[X] My Assistant

Scythes may be rare, but when you get good ones they're awesome.

I'd say an Ethereal Mace is overall more useful than an Ethereal Scythe(do they even exist? I've never seen one for sale, or (personally) even a request for one), but the Scythe would likely have a huge damage.

Currently, the highest damage I've seen (emphasis on I), is 1225.8 on a Scythe (which I own (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)). It's also got an alright bleed.

This post has been edited by Spartan0021: Sep 25 2011, 03:48

I bought a half crappy ethereal scythe about 2 weeks ago or something.

I bought a half crappy ethereal scythe about 2 weeks ago or something.

Well, it's certainly the first Ethereal Scythe I've seen.

Speaking of which, I don't think I've ever gotten any type of scythe/katana as a drop.

Thanks, guess I'll keep my APs in reserve for the more important spells coming up then.
Just curious though, when/at which level onwards do the damage boost become more significant?

Use up your APs, you'll get more.

Overall, overcharge is not worth it when you got better stuff to spend your AP on.
you only get 1/3 of your overcharge as bonus damage, so maxing out your overcharge on one tier will only give you 3.3% damage increase, when your overcharge is filled. Not very impressive.
Especially not since you have to spend 3 ability points into spirit tank in order to unlock the overcharge tank, which will then require 5 ability points to fill.
Is 8 ability points really worth that 3.3% damage bonus?

Considering that you could instead get +9% health, +9% mana and still have 2 ability points remaining, not really.

But you'll get more ability points eventually, from turning in artifacts and from spending some credits at the trainer.
And then, the tiers will stop coming every 10 levels, meaning you get more ability points per tier......

There are some of they really high-leveled folks out there who claim they have spare ablity points, because they have unlocked all tiers and have put points into every spell, tank and slot that there is on every tier......

Use up your APs, you'll get more.

Overall, overcharge is not worth it when you got better stuff to spend your AP on.
you only get 1/3 of your overcharge as bonus damage, so maxing out your overcharge on one tier will only give you 3.3% damage increase, when your overcharge is filled. Not very impressive.
Especially not since you have to spend 3 ability points into spirit tank in order to unlock the overcharge tank, which will then require 5 ability points to fill.
Is 8 ability points really worth that 3.3% damage bonus?

Considering that you could instead get +9% health, +9% mana and still have 2 ability points remaining, not really.

But you'll get more ability points eventually, from turning in artifacts and from spending some credits at the trainer.
And then, the tiers will stop coming every 10 levels, meaning you get more ability points per tier......

There are some of they really high-leveled folks out there who claim they have spare ablity points, because they have unlocked all tiers and have put points into every spell, tank and slot that there is on every tier......

Especially if you're a melee, you'll end up with excess points. I don't need ALL the debuffs (yet), or several buffs (such as absorb), which leaves me with what I want maxed (all hp/mp tanks, some debuffs, some buffs, scroll/infusion slots, X-abilities, etc.), and +40% overcharge.

It does. I'd not invest any AP in it until lvl120-150, though.
As for the melee styles...
As a melee-only player I can comment on current situation:
Maces: are FotM at the moment, even after nerf. The reason is simple, as a melee you can NOT lolfarm IWBTH arenas for awesome exp without a mace, period. There is no way to do this. No way. No, there isnt any. No, you cannot do that. No, it is impossible. You'll simply get wiped out within few turns, over and out. Even with Spirit Shield. Or, in case you'll be lucky, you'll burn an ENORMOUS amount of spirit and will be wiped out by a round or two. Lower difficulty enemies are going down very fast aswell. As for the lowbies - they're getting oneshotted without SS so they would definitely take mace over anything else (not to mention that they'd take mage over anything melee-ish IMO)
Estocs: I used an Eth estoc up to 0.6 patch and it was good. I was not able to compare myself to a mage but still I was pretty happy with it. Estocs used to provide us "static" damage as they completely bypassed enemies' shield rating. Now this reduction percentage is far not as good as it used to be so we cannot rely on estocs anymore if we want to kill stuff as fast as we want even at the cost of taking all the damage from non-stunned enemies.
Bleed-based weapons (scythe/katana/longsword): This is what I used since I found out about this game. I liked the unique concept of "true damage" of these bleed ticks very much. Unfortunately, right now a bleeder weapon is only viable for lvl1-100 characters, as the higher level characters will eventually get a hold on yet_another_awesome_mace.

Now, what could be done about these?
First, do NOT, EVER, start suggesting with the word "nerf". You just dont.
If, in any case, one of the game aspects becomes a niche for everyone other gaming aspects are to be buffed to be competible to the Favor Of The Month one. That is my opinion.
Second, we cannot compare mages and melees. These classes are just THAT much different from each other. The only way to "balance" them is to make another one be as easy as the former. And that is very, VERY hard to implement without breaking the game completely or "overbuffing" one of them.
(By the way, I'd suggest nerfing the Normal and Hard enemies damage by at least 1/2 and 1/3. Low levels suffer from oneshots indeed. It is just not right so that EVERY round with 6 enemies is a 50/50 chance of dying lottery for them. Low difficulty must be "slow and steady" in my opinion. If a lowbie wants to risk and level-up himself a bit faster and he goes for Heroic+, well, he HAS to be Heroic and he literally confirms that he takes the risk of being owned.)
So, what could be done with melee class weapons:
Maces: DEY R FIEN.
No, I am serious. I miss that +100% damage bonus, right, but this is just how it should be. Right now a good Eth mace allows the user to wipe out any challenge even on higher difficulty given that he has enough manapots. Compared to mages who wipe out masses with the first turn, it IS okay.
Estocs: 80% of mobs amplify more damage from Stunned (even the 50% version of it) than from Armor pen proc. And Estoc weapon does not actually prevent YOU from being hit. So, as we can see, estocs are pretty useless unless you're sure you're fighting an enemy with 80% melee mitigation so you need to cut it at least by half.
How can we fix/balance that? I guess the only way to make a good estoc to be on par with a good mace is to bring back the 100% Armor pen. Otherwise Estoc class will be still inferior to Mace. Given that most enemies have less than 50% mitigation, Estoc provides less than 33% damage bonus given the "best" case, and even lower damage bonus if the target is less armored, while mace slaps the enemy with constant 50%.
Bleed-based: The most interesting in my opinion.
Bleeders are the weapons with lowest strike damage. They have no damage amplification nor they have any resistance/mitigation piercing mechanics. Instead of that bleeder weapons give us flat True damage ticks. Which are low compared to other classes and which are based on ENEMY action speed, which is even worse.
What could be done?
Honestly, this seems to be illogical. I slice someone so they bleed. I slice them again so they... bleed for the same damage. Wrooooooooong~
First idea is to make these ticks based on OUR action speed. So if there is a Scythe in my hand and I am twice as fast as the enemy, he will suffer from two ticks. Duration will be lowered accordingly. This change might be a good START, as it is still bad for those who are SLOWER than enemies. Also I guess it would be very hard to implement code-wise. AND it would still be a very small DPS output and it will not get bleeders to be on par with maces.
Second idea is to make the bleeds stack. IMO this one is a must, its the only logical concept.
And then there are two ways to do so.
- The new bleed proc might stack with the previous once AND prolong it. So if I hit someone with my weapon and the enemy is now affected by my bleed ticking for 500 dmg for 5 turns, then I poke him again and the bleed procs again so the enemy would take 1000 damage ticks for 5 turns. The pros of this way: trash mobs would not be very much affected by this as they die too fast, while bosses and legendaries DO last long enough for this to take effect. Compared to current mace mechanics such re-worked bleeder will still be inferior up until 15-25 turns when the bleed will be stacked approximately five times. Yes, we still risk dropping the DoT if we're unlucky with proc or crit chances, but we dont want bleeders to be overbuffed, right? In this case a very lucky dude with a very good crit-wise gear (Shadowdancer/Power-Balance) and the maxed bleeder Scythe will be able to stack the DoT up to immense numbers on a target that Just Refuses To Die. Still the risk of DoT falling down...
- Or, the bleeder proc might stack with previous one but it would NOT prolong its duration. For example, I poked an enemy and now he's bleeding for 500 damage for 5 turns. Then I poke him again and now he's bleeding for 1000 damage for 4 turns and 500 damage a turn after that. So literally I offer something like Warrior "deep wounds" concept from WoW game, as it seems to be the most logical one. This one seems even more logical than the first one but there are two problems: this version of buff is still not very much. If you're not using a max-bleed Scythe weapon with awesome stats then you by far will not profit from this as much as you'd profit from the Mace. Also this would be pretty hard code-wise aswell.

Phew.
Comments, anyone?

Ok, so no talk of nerfs.

Let's try with another angle then.
Maces are good, no talk of nerfs, instead we buff the other.

For rapiers/estoc, this is my suggestion.
We remove the penetrated armor, and instead make rapiers/estocs penetrate physical mitigation, meaning they do 100% damage against mobs no matter their endurance (take that giants). The only thing that mitigates their damage is the piercing-specific mitigation (and giants lost their piercing mitigation, ha ha).
But let's not remove penetrated armor completely, instead we'll keep it and make it reduce ALL mitigations to zero, including damage specific mitigations like that for piercing.
Now, our rapiers/estocs will truly do 100% damage. But it will also benefit other things, like spells, since all mitigations are gone.
It will also be a big boost for DW, since having a rapier off-hand will do wonders for the main-hand damage, if you manage to get it to proc. And possibly make the club+rapier into a real nasty combo, with PA for 100% "true" damage and stun for +50% damage.
DW could really do with that buff, so that would be nice.

As for bleeding weapons, they suck. My solution is to think outside the box.
Remove bleed entirely.
Instead, replace it with another skill, that decreases the affected monsters attack damage. Call it "deep wounds" or "lacerations" or "cut muscles" or whatever. This will reduce incoming damage as well, and do it more reliably than stun, since it can be stacked (or rather, renewed).
Ideally, it would reduce all damage, not just physical, but also magical (think of cut fingers or something, hard to do the magical gestures when you are lacking the right amount of fingers with which to do them).
Now, "bleeding" weapons will be more defensive, and maybe more suitable to 1-H, since reduced damage combined with higher base absorb should work to make the damage reduction more effective than for someone in light armor.
And double or maybe even triple the duration, so a 1-H can spread it around, to make full use of it. And maybe even retain the current bleed damage, 1-H and DW that spreads it around can still snicker and see their targets take some bleeding damage to soften them up after their initial wild sweep to proc "bleed" to all the enemy mobs, while they concentrate on taking down the main target.

And maybe even fix 1-H a little more, so that the counter-strike now always procs a stun, but only for 1 turn, but instead has a double chance of also proccing the weapons "bleed", PA or stun (if a club, and then for the clubs full stun duration instead of 1 turn).

This will of course again shift maces/clubs into becoming more of an offensive weapon by contrast, since "bleeding" weapons will now be the best choice for decreasing incoming damage.

Especially if you're a melee, you'll end up with excess points. I don't need ALL the debuffs (yet), or several buffs (such as absorb), which leaves me with what I want maxed (all hp/mp tanks, some debuffs, some buffs, scroll/infusion slots, X-abilities, etc.), and +40% overcharge.

Also, once you get really high, you can still invest into spells just to unlock the magic specific mitigations.

But that's when you got a lot of spare AP.

Also, once you get really high, you can still invest into spells just to unlock the magic specific mitigations.

But that's when you got a lot of spare AP.

Yeah ha, I also forgot that I have an extra 5 AP left over...but I've also bought 26 ability boosts ha.

I suppose that makes a rather large difference in how many points I've got.

@ Randommember

- You can't have PA remove specific mit. It breaks the game in so many ways.

- PA use to increase magic damage as well. Tenb nerfed it sometime ago...

- I already suggested about reduced mobs damage when they bleed. Tenb doesn't seem to be interested.

....

Especially if you're a melee, you'll end up with excess points.

Melee character without maxed OC boost has no excess AP. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

@ Randommember

- You can't have PA remove specific mit. It breaks the game in so many ways.

- PA use to increase magic damage as well. Tenb nerfed it sometime ago...

- I already suggested about reduced mobs damage when they bleed. Tenb doesn't seem to be interested.

....
Melee character without maxed OC boost has no excess AP. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

From what I've been reading, I'm not even recommended to start getting OC boosts before level 120 or so, so I'd say I'm already well ahead of the curve (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) .

But yeah, I know what you mean. Everyone has been saying OC doesn't make much of a difference under 120, but I would say it makes a nice difference. And once my ability tiers start coming in the 20s, I'll have a LOT of extra points to throw into OC.

This post has been edited by Spartan0021: Sep 25 2011, 07:23

I'm using a superior longsword of vampire (lv61) but I just found a fine mace of vampire (lv47) with 20% chance of stun ( 3 turns ). Should I switch to mace because from what I read on forum: a lot of players consider mace is a must-have weapon for melee players.

Oh... And I was wondering why mage is rather ... "quiet" for quite a while now. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)
Maybe I'll try estoc later today. I don't really have high hopes about it, though.

At least I'm not that quiet. Only there're too many melees in this thread right now (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)
When is the last time anyone asking for maging advice here?

Phew.
Comments, anyone?

1. Mages and melees are indeed two different species. Lower-level melees have a certain advantage that they are able to play in higher difficulties than their mage counterparts, but this advantage disappears when they level up, since the difficulty is capped at x10. Then mages can simply facemelt everything with 1-2 clicks.

2. Relating bleed to action speed seems not that good, since it will make haste and scroll of swiftness too overpowered.
Stacking it seems to be a good idea, but you'll have to stack it many times in order to make it effective. Which means you'' probably be dead at higher difficulties.
How about that? Let prof. affect the number of times the bleeding damage is applied.
This should make the bleeding damage more aligned to level of the player, while at the same time not affecting any current system of bleeding damage.

I mentioned awhile back that just moving the proc of the bleed to the start of a round instead of the end would go a long way to making it less 'dangerous' to use.

I think the problem is that the bleeding damage is too low right now when youre at higher level.
It doesn't matter if you need more than 5 turns to kill a monster with bleeding.

I'm using a superior longsword of vampire (lv61) but I just found a fine mace of vampire (lv47) with 20% chance of stun ( 3 turns ). Should I switch to mace because from what I read on forum: a lot of players consider mace is a must-have weapon for melee players.

Mace is better than longsword right now.

At least I'm not that quiet. Only there're too many melees in this thread right now (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)
When is the last time anyone asking for maging advice here?

When I said mage are "quiet" ... I meant that I didn't heard them whine.** (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif) This seem to be the case since... 0.6.1, I believe.

I wonder if this "quietness" is due to the last patch have some kind of herp-derp bug that made mages power to went over 9000 and absolutely broken more than ever before...? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Melee camp can't answer this, of course... And the mage camp seems to have learn the lesson from the past (better to just shut up so no one knows, bug is good!) ... This mystery probably will never be revealed. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)


Please don't take this post seriously, k?


** Referring to the Tiap comment that mage seem to be able to facemelt now.

.......

Relating bleed to action speed seems not that good, since it will make haste and scroll of swiftness too overpowered.

I'm not saying this because that like the idea. But why do you think that this would be too OP when its come to bleed? This is exactly how non-bleed weapon works.

This post has been edited by buktore: Sep 25 2011, 09:31

When I said mage are "quiet" ... I meant that I didn't heard them whine.** (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif) This seem to be the case since... 0.6.1, I believe.

I wonder if this "quietness" is due to the last patch have some kind of herp-derp bug that made mages power to went over 9000 and absolutely broken more than ever before...? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Melee camp can't answer this, of course... And the mage camp seems to have learn the lesson from the past (better to just shut up so no one knows, bug is good!) ... This mystery probably will never be revealed. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
Please don't take this post seriously, k?
** Referring to the Tiap comment that mage seem to be able to facemelt now.

.......
I'm not saying this because that like the idea. But why do you think that this would be too OP when its come to bleed? This is exactly how non-bleed weapon works.

Meh, I don't find mage broken...at least I am not notified of those bugs. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

I think the idea's OP because bleeding deals damage whether you hit the monster later or not.
For stun and PA, you still need to hit the monster again to deal damage.
Of course I'm not a melee, I just try to compare grossly how things work, so it maybe wrong.

I'm using a superior longsword of vampire (lv61) but I just found a fine mace of vampire (lv47) with 20% chance of stun ( 3 turns ). Should I switch to mace because from what I read on forum: a lot of players consider mace is a must-have weapon for melee players.

Maces are pretty good, but they aren't the end-all be-all weapon.

If you're playing on lower difficulties (Hard->Heroic), they don't make so much of a difference. Now if you're playing on harder difficulties (Nightmare+), a good mace is a must have.

Depending on the stats on those weapons, I would recommend trying to get a better overall mace (with a focus on a higher % chance of stun, although 3 turns is awesome at those levels).

I've just bought a pair of maces on the Bazaar (you can usually find some nice ones on there, particularly if you don't participate in WTS Auctions very often), and I have another that I got as a drop. I'll moogle them over to you and you can compare stats.

Bleed weapon might work better than mace at low lv (and low OC boost) / low difficulty, especially when you don't have great status ... Do some experiments and see how its go would be a good idea.

I think the idea's OP because bleeding deals damage whether you hit the monster later or not.
For stun and PA, you still need to hit the monster again to deal damage.

I had requested Tenb so that when your attacks do proc bleed, it will do damage right away, similar to how vampire weapon works. He doesn't seem to like the idea. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif) ... He did boost bleed damage afterward, though...

This post has been edited by buktore: Sep 25 2011, 10:13

Make bleeding percentage based instead?

So with this following exaggerated example:

25% damage per turn against regular mobs, 12.5% versus uncommon, 0.4% - requires 250 turns of bleed proc damage to kill - on rare/legendaries? Keep in mind, that's 250 turns of you doing 0 damage with your weapon and relying solely on bleed.

Seems like it would help on higher difficulties, but not so much on lower ones where it would actually be less useful.

All things unrelated:

How silly is it that you can still miss stunned monsters?

Referring to the Tiap comment that mage seem to be able to facemelt now.

I can facemelt up to Nightmare, anything higher I need 3-4 turns or more.
My EDB gear is far from being pefect though, so a better-equipped mage can probably wreak a lot more havoc.
hitokiri84 can facemelt in IWBTH, but then again, he has the firepower of a small army. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Maces are pretty good, but they aren't the end-all be-all weapon.

If you're playing on lower difficulties (Hard->Heroic), they don't make so much of a difference. Now if you're playing on harder difficulties (Nightmare+), a good mace is a must have.

Depending on the stats on those weapons, I would recommend trying to get a better overall mace (with a focus on a higher % chance of stun, although 3 turns is awesome at those levels).

I've just bought a pair of maces on the Bazaar (you can usually find some nice ones on there, particularly if you don't participate in WTS Auctions very often), and I have another that I got as a drop. I'll moogle them over to you and you can compare stats.

Thanks for your help, after trying both of them in grindfest, I realized that my mace missed more than the longsword but the stun effect is truly good ( especially when I ecountered a Manbear pig ). I think I will stick with my sword a bit more - at least until I got a better mace ^^.

Edit: Oh, I just read your message, thanks again for those maces.

This post has been edited by hawkeyesvn: Sep 25 2011, 12:26

Ok, so no talk of nerfs.

Let's try with another angle then.
Maces are good, no talk of nerfs, instead we buff the other.

For rapiers/estoc, this is my suggestion.
We remove the penetrated armor, and instead make rapiers/estocs penetrate physical mitigation, meaning they do 100% damage against mobs no matter their endurance (take that giants). The only thing that mitigates their damage is the piercing-specific mitigation (and giants lost their piercing mitigation, ha ha).
But let's not remove penetrated armor completely, instead we'll keep it and make it reduce ALL mitigations to zero, including damage specific mitigations like that for piercing.
Now, our rapiers/estocs will truly do 100% damage. But it will also benefit other things, like spells, since all mitigations are gone.
It will also be a big boost for DW, since having a rapier off-hand will do wonders for the main-hand damage, if you manage to get it to proc. And possibly make the club+rapier into a real nasty combo, with PA for 100% "true" damage and stun for +50% damage.
DW could really do with that buff, so that would be nice.

As for bleeding weapons, they suck. My solution is to think outside the box.
Remove bleed entirely.
Instead, replace it with another skill, that decreases the affected monsters attack damage. Call it "deep wounds" or "lacerations" or "cut muscles" or whatever. This will reduce incoming damage as well, and do it more reliably than stun, since it can be stacked (or rather, renewed).
Ideally, it would reduce all damage, not just physical, but also magical (think of cut fingers or something, hard to do the magical gestures when you are lacking the right amount of fingers with which to do them).
Now, "bleeding" weapons will be more defensive, and maybe more suitable to 1-H, since reduced damage combined with higher base absorb should work to make the damage reduction more effective than for someone in light armor.
And double or maybe even triple the duration, so a 1-H can spread it around, to make full use of it. And maybe even retain the current bleed damage, 1-H and DW that spreads it around can still snicker and see their targets take some bleeding damage to soften them up after their initial wild sweep to proc "bleed" to all the enemy mobs, while they concentrate on taking down the main target.

And maybe even fix 1-H a little more, so that the counter-strike now always procs a stun, but only for 1 turn, but instead has a double chance of also proccing the weapons "bleed", PA or stun (if a club, and then for the clubs full stun duration instead of 1 turn).

This will of course again shift maces/clubs into becoming more of an offensive weapon by contrast, since "bleeding" weapons will now be the best choice for decreasing incoming damage.

An Estoc proc with complete penetration of both mitigation AND damage-type-specific-resistance is Bad. Plain Bad. As mentioned above it would break the game. We have Void-based weapons for that, you know.
I had an option of "Damage reducing proc" aswell. My idea was so that enemies afflicted by ArPen/Bleed status should deal approx. half or 2/3 of their damage while being affected. See, the point of Mace class now is so that stunned enemies deal 100% reduced damage (stunned) and take 50% increased damage. So other weapon classes might be dealing something like 100% increased damage (via ArPen or stacking bleed, either one of them) via procs AND lowering enemy damage by 50%. So we can either have 100% + 50% or 50% + 100%.


The reason to pick OVercharge @ late levels of 150+ is because we only have one tier of spells every 20 levels. That makes it 20 AP per tier, with 10 going to tanks/one permanent ability and 10 more are free to spend. Plus the points from training section.

1. Mages and melees are indeed two different species. Lower-level melees have a certain advantage that they are able to play in higher difficulties than their mage counterparts, but this advantage disappears when they level up, since the difficulty is capped at x10. Then mages can simply facemelt everything with 1-2 clicks.

2. Relating bleed to action speed seems not that good, since it will make haste and scroll of swiftness too overpowered.
Stacking it seems to be a good idea, but you'll have to stack it many times in order to make it effective. Which means you'' probably be dead at higher difficulties.
How about that? Let prof. affect the number of times the bleeding damage is applied.
This should make the bleeding damage more aligned to level of the player, while at the same time not affecting any current system of bleeding damage.
I think the problem is that the bleeding damage is too low right now when youre at higher level.
It doesn't matter if you need more than 5 turns to kill a monster with bleeding.

Right. And that is my point. "You'll have to stack it many times in order to make it effective, which means you'll probably be dead at higher difficulties", precisely. As I said, Mace class will still remain superior for Arena/Grindfest/IW farm where there are lots of low-level enemies, while the Bleeder class will be better only in RoB/Boss fights. That would make sense IMO. We dont need three types of weapons which are just the same so it doesnt matter if you pick a mace or an estoc since you can just lolfaceroll the numeric keypad in order to win with either one equipped.
Bleed damage concept itself does not favor "trash-mob farm", due to the duration. It is indeed faster and safer to poke an enemy once more to kill him instead of letting him bleed and therefore be agitated > risk being oneshotted.

Make bleeding percentage based instead?

So with this following exaggerated example:

25% damage per turn against regular mobs, 12.5% versus uncommon, 0.4% - requires 250 turns of bleed proc damage to kill - on rare/legendaries? Keep in mind, that's 250 turns of you doing 0 damage with your weapon and relying solely on bleed.

Seems like it would help on higher difficulties, but not so much on lower ones where it would actually be less useful.

...leads to lulz and giggles in IWBTH exp farm run. Slice the enemies within up to six turns irregardless of their HP/PL/etc just cause they're "regular".
Percentage-based bleed might be an option, yes, but that will almost completely wipe out the difference between a good bleeder and the bad one.