Cleaving is good if you have 3+ characters. Cleave until everyone has most KI, then go farm the rest and pop it all.
With 1 character, you're generally better off red proccing individual NMs because otherwise you might spend 35 min waiting on just one KI. You can always cap amber and cleave the trash mobs while doing it, and maybe get some KIs you'll use in the process.
Thats how I see it too. The Chloris flowchart absolutely sucks, then pile on how nothing is next to each other:
Clionid and Limule NM (Conf 1) for a pop item that isnt 100%, paired with Hecteye (Conf 3) pop item to spawn KI NM
Corpselight NM (Conf 4) for a pop item that isnt 100%, paired with bat (Conf 2) pop item to spawn KI NM.
Mandy NM (Conf 2) for a pop item that isnt 100%, paired with scorp (Conf 4, but running may be quicker) to spawn KI NM.
Chukwa all the way in the NW corner (Conf 6) for timed NM.
Between all the travel and pop item farming, I cant imagine that takes less than 30 minutes.
Its atrocious, but if you're sitting on bat + scorp + turtle KI's, you could spend another 30 minutes cleaving for nothing, watching more bat/scorp/turtle KI's hit the floor instead of just doing the leg work for the clionid/limule NM's and proccing the hecteyes for the last KI.
But most importantly, if you're gonna cleave Tahrongi, you might as well kill those Glavoids.