This stun-attack is incredibly useless

[Cercamon]

You stun the thing, you get a free attack, and it deals, how much, 100 more dmg than a charged heavy?

It's so fkn useless that perhaps two or three light attacks from my Uchigatana would deal much more dmg than doing the stupid stun-attack, and because it's stunned I get the whole combo so why does this exist?

[Archdeacon Monseigneur]

oh you mean critical strikes? yeah they are awful most of the time.
they also have a tendency to pop up when the mob/boss is literally at like 5% hp, so a normal/heavy hit will be enough to dispose of them.
thanks game :)

[815|Shouldabeen]

I feel like the scaling for criticals just isn't working. In bloodborne they scaled with skill (dexterity stat in DS/ER) and with some rune stacking you could get them to incredible numbers.

In ER they just hit for pennies. It feels like they're simply not scaling up correctly. Even with misericorde- the weapon with the highest critical modifier- you only get disappointing critical strikes.

They either need a super buff, the ability to stack talismans for a greater effect, or just to be removed. They currently feel so unrewarding that I'm actively disappointed every time I accidentally activate one.

[Dum]

You're right, in many cases it's better to just keep attacking but if you have no stamina it's not a bad idea because cost is almost 0 and you get to do a cool animation.

[Xengre]

Critical strikes are great and actually very overpowred in PvE, unless you are using some cheese uber exploit like high dmg Dragon Rot Breath, some super cheese spell infinite FP, bleed every hit, etc. setup.

The issue is you aren't using the right weapon, unfortunately, which isn't obvious because they game doesn't make it obvious unless you are a veteran familiar with the carry over mechanics.

Basically, first problem if your Uchigatana is unfused with a bleed Ash it has reduced damage to begin with so normal attacks can proc bleed more frequently where critical do only 1-2 hits. You could exploit this with 1-2 hits before the critical on some bosses/mobs that are slower to get up but for most part it isn't ideal. Even more so in coop where the boss is immune to all but the person doing the critical.

You would need good AR, and good critical stat. Look for weapons like Dagger with 130 critical stat, or even better Rapier which has better AR plus 130 critical. The best though is the Misericorde which has AR close to some non-dagger class weapons but has the highest critical at 140. Next, usually early or potentially all game you want to infuse the weapon with an element (typically fire has best AR). This is because physical infusions, especially early might have like 90-120 AR but something like fire might get around 90 + 90 which is significantly higher.

Then you can do criticals that are in the upper hundreds to thousands of damage.

Next, you need to know how to proc criticals more easily to make it worth it focusing on. Jump attacks and charged R2s will usually make most enemies and bosses poise break in 2-3 of these hits, sometimes more though. Some weapon arts like Flames of Redmanes are also very powerful at doing poise damage. Flame of Redmanes, in fact, is also a fire one gotten near the start of the game and can be put on your critical oriented weapon and is very spammy with safe range and is faster than the other methods while often doing more poise damage than the other options making it very powerful for poise breaking bosses for chain criticals.

Criticals make bosses like the duo/trio crystal mobs a joke since it also grants i-frames and if you proc it regularly you can keep disabling them while avoiding the others as you chunk damage. Some bosses/mobs are very vulnerable while getting up making subsequent critical easier to achieve.

Coop may make this harder to utilize, though, in terms of poise breaking reliably if it increase their poise resistance. I don't know as I've not coop ever in ER.

[Elizabeth]

You get more damage from just continuing to beat on them for sure... but keep in mind, doing a critical uses barely any stamina and then puts the boss into a down pose with a couple second recovery. This is a HUGE window to regen stamina, flask, reapply buffs, summon, prep charged or long cast-time abilities, etc. If you use the whole critical cycle tactically you can benefit even more.

[Lesmir]

get the miséricorde dagger and upgrade it and infuse it with your highest damage scaling ( no status effect but raw damage ) and when you stun an enemy or do a backstab switch to it , it got 140 critical

most weapon only got 100 or 110 critical and most people use status instead of raw damage hence why those critical seem to do little damage

[Malitias]

I was having similar thoughts until I realized that the critical hit also leads to an opening you can exploit with at least one more attack/spell. Add that damage together and I have very high doubts anything else could have done more.
EXCEPT for heavy bleed setups. Those are optimal just spamming attacks in all cases.
If only bleed wasn't so ridiculously strong right now.. Otherwise I'd suggest that critical hits get more hits, but with equal total damage.

co-op is a totally different thing... usually just don't do it, unless you and your mates got a plan.