Cleave

Cleave is a warrior melee ability that deals damage to the target and a nearby ally, learned at level 24. It is also used by many high-level bosses that use mainly physical attacks. Cleave shares a 3 second cooldown with Heroic Strike, but is not affected by the global cooldown.

Improvements
Talents:
 * Meat Cleaver: Dealing damage with Cleave or Whirlwind increases the damage of Cleave and Whirlwind by 5/10% for 10 sec. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
 * Thunderstruck: Improves the damage of your Cleave and Thunder Clap by 3/6%. In addition, your Thunder Clap improves the damage of your next Shockwave by 5/10%. Stacks up to 3 times.

Glyphs:
 * Glyph of Cleaving increases the number of targets your Cleave hits by 1. This effectively increases the damage output of your Cleave by 50%, provided that you have 3 targets to hit.

Tips and tactics

 * Cleave is closely related to Heroic Strike. Both share the same 3 second cooldown, cost 30 rage, and do not trigger the global cooldown, making them perfect for moments of 'excess rage', as they can be inserted into the middle of a rotation, increasing dps (and threat) without disruption. While Cleave deals more damage overall, its damage is split over 2 targets (3 if glyphed), and so is superior in terms of overall dps and threat generation (when facing multiple opponents) but is slower to cause damage to any given target.


 * Inner Rage reduces the cooldown of Heroic Strike and Cleave by 50% for 15 sec. With only a 30 second cooldown and no rage cost, this can stay up half of the time, and significantly improves the availability of these abilities. Saved as a cooldown, it is perfect for burning off excess rage.


 * Currently, Cleave is the only multi-targeted Warrior ability that both scales with weapon damage and can be used while in Defensive Stance, and the only multi-targeted ability of any class that does not trigger a Global Cooldown. This makes it ideal for high-end tanking situations involving multiple targets.


 * Sweeping Strikes works with Cleave, causing each Cleave to strike 4 targets (6 if glyphed). Cleave's secondary target is the nearest enemy other than the Warrior's main target.  For this reason, if the Warrior and all targets are stationary, Cleave will continue to strike the same secondary target.  Shifting positions slightly will often change the secondary target, however tanks and dps alike should be aware that this may cause Cleave to break nearby CC if not used carefully.


 * Though the tooltip states that the secondary target of the Cleave will be the primary target's nearest ally, it instead appears to affect the closest enemy target, regardless of whether it is allied with the primary target or not. For example, if a Warrior were to Cleave a monster standing near an NPC of the opposing faction, the cleave would affect the enemy NPC as well, though it is not allied with the primary target.


 * Cleave is very similar to Heroic Strike and a lot of the same tactics can be applied. Generally, Cleave should be used like Heroic Strike but only in AOE situations in order to not break CC and limit aggro to the tank's main target.


 * For a more in-depth discussion of the mechanics and mathematics of Cleave, refer to the Talk:Cleave/Analysis page.