, but in a multiple stupid opponent, multiple teammate environment, doing mass damage to one opponent might not be the best job for a Warrior.

Other factors to consider for PvE:
1> the opponent is stupid and can be counted on to do specific repatable behaviours that cna be pridicted and thus controlled.
2> if you are engaging multiple opponents, it is possible you actually need to keep yourself alive as your monk just might have to run around to keep from getting killed.
3> if you can manage to get a bunch of stupid monsters attacking you, and you continue to hit them frequently, they will generally continue to attack you regadless of how suicidal that decision may be. and almost every mob has some hand-to-hand monsters in it.
4> (this one has PvP relevance also) assassins use attack chains that can be rendered useless by blocking
5> you have other people in your group that can ONLY do damage and can NOT absorb damage (mesmers, necros, assassins and eles).
6> you need to protect your weaker teammates so you can not always charge in and attack the targets that need to go down first.

Anyway, for PvE I think you should try to draw as much aggro as possible and hold it. You need to be able to absorb that mass aggro for long enough for the rest of you team to setup and then eliminate the most threatening elements of that mob. I also think you need to minimize the stress you put on the party healers as any backfield squishies getting attacked need their full attention.

My proposal is you try this:
Engage the opposing mob ahead of your party so all their warrior and assassin type attack you. Use cyclone axe to hold their attention (and when you are attacking around 4+ opponents -someone else can do the exact math- cyclone outdamages any other skill) You soften up all their warriors at once forcing any healers to spread their energy out and allow your ranged attackers to pick their target and spike it without fear of reprisal from the enemy warriors. Also this allows your friendly SS Necro to be highly effective as a single SS can take out everything attacing you. Then trigger what is my personal favorite elite skill for PvE - Gladiators Defense. It 75% blocks everything and damages everyone in melee with you. This effect causes the computer healers to have to spead their skills around and burns energy. Another benefit is it eliminates the thread of assassin chains, even from bosses. Because Deep Wound is so effective of a spike damage dealer I like to also have dismember, and it was recently buffed to only 5 adrenalin so it is now very spammable. I like to have one other defensive stance like shield stance to use while gladiators recharges so I can stand up to huge numbers of attacks without taxing the healers.

So anyway, I think that Gladiators Defense is a better PvE skill than either because it both does damage and protects you is far more effective if you are doing the job of controlling enemy aggro and not trying to be the primary damage dealer. Although like Eviscerate, it cna be validly argued that if there is more than one Warrior in the group, it is a skill best left for one of them. (The other should probably have eviscerate and be tasked with quickly dispatching any warrior type that runs by you and attack the weaker party members, then moving to attack high threat targets.)

I'm with Cleave for a number of reasons

Mainly Evicersate is overused like crazy

I had a look over a few factions skills for a bit.......and thought of this

Even tho I'm not up to date on what the favourite skillbars of warriors are, a combo like this could make cleave interesting to use in PvP

Cleave, Exec, Dismember, "You Will Die!", Your favourite IAS here

Try this

Cleave your target for a bit till they get to a certain ammount of HP (perhaps waiting for you to do enough damage to warrent the energy loss to heal). Once it goes down enough, Whip on your IAS and Dismember them for Deep wound. Now your damage does ALOT MORE to their HP bar, CLeave them, Exec them, QUICKLY hit "You Will Die! right as exec hits (they should be below 50% HP by now) and then Cleave them again. They should hit the deck with this.

This chain should do EVEN MORE damage than the normal Evis + Exec combo, allowing you room for the enemy trying to heal, plus your other adren skills will get charged too. Since you put out more damage, even warriors should feel the burn with that combo =p

Oh well, that came off the top of my head in 5 mins, and I can't really experiment till Nightfall comes out anyway (My PvP Slot has a paragon sitting in it >_>)

Yes it will, considering you're using only 2 skills in Evisc+Exec vs. in your case 5 or more skills. If you're going to spike someone, you want them to go down as quickly as possible. The only way you're going to be able to pull off your chain is if the other team's monks are afk or braindead.