Kruber All Base Game Careers Mechanic Guide

Attacks cleave through more enemies.

Enemy mass is reduced by 25% for melee attacks.
Equal to increase your melee attacks cleave power by 33%.
Stack multiplicative with all other cleave related buff.

This perk alone gives Mercenary some other careers whole talent tree worth of melee cleave. Making him a great horde clear career regardless his weapon choice.

Increased crit chance by 5%.

The career skill hitbox is a sphere centred at Kruber, can go through walls and floors.
Stagger all enemies within 10 units. Provide 25 temporary health to all allies within 15 units, including Kruber.
Does not interrupt or prevent any player actions, including attack/switch/use item/interact/revive/rescue/interact/movement.
Holding the career skill key(default key: F) will show you the stagger radius of the career skill.

Require one singular melee attack to cleave 3 units, including Blunderbuss alternative attack. The attack does not need to deal damage to the cleaved unit.
Shield unit does not contribute to it if it's the last unit being hit.
Dual wield attacks have to trigger Paced Strikes by cleave 3 units with one part of the attack.

Provide 1 THP when hitting one unit.
First 5 units you hit grants 1 THP per unit per hit. Next 5 units grants 0.5 THP per unit per hit. Caps out at 10 unit per hit/7.5 THP per swing. Dual wield attacks can trigger twice. The overall most consistent option for Mercenary, as he has one of the best cleave buff in the game built in as a Perk.
Should be used most of the time.

Can be triggered multiple times per attack. Does not include melee explosion kills or melee DoT kills. Should only be used if your build focuses on killing elites.

Melee attack grants 0.25/1/2 THP per unit. Push grants 0.5/1 THP per unit. Both can only be triggered on 5 units. Dual wield attacks can trigger twice.
Melee killing blows grant 0.25 per unit without limit. Should mostly be used with Sword and Shield/Mace and Shield, as their strong push and shield bash attack can help you generate THP with this talent very quickly.

Fairly consistent all-around melee DPS boost
For every enemy within 3 units of Kruber, provide Kruber 5% power level per enemy, max out at 25%.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. It is overall the best DPS option on this row, as power level affects all aspects of your damage dealt. The 3 units range is fairly small, but enough to give you max value when fighting horde. And still provides 5% boost when fighting singular target with melee weapon.

Decent flavor choice
Increase melee weapon cleave power by 50%, increasing both damage and stagger cleave.
Stack multiplicatively with most other cleave related buff. From pure DPS perspective, this talent loses to The More the Merrier!, as cleave power only comes in to play in horde clear. At the same time, 3rd-4th+ cleaved targets receive fairly little damage compare to the first two for most weapons.
However, this talent still provides some utility and being a good flavor choice. The increased cleave power can help you generate more temporary health from Carve as it can receive THP from up to 10 units. Also hitting more enemies let you generate more career skill cooldown from Cooldown On Hit. Lastly, high cleave power combined with armour cleave weapons provide an easy solution to mixed horde.

Niche damage/utility choice
Generate one stack of colorless buff when landing a hit on an enemy with either melee or range attack.
The attack doesn't have to deal damage to count, but cannot be blocked by shield. Cleaving multiple enemies still only provide one stack.
Upon reaching 5 stacks of colorless buff, you will gain one colored buff. With the colored buff, your next action will be a guaranteed critical hit. This critical hit can also generate a colorless buff if it hits the enemy.
Melee/range attacks will consume the colored buff no matter if the attack hits an enemy or not. Push will not consume the colored buff while still being guaranteed critical hit, increasing its stagger potential.

Value wise, this talent basically changes your critical hit chance to 20% if you land all your attacks. However, Mercenary can already easily reach 20% critical hit chance by using 5% crit chance on the weapon and trinket. This means for most builds, this talent just provides 10% cooldown reduction and 5% attack speed, as you will most likely replace crit chance on your melee weapon/trinket with these two properties.
The best part of this talent is allowing you to choose which attack to be critical. This can be helpful to delete one elite here and there since you can save a powerful hit for them, or conserve your range weapon ammo by using Scrounger and only shoot when you have the crit stack.
Compare to other two talents on this row, the amount of damage/utility this talent provides is just not very consistent nor valuable, making it a very niche choice, mostly for some Scrounger Blunderbuss build.

Increases your horde clear DPS. However, Mercenary already has good strong crowd control ability and tons of horde clear. Should be avoided most of the time.

Increases your single target DPS. Better for key target deletion. Should be picked most of the time.

Increases power level by 7.5%.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. Does not benefit a melee based career as much as other talents. Should be avoided.

Most consistent DPS increase
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. Straight forward high numeric value DPS boost, just add onto your already existing tool kit. Best DPS option on this row.

Less consistent DPS increase
Paced Strikes attack speed boost increases from 10% to 20%. Compare to Reikland Reaper, it is not only a much lower DPS boost, but also making triggering it harder. Overall, not worth using unless you value attack speed extremely high.

Consistent team buff
When Kruber triggers Paced Strikes, all teammates share the same 10% attack speed buff, regardless of their current position on the map.
Cannot provide Blade Barrier to teammates.

Extra 30% attack speed spread among 3 teammates. Consider Paced Strikes trigger condition, this buff will basically never be wasted, as most likely your team is fighting horde or clearing groups of ambient with melee weapon. The exact efficiency depends on the careers in the team, but overall a very good team buff.

High player agency defensive utility
Increases both dodge distance and speed by 20%. Better than Blade Barrier in situations where it's hard to cleave 3 units to trigger Paced Strikes, which is mostly in patrol and boss fight for most builds. Especially helpful for a lot of the heavy weapons. However, it is a high player agency talent, which means you need to actively utilize it other than receiving the benefit passively. Overall, it has less use case than Blade Barrier.

Low player agency defensive utility
Share the same duration and refresh the same time as Paced Strikes.
Cannot be shared to teammates by Strike Together. Straight forward defensive talent, just add onto your already existing tool kit. Although most of the time you cannot trigger it during patrol/boss fight. Overall, the most consistent talent on this row.

Low use case utility talent
The increased ammo capacity works with all ammo related Traits. Since Mercenary is a melee focus career with no innate ammo regen talents/mechanics, he should only use range weapons to help with special snipe. Usually running Conservative Shooter or Scrounger is enough to cover those usages plus the existence of ammo crate on the map, especially with proper build all Mercenary sniping options have good breakpoints. This talent can still help when the player is still in the process of riding off the over shooting habit, but you should strive to fix this habit instead of selecting an underwhelming talent with high opportunity cost.

Proactive defense utility
Career skill also provides damage reduction to all allies within 15 units, including Kruber. The best use case of this talent is to top up your team right before a dangerous fight like Mauler/Berserker/Monk mixed horde or a patrol fight, providing a stagger window to start the fight while making sure nobody can get killed easily with the extra heath and damage reduction they get. It takes some experience to utilize this talent well, but give you the best chance to prevent knock down/death happens at first place.
Overall, don't get limited by the 'best case' usage of this talent, your career skill still provides stagger/THP/one free revive regardless of the talent choice.

Consistent value
Reduce Cooldown by 18 seconds. Provides the most consistent value on this row. Simply provides more stagger and more sustain for the whole team.

Reactive defense utility
Career skill also revive all knock downed allies within 15 units. Does not include bounded(waiting for rescue) allies.

The best use case of this talent is to revive two or more knock downed teammates, or revive teammates behind walls/floors. Compare to Walk it Off where it tries to prevent knock down happens at first place, On Yer Feet, Mates! gives an easy solution after the knock down happens. When both used optimally, On Yer Feet, Mates! is considered inferior as any version of this career skill can still guarantee one free revive by using them during the revive, and preventing knock down also reduce the usage of healing item to clear wounds, but AoE instant revive still has its niche here and there.
Overall, don't get limited by the 'best case' usage of this talent, your career skill still provides stagger/THP/one free revive regardless of the talent choice.

Double effective range for ranged weapons. Doubles both the drop off range and max range.

Aura that increases critical strike chance by 5%. The aura has a radius of 5 units.
Affect both Kruber and all allies.

Increases ammunition capacity by 50%. Increases the ammo capacity along with ammo related Traits/Talents.
Rounded to the closest integer

Ranged weapon zoom. Bound to weapon special. Only works on Handgun alternative attack and Longbow alternative attack.[/u]

When press the career skill key(default key: F), instantly refill Repeater Handgun magazine if it's not completely empty.
Stealth does not grant Kruber the ability to walk through enemies. Hitting enemies with any weapons or item breaks the stealth.
During this 6 seconds, regardless of being in stealth or not, Kruber gain the following effect:
- Gain 50% headshot bonus damage, works for both melee and range attacks.
- Increases range weapon attack damage. All range attacks pierce armour/super armour.
- Increases range weapon reload speed by 40%. Reload does not consume ammo.
- Reduce all movement speed by 10%. Reduce dodge distance/dodge speed by 5%.

Can only be triggered by hitting the actual head hitzone.
Can be triggered multiple times per attack by cleaving multiple enemies' heads.
For Blunderbuss only one pellet can trigger this effect.

Melee attack grants 0.25/1/2 THP per unit. Push grants 0.5/1 THP per unit. Both can only be triggered on 5 units. Dual wield attacks can trigger twice.
Melee killing blows grant 0.25 per unit without limit. Should be used with weapons like Mace/Tuskgor Spear/Shield weapons, and Sword&Mace if you utilize mace attacks a lot.
As a range focused backline, Huntsman would prefer to use high stagger weapons, resulting him using this talent more than others.

Can be triggered multiple times per attack. Does not include melee explosion kills or melee DoT kills. Should be avoided most of the time, as Huntsman mostly use range weapons for single target damage.

Provide 1 THP when hitting one unit.
First 5 units you hit grants 1 THP per unit per hit. Next 5 units grants 0.5 THP per unit per hit. Caps out at 10 unit per hit/7.5 THP per swing. Dual wield attacks can trigger twice. Should be used with weapons like Sword/Bretonnian Longsword, and Sword&Mace if you utilize sword attacks a lot.

Consistent DPS boost for magazine based weapons
Generate one stack of buff when landing a hit on an enemy with range attack.
The attack doesn't have to deal damage to count, but cannot be blocked by shield. Cleaving multiple enemies still only provide one stack.
Upon reaching 3 stacks of buff, you will gain one freeshot buff. With the freeshot buff, your next range attack will be a free hit, does not consume ammo and requires no reload. This free hit can also generate a buff if it hits the enemy.
Range attacks will consume the freshot buff no matter if the attack hits an enemy or not. This talent is overall the most consistent DPS option on this row for magazine based weapons(Handgun/Repeater Handgun/Blunderbuss). All these weapons have fairly low finesse value and only rely on bodyshot breakpoints, making One in the Eye less valuable. And free shot not only increase your damage uptime by reducing reload, but also helps with ammo sustain.

Niche damage boost
Can be triggered by both melee and range attacks. Cleaving multiple enemies with the critical attack will apply this debuff to all those enemies.
The critical attack itself also benefit from the damage increase, except shotgun attacks where only center pellet can trigger and benefit from the effect.
The effect boosts all damage taken. Lasts 15 seconds and benefit the whole team for the duration.
Does not stack with Witch Hunter Captain Witch-Hunt/Bounty Hunter Open Wounds/melee trait Off Balance. On paper, it can be used to pair with a critical hit build. However, Huntsman does not have access to guaranteed critical hit to use this talent as method to obtain consistent breakpoints, and at the same time it doesn't stack with couple common effects. Lastly, weapons that might benefit from critical hit build also benefit from One in the Eye greatly, as both requires weapons to have high finesse value, making One in the Eye just overall a better option.

Highest DPS boost for high finesse weapons
Increases extra damage you deal when landing a headshot, not total headshot damage.
Works for both melee and range attacks.
Stack additively with the headshot bonus damage you get from Hunter's Prowl, to a total of 100%.

Usually paired with Longbow, as it doesn't benefit from reducing reload and has excellent finesse value. Great damage boost talent when you land headshots.

Does not benefit a range based career. Should be avoided.

Does not benefit most of Huntsman builds as they usually use range weapons for single target damage.

Increases power level by 7.5%.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. Increase both your melee and range damage. Should be picked most of the time.

Best DPS increase for reload heavy weapons
Can only be triggered by hitting the actual head hitzone.
For Blunderbuss only one pellet can trigger this effect. Overall, best DPS options for Handgun/Blunderbuss builds, as these two options need to reload very often.
When using this talent, a small trick to make sure you make the most out of your career skill is to land a headshot before using your career skill. Your reload speed buff lasts 5 seconds, and career skill lasts 6 seconds by default. So doing that can make sure you benefit from the reload speed for the whole duration of the career skill pretty much, maximizing your career skill damage.

Best DPS increase for weapons with little reload requirement
Can only be triggered by hitting the actual head hitzone.
Gains a buff that increases critical hit chance by 25%. The buff is consumed when a critical hit happens, regardless if it's triggered by melee or range, missed or landed a hit.
For Blunderbuss only one pellet can trigger this effect. Overall, best DPS options for Longbow/Repeater Handgun builds. Longbow does not use the reload mechanic and deals high crit damage, while Repeater Handgun does not need to reload very often.

Defensive utility
Can only be triggered by hitting the actual head hitzone.
Can only be triggered once per range attack, regardless of how many enemies cleaved.
For Blunderbuss only one pellet can trigger this effect.

Helps the player to sustain and stay in range combat. However, Huntsman has access to some of the best THP generation weapons in the game, plus the opportunity cost of giving up one of his best DPS talent, making this talent less valuable.

Ammo regen
Killing a special in any ways restores 10% max ammo. Does not need to a range kill. Ammo regen is always useful for range careers. Although Huntsman already has some built in ammo sustain ability, Shot Crafter allows you to shoot any tagable unit without second thought. It also allows you to take offensive range weapon traits like Hunter instead of ammo regen traits to get even more damage.

Low player agency defensive utility
Killing a special/elite gains one stack of damage reduction. Does not need to be a range kill.
Each stack provides additive damage reduction to each other, up to 40%.
The damage reduction applies to all damage taken, but stacks can only be removed by enemy direct hit and gas/bile.
Friendly fire/self damage/environment damage/barrels/blight storm damage can all be reduced by this talent, but cannot remove any damage reduction stacks. A talent that got underplayed by in-game tooltip. Due to its consistency, it's very easy to keep 30-40% damage reduction up constantly and use it to tank some stray hits here and there. Great defensive tool if you don't need the extra ammo and potential DPS increase from Shot Crafter.

High player agency defensive utility
Movement speed gives you an easier time at evading enemy attacks, as you can move out of their hitbox. And more importantly for a backline career, it allows you to move to a more favorable fighting position easier where you can use your range weapon safely. However, in compare to the other two options on this row, all its value comes from the player actively utilizing this tool. Plus numeric value wise, this talent doesn't provide much, it is usually better to pick other options for either better sustain/damage or a more consistent passive defence tool.

Highest overall DPS value
Reduce Cooldown by 27 seconds. While on paper this is not the highest ult uptime talent, it is the best in practice, as 6 sec duration is plenty to burst down a small groups of enemies or clear a wave of specials. Meanwhile, 6 sec matches the 5 sec duration of Thrill of the Hunt and Concoction potion. You can use the strength effect + career skill effect + fast reload to stack damage consistently, while get most of your cooldown back fully thanks to the cooldown reduction and concentration effect.

Highest clutch potential
No actions will break stealth, while Kruber still maintain all other Hunter's Prowl effect. The obvious value comes from this talent is high range uptime and clutching. You don't need to worry about your position while shooting, and during clutching you can move around while attacking disabler without worrying about getting incapacitated. When fighting certain bosses like Chaos Spawn/Minotor, this talent can be a decent damage increase if you have a teammate to dodge dance the boss properly for you, as it impossible to dodge dance them consistently with a range weapon in hand, especially with the damage boost of Hunter's Prowl you will attract the aggro of the boss very often. But in pure DPS comparison and when fighting bosses that you can dodge dance by yourself, this talent falls pretty behind.

Highest burst damage potential
In theory provides the highest career skill uptime on this row, but in reality the fights that you want to use your career skill won't last more than 6 seconds except Chaos Patrol/Boss fights. Even for that two fights, it's fairly rare to find yourself able to fully utilize this 10 seconds without grabbing aggros from enemies, force you to switch weapons and retreat. Overall, although this talent provides the highest burst damage potential and uptime, it is rarely more useful than other options.

Grants an extra Stamina shield. Provides 2 stamina/1 stamina shield.

Reduces damage taken by 10%. Stack multiplicatively with other sources of damage reduction, including Protective Presence, to a total of 23.5% damage reduction, or up to 37% with That's Bloody Teamwork!.

Cannot be initiated from mid air.
During this career skill, you can switch weapons/items, attack/charge with melee weapons, fire/charge/reload range weapons, use items.
Use this career skill will not interrupt interactions, including reviving teammates. However, most of the objective interactions on the map have distance limit.
Can be cancelled mid-charge by pressing block(default key: Mouse 2).
The player is not invincible during this career skill. To help avoid taking damage, hold block(default key: Mouse 2) before starting the career skill to keep blocking during this. You can still cancel your career skill by releasing and pressing block again.
Holding the career skill key(default key: F) will show you the patching and destination of the career skill.
Foot Knight's Valiant Charge has a width of 2 units. Can only charge through total enemy mass of 59.68 with 650 Hero Power before any other buff, and instantly stopped by Armoured/Monster units.
When activate Valiant Charge, Kruber will first step back a bit, then charge forward. And for the next 1.7 seconds, Kruber also gains the ability to walk through enemies and attack without being interrupted by enemy damage.
While charging, Kruber heavily staggers all enemy units within the width of his charge.
When Valiant Charge is finished/interrupted/cancelled, Kruber triggers an explosion in front of him with a radius of 3 units, dealing 0 damage but heavily staggers all enemy units within.

The aura has a radius of 5 units.
Affect both Kruber and all allies.
Stack multiplicatively with most other damage reductions.

Melee attack grants 0.25/1/2 THP per unit. Push grants 0.5/1 THP per unit. Both can only be triggered on 5 units. Dual wield attacks can trigger twice.
Melee killing blows grant 0.25 per unit without limit. Should be used with weapons like Mace/Shield weapons, and Sword&Mace if you utilize mace attacks a lot.

Provide 1 THP when hitting one unit.
First 5 units you hit grants 1 THP per unit per hit. Next 5 units grants 0.5 THP per unit per hit. Caps out at 10 unit per hit/7.5 THP per swing. Dual wield attacks can trigger twice. Should be used with most weapons, and Sword&Mace if you utilize sword attacks a lot.

Can be triggered multiple times per attack. Does not include melee explosion kills or melee DoT kills. Should only be used if your build focuses on killing elites and there are no other careers competing for elites kill.

Reaching important stagger breakpoints
Increases stagger power of all actions.
Stack additively with Warrior Priest Prayer of Might. Mostly used to reach important stagger breakpoints, especially for shield weapons.
For all shields and especially Spear and Shield, it allows the user to take Swift Slaying without giving up push stagger breakpoints.
For Sword and Shield/Mace and Shield/Bretonnian Longsword/Great Hammer, it provides the potential to stagger Chaos Warrior overhead attack when fully spec into stagger.

Inconsistent DPS increase
Can be triggered by stagger from any sources.
The hit that staggers the elite enemy does not benefit from the power boost.
The hit that staggers the elite enemy cannot kill the enemy in order to trigger this talent.
Duration can be refreshed.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. The numeric value of this talent is decent, but lack of consistency really kills it.
If you try to use this talent to reach stagger breakpoints, you need to be able to stagger the unit at first place to get it.
If you try to use this talent to reach damage breakpoints, the attack that cases the stagger will most likely deal damage anyway, completely ruins the point.
If you try to use this talent as a general DPS increase, most of the difficulties/game modes cannot provide enough elites for this talent to have good uptime.
Overall the least useful talent on this row.

Consistent DPS increase
Landing a push on enemies provide you attack speed.
Only melee weapons push can trigger this effect.

Value wise, this talent is slightly behind Have at Thee!. However, it has way higher uptime than it. Foot Knight has an extra stamina perk to help you get that push onto enemies, and you don't need to stagger them to gain the buff. The only downside is to keep track of this buff and push once every 3 seconds, which can take a bit of time to get used to. Overall best DPS option on this row.

For Foot Knight himself, this talent provides the least amount of damage on this row. However, for a pure stagger focus shield build, if Enhanced Power is not required to reach certain stagger breakpoints, it is recommended to use this option to help your team's overall damage dealt.

Increases your horde clear DPS. However, Foot Knight already excels at crowd control, and his weapons have good horde clear. Most builds would prefer to choose a single target damage boost talent like Enhanced Power instead, making this option less useful.

Increases power level by 7.5%.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. The best single target damage boost talent on this row and help to reach certain stagger breakpoints. Overall best damage option on this row.

Consistent good value defense boost
Increases Protective Presence aura radius from 5 units to 10 units.
Additionally, provides 20% block cost reduction on top of damage reduction. Stack additively with block cost reduction property on melee weapon/necklace. Allowing Foot Knight and nearby teammates to achieve 80% BCR, making it incredibility hard for you to be guard broken. Or for some high stamina weapons like Sword/Spear and Shield, you can trade a defensive property on your weapon for an offensive one, as this talent provides almost the same value as the BCR property.
However, the range increase portion of this talent is also extremely useful. The base aura range of 5 units is very small, so doubling the range/quadruple the area it covers improve the aura coverage significantly. For pub quickplay, on average you will provide similar amount of defense to That's Bloody Teamwork! thanks to higher uptime, on top of the block cost.

Inconsistent high value defense boost
When there are 0/1/2/3 allies within 5 units of Kruber, Protective Presence provides 15%/20%/25%/30% damage reduction. Kruber himself does not count as ally in this instance.
Stack multiplicavely with other sources of damage reduction, including No Guts, No Glory, in total of 15%/28/32.5%/37% damage reduction for Kruber himself. Up to 30% damage reduction is extremely strong in theory, allowing all careers to survive elites overhead on highest difficulties. However, the base range of 5 units making this talent and Protective Presence in general has very low uptime. Most of the time in pub quickplay, even during horde fight, it is very common to only have 1 ally in the aura radius, making the floor of this talent fairly low. But in a highly coordinated group, or in a very confined map/game mode, this talent provides the best defense boost in this row.

Offensive option and unique clutch boost
Protective Presence aura now has no effect.
Kruber gains 10% power level and 15% damage reduction. Stack multiplicatively with No Guts, No Glory to a total of 23.5% damage reduction.
The closest ally to Kruber within 5 units gains 10% power level and 50% damage reduction.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave.

For Kruber himself, this means he gains 10% power level. It is useful to reach certain breakpoints and DPS in general.
For allies, only one of them gains a huge defense boost and decent DPS boost. At first glance this looks bad, as spread damage reduction is way more effective usually. However, due to the small base range of Protective Presence, it is very common to only have 1 ally in the aura radius during pub quickplay anyway. And during duo clutch situations, 50% damage reduction makes the other member extremely hard to die, drastically increases the chance of a successful clutch.

Extremely strong high consistency defensive utility
Refund 100% of Valiant Charge cooldown when an ally is disabled/downed/ledged/grabbed/blight stormed(basically anything that puts the player into third person view), including Kruber himself.
When there is an ally currently incapacitated, this effect won't trigger. One of the best defensive talents in the entire game. Allows Kruber to disarm most dire situations easily, especially when combined with Battering Ram. You can aggressively use your career skill on any minor inconvenience like a couple shielded enemies or even just one Chaos Warrior, and still able to have it ready when your teammates have troubles.
Overall, one of the staple talent of Foot Knight, by far the best option on this row. Even just the opportunist cost of losing this talent makes other options much less appealing.

Niche utility
Only remove the stamina cost of pushing. Does not include Spear and Shield special attack. A talent with very few use cases.
For regular weapons, your push cannot stagger elites enemies. And for normal enemies, it's better to just preemptively push stagger them.
For shield weapons, with proper build, your shield push can stagger a lot of the elite's move, so free push is not totally useless, but it's still better to just stagger them beforehand. At the same time, this talent basically gives you infinite pushes when fighting gunrat/death rattler, so you can farm THP with Second Wind and crowd control while drawing special attention.
Lastly, this talent has a strong combo with the Parry melee weapon trait. Parry can reduce the stamina cost of blocking to 0, and pushing can reset the timed block window while keeping you in block state, making you pretty much invincible to regular attacks but with the trade of losing tons of damage.

Low uptime utility
Provides 200% Cooldown Regen for 0.5 seconds to Kruber and all his allies within 40 units.
Duration can be refreshed.
There is no buff icon for this effect on Kruber. Without refreshing, each trigger provides 1 seconds of cooldown.
This talent has very bad uptime overall. Most difficulties/game mode don't have enough elites to proc it constantly. And when you stagger an elite, they will most likely die to teammates soon after, making refreshing it over and over on one enemy difficult. Your teammates might also not be close enough/already have full cooldown and making the cooldown wasteful. Lastly, for Kruber himself, this talent is directly out matched by It's Hero Time for both consistency and amount of cooldown they actually provide.

Utility option
Invulnerability activate the moment you press the career skill key. The utility option on this row. Combine with It's Hero Time, you can tank blight storm for your team without losing health at all by using career skill right after being thrown out of the storm. This 3 seconds invulnerability also gives you the freedom to do some dangerous actions, like shooting long range specials while surrounded, revive while under range enemy attacks like gas/gunrat/fire rat, or just jumping off from high ground without losing HP.

Crowd control option
Valiant Charge width increases from 2 units to 5 units. Can now charge through all units, regardless of their mass and armour type.
Able to stagger units multiple times when staying inside unit hitbox. The crowd control option on this row. Allows you to stagger a whole patrol with one single career skill usage much more consistently, and making ledging boss easier too thanks to the multi stagger pushing boss further away. At the same time, combine with It's Hero Time, this talent also makes sure you can always charge through everything in front to get to your incapacitated teammates.

DPS option
Both the Valiant Charge itself and the explosion at the end can trigger this talent. This also allows Kruber to gain two stacks of Bull of Ostland! on a certain unit with one us of the career skill.
When using career skill again before previous buff stacks expire, buff duration will be refreshed and new gained buff stacks will be added on top of old stacks.

The DPS option on this row. Uptime wise, although the duration is much shorter than the career skill cooldown, Foot Knight has decent cooldown on damage taken rate, hit trading a bit will get your ult back up very quickly. At the same time, thanks to It's Hero Time, you can use your career skill to aggressively to gain the attack speed buff without worrying about saving it to help teammates.

90

0.5

0.5

90

0.3

0.4

30

0.25

0.5

60

0.25

0.25

120

0.3

0.3

120

0.25

0.5

40

0.5

0.1

60/90

0

0

80

0.35

0.3

20

0.25

0.5

70

0.5

0.2

40

0.3

0.4

90

0.5

0.2

70

0.25

0.3

60

0.5

0.2

70

0.25

0.25

50

0.25

0.5

50

0.25

0.3

120

0.25

0.5

110

0.25

0.25

Skaven Slave

1

Clan Rat/Explosive Loot Rat

2

Storm Vermin/Plague Monk/Skaven Specials/Loot Rat

8

Fanatic/Ungor

1.5

Marauder/Gor/Ethereal Skeleton (Shield)

3

Life Leech/Blight Stormer

10

Mauler/Savage/Bestigor/Wargor/Ethereal Skeleton (Hammer)

15

Chaos Warrior

30

Chaos Warrior with Shield

35

Boss/Lord

50