Unless you outsmart Ratling Gunners with line of sight, you’ll just get knocked back trying to get close with or without a shield. His Bastion of Bretonnia perk negates the knockback as well as the damage of Warpfire Throwers, why not extend that knockback negation to Ratling Gunners as well?
Grail Knight just doesn’t quite have any tools to deal with them as a melee-only career (Slayer has Leap/Throwing Axes, Warrior Priest has Shield of Faith/Blessed Tome dash)
Do we just have to make do with the 10% movement speed buff?
As a Sienna main who also gripes with ratlings, stick to the basics. Ratling gunners track ONE allied target per salvo. If it’s you, follow the tooltip’s advice: find cover and let your allies handle it. If it’s tracking an ally, you want to take care of it for them.
I agree with @Freaktacular and indeed GK, despite not bad, is overshadowed by better options (WP, Slayer, IB, WHC, etc etc)… and, if that wasn’t enough, Fatshark decided to nerf him cutting off the only niche he had (boss damage)
Moreover yep, Bastion of Bretonnia: an entire passive for one only enemy and only if you use a shield… that’s really a waste and they totally should buff it to counter Gunners stagger
Umm no, hard disagree here. Grail Knight had always been top tier and remains so even after the extremely insignificant nerf. His damage is insane and consistent, his quest buffs are amazing, and hrs still solid as ever.
I can’t believe you’re even putting him in the same level as Slayer.
Honestly I would not call the nerf “insignificant”. The longer ult cooldown broke the combo tripot>ult>ult, wich was the only way to inflict a decent boss damage (except playing with decatenter and hoping to find a purple potion, aka RNG)
Well, Slayer has the leap wich, especially for a only melee career, is incredibly strong both in defensive (escape from a bad situation) and offensive phase (well positioning, reaching a special)
The ult is a panic button too and offers a great stagger
He can build up attack speed, wich is useful to use clunky weapons and anyway it increases the survivability
He can reach a high damage resistance
All this for a damage output that… maybe it’s just very little fewer? (Slayer can still reach high power/crit chance)
But ok, let’s exclude Slayer… still WHC, WP and GK is straight stronger and fill the same niche (and not only!)
That’s not “decent” boss damage, that’s straight up insta-killing the boss before it has a chance to be a threat, which is literally why they nerfed it. After the very miniscule nerf, GK will still do very high damage to monsters, but it just won’t be exploited as easily anymore.
This is like trying to say BH’s double shot nerf was bad because it didn’t let BH perma-stun and kill bosses the second they appear.
What do other existing careers being stronger prove? Hell in both WP’s case I wouldn’t even say stronger but rather fulfills completely different roles.
But, just out curiosity, are we talking about Cataclysm? Because, even using the double-hit ult, the damage of a single blessed blade vs bosses is low
The only ways to “melt” bosses are:
decanter + purple potion, but it’s RNG, you need to find the right potion;
concotion + yellow potions generator talent: you have to “create” at least two potions, give one to an ally, keep the other for you, and when a boss spawns you must hope your ally gives to you its potion; it needs more steps and cooperation
I mean, there are easier ways to kill a boss
Moreover we have to consider other two factors:
you need the double-hit ult, aka nothing horizontal slash, so your power vs mixed hordes and your survivability decrease;
during the entire “process of boss killing”, aka while you’re using your ult, you can get hit and killed by others enemies… the ult is long and leaves you vulnerable. Indeed, when there is a messy situation aka when you really need to kill that boss as fast as possible, you may be also not able to use the blessed blade because surrounder by enemies
Because there are careers with more or less the same GK damage output but wich can: leap, dash, insta-stagger, heal up, tank more hits, being invulnerable…
Just to make an example, in a messy situation where you’re surrounded by many elites, WP you talked about, can kill more enemies than GK, because he can tank more damage, make more space and stagger the enemies, so can still attack and inflict damage in situation where a GK must stop and defend himself or he would die
Even on Cata getting the double stab into a boss does significant damage, and even more damage when potioned.
You trying to tell me a WP can inflict the same amount of damage to a boss in the same short period of time as a GK?
Not to mention GK himself have the ability to block and dodge around just like any career, which is plenty enough most of the times while doing enormous damage.
Again the main difference now is you can’t melt a boss completely with ease on Cata. Which should never have been possible to begin with
Yep, WP can inflict more or less the same damage (while being more tanky and supportive)… BUT I was talking about complessive damage output, not only vs bosses
The only boss damage alone can’t compensate all the other disadvanges… also because, as Fatshark itself said, a career must be valuated during a bad situation (since, if things go well, everything is more than enough to win)
When a boss is really dangerous? When it spawns while you’re surrounded by many elites and other enemies. In that situation, GK can be killed while damaging the boss. Or he can be killed by the boss/other elites while cleaning the room. It’s almost enough one overhead. Or again he may be forced to defend only
While WP can easily tank the damage and clean the whole room, so the others players can easily kill the boss
All this without consider that WP, tripot + 2h hammer, can inflict serious damage to a boss
?.. I mean yep, everyone can dodge and block. But a dash, a leap, an insta-stagger, a heal, an invisibility, a invulnerability, a damage reduction… they all are an incredible advange
There are situations in wich you get surrounded and you can’t dodge and the stamina finishes
I wouldn’t change the knockback there, it’s nice to have something to be on the lookout for.
I disagree with the ulti nerf though. As it’s been said, you need a build and potion to be a monster killer. And if anything, that’d kinda be the whole identity (lorewise) of the career. As it is, even before prenerf, with horizontal swing (my favorite uti for him) even with conc potion I’d do a few dents in the monsters, nothing more.
Not saying GK should be a Shade, as he has many strenghts Shade hasn’t, just pointing out that I think the ulti nerf goes in a bad direction lorewise (possibly gamewise too). The rest of the career’s fine.