Other ‘Tips and Info’ threads for other Characters are linked at the bottom.
- Mercenary
- Huntsman
- Foot Knight
- Grail Knight
- Links to other threads
Feel free to ask or answer any questions, and I’ll add it to the main post, so it’s easier to find. I will add, remove or reword sections on request.
Introduction:
These are discussion threads, where the aim is to share and test different mechanical interactions or gameplay strategies that aren’t made clear by game descriptions or by general gameplay experience. For that reason I will not be focusing on breakpoints too heavily.
Links to other guides:
These are links to builds and in-depth information on every Career and Weapon. My guides are more to share information and mechanic interactions that aren’t obvious or take some testing:
For in-depth guides with specific stat builds and breakpoints, check out Sleezyrats and Royal w/ Cheese’s guides on Steam guides:
Steam Community :: Guide :: Tweaking Your Build (Supplement to the Build Guides)
Movement Speed techniques with all Characters/Careers/Weapons:
Steam Community :: Guide :: In-depth Movement Guide
1. Mercenary:
1. Mercenary:
Health: 150 (with 20% Health on Necklace) - 172 (with WPoS Passive)
Cooldown: 90s (63s with 30% CDR)
Cooldown Reduction On-Hit: 0.5s
Cooldown Reduction On-Damaged: 0.5s
Tips:
- Potential x?% Damage Reduction with Walk It Off, Barkskin and Blade Barrier
- Potential 20% Crit Chance
- Potential 30% Attack Speed (40% with Enhanced Training)
- Potential 47.5 Power
- Potential 40% Dodge Distance with multiple weapons
- Helborg’s Tutelage gains double stacks from Mace and Sword Heavy Attacks
- Shield Slams grant Paced Strikes
- Ranged Weapons benefit from Helborg’s Tutelage
- Hitting the Sweet Spot (Passive): Attacks cleave through more enemies. Enemies’ hitmass is reduced by 25% (This can also be read as “cleaves through ~33% more enemies, rounded down”).
General opinion:
Not much to say about Merc, as he’s quite simple to play. He becomes weaker the less enemies there are, and so doesn’t have the most amazing Boss damage. This doesn’t stop him being an absolute power house though.
The best advice I can give is to use your Career Skill offensively or preventatively (Damage Reduction), rather than only reactively (to heal people).
Greatsword is one of the best Melee builds in the game for Cata+, and is incredibly fun.
Synergy:
Merc has good synergy with most Careers. His Career Skill makes him especially good with anything that uses Overcharge or doesn’t have a lot of THP generation. Strike Together makes him synergise well with other Melee Careers.
Questions:
**
2. Huntsman:
2. Huntsman:
Health: 120 (with 20% Health on Necklace) - 135 (with WPoS Passive)
Cooldown: 90s (54s with 40% CDR)
Cooldown Reduction On-Hit: 0.3s
Cooldown Reduction On-Damaged: 0.4s
Tips:
- Potential 40% Cooldown Reduction, making him capable of near unlimited ammo with every Ranged Weapon
- Potential 20% Crit Chance (45% with Makin’ It Look Easy)
- Potential 15% Movement Speed
- Using your Career Skill while out of ammo gives you ammo back
- Conservative Shooter stacks on top of his Passive Waste Not, Want Not
- Use Shot Crafter with Shields and Thick Hide with any other melee
- Makin’ It Look Easy works with Melee, allowing you to easily get Swiftslaying up
- Using the alternative fire on Repeater Handgun and pressing your Career Skill as you reach low ammo on the automatic fire, will cause you to refill your ammo and continue spamming automatic fire
- Using a Shield or Weapon with high mobility is recommended to make space for yourself so you can reload
- Hunter’s Prowl (Ult): Markus disappears from sight and gains the following effects for 6 seconds. Attacking ends the invisibility, but not the other effects.
Loses -5% dodge range
Loses -10% movement speed
Increased damage on ranged weapons
Ranged weapons do not consume ammo
Gains +40% reload speed
Can access increased zoom, similarly to Waystalker - Make 'Em Bleed: Critical hits cause enemies to take 20% increased damage for 15 seconds . Does not stack with similar effects
- Makin’ It look Easy: After scoring a ranged headshot Markus gains 25% increased critical hit chance until his next critical hit
- One in The Eye works with melee headshots too
- Make 'Em Bleed does stack with Bulwark
- Make 'Em Bleed works with melee Crits too
General opinion:
Huntsman has one of the widest skill gaps in terms of playing different builds in the game. Blunderbus is extremely easy, while Longbow and Handgun require a lot of thought and good accuracy to make competitive. Once you start consistently landing headshots with Longbow and Handgun they do a lot of damage. The one-shot all Elites/Specials build with Handgun makes you very specialised, but effective.
Longbow deals a huge amount of damage to Monsters if you land headshots. Especially if you’re using Hunter, which is works well with his Passive to sustain ammo. Longbow has the highest potential damage output of any of his Ranged Weapons, except Blunderbus. You do need to land headshots though.
Spamming Light Shots on Hordes is completely viable on Huntsman, if you find a good headshot angle. Using Burst Of Enthusiasm with Thick Hide, will make you surprisingly tanky.
Handgun is easier to use, due to the bodyshot breakpoints, and does good Boss damage.
Repeater Handgun is one of the best Special killing Weapons across all of his Careers and that doesn’t stop on Huntsman. His Talents and Passives make it extremely good at sustaining ammo while killing Elites and Specials. Using the alternative fire and spamming automatic shots as much as possible is advised.
Blunderbus is still one of the strongest builds in the game and deals a huge amount of damage to Hordes. As with Repeater Handgun, the ammo sustain and ability to use Traits like Hunter benefit the Blunderbus greatly.
Any of his Melee Weapons work, given the right build, with two-handers becoming a bit more difficult to use in higher difficulties.
Synergy:
Huntsman can be very glass-cannon and can rely on teammates a lot, so he has a lot of synergy with Melee-focused Careers, and feels safest when he’s the only Ranged Career.
Questions:
3. Foot Knight:
3. Foot Knight:
Health: 180 (with 20% Health on Necklace) - 203 (with WPoS Passive)
Cooldown: 30s (27s with 10% CDR)
Cooldown Reduction On-Hit: 0.25s
Cooldown Reduction On-Damaged: 0.5s
Tips:
- Potential 55% Attack Speed
- Bull of Ostland! is granted stacks from corpses
- Pressing right click after using your Career Skill cancels it’s movement
- Bandaging and then using your Career skill works. Cancelling movement while bandaging also works
- Potential 32.5% Power
- Potential 80% Block Cost
- You have x?% Damage Reduction and more if you use That’s Bloody Teamwork!
- Stamina/CDR and Bull of Ostland! will allow you to maintain stacks. FK also has 0.5 seconds of Career Skill CDR per hit
- Career Skill moves you backwards slightly before forwards. Do not use it with your back to a ledge
- Staggering Force & Stagger THP generate the most THP with any of his weapons
General opinion:
Foot Knight is one of the most versatile Melee Careers in the game. He can be a really good tank or strong DPS. He can create the most space of any Career in the game with his Career Skill and general Stagger. Building him as a DPS makes him competitive on Cata and Cata+, especially considering the fact that he’s so generally tanky, which allows you to stay offensive for longer.
He has the most viable and unique Talents of any Career, with the only exception being Inspiring Blow, and even that has it’s place against Patrols and high Elite density modifiers.
All Weapons work with Foot Knight, even getting enough Attack Speed and defensive buffs to make Halberd viable. Staggering Force, Bull of Ostland, and THP On-Stagger generate a huge amount of THP, even for Exe Sword and Great Sword, they can outdo On-Cleave, due to it’s 5 enemy cap.
When using a Shield stay close to your team, as standing alone leaves your group vulnerable, and doesn’t let anyone make use of your Stagger. You should be deciding where the frontline is and holding it. If you’re standing alone somewhere knocking rats over, you’re defeating the point of using a Shield.
It’s Hero Time and Battering Ram are strong, but the alternatives are good too. Angling your Career Skill and waiting for more Elite density before charging is a good strategy when not using Battering Ram.
Synergy:
Foot Knight synergises well with squishy and Ranged Careers, as he’s able to give them lots of space. His Career Skill also makes Melee Careers safer while they do damage.
He’s very good for duos, especially with a Ranged Career.
Questions:
4. Grail Knight:
4. Grail Knight:
Health: 180 (with 20% Health on Necklace) - 203 (with WPoS Passive)
Cooldown: 40s (36s with 10% CDR)
Cooldown Reduction On-Hit: 0.25s
Cooldown Reduction On-Damaged: 0.25s
Tips:
- Potential 50% Movement Speed while using Virtue of The Impetuous Knight Ult and 5% Movement Speed on Trinket
- Potential 60% Stamina Regen (160% with Handmaiden’s Aura)
- Virtue of Discipline combined with Virtue of The Ideal is 50% Power. Combined with Virtue of Heroism is 45% Power. Combined with VoD, Enhanced Power and Virtue of Purity (Power Quest) you can reach 72.5% Power
- Virtue of Heroism only increases damage and not Power, as the Talent description states
- Virtue of Heroism increases Ultimate damage, which combines well with the Virtue of Confidence Ult. Chaos/Chaos/Armour, and Enhanced Power, will kill one Chaos Warrior, and leave another with 8HP left - Quest Power will probably make it 2 kills
- Virtue of The Knightly Temper works with Ultimate damage, making Virtue of Audacity deal a huge amount of damage to low HP Bosses
- Virtue of The Ideal is granted from Bombs and Barrels
- Putting Resourceful Combatant on your Executioner’s Sword is a good way to make use of it’s 25% Heavy Attack Crit Chance, and the short amount of time you will have it out (Swiftslaying on main Weapon recommended)
- Lady’s Wrath (Life-On-Kill) combined with Virtue of Stoicism, will generate huge amounts of HP when used together
- Virtue of The Joust can be used instead of running Stamina Regeneration on Trinket
- When using heavier Weapons (Great Hammer or Greatsword), it’s better to use Virtue of Duty Quests for a better chance at the Attack Speed Quest
- Virtue of Audacity’s second attack is always a Critical Hit
- Career Skill always goes through shields
General Opinion:
While there’s not much depth to Grail Knight, there is lots of potential for interesting builds. His Passive ‘Knight’s Challenge’ essentially gives you a free Smiter, so using it with Enhanced Power is extremely strong, but doubling up with Smiter is also really good.
Surprisingly, even though he has no Attack Speed Talents or Passives, he can make use of any of his available Weapons and deal a big chunk of the groups damage too, provided he has the right build.
Virtue of The Penitent will guarantee your team can kill Bosses or Patrols. For Beastman and Skaven Patrols, it’s safer to have teammates kill the Patrol, while you spam CC and Ult on cooldown with your shield out.
Virtue of Heroism can be better than Virtue of The Ideal for Elite and Boss killing, due to there not always being enemies to maintain Virtue stacks. As it also benefits your Ultimate, Virtue of Confidence can outdo Virtue of Audacity on high non-Chaos Warrior density.
Synergy:
Grail Knight synergises well with high AoE Careers, and Careers with lots of Attack Speed, as he’s slow and generally better at dealing with single targets.
Anyone that can buff him and enable him to deal as much damage as possible is great. He can also be versatile and create space for others.
Grail Knight has good synergy with WPoS and Waystalker, due to Waystalker’s Passive AoE Health Regen, GK’s Quest AoE Health Regen, and WPoS’s From Fury, Fortitude.
Questions:
Breakpoints with Exe Sword?
Does Virtue of The Knightly Temper outdo the normal Power builds with a WPoS (Crit Power) or WHC (CDR Ult/Trink build)?
Heavily depends on your headshot rate, even with WHC. Though with WHC your can technically out damage regular build consistently due to current Sword & Mace(dual wield + high cleave).
5. Links to other discussion threads:
5. Links to other discussion threads:
Bardin:
Saltzpyre:
Kerillian:
Kruber:
Sienna: