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Aggravating Strike vs Cleave

zanthe25zanthe25 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 207 Bounty Hunter
edited July 2013 in The Militia Barracks
Without feat buffs! ... Tool tip implies Aggravating strike does more damage than cleave in same AoE... but, Agrravating strike look/feel slower than Cleave attacks...

Are they they same attack speed? Which is the better dps without feats? and how much extra damage is that 3rd strike of cleave approx?

I only low level at moment, and even tho tooltip implies cleave is worse, i feel its somehow better, even when tanking, as i say i only low level but i find myself using cleave most of time and only swapping to block for the red attack or known hard hit strikes thats not red... is this true at higher levels?
Post edited by zanthe25 on

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    simkinfoolsimkinfool Member Posts: 26 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    3rd strike of cleave is roughly double damage, Agg strike *is* slower but end up hitting *a lot* harder.

    The cone on Agg strike is also much much narrower than cleave, however from my own testing it seems to have either no target cap or at least a much higher target cap.

    The only real way I had to test this though was in an instance when a CW black holes the mobs and you agg strike the cluster. (never happened to be on the combatlog at the time however but it appeared that it was hitting everything in the hole.)


    Every spec but protector will use cleave as bread and butter damage, protector with iron guard and the block oriented feats however can nearly always use agg strike (large groups of adds can and will still deplete the guard meter).
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    fondlezfondlez Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    As a general attack, Cleave way too useful or underrated compared to most of the other At-Wills, with possible exception of Crushing Surge on single targets or pvp.

    Three simple reasons:

    1. Guard meter will break often no matter how much STR you have, i.e. without speccing specially into it. This is on top of other flaws like lack of potion drinking.

    2. Cleave has a fast animation and no reliance on guard. This means you are not locked into its attack or locked in place any longer than you have to be, so you can reposition readily. This also means it has nice synergy with other At-Wills like Threatening Rush.

    3. Cleave has a broad aoe, meaning you can maintain some kind of threat on more targets, regardless of the target cap, in most situations due to the mob spreading AI.

    So, for aoe, only in situations where a CW clumps up mobs with Arcane Singularity or very narrow corridors and where you are backtracking to avoid being surrounded is Aggravating Strike ever going to be superior. In that situation, you also better hope your Guard holds long enough for it to make any difference too...
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    crowdpleasingcrowdpleasing Member Posts: 30
    edited July 2013
    If you're trying to maximize DPS and weaving hits in and cancelling the recovery frames with encounters than aggravating strike is more damage. Cleave has a fluid animation that gives the impression that it's faster but for 1 hit its roughly the same. Aggravating strike looks clunkier and has more recovery between hits but since you're cancelling the recovery it shouldn't matter. You can also cancel the recovery for Threatening Rush with it since block is instant. You could technically do this with cleave too but I find the timing hard with my ping as you have to wait for the block to go down.

    For example you would Threatening Rush cancelled into Aggravating strike cancelled into Encounter > Threatening Rush cancelled into Aggravating strike cancelled into Encounter > repeat. If you blow all your encounters at the start you will be just standing there swinging cleave going through the full animations. Threatening Rush will keep the Crushing Pin debuff up too.

    Cleave and aggravating strike are both 5' cylinder on the tooltip so the AOE "should" be the same. From my tooltip the damage difference is 732 v 1109.
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    crowdpleasingcrowdpleasing Member Posts: 30
    edited July 2013
    LOL i just found that you cancel Threatening Rush into Aggravating strike cancelled into Threatening Rush cancelled into Aggravating strike... you get the picture. You only have the start frames for these moves and no recovery frames which makes it alot better than cleave.
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    kreicuskreicus Member Posts: 76
    edited July 2013
    I tested this on my one recently and here's what I've found out....

    I attacked for 1 minute with both skills against target dummies.
    * I hit 77 Times with Cleave, 52 Times with Strike: ~50% faster attack speed with Cleave

    I did 68440 Damage with Cleave, 62297 Damage with Strike, HOWEVER I had the cleave +15% damage, so mathing that out....
    *(-15%) 58174 Damage with Cleave, 62297 Damage with Strike: ~10% more damage with Strike

    If you did have the +15% Damage for Strike....
    *(-15%) 58174 Damage with Cleave, (+15%) 71641 Damage with Strike: ~23% more damage with Strike


    Sidenote: I did look at the 3rd strike on Cleave and its ~25% more damage on that hit compared to the other 2, NOT double.

    I can give numbers and/or answer questions to my numbers if ya want.

    Also, I still use cleave with the +15% spec.
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    crowdpleasingcrowdpleasing Member Posts: 30
    edited July 2013
    kreicus are you able to test out the damage with cancelling Strike with Rush as you should be able to get a lot more hits in for that minute. As soon as you see the damage come up with Strike you cancel into Rush then Strike straight away again and repeat. It will cut out the long recovery frames where you pull your sword back before starting the next hit.
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