Cleaver duelist.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

I had a nice -3 fatigue orc cleaver and I decided to try it out.

However, turns out a lot of the enemies I would care about bleeding have resilient, which really kind of hurts the build.

Bro hit about 80 matk, which If I had to do again, I would make sure its +95, otherwise its hard to justify.

I think I might give this guy a whip (haven't done yet) and then he MIGHT have extra utility. I don't want to dismiss him, yet he feels like a more heavy maintenance damage bro.

[turtle225]

I don't think enemies having Resilient is a big problem. I consider the bleed mostly a bonus effect rather than an integral aspect of the weapon. Generally you don't want to leave enemies alive multiple turns for them to take multiple turns of bleed damage anyway.

An Orc Cleaver with no bleed and no Decapitate is still outpacing a Winged Mace on average.

Add in Bleed (even with Resilient) and Decapitate and it is one of the strongest Duelist weapons, albeit with higher fatigue costs.

Adding QH and a Whip does open up some versatility. Could be good if you have the spare perk. Don't necessarily even need QH technically, but it does make it more usable, and then you can use the last bag slot for a Goblin Pike or Polehammer or net or whatever.

[UnluckyNoob]

-fatigue cleaver is garbage. You need +damage/+penetration one.

Bleeding on your cleaver is irrelevant.

All damage dealers should have as high attack as possible. Except crossbowmen.

Adding support weapons/skills to highly specialised(and fatigue intensive) damage dealer is a bad idea. Just move towards enemies and kill them next turn. Also you'll disarm nobody with your 80 matk.

[ptirodaktill]

I wouldn`t use 80mATK bro even on peasan militia as clever DD, its super unreliable and borderline useless against anything with a shield.
Fat reduction is not that hot on orc cleaver, cause you pump your fat on bro that gona use it anyway.

[Melkolf]

I tend to agree a -3FAT orc cleaver is hardly a weapon of choice despite its damage, given its high FAT requirement in the first place. If a bro has a high enough FAT to handle it a lower FAT cleaver with Beserk and KF would surely be far more reliable a damage dealer, wouldn't it? (Unlike turtle I'm no number cruncher so I stand to be corrected.)

I always equip my cleaver specialists, duelling or not, with a whip - whips have so much utility and as turtle says you don't always need QH to make a cleaver specialist work well. I would on a 2H cleaver non-duellist, but otherwise other perks come in more handy.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Originally posted by turtle225:

I don't think enemies having Resilient is a big problem. I consider the bleed mostly a bonus effect rather than an integral aspect of the weapon. Generally you don't want to leave enemies alive multiple turns for them to take multiple turns of bleed damage anyway.

An Orc Cleaver with no bleed and no Decapitate is still outpacing a Winged Mace on average.

Add in Bleed (even with Resilient) and Decapitate and it is one of the strongest Duelist weapons, albeit with higher fatigue costs.

Adding QH and a Whip does open up some versatility. Could be good if you have the spare perk. Don't necessarily even need QH technically, but it does make it more usable, and then you can use the last bag slot for a Goblin Pike or Polehammer or net or whatever.

Turns out I made a CRITICAL mistake and I had forgotten to give him the duelist perk. So he was terribly underperforming. I rectified it with an editor, and now the bro can do some proper damage.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Originally posted by UnluckyNoob:

-fatigue cleaver is garbage. You need +damage/+penetration one.

Bleeding on your cleaver is irrelevant.

All damage dealers should have as high attack as possible. Except crossbowmen.

Adding support weapons/skills to highly specialised(and fatigue intensive) damage dealer is a bad idea. Just move towards enemies and kill them next turn. Also you'll disarm nobody with your 80 matk.

well, the cleaver itself is a + damage + 3 stam one. With duelist, he does get 50 penetration. the tradeoff would be 16 more armor pen, but you're swinging for 14 fatigue then.

As for the whips, I rarely use them as disarm tools. But the whip does enable kill into recover from 3 tiles away, it does also enable renewing KF up to 5 tiles away, which I think does serve well for the character.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

I wouldn`t use 80mATK bro even on peasan militia as clever DD, its super unreliable and borderline useless against anything with a shield.
Fat reduction is not that hot on orc cleaver, cause you pump your fat on bro that gona use it anyway.

I would aim for 95+ next time. I am kind of trying new builds at the moment. 80 Matk does feel rather low for late game nomads and chosen.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

Originally posted by Melkolf:

I tend to agree a -3FAT orc cleaver is hardly a weapon of choice despite its damage, given its high FAT requirement in the first place. If a bro has a high enough FAT to handle it a lower FAT cleaver with Beserk and KF would surely be far more reliable a damage dealer, wouldn't it? (Unlike turtle I'm no number cruncher so I stand to be corrected.)

I always equip my cleaver specialists, duelling or not, with a whip - whips have so much utility and as turtle says you don't always need QH to make a cleaver specialist work well. I would on a 2H cleaver non-duellist, but otherwise other perks come in more handy.

after fixing my perk point. this guy does do sufficient damage. the -3 fat allows him to swing for 11, which is not bad for an orc weapon. the whip allows to kill into recover and also allows for mantaining kill frenzy with oportunistic kills.

[EnemigoDeLaMafia]

This is the bro in question. I'll aim for more matk and maybe damage perk next time.

my initial assesment was incorrect given the fact I had forgotten to take duelist in the first place. I think he's viable, but not stellar.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2993576823

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2993576928

[Estieukua]

The interesting thing about that cleaver, though, is that, with double-grip and mastery and without even having Duelist, it does better raw damage than any standard 2H cleaver, about as much direct damage as a barb 2H cleaver, and at -1 fatigue per skill use (albeit +2 more for Decapitate). So, even though it felt like it was under-performing without Duelist, it was still as good as (or a bit better than) any standard 2H cleaver.

I have effectively used 2H cleavers in the past, and have sometimes switched to double-gripped 1H orc ones (minus Duelist) because of realizing that they were better. That made me think: why not always go for Duelist on cleaver users?

After favouring Duelist on cleaver users for a time, I noted that their impact was still quite a lot less than that of 2H maces/hammers against well-armoured enemies, and that all non-famed 1H cleavers (including orc ones) do less raw damage than non-famed 2H ones in the scenarios where cleavers shine the most - i.e. when killing large enemies with high HPs and little armour, or when finishing off masses of enemies who've already been hit by allies with bigger 2H weapons.

The best use I've found for cleaver users in the past has been as "rout-instigators" who hang back in the early rounds, using a whip to Disarm dangerous enemies or to finish off wounded ones from long range, and then, once there are lots of damaged enemies ahead, advance with the cleaver to Decapitate those enemies, using Berserk and Adrenaline (or initiative/Relentless) to kill 4-5 enemies over the end of one turn and the start of the next, so that the rest of the company then have an easy time of swarming and killing the remaining enemies. To operate in this fashion, melee defence isn't really very important, because the trick is to time melee engagement so that most nearby enemies can be taken out before they next get a chance to act.

[A5G_Reaper]

Originally posted by Estieukua:

The interesting thing about that cleaver, though, is that, with double-grip and mastery and without even having Duelist, it does better raw damage than any standard 2H cleaver, about as much direct damage as a barb 2H cleaver, and at -1 fatigue per skill use (albeit +2 more for Decapitate). So, even though it felt like it was under-performing without Duelist, it was still as good as (or a bit better than) any standard 2H cleaver.

I have effectively used 2H cleavers in the past, and have sometimes switched to double-gripped 1H orc ones (minus Duelist) because of realizing that they were better. That made me think: why not always go for Duelist on cleaver users?

After favouring Duelist on cleaver users for a time, I noted that their impact was still quite a lot less than that of 2H maces/hammers against well-armoured enemies, and that all non-famed 1H cleavers (including orc ones) do less raw damage than non-famed 2H ones in the scenarios where cleavers shine the most - i.e. when killing large enemies with high HPs and little armour, or when finishing off masses of enemies who've already been hit by allies with bigger 2H weapons.

The best use I've found for cleaver users in the past has been as "rout-instigators" who hang back in the early rounds, using a whip to Disarm dangerous enemies or to finish off wounded ones from long range, and then, once there are lots of damaged enemies ahead, advance with the cleaver to Decapitate those enemies, using Berserk and Adrenaline (or initiative/Relentless) to kill 4-5 enemies over the end of one turn and the start of the next, so that the rest of the company then have an easy time of swarming and killing the remaining enemies. To operate in this fashion, melee defence isn't really very important, because the trick is to time melee engagement so that most nearby enemies can be taken out before they next get a chance to act.

Orc cleaver without duelist still does slightly less average damage than the 2h cleavers. With mastery they cost 1 more fatigue per swing for the regular cleave, 4 more on decapitate. If you're skipping duelist, there's little point taking the head chopper over any 2h cleaver unless you regularly use the offhand slot.

The main advantage of 2h cleaver over duelist is that you can hit the icy cave real early for guaranteed named warblade. Otherwise, duelist head chopper do outperform regular 2h cleaver by quite a bit.

Regarding damage output vs 2hander, cleaver users do need the fatigue to spam decapitate in order to outdamage the big bonk sticks. And/or be a named version. On that end, it's (relatively) easy to find orc warrior champions and 1/3 of them spawn with a named head chopper. Bounty hunter helps a lot in this regard.

PS: Dont underestimate the bleed damage. It does adds up, and isn't immediately apparent at first.

[Estieukua]

Originally posted by A5G_Reaper:

Orc cleaver without duelist still does slightly less average damage than the 2h cleavers. With mastery they cost 1 more fatigue per swing for the regular cleave, 4 more on decapitate. If you're skipping duelist, there's little point taking the head chopper over any 2h cleaver unless you regularly use the offhand slot.

I only meant named 1H orc cleavers (with bonuses similar to the one posted above) when I said I sometimes used them instead of 2H ones on cleaver users without Duelist.

[A5G_Reaper]

Why would you compare high-rolling named with regular? In most cases the named ones will win significantly.

[Estieukua]

Because high-rolled named 1H orc cleavers (without Duelist) do better overall damage than standard 2H cleavers, so that it makes sense to switch to using the superior 1H item, even though you don't have the perk to make it even better.