Nice work all in all. I have used the hack-slash-flourish combo with 5 points in flourish and it is indeed very effective 3 click combo. However, there is one problem with your analysis. I don't think flourish hits three times with damage between 84 and 164. It hits three times so that the total damage is between 84 and 164. So the multiplying factor of three should not be in the calculations. My flourish at the moment does 148-296 points of damage and the three hits together never exceed 296 when fighting against yellow or red tag enemies. Against lower level enemies it can do that, but that is because the game let's us inflict massive damage against weaker opponents. Maxing thrust would thus result in a more powerful skill than maxing flourish (I don't think maxed flourish and unlocked thrust are comparable). An optimal short combo with a lot of damage, ie. high dps, would then probably be hack-slash-thrust with the latter maxed. I think maxing flourish is still a good idea, though. And cleave is a good skill to skip, you are right about that.
But keep up with that, it would be interesting to see those types of calculations for other skills too (I'm too lazy for that
). But the "mathematically best build" for any skill is probably a bit of a subjective concept, depending on playing style and other factors.
Simon