Seeing the final patchnotes , cleave seems to be very much untouched from the nerfs besides bind demon.

Gotta see what they mean by the animation fix („ a bug was present that made cleave animation look slower than it actualy is)

I recently tested some cleave builds in editor to check if any two handers were viable . Even though I used the fastest two handers (like botd in a giant thresher for -10 base + 60 weapon ias, or toombreaver with Zod + 2 shael for 100 weapon ias) with all the ias gear available: it still felt super slow compared to grief phasblade.

Maybe this will change with the animation fix.

All that aside , the best build I came up with was very very strong even without bind demon and one or two shot almost any group on p8:

skills

Eld tree:

Cleave: enough to hit 360 degree
Synergies maxed: Mirrored blades, hex purge, eld blast.
Hex bane: rest of your points (for purge synergy)

Demon tree:

Enough to get 2 demons, consume goatman/ get an aoe guy
May change with final patch notes

Chaos tree:

Sigil lethargy: one point for more AR on bosses / slow if needed.

Gear


Enigma
Grief
Hellwardens will with protector stone
Mephisto book with ed/ias jewel
Gore rider
Loh
Gheeds wager
Highlords
Ravenfrost
Dualleech fcr ring

Inventory: torch, anni, eld skillers , bottom Collum 3/20/20s

Merc: might with pride coh Andy

overall This build gives

Max ias
75 fcr on main slot
~ 80% crit
Max atackspeed
-35 enemy magic res for hex bane + eld blast
Level 38 eld blast(tel:4427-44734427-4473[/URL] damage)
Level 38 hex purge (1876- 2231 damage on each proc)
Enough atackrating with raven Mephisto and maxed hex to run eld skillers
2000% ed (2350 vs demons)

Ed sources:

Cleave level 37: 800% ed
Mephisto book (40/15 jewel): 155% ed
~Level 18 levitation mastery: 93% ed
Level 24 might (merc level 95+4skills): 270% ed
Level 20 conq from pride: 345% ed
Level 13 Consume: 85% ed
Sunder charm: 100%
~ 150 strengh: 150% ed

summary

This build has huge phys damage with huge ED, is super mobile for a meele build (second highest fcr breakpoint) and actualy has a lot of magic damage on top:

Since eld blast and hex purge are cleave synergy’s they are maxed and even boost each other.

Atackrating feels super good. You have a lot from cleave itself, maxed hex, levi mastery and get some from mephisto Book/raven. If you realy need more you can cast sigil.
Had enough AR to run eld skillers, wich boost eld blast and your hex to deal significant damage, especially with all the - enemy res on your gear.

Aoe with physical cleave damage + eld blast + hex is very strong

Single target melts like nothing with maxed mirrored blades.

New season 14 changes:

Since they reverted some nerfs from the demon tree (less hard points needed in mastery to get extra demons), bind demon could be used again.

I put my remaining points into hex bane to boost synergy for purge.

But a bound demon with holy freeze/light enchanted/amp will still proc it consistently. Loosing some magic damage from hex but getting amp back.

Cleave lock actualy may have enough points left to make bind demon viable, gotta see how it works out.

But overall this feels like the strongest meele build I have played so far (besides pre nerf ES of course) and I don’t know why it is slept on that hard

Maybe I could inspire some to give cleave a try. Looks like a realy good endgame build for season 14, when you have the gear for it.

Let’s see what the animation change does, maybe we can even run some crazy two handers then , wich just looks broooooken to me.

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 10 2026 03:22am

I've been thinking of a cleave horazon build myself. What's the ias bpoints for grief pb for example? Can't seem to find the source

There is no source sadly. Cleave is hardcoded and the actual Formular isn’t figured out.

That’s why I tested all kind of variations of ias gear with different weapons:

hellwardens will with/without 15 ias jewel
Meph book with/without 15 ias jewel

Loh
Highlords

Also tried Horazon gloves + boot combination for 10 more ias
With/without Nosferatus
With/without fanatism aura

Weapons I tried:

Giant thresher BOTD

Toombreaver with 2x15 ias/2x shael/15 ias+ shael/ shael+ stone/ 15 ias + stone

Death in decapitator
Death in glorious axe (4range)
Death in champion axe (3range but great base speed)

Results:

With fanatism I reached the same atackspeed with every weapon but death in glorious axe/decapitator.

Without fana , botd GT and toombreaver with 2x 15/40 jewels / Zod (2 shael didn’t make a difference) we’re the fastest.

That said, all weapons felt super bad compared to grief .

And after patch fanatism won’t be viable (if bind demon will be viable for cleave, you want holy freeze for sure cause amp nerf)

But since they said animation was bugged, I will try this again when patch is live, maybe there will be a difference now!!

Sadly there is no way to tell breakpoint but try in editor atm. But grief felt sooooo much faster/better than any two hander

EDIT: actualy hit the same BP as GT/toombreaver with BOTD in a war pike. But gotta wait for patch and I will test again.

The extra range from two handers would benefit the build quite a lot. And Mephisto actualy seems better than phoenix anyway, by a lot , so no drawback for not using shields. Let’s hope the animation fix will give us some answers

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 10 2026 03:59am

Which base you used for grief - pb I assume?

And did u compare max dmg AR charm gc Vs Eldridge skillers? Very helpful info btw

This post was edited by xtraseal on May 10 2026 04:16am

Yes . Haven’t tried another one hander so far. But with animation fix I will try all kinds of one/two handers again and give an update.

But since a botd GT with its -10 base and 60 weapon ias still felt so slow with all the ias gear available I don’t get my hope up for anything beside phaseblade grief

Haven’t tried a full 3/20/20 inventory , I just wanted to figure out the ias breakpoints.

Won’t have much time for testing sadly. But damage with skillers and only bottom Collum 3/20/20s felt awesome.

Since eld blast and purge are synergy’s to cleave and even to each other theire damage is actualy realy nice. And with Mephisto, wager and hellwarden (ias+ fcr + magic res)you boost them even further while still having 80% crit for meele , huge ed and easy access to the 75 fcr breakpoint, so I realy like the skiller setup.

Eld skillers also give you some passive atackrating and minor ED by boosting your skill levels for cleave, Hex and levitation mastery , wich all add atackrating/ED with higher levels

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 10 2026 04:37am

I played cleave a bunch on live, and I still think eth Death Colossus Sword is the best. You can get to 11 frame attacks, it has huge ed, crushing blow, deadly strike, and attack rating. I don't know what frames you get to with phase blade, but I highly encourage you to try this because I don't think a few faster frames makes up for the rest.

Edit: I just checked planner (which has been correct on the weird cleave attack frames to my knowledge), and grief is only one frame faster with ~4000 less dps than eDeath CS.


This post was edited by cncaudata on May 10 2026 03:24pm

Hex bane max + prerequisites cleave build is so much better than physical builds, paired with hell wardens/mephisto/azurewrath it's a ton of fun. 20k magic damage per hit @360 degree clears so well.

Can we get a video of this build clearing an area in p8?
Thanks for all your research, it looks like a fun and incredible build.
Also it's bottom row; columns are vertical.

Did you try merc with reaper's toll, or dreadfang, or 2x lawbringers? Decrep doesn't suffer the 1/5th penalty amp does when breaking phys immunes

Thanks for the input m8 ! I have tried death on editor but actualy forgot that it can be used in swords

The fastest base for death I tried was champion axe wich is -10
I also tried glorious axe and decapitator

Champion axe death was able to reach the same speed as BOTD Gisnt thresher but only with a fana aura. Glorious axe and decapitator was slower than BOTD (without fana) even when using fana.

That said, ALL the two handers where SIGNIFICANT slower than grief. I don’t know wich source you used but there is no way it was just one frame slower. Even a 100 ias toombreaver/ BOTD in GT with its 60 ias was considerably slower than grief . Even when using all the ias gear available on every slot


There was no two hander that came close to grief speed , definitly not just one frame.

Or does the warlock just hit better frames with swords overall? Would be weird but Gonna try the colossus blade for sure when I have time. But since Death doesn’t have any ias on it I‘m sceptical . With the axes it was a LOT slower than grief



This sounds interesting, too! But the build I used hit like 2k ED and 80% crit while basicly using all the gear you mentioned beside azure. Phys damage was crazy and purge/blast are synergy’s anyway. I also realy want good phys for leech since you are in the middle of packs all the time while telestomping.





Sorry I‘m old as hell , don’t even know how to post pictures here .

Since I mainly wanted to try the hidden IAS breakpoints , I haven’t realy tried merc setups. Just went for the might one with pride for max ED.

Gonna see if Bind demon is viable after the patch. The build has quite some leftover points to spend . I put them in bane to boost hex purge a bit further. But if bound demon will be viable(not dieing all the time) I would put them there/ mastery. A holy freeze/light enchant/Amp demon would proc pretty consistent.
Would go for the pride merc + an amp bound demon if it works.

If bind demon won’t work well after patch, I‘m sure a merc to proc your curses will be better than the conc aura from pride.

To sum it up:
if bind demon viable after patch —-> Might merc with pride
If it is not ——> Might merc with reapers or a5 lawbringer merc

Thanks for the many answers!

This post was edited by Junglist69 on May 11 2026 12:02am

Yes. I don't quite get why the game does this, and I only learned it recently, but two weapons with the same speed (and I'm not being a complete novice and thinking the text in the game matters, I mean actual speed as you've referenced, e.g. -10) don't actually have the same speed if they're different weapon types. Warlock seems to be a really extreme example of this, where a sword and polearm with the same speed have vastly different frames.

Your questions about bind demon are also apt - I don't know how it's going to work out exactly. I actually think that part of this bulid's difficulty is that it requires so *many* skill points. You listed Bane as a sort of nice-to-have, but I consider it mandatory. Not only does it synergize Purge, it is useful for single target damage, i.e. boss/uber/herald, because Purge does nothing there.