Shattered Kingdoms

I've played two characters so far that I've had to deal with this. I don't know if there are more than these two skills I'm about to mention, though I'm sure there are. Gore and cleave can only be used to start combat, which is perfectly fine. However, the cooldown timer on them is a bit ridiculous. I should be able to start combat on every npc I fight using these skills, as well as players... though I'll add a little more to the pk side of it in a moment. These skills cannot be used during combat so the cooldown timer doesn't make much sense. The only thing I can think of for reasons it should be there mainly apply to pk, though I suppose you could call using flee/cleave until things die abusive too. In pk, without the timer you could simply cleave them every time they fled until they died. On one hand, that'd be a great way to dissuade someone from wanting to flee combat from your character, though a bit over powered.

Okay, my proposal is that the cooldown timer should be removed from all skills that only have the ability to be used to start combat. With that said, in pk (or in pve too if it is considered that big of a deal... though it takes long enough to level for a hellion solo anyway! lol) the timer would only apply to the person you last cleaved/gored so that it could not be abused to slaughter someone, which is not its intended use. If that person fled, I should be able to start combat with cleave/gore against another player without being affected by a timer.

turn off autoassist
cleave X
o all rescue prince
cleave X
o all rescue prince
cleave X
o all rescue prince

I don't know what all that extra stuff was about but the auto assist helped a little bit, though not with the issue I spoke about above. I was able to cleave two things in a row, but after that I had a normal timer.

I was saying that without a timer, you could do what I just suggested. You would be able to spam high-damage opening moves over and over in combat. That would be incredibly overpowered.

Also, hellions have insane leveling. They might be the fastest class to level--they have high charisma, good melee damage, and the cause light spell, which is incredible for grinding.

The "cooldown timer" for cleave and gore are interesting. These skills can only be used if you haven't been in combat that tick, and a tick lasts around a minute. Ticks are also when your regain HP/ME/PE. As a hellion, I would advise you to familiarize yourself with this mechanic so that you can try to end fights before a tick happens, that way the next fight you are starting, you can cleave.

In fact, learning to familiarize yourself with the tick system will also allow you to take advantage of another great leveling technique: Sleeping on the tick. In general, if you cleave a NPC and kill it, then kill 1-2 more and immediately sleep, you can wait about 10 seconds until you recover while sleeping on the tick (A lot) and then wake up and cleave something else only to repeat the process. Obviously the timing will change depending on how many NPCs you can kill in a minute, but for caster classes, sleeping on the tick is great technique for leveling because you get twice as much experience for dealing spell damage than for dealing physical damage.

This also introduces the very situational possibility of double cleaving someone in PvP if you happen to flee on the tick, which now makes me want to read that Hagrel v Turon log again.

[REDACTED] you again for that, by the way

I appreciate the insight on the game mechanics, that is very helpful. I still do not see why it should be that complicated to use the skill. Now I would like to ask both of you to please read my previous post entirely. It seems you both failed to realize that I had something to say about the PVP side of this along with a way to keep it from being a factor.
Using the same principle that is already applied 100% for these skills in pvp, just slightly tweaked, would prevent what you have both mentioned. Removing those principles with ordinary NPCs would not cause a huge ordeal. However, as I stated in the above, if it IS something that would be considered the a big deal, apply what I've suggested to all and it will work out to make the skills more useful, less complicated and with no abuse.

Dude, max, it's only a minute. Just wait a minute, man.

I get your point, but cleave isn't supposed to be used to chain start fights. It's not DnD cleave, it's a really heavy opening attack that tires the hellion out. It just so happens that the current mechanism runs off of the tick system which puts a happy medium between usually being able to cleave before a battle happens, but not every single fight that you get into if you're just spam killing NPCs. In addition, the way that you suggested would introduce another system of abuse where every time that a hellion didn't get first strike in a battle, he would just flee, run back into the room, and open with a cleave. Currently that's just not feasible, and rightfully so. Cleave currently works fine as it is: As long as the hellion didn't just get out of a combat (in this case as determined by the tick system) he can cleave. I think you would have a more enjoyable time learning to use cleave effectively as it is now rather than trying to lobby for a code change that would be a lot of work for a feature that already works well enough.

Sorry guys, I'm not trying to come off as obsessive. Rodwen, if you time the tick it can be a lot longer than a minute, especially when you don't know you are suppose to. That is why I appreciated Edoras' comment. Now, to clarify what I have already said.. because it seems my articulation was poor, the timer would apply to each npc/pc. If you are fighting X player and they flee a few rounds into the fight, you cannot simply chase them down with cleave, because the timer would be applied. However, if you are fighting X player and Y player is standing by watching, you should be able to cleave Y player without a timer, after X player has fled. That is what I am saying. The timer should be npc/pc specific so you aren't over hindered.