Spiral Knights - The Almighty Cleaver

The Almighty Cleaver

4 replies [Last post]

Fri, 06/27/2014 - 12:00

Meep-The-Bank

Recently, I traded some stuff for a mighty great cleaver with asi med. (Thanks Darkgunfire ^-^)
Only problem is that I'm new to 'proper heavy swords' which excludes the Warmaster Rocket Hammer from it's category.
So I have a few questions.

1. How is the WRH different from other heavy swords like the Divine Avenger or Gran Faust?

2. How to use it against many enemies scattered around?

3. How to be able to dodge attacks from the side when using it?

4. What type of weapons are great to accompany it? (Other swords, heavy swords, guns, bombs etc.)

Thanks for reading and replying ^-^

Fri, 06/27/2014 - 12:38

Bopp

extremely

1. The two strokes of a heavy sword are kind of like the first and third strokes of WRH. But that middle stroke of WRH is extremely different from any other sword. In its charge attack, Suda/Trig/Cleaver are much like WRH, whereas DA/GF are quite different. You can see data on combo rates, charge rates, charge movement rates, etc. at the Lancer Knightz data project.

2. My favorite use of heavy swords is comboing into crowds of enemies, and just cutting them all down. But doing the second stroke is sometimes dangerous. For example, zombies can jump at you during the second stroke. Against multiple jellies, it's difficult to pull off the second stroke unless their attacks are synchronized. Often you have to resort to just the first stroke, which at least keep the enemies at bay.

3. You don't dodge attacks from the side. Rather, you use the big strokes to shape the crowd of monsters, so that (after a little maneuvering on your part) there are no monsters to your side.

4. People like to set off a vortex bomb and then release a heavy sword charge attack into the vortex. Some people use other crowd-control bombs (Shivermist, Voltaic, Stagger) to give them time to charge their heavy sword. You see, the heavy swords take a while to charge, and slow you down while charging.

Heavy swords are not as powerful as the Brandishes, but they are more fun, in my opinion. Enjoy.

Fri, 06/27/2014 - 12:40

Krakob

Oh wow an interesting topic where someone needs help! :D

1. The regular heavy swords do of course not have the dash. They're also a bit slower than WRH. Sealed Swords are faster than Troikas, additionally. If you're familiar with the combo mechanics, you'll know that you can only do the first hit of WRH three times in a row (using shield cancelling to do it rapidly). With the other heavy swords, it's a mere two since the length of the combo is just two hits. This can be rather problematic because you've locked away your combo if you shield cancel a strike and quickly preform another.
To counter this, you can do a couple of things:
Mid stepping. Midstepping is the act of using an attack but not letting go of the charge button at first. Instead, you hold it for just a little bit, walk up to roughly a tile's length, and then release it. This allows for greater reach and better dodging. It's useful with all swords but most notably with heavy swords.

At first, it may sound like midstepping isn't at all relevant to the shield cancel spam limit, but it is. By midstepping, you can bypass the strike limit and use your first strike much quicker than if you wait for it to unlock naturally.

The second and probably most important technique for such situations is single weapon switch swinging. This is another way to bypass the attack limit caused by shield cancelling and the technique is most often used with guns. Your attack count or whatever you might call it resets upon switching weapon. Therefore, you can do an infinite amount of rapid first strikes by shield cancelling each attack, and then switching and switching back before attacking again.

2. If the enemies are scattered, try gathering them up. Troikas are in my opinion utility weapons, except for the charge which can deal over 1000 damage per enemy. Troikas' primary utility is range and knockback, having one of the biggest sword hitboxes in addition to great knockback. Since enemies always fly where you aim and not away from you, you can easily knock many enemies in a desirable direction, and not at all scatter them more despite the knockback. To do this, you'll want to use the second hit of the combo as it has greater knockback than the first hit. Also make sure to use your midstep properly to position yourself well so that you can knock as many enemies as possible where you want to.

Once they're gathered up, your best bet is to scatter them with the charge attack, unless you have teammates using some form of crowd control on them or something.

3. Midstepping. Midstepping will allow you to both dodge incoming attacks, as well as reposition to hit the enemies attacking you. Let's make a grid!
__X _O_ X__
This is in the game. You are the O. The X are zombies. You just launched the first strike against the enemy in the top right. The bottom left zombie telegraphs a swipe so if you combo, you'll get hit. The answer is to midstep backwards so that you're positioned like this:
__X O__ X__
The bottom left zombie will now swipe against thin air and when you unleash your combo, you will hit it as well.

4. Vortexes are great when used with Troikas. You throw one out, charge it, and unleash it into the crowd. Other weapons you might want are weapons that counter Troikas' weakness: slowness. Bring something fast that can dish out small amounts of damage quickly while not compromising your security. A gun is probably ideal for that. So, anything but a gun that roots you in place.

EDIT: ninja'd by Bopp, I see.

Fri, 06/27/2014 - 15:13

Fehzor

The biggest thing I can say to you as a new heavy sword user is that you don't have to use the second hit. The second swing is very likely to get you hit if you use it against enemies without making certain that it is fully safe to do so.. of course, if it is safe you'll more than double your damage for the combo BUT if it isn't, then you'll end up taking pointless damage that adds up.

If you learn to use it well, it can be one of the safest swords in the game.

Fri, 06/27/2014 - 21:51

Orbwanter

The Troika/Cleaver line works best as a crowd-killing weapon when paired with the Chaos set and a Vortex bomb. You'll want to time your charge attacks so you hit a group of trapped enemies with the Cleaver just as the Vortex Bomb detonates. For the most part, you should avoid using the regular swings for anything other than knocking enemies into your bombs or finishing off a group of weakened enemies. If you have the luxury of multiple sprites, Maskeraith pairs well with it, as Caustic Quills helps make up for the Cleaver's poor single-target damage, and Deadly Shadow Cloak can be exploited to make the charge attack even more absurdly damaging.

If you don't have much experience handling the heavy swords, definitely practice midstepping as Krakob outlined above, it's the key to being able to use the second swing without eating retaliation damage. In particular, stepping forward helps avoid the situation where you'd whiff the second swing due to your own knockback sending an enemy just out of range. Midstepping also helps make the Rocket Hammer's dash and Flourish's thrusts hit enemies much more reliably, so it's worth learning even if you decide you don't like the other heavy swords.

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The Almighty Cleaver