When and how to use cleaver?

[KajZ]

Can someone please provide a quick overview of the (1h) cleaver? I feel like I have a good senses of when and where to use most of the other weapons, what their advantages/disadvantages are, what enemies they counter, etc. but I'm still confused on the cleaver.

[Horoai]

Not sure what's so confusing about it. The cleaver has pretty much the highest HP damage, even a little higher than 1h axe (though the axe is better against armor and shields). Use it on the squishy targets and watch them die in 1 or 2 hits.

[Barahur]

The Ancient Dead faction Khopesh is pretty decent (very good armour penetration and good damage range) but named Orc cleavers offer some of the best 1H weapon damage in the game.

They have good armour penetration and the bleed debuff is nasty vs living targets, which doubles with Mastery.

[gungadin22000]

The point to using the cleaver is fighting the undead invasion's crappy zombies.

Decapitated zombies do not get back up, hence I like bringing at least one cleaverguy to zombie fights.

It's a great shame that the cleavers do bleed damage, which undead are immune to, however, so this is probably not the powergamey option, but it sure is satisfying knocking them zombies down for the count in 1 strike.

[Horoai]

Has anyone tried the ancient honor guard's 2h-cleaver since it's nerf?

[76561198074709395]

Originally posted by KajZ:

Can someone please provide a quick overview of the (1h) cleaver? I feel like I have a good senses of when and where to use most of the other weapons, what their advantages/disadvantages are, what enemies they counter, etc. but I'm still confused on the cleaver.

Get it on 1h Duelists with a high melee attack score, so you can (mostly) bypass shields.

Anything without a shield crumbles pretty fast if you can get your hands on a unique orc cleaver.

[MYSTIC]

I'll add to the 'how':
Hurt enemy hp a bit, and use the secondary attack 'decapitate'. It works on everything. If the enemy is at half hp, this turns a regular body hit into a head hit damage wise. A headshot with decapitate on a hurt enemy is even more devastating. You can try to combo this skill with the perk 'executioner.'

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

Has anyone tried the ancient honor guard's 2h-cleaver since it's nerf?

Where can I find myself some honor guards except during crisis?

[Horoai]

Originally posted by SirFluxion:

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

Has anyone tried the ancient honor guard's 2h-cleaver since it's nerf?

Where can I find myself some honor guards except during crisis?

Idk. Look for dangerous edge-of-the-world undead camps (mass graves, etc). I think the undead mostly populate the north (snow area) but can be found in other places as well.

[Sendos]

Originally posted by KajZ:

Can someone please provide a quick overview of the (1h) cleaver? I feel like I have a good senses of when and where to use most of the other weapons, what their advantages/disadvantages are, what enemies they counter, etc. but I'm still confused on the cleaver.

I think they go quite well with duellist, because it ensures you have sufficient armor ignore damage to deal bleed damage. Otherwise I am not a big fan of them.

Using orc cleavers (named or not) requires iron lung person to use them, otherwise they will tire out the user very quickly. It's like swinging a machete weighing 10kg or more.

Originally posted by SirFluxion:

Where can I find myself some honor guards except during crisis?

Look for the bone scrapyard camps which contain ancient undead. If your renown is high enough, you might be able to spot a few of them.

[Horoai]

Originally posted by Paul:

Using orc cleavers (named or not) requires iron lung person to use them, otherwise they will tire out the user very quickly. It's like swinging a machete weighing 10kg or more.

Not really.

[MYSTIC]

Thank you both, I'll try to look for those creepy mass graves.

With cleaver mastery an orc cleaver (head chopper) requires 13 fatigue for a normal attack and 19 for decapitate. That's definitely manageable without iron lungs. My duelist has 70 fatigue. Before he gets completely exhausted he usually has a chance to kill, berserk, and recover.

[Horoai]

Originally posted by SirFluxion:

With cleaver mastery an orc cleaver (head chopper) requires 13 fatigue for a normal attack and 19 for decapitate. That's definitely manageable without iron lungs. My duelist has 70 fatigue. Before he gets completely exhausted he usually has a chance to kill, berserk, and recover.

Yep, for reference this is my cleaver guy.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=900493012

300/300 armor and still runs an orc cleaver without iron lungs. To be fair, a hedge knight could manage this fatigue without strong and a scale armor is well enough. I also should have gotten underdog instead of brawny and taken the scale armor anyway because of his melee defense.

As you can see there is a lot of wiggle room. The more melee defense your duelist has the less armor he needs => more fatigue to spare. However, I wouldn't go for dodge/nimble with an orc weapon.

[love to resign]

Your men have beautiful headwear, Yggdrasil. Stylish!

[Horoai]

Originally posted by love:

Your men have beautiful headwear, Yggdrasil.

A good leader leaves no man behind unfabulous!

[Sendos]

Originally posted by Yggdrasil:

Originally posted by Paul:

Using orc cleavers (named or not) requires iron lung person to use them, otherwise they will tire out the user very quickly. It's like swinging a machete weighing 10kg or more.

Not really.

In that case, you must have a lot of fatigue on your men. And you spam recovery whenever convenient.

Each swing with an orc cleaver is 20 fatigue (15+5). Even with mastery skill, that's like using normal cleaver without mastery.

That's why I never use orc weapons, but I would hold onto named orc cleaver weapons in that case I find the perfect merc to use it.

[Eye tyrant]

I had a sword master with a named orc cleaver and duelist . Orc warriors did not last more than 3 turns. You need quick hands to swap a shield tho