Is there a reason all the good melee skills ignore claws?

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Turtledove wrote:

Cyclone might be an exception to that rule that all good melee skills ignore claws, at least when sidestepping the bleed issue?

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Maxtrux wrote:

tl:dr; Because they are more defensive than offensive, have worst stats among melee weapons and only a handful of unique claws make decent builds.

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If you actually have a lot of time to kill, though...

/puts on Nerd Glasses

First and foremost, let's take a look at the maths:

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1) Claws have the lowest DPS rating among all the base items, as revealed from the following chart from Wikia (NOT accounting +x% critChance, +x% critmulti or +x% physDamage)

1 - Axes : Royal Axe (92.4)
2 - Swords (generic) : Legion Sword (90.6)
3 - Maces (generic) : Gavel (89.1)
4 - Maces (spectres) : Carnal Sceptre (81.6)
5 - Daggers (generic): Sai (74.2)
6 - Swords (Thrusting) : Jewelled Foil (73.6)
7 - Daggers (runic) : Demon Dagger (72.6)
8 - Claws: Imperial Claw (72.0)

2) Claws have the lowest AVG damage rating among all the base items, as revealed from the following chart from Wikia (NOT accounting +x% critChance, +x% critmulti or +x% physDamage)

1 - Maces (generic) : Gavel (54-101) [77,5]
2a - Axes : Royal Axe (54-100) [77]
2b - Swords (generic) : Tiger Hook (49-105) [77]
3 - Maces (spectres) : Carnal Sceptre (41-95) [68]
4 - Daggers (runic) : Demon Dagger (24-97) [60,5]
5 - Daggers (generic): Sai (22-88) [55]
6 - Swords (Thrusting) : Vaal Rapier (22-87) [54,5]
7 - Claws: Great White Claw (30-78) [54]

3) Claws have the second lowest Melee Range (10) among all base items, higher only than Unarmed (6), but in pair with Daggers

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Moving right along, let's make the following considerations on Claws:

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4) Except for Axes (ignoring the +x% PhysDamage from the maraketh axe), all weapons have an implicit that helps with Offensive, from the effective +x% critMulti/+x% critChance to the more utility -x% reduced stun threshold. Claws, on the other hand, gives bonus on the defensive with LGoH and LifeLeech

5) Claws are dex/int weapons, which means they do not make strenght a priority. Quite a shame, since str increases melee damage (1% per 5 points, or 3% with an Iron Fortress/Iron Heart on)

6) Claws' nodes are on Shadow tree (main source of damage, utility, critChance and bleeding) and Ranger/Duelist (mostly poison), which is polar opposite to Life side of the tree (not a real issue since we could go ES, ghost reaver is right-top and near more Claws nodes. Or, if that is an issue, Essentia Sanguis)

7) Blight's revamp was around the Nightblade style, which gave the same offensiveness to both daggers and claws. Since the math above, however, daggers were more proficient than claws, thus the buff was not really that much useful to claws - they put on in par with daggers, and made daggers even more lethal than before

8) Weapon wheels usually have a Notable which gives that weapon some offensive edge: Culling strike on stun for Maces (Skull Cracking), Onslaught on kill for Axes (Slaughter) and so on. Daggers have Phasing on Kill (From the Shadows), while Claws have… Chance to steal Charges (Claws of the Magpie), both of them for more defensive/survivability

9) Following the point (7), Nightblade style was also about dodging and hitting from afar. Because apparently Frost Blades, Cobra Lash and Lacerate are intended as "Melee" (which is, honestly, an improvement to the old "Melee means Ancestral Totem" mindset of about a year ago). So, the main idea is still "hit (from a distance) and run" rather than a "keep hitting and facetanking" which could be perceived as more natural for a melee build.

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So, now that we've seen that Claw base are mathematically bad and passivetree-wise not the best of the offensive choices,

* HoTM/HoWA (Hand of Thought and Motion / Hand of Wisdom and Action) : an attempt to recycle all of that Dexterity and Intelligence and shifting damage to elemental. Specifically Lightning since Shadow is now (3.9) closer to weapon lighting damage nodes (or at least, he doesn't need anymore to go looking for pure lightning nodes on Which's wheel and also allows a Ranger to use them without wasting too much nodes on attributes)
* Touch of Anguish : Either I've seen it skin-transfered on many a Claw, or Frost Blade is a more rogue build than I've expected. once again, though, a weapon about "forget the physical, go full elemental"
* Wasp's Nest : Blight gave this weapon some relevance, since it is best used for poison build. Blight was all about poison, and most of the claws' buffs were about poison.
* Bloodseeker : In a Gladiator/Slayer Cyclone build from Legion, its creator said something about "why should someone use such a weak claw?". Its power is only about the insta-leech (which was how old Vaal Pact worked) it provides
* Varunastra : Well... It is a claw, after all. It is the reason we don't have anymore Deadly Dilettante, actually

Other notable unique claws that I don't believe had much impact on meta:
* Essentia Sanguis - "No phys only ele" once again with feeling, now with Ghost Reaver inside. Good attack speed and damage, probably overridden from HoWA when Breach was introduced in game
* Rive: Yes, @Plaguefear, they did think about "bathing a cat while naked". Actually, I think Farrul's set is about bathing cats while naked. This is what they came up with: a claw that inflict bleeding, makes it last more and makes the enemies flee so that the +50% damage will certainly proc. I don't remember however "Chance to Flee" having done anything relevant since… forever?
* The Scourge : I can think on some Dominating Blow Templars dual wielding this thing and getting all notables that make minion damage/atkspd also increase character's damage/atkspd. I just don't know how farfetched it is.

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Final stinger: my highest level character of all time is a Gladiator, lv93, from Legion, Cylone with Incursion Harpy Rapier + Bloodseeker. Why? Because with both permablock and Bloodseekr's instaleech was tanky enough to dash through a Porcupine pack and leave unscathed. So, defensive is good, but in the end, the game is about DPS (now more than ever with Metamorphs and their crazy lifeRegen)

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plaguefear wrote:

Rive makes it worse, they literally made a claw based on bleed when no bleed skills work with claws and claws have zero bleed nodes.

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Exxxiled665 wrote:

people play melee?