A question towards more skilled players..)

Question has nothing to do with skill, only experience ;)

If you go 2H, Ice Crash is good (while cyclone is better). If you go 1H+Shield, nothing outperforms Reave.

Asta

Sweep is also pretty hot now, dps isn't the highest out there but it's faster than Ice Crash, leeches better if you're phys and knockback keeps you alive longer.

Ice Crash is actually about on-par with Ground Slam in terms of performance. Asaide from it's unique mechanics, it's nothing special.

Cyclone is just too good, though, and needs some mechanical adjustments in order to be in-line with other melee skills again.

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raics wrote:

Sweep is also pretty hot now, dps isn't the highest out there but it's faster than Ice Crash, leeches better if you're phys and knockback keeps you alive longer.

Yeah, Sweep dps equals Ice Crash dps within the second aoe, which means it's a way better pack clearer and worse single target attack. If you can afford to have a dedicated single target, put Inc Aoe on your Sweep and it starts to clear the whole screen.

I have a feeling that Cyclone is slightly overrated, though I have to admit being on the move is a huge defensive advantage. I also don't feel like the stun immunity is necessary at all. But then again, there are many people who still play on predicitve.

The Stun Immunity from Cyclone is still a big thing because good melee builds do still get a lot out of life leech and life gain on hit, and if you get stunned you stop recovering from those two sources.

Also, even though Cyclone's DPS seems low on paper, it's mechanics are exploitable to the point of getting almost 100% more attack speed out of it. Plus, moving while attacking may be only a minor defensive benefit, but it's a major clear speed benefit.

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Panini_aux_olives wrote:

I built a very decent sweeper in Darksrhine, in a tight budget. Also Doomsower is a great weapon for Sweep.

Same, I went as DW ele cleave mara at first but it started sucking pretty badly in low maps, my gear was just too crappy as I went self found as usual in this kind of events. Fortunately, I had the uncommonly good luck to drop a 400-something 2H axe so it got respecced to phys sweep which turned out a very good decision. 12-14k sweep is quite enough to get you to mid maps and it requires a 4L and a weapon that costs a few chaos at most, primacy or doomsower both qualify.

It's a good example that numeric tweaking isn't enough to fix some skills. They could have worked around ignoring base weapon speed with a good enough damage multi, right, I don't think it was a necessary move, however, if they haven't removed its ability to kick enemies beyond max range it would still suck.

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XCodesLIVE wrote:

The Stun Immunity from Cyclone is still a big thing because good melee builds do still get a lot out of life leech and life gain on hit, and if you get stunned you stop recovering from those two sources.

Also, even though Cyclone's DPS seems low on paper, it's mechanics are exploitable to the point of getting almost 100% more attack speed out of it. Plus, moving while attacking may be only a minor defensive benefit, but it's a major clear speed benefit.

you cant do that short spamming thing any more with cyclone, its got a minimum distance travel so that whole thing where you could spend double resources and get double damage by holding click close is gone, nerfed out of the game.

Cyclone isnt even up there since they did that, reave, sweep, slam, theyre all significantly faster clearing skills now. Cyclone is fun and it has the anti stun but thats now aspects that make you want to play the skill despite the fact thats its clearly not resulting in the same sort of damage output as those other skills in aoe situations and is significantly slower when clearing maps as a result. Cyclones lack of aoe was only ever evened clearspeed wise by the immense single target damage you could do with a quicksilver flask and the short spam technique.

When I swap from a reaver or even a skill like frostblades and go to cyclone its so slow, its so unbelievably slow at clearing content that if its wasnt as fun as it is and didnt have the movement utility theres no way you could really class it as a top tier melee skill.