The Crusader Sucks

[Lord Oink]

Am I missing something crucial about him or is his best attribute taking hits and nothing else?

I bring him to the warrens at level 5, 2 weapon upgrades, and trinkets and qurks give him +40% against the pigs for an amazing... 10 damage. Big whoop.

Thing about him that disappoints me about him is his veerry underwhelming damage.

What is good about the Crusader and how are you supposed to use him?

[Skinny Pete]

He's just not very good.

He causes extra damage to Undead so is okay in the Ruins.

He's a mediocre stress healer and a mediocre healer, so I guess he has okay early game uses for that.

His best skill is Holy Lance that can only be launched from the back so you can front load a bit of damage by starting him out in back, or knocking him back by using other forward-moving heroes, or leave him in back to get some use out of him for stress/healing.

The fact that he has a skill that simultaneously does healing and stress healing is also. . .remarkably mediocre.

I wouldn't call him utterly terrible. Just having healing/stress healing makes him slightly better than worthless.

Also he can get beat up a lot. So there's that.

He's not unusable, just not great.

[LaserGuy]

Originally posted by Lord Ponut:

Am I missing something crucial about him or is his best attribute taking hits and nothing else?

I bring him to the warrens at level 5, 2 weapon upgrades, and trinkets and qurks give him +40% against the pigs for an amazing... 10 damage. Big whoop.

Thing about him that disappoints me about him is his veerry underwhelming damage.

What is good about the Crusader and how are you supposed to use him?

Well, with only two weapon upgrades, he really shouldn't be doing level 5 missions anyway.

His damage range at level 3 weapons should be 11-22 including the +40% modifier on it. I'm guessing that your opponent had some protection? Most of the Swines, especially the front rank ones, have pretty big protection values so that could explain why the damage is paltry, especially if your damage roll was low as well. The main problems with the Crusader are his lack of reach (excepting holy lance) and slow speed, not so much his damage... Crusader actually has the 2nd highest base damage of any character.

[TSense]

First of all, he is a stress healer.
What he does different is that he can stand in the front line while the jester has to take a spot in the back row.
And unlike the jesters, his stress heal can crit.

He can also take a lot of hits. And he hits hard. He can also do a good ranged hit if he happens to be pushed back. He can also stun. And move himself forward if pusehd.

Also Last Crusade is OP please nerf.
Deus Vult.

I always have 4 Crusaders just in chase i need a good time. And one of my many mods adds some item that buffs crusaders healing and stresshealing by 100% while lowering his damage by 50% and his stun chance by 300%. For the unlimate last crusade experience.

[Determined Man]

H E R E I T I C

[Just Hitting My Stride]

Originally posted by Determined Man:

H E R E I T I C

[Purple]

Use four at once

[LucaBlight1983]

Originally posted by The Muffinman:

Use four at once

The Dance of God!

Scratch that. Dance Vult!

[No One]

Crusaders suck because they're slow and it's awkward to grant them reach.

Their +unholy damage is outstripped by a leper's inherent damage which applies to everything, even accounting for additional +acc on the leper, until the crusader is fully upgraded. However, crusader shares the highest non-leper damage tier with hellions and shieldbreakers. (HWM very close second.)

Their slowness can be put to use when fighting shamblers. Giving them something that makes them even slower will cause them to reliably go after the shambler but before his little buddies can buff their own prot. The gauntlets of +25% dmg -spd are pretty great for this.

In a pinch, it seems like being able to pick someone off death's door and take the edge off their stress is pretty nice, but in practice the fact they're so slow means normally someone else will need to take care of it before they can. It's still nice, but not as nice as it might seem.

I would suggest a crusader if you really, really need stress management and your composition absolutely can't spare a row 3 or 4 slot for some reason, or if you're really hard up for ambush prevention.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by No One:

In a pinch, it seems like being able to pick someone off death's door and take the edge off their stress is pretty nice, but in practice the fact they're so slow means normally someone else will need to take care of it before they can. It's still nice, but not as nice as it might seem.

It's useful if you have another faster healer because that guy may have already acted by the time someone got critted. So you have two opportunities to get someone off DD. And worse, the guy who got critted may be faster than your faster healer. So fixing the emergency at the end of the round is better than just crossing your fingers and hoping you don't get unlucky on the initiative roll next round.

It's somewhat limited, but that's why he's not completely hopeless as a healer. It crops up more often than you might think.

The character is at least "okay" because it does everything a team needs done. Deals damage, deals damage to the back ranks (sort of if you fudge it a bit), heals, stress heals, stuns, and whatever Bulwark of Faith is supposed to do.

It just doesn't do any of them particularly well except damage and tanking.

[feeWAIVER]

You guys are wrong.
I kit him with Stunning Blow, Holy Lance, Battle Heal, and Inspiring Cry.
(Yes, both heals.)


Crusader is an incredably solid member of the team.

[Solaire]

Originally posted by The Muffinman:

Use four at once

This man speaks wisdom

[RopeDrink]

Crusader is solid when considered as a restricted catch-all generalist. Despite this video being a mega-meme, it does pretty much explain the Crusader in a nut-shell. Considering he invariably has everything you want from an entire team (albeit watered down into a single kit) makes him playable in fours. The reality is, however, that specialists do the individual tasks much better than generalists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj2HvGPv0XM

Much like the Occultist vs Healing, a Crusader vs stress-healing can be performed from any rank. The drawback for Occ is their sporadic healing numbers (even 0's & bleeds), whereas the Crusader's drawback is that his stress-heal is just relatively low by default - the only perk being a minute health-heal which allows you to stress-heal people off death's door. Considering the heal can crit, you can (crit dependant) stress-heal for a few digits less than a full Jester stress-heal when RNG favours you.

His damage is solid, albeit other heroes with equivelant numbers tend to have buff potential or modifiers against enemies more numerous than undead, or just a better overall damage kit. Much like the Leper, Crusader is only effective against 1-2 anywhere other than the back-rank (lance) and has the same SPD problem.

He has a mediocre stun - which, while not great, is more stuns than some other more desirable heroes have.

He has less mobility concerns compared to the likes of Leper, given the Crusader can stress-heal (any rank) or lance (2-4), with various abilities usable inbetween. They also have similar health levels, meaning he's one of few viable meat-sacks that are ripe for funnelling enemy damage without major consequence.

Crusader is worth considering when:
- You want stun-capable heroes.
- You have no stress healer and/or you'd rather a sturdier stress-healer.
- You're heading to the ruins or any zone with undead mobs (not mandatory).
- You have mobile dashers and need extra party realignment (see Duelist Advance, Lunge).

In a pinch, it seems like being able to pick someone off death's door and take the edge off their stress is pretty nice, but in practice the fact they're so slow means normally someone else will need to take care of it before they can. It's still nice, but not as nice as it might seem.

The issue with this mindset is that not everyone (with or without trinkets) will always be at that sweet spot where the majority of heroes go at the same time due to having lots of SPD. Until that point, there's nothing stopping a Rambo Mob from whacking some poor sod to deaths-door just as the CRU's own turn is coming up, especially considering the sheer number of lumbering enemies or size-2 nasties you'll encounter later that could easily win the +7 SPD rule and get a quick dig in before DeusSPDVult arrives to save the day.

[Spoke]

I thought so too until i stopped considering him a damage dealer. One of the 2 reliable stress healers. You can put him in rank 2 unlike the jester for some diffrent comps like using the arbalest or whatever. He's has a decent stun and he's not squishy. Very solid character.

[Your Neighbour]

Have two crusader with holy lance in the middle, and just let them alternate lance. Give rear guy higher speed, if the front guy happen to roll his 1d8 higher, just let him stress heal.

Having said that, crusader are made for killing undead and side healer (their heal is weak but enough to save a deathblow) also lance spank. It's not the highest dps output combo but the survival is made easy with their thick HP.

Crusader is definitely not really made for warrens, in warrens you want snipes like rain of sorrow or plague doctor to CC the enemy stress cannons.

[CrackerjackTiming]

Well, keep in mind that the Crusader is one of the OG heroes. I get the feeling that the Crusader lost more and more luster as Red Hook rolled out the other classes. And unlike the Highwayman, there was never a point in time between balance patches when just running four of them and having them all spam Duelist's Advance completely broke the game in half.

For me, the biggest downside of the Crusader is all the stupid memes. I get it, running four Crusaders or whatever is surprisingly viable. It was funny for half a second. When is the 3-Lepers-plus-an-Arbalest-in-the-front-rank squad finally going to get their due?

And what is the point of Bulwark of Faith, anyway? Like, is the idea that if the Vestal is too lazy to light a torch, she can have the big dumb oaf in armor light himself up like a Christmas tree to read her Salacious Diary concealed inside a Tome of Holy Healing by? Seems like an edge use case to me.