You’re right, it seems to prioritize elites/specials but personnaly i still dont see a reason to pick that talent.
The dual ult, is still a very good option, in pure elite damage and some more boss damage, so there’s nothing wrong with taking it.
The sweep ult, is a bit safer to use because of it’s wider sweep, it’s strong at dealing with specials/disablers, and it’s good at taking out monks/zerkers, while still being able to take out 1-2 sv, or 1 CW.
https://www.ranaldsgift.com/16/113030/21,1,7,3/18,1,8,6/3,2,5/1,3,4/7,4,3
Off meta build I’ve been using, because GK has some really frustrating weaknesses and not enough talents to deal with them. The build prioritizes stagger and survivability over competing with the team for damage and kills.
Knightly Temper should stop denying thp and probably come with a passive 5% crit boost. Virtue of Discipline or Heroism could be changed to provide some form of attack speed so GK can be more flexible during a fight beyond just single target damage. Speaking of, first light attack on the Bret Shield really needs to be faster, feels almost cruel to give a character whose biggest weakness is slow attack speed an exclusive weapon with an even slower attack speed. Handmaiden’s shield doesn’t come with that problem, hits fast, hits hard, and is still balanced. I think Virtue of the Impetuous Knight doesn’t provide a useful utility and would rather damage reduction or attack speed. The cleave and stagger of his ults and ult talents are chaotic, too; sometimes they stagger things, sometimes they blow things over like a footknight charge, and then other times they just don’t (and I mean this for all ult talents against any combination of enemies). It makes his ult hard and unpredictable to use. I’d rather all of his ults have a guaranteed cone of stagger instead of whatever is going on right now that makes Virtue of Audacity sometimes make stormvermin step back, sometimes knock all Stormvermin down in a straight line, and sometimes do exactly nothing leaving you open to eat 3 overheads.
Just wondering, why are you taking Enhanced power over Smiter? as far as i know smiter outperforms enhanced power on all forms of damage.
Are you sure on that? According to description Smiter only counts on the first enemy hit. So if you cleave three or more enemies with the first hit then Enhanced Power should provide a better bonus. Not sure on already staggered enemies as there is no text for Enhanced Power so I assume Smiter will then be better again.
In addition Enhanced Power increases cleave and stagger power which help both either for high cleave weapons cleaving even more and shields providing better defense.
Didn’t they fix smiter now also correctly affecting enemies you cleave. So it’s better then enhanced power, unless ranging.
Well, I didnt mention range because that point is kinda void on Grail Knight 
Why fixing? The description says the first enemy hit, not enemy hit first time. So according to description it should only affect the first enemy if you cleave multiple ones. And if it does more it should be changed because Smiter is good enough already.
Hmmmm -_- Okay, the wording is kinda problematic there as it says “First enemy hit”. From wording alone it is not possible to say if “first” relates to enemy or to hit. So both interpretation are possible. Yea, in that case Smiter does more damage in all cases. It still has potential value in increased Cleave and Stagger Power.
I found it.
I knew i saw it mentioned somewhere.
Hope this answered your question.
Not really, because it could also mean that Smiter avoided granting stagger bonus on targets after first hit for already staggered enemies. Which would be an actual bug which would need fixing.
I think it is easier if I just test it to see what it does. Most likely it is as you said and Smiter counts on all targets on first hit.
I read the quoted part as: it now grants dmg increase if you hit targets after the first target, aka cleave.
Also didn’t you make a stagger talent thread discussing them or proposing new ones? I would assume you know how they work. I’m just a noob here concerning stagger talents.
I proposed a change to the current system. Most of it was on how I understood the system. I never did an in-depth analysis with actual numbers. I think for the changes I proposed it was enough.
But to the actual point, I went into modded realm. I used Executioner because it is easier to make a cleave hitting all enemies on same part. Rest of the set-up is not important. I just changed the stagger talent in between and did several repetitions for body-hitting three fanatics on Cataclysm:
Bulwark: 23, 14, 9
Smiter: 28, 14, 9
So Smiter in fact (at least in modded realm) only affects the first target in multi cleave hits.
Enhanced Power is to reach stagger breakpoints. Like I said, the build isn’t to hit any dps breakpoints, it’s purely for survival because Grail Knight kind of sucks now that I’ve played as him for months. In QP, team play goes out the window so self preservation > raw dps. Can’t depend on the team to have my back when specials or mixed hordes arrive and since he can’t reach Slayer or Zealot attack speeds, I’ve come to the opinion that making a pocket by staggering everything back with a shield is beneficial to me not spending the match on the floor.
Made up numbers to illustrate what the issue with smiter was pre-season 2.
Before season 2 Smiter looked like
stagger 0 (12, 5, 5) stagger 1 (12, 5, 5), stagger 2 (14, 5 ,5)
Talentless looked like: (10, 5, 5), stagger 1 ( 12, 6, 6) stagger 2 (14, 7 ,7)
Post season 2, it now looks like:
Stagger 0 (12,5,5) stagger 1 (12,6,6) stagger 2 (14,7,7)
Yea, that is how I interpreted the patch notes Mattie linked. That Smiter before stopped ALL bonus damage for staggered enemies after the first.
But to get back to the actual start of this argument chain. Enhanced Power should have some use on multi cleave weapons for different reasons.
Lmao, ok buddy.
GK is a powerhouse, in your thread you just listed some stuff that you consider weak in a complet biased way. You don’t even need a shield in cata thanks to the 60% stamina regen build path and his melee weapon are pretty good for a melee nuke oriented career.
I do not approve of this thread.
I’m a huge fan of role specific classes in cooperative games. The problem I’m seeing in this thread isn’t about Grail Knight being weak but about players not fully understanding what his role is in a cooperative setting. Grail Knight is fantastic just the way he is and he’s so satisfying to play.
If every hero was great at everything then there wouldn’t be a need for different careers and that’s the bottom line because Stone Cold Sir Kruber said so!
That just means if GK is fine, a lot of other careers are too good. At the time this thread was created GK, didnt do much of anything better than other careers aside from having a situationally utilitarian active.
There are careers that do what GK does and without those big maluses that GK has. So I underline what thread’s title says… aaand I would give some love to him.
tbh only thing I don’t like about GK after spending over 100 cata games with him is he doesn’t have much going for him in terms of talent variety
and not being able to use halberd or spear makes me a sad panda