So, by this point, it's commonly unsterstood that THE BEST class for burst boss killing damage was the Barbarian with his its Hawk Stance. So much so that most people won't look twice at the Squire for anything related to damaging enemies. But I've been playing all of the classes a lot, and I just have a natural preference for the playstyle of the Squire over the Barbarian.

Enter the Circular Slice Glitch, henceforth the CSG. By a couple of generously timed clicks, the Squire is immediately a viable burst damage player again, up to and even surpassing what you can do using a Barbarian's Hawk Stance.

To a point.

You can do the CSG with any weapon. But the first thing you have to realize is that the CSG is extremely dependent on your weapon size and speed. Slower and bigger weapons are much easier to do the glitch with because their weapon speed makes the timing of the glitch easier, and their size more generous to work with.

In contrast, the Backstabber, the fastest weapon in the game, is monstrously difficult to do the CSG with. You can do it with an Obsidian Gladius or an Etherian Greatsword, but you lose out on some other tricks are weapon speed dependent. Also, because of the smaller to medium size of these weapons, you have to be extremely close to your target- basically hugging them.

This is why I say that a Steam Saw is probably your best bet for this in terms of raw DPS and Burst damage. You can also use a Tinkerer's Perfection with it. In the absense of a either, you can at least practice the glitch in the Tavern by removing your Squire's weapon. The "No Weapon" is actually a Falchion common drop, and it has the exact same swing speed and roughly the same size as the Steam Saw; so, the glitch works with it for practice's sake.

The usual player's instinct is to hit Circular Slice at the end of their Squire's melee combo. Doing this, you rack up fine DPS, but you can't quite do the glitch like this.

The CSG is two button presses with fairly generous timing. You hit left-click (mouse and keyboard) or right-trigger (controller) once, and then trigger your Circular Slice before your attack hits. Think of the timing like canceling into specials in fighting games, except before you've properly hit your target.

If you've done it right, you'll get two hits in succession with Circular Slice's damage. You might also see an extra hit from your melee combo. See below:


The CSG is a hitbox glitch. Circular Slice is an just animation and a circle (dome?) around your character based on your weapon size. Circular Slice itself does not and cannot hit twice. You see, the glitch is that you're not hitting with Circular Slice alone. You're also hitting with your first melee attack.

The way this works is this: You were still swinging your first attack when you triggered Circular Slice, and that first attack was a different hitbox. The game applies the Circular Slice damage formula to both the circle hitbox it creates and also to the first attack you were doing. That hitbox is still swinging while your character is going through the Circular Slice motions.

You'll notice by now that you're doing is canceling the melee attack into the Circular Slice to get the glitch. Once you get more consistent and proficient at the timing, you can cancel the second, third, or fourth hit of your Squire's melee combo into the Circular Slice, rather than just the first.

If you immediately continue your melee combo after Circular Slice, the recharge time on it is just so that with slower weapons like Hammers or the Steam Saw, you'll have your Circular Slice recharged in time to cancel the third or fourth hit of your melee combo into it.

It is not impossible to do a CSG with fast weapons, like the Obsidian Gladius or the Eternian Greatsword. It's just hard and almost requires frame-perfect timing. But, there's a away around this. This is a multiplayer game, and by the magic of online multiplayer game design, there's a little something called latency between a client player and a host player.

So, what I'm about to explain doesn't work when you're hosting the game. You have to be playing in someone elses' game: Just trigger Circular Slice before, or at the same time as, your regular attack. Yes, really. You will, without fail, get a CSG.

Without explaining too much about online multiplayer design - What's happening with this is that the latency between you and the host player let's you get in a few extra game inputs before they're sent off to the host player and sent back to you for your attack. In other words, those fast weapons are really only as fast as the connection between you and the host is.

Take a look at these identical testing stats, the shot of the CSG above, and the Barbarian's Hawk Stance here:


And, the gap between the damages only increases in the Squire's favor with higher levels of Circular Slice and Blood Rage. So, the answer is obvious. Despite the Barbarian's two identical Steam Saws there, the CSG makes the Squire outdo him anyway.

To a point.

In Nightmare maps, Hawk Stance's damage seen in Taverns is divided by 6.45, and so is a CSG with no Blood Rage. When you're doing CSG's with Blood Rage, you actually get divided by 7.5. So we'll run the numbers really quick through some math and see what we get.

Remember, I used two weapons with the exact same stats for testing Hawk Stance, so when you're trying to figure out your Barbarian's own Hawk Stance damage in comparison to your Squire's CSG, do the calculation for both damage numbers, add them together, and then compare the sum to the CSG.

Squire's 4K Dmg + 2K Blood Rage + 2K CSG: 79,299,536 / 7.5 = 10,573,271 [x2 = 21,146,542]
Barbarian's 4K Dmg + 2K Hawk Stance: 64,658,124 / 6.45 = 10,024,515 [x2 = 20,049,030]

Squire's 4K Dmg + 3K Blood Rage + 3K CSG: 97,781,408 / 7.5 = 13,037,521 [x2 = 26,075,042]
Barbarian's 4K Dmg + 3K Hawk Stance: 70,244,824 / 6.5 = 10,806,896 [x2 = 21,613,792]

Squire's 6K Dmg + 4K Blood Rage + 4K CSG = 133,117,312 / 7.5 = 17,748,975 [x2 = 35,497,950]
Barbarian's 6K Dmg + 4K Hawk Stance: 87,613,732 / 6.5 = 13,479,035 [x2 = 26,958,070]

So it's still in the Squire's favor, give or take a million. That extra nerf on Blood Rage makes it really rough on him.

Before you run off and start stripping your Barbarian's gear to wear on your Squire, you need to consider the following.

While the CSG is a great trick to learn with a Squire for burst boss killing damage, and yes, for Ogre killing, the hangup comes in the mechanics. Remember, the CSG is a hitbox glitch, but both hits happen on different frames. The Barbarian's Hawk Stance, however, is two hits on a single frame.

What this means is, for those bosses who hide their weak spots or become immune after taking a certain percentage of damage off their health, the glitch becomes useless, and at that point, you're better off using the Barbarian for your burst boss killing needs. And, actually, there's a couple of bosses whom I wouldn't even use the Barbarian on, either.

Furthermore, the Squire has two skills- Circular Slice and Blood Rage- that he has to balance points into, on top of his Hero Attack, compared to the Barbarian's Hawk and Hero Attack. Notice that, however wider the gap between CSG and Hawk Stance gets, the stats required are seemingly more unrealistic to achieve? While it is certainly possible to reach the level of stats on the third test, it is much easier to acquire the 6K/4K balance of the Barbarian than the Squire's 6K/4K/4K.

In gameplay, the Squire is also more Mana dependant. He has to have Mana to sustain Blood Rage before it drains, while he's tapping out his CSG's. Because of a nerf that the Squire was hit by, Blood Rage drains mana more rapidly then the Monk or Initiate's skills, and points into the skill only seem to increase the buff, and not affect its duration. What this means is that whatever damage you want to do has to happen in a very short amount of time.

Whether or not it's worth it is up to you.

This is written assuming you're playing solo or with an uncoordinated group. A readily prepared boost Monk teamed with either the Squire or the Barbarian means you're generally going to be one-shotting every boss anyway, so this section becomes rather moot.

This isn't going to have any fancy writing, and this is not a boss-by-boss guide. This is an overview of how your character works in comparison to the boss you'll be up against. I've lumped together all versions of all the bosses present in the game, because I'm not going to go on a map-by-map basis for each boss.

The Demon Lords, the Goblin Mechs, and the Ancient Dragons all get turned to paste by the CSG, if they even live long enough for you to get close enough to do the CSG on them. These bosses do not have any immunity mechanics.

You do have to bring the Dragon down, but he does not ever turn invincible to you when you do hit him with a CSG. He flies away after a certain amount of time or damage, but you ought to be able to kill him before he gets too far gone. Three points to the Squire.

Once you get to the Eternia Shards bosses, you start seeing a really odd puzzle factor with the bosses. The least offensive is the Spider Queen who is resistant to damage, but not immune, and "solving her puzzle" (re: killing her tiny summoned spiders) means she falls on her face for a bit and is open to more damage from the front.

The CSG shines here, not only because because of the better damage, but also because of the shorter cooldowns between CSGs (one second cooldown) you can do over the Hawk Stance (three second cooldown). Point goes to the Squire.

The Genie King is simulataneously very interesting and pretty annoying. Simply put, the Barbarian wins out when you want to quickly kill the Genie King. Hawk Stance may be weaker than the CSG, but remember, the Hawk Stance hits twice in one frame. If you CSG the Genie King, one hit'll get through, but the other will not. Point goes to Barbarian.

This is a problem. Nevermind the Kraken's high damage output to you and to your towers, he moves a lot and he knocks you away. And that's before you can even properly attack his weak spot. I would argue that neither the Barbarian nor the Squire are suited to fight the Kraken because of their slow movement speed and the short range of their abilities. The Barbarian has the Amazoness costume, but that's a lot of moving around to try just to land a Hawk Stance.

Neither gets the point because of the Huntress, the Ranger, and the Monk. The Kraken, you see, is also bugged. He can't see invisible players, which is an extraordinary and merciful oversight for the finale of Boss Rush. If you go with a strategy that has no physical towers, the Krakens will float harmlessly and not attack you while you wittle them down.

And I mention the Monk just because the Monk can kill things fast too.

Of the many, many, many strategies people come up with to topple this thing, between the CSG Squire and the Hawk Barbarian, the Hawk Barbarian wins. This goes back to the logic that gave the point from Genie King to the Barbarian. Again, the CSG is two hits over different frames, which means that only one hit will get in before the ship's alarms go off and the core is immune to damage.

And again, the Barbarian gets an advantage with the use of its Amazoness costume. The cruelest thing about the Squire is that he doesn't have costumes that make him move faster.

Ah. A damage sponge boss. Mega Snowman has no cruel gimmicks where he hides his weakness away, nor does he push you away. The CSG will not be interrupted by anything except his teammate, the Mega Cupid. Point goes to Squire.

I actually would like to point out that, although I'd recommend him for the Holiday Guardians boss fight at Winter Wonderland and Four Mega Snowman and Santa Claus at Silent Night, I would not recommend him in a solo venture or in a largely disorganized party run of those bosses. Not unless you have a dedicated mana leecher constantly funneling mana to both the presumed Boost Monk and to the CSG Squire. The CSG Squire is much, much more dependent on Mana since Blood Rage chews through it so quickly, so the CSG's damage output is crippled as a result when Blood Rage dies out and is disabled for a while.

Without getting too much into strategy, the Hawk Stance has more vertical tolerance to hit than the CSG does. Both classes are going to get horrendously trolled by its arrows. It's kind of obvious that this is a boss meant to be tackled with a ranged character. Point goes to Barbarian.

Disregard the above. I actually have to rewrite this, but I'm keeping that there for posterity's sake. The vertical tolerance mentioned on the Barbarian still applies, but after a quick couple of rounds and picked fights with Mega Cupid, I can tell you that the point goes to Squire. Here's why:

Everyone knows that on the Tavern Defense boss fight, it's quickest and safest to kill Mega Cupid at the start so he doesn't cause problems during the fight. Basic, smart strategy says that you are going to start near where the boss spawns, and Mega Cupid spawns low enough that the Circular Slice will catch him. He's the weakest of those bosses, as well, which means a good CSG should one shot him. He's not subject to the hide-and-go seek rule of some of the Shards bosses.

Since it's another damage sponge boss, the same points about Mega Snowman apply here. Although it is worth noting that the Turkey hops, and that might make you whiff your Circular Slice. So, the point made about Hawk Stance's vertical tolerance might also apply here. Point is split between them both.

As much as I love the Squire and CSG, point goes to Barbarian. The final boss boss has the same puzzle elements as the other Shards bosses. You have to get to his head by destroying the crystals in his ankles, then the ones in his hands and chest.

Actually damaging the Old one, however works in the same way as the Genie King and the Goblin Battlecruiser. Only one hit of your Circular Slice will hit the Old One, because he does his flinching animation after you reach or exceed his damage limit in the cycle. Then, the cycles repeat until you've killed him or he's killed you.

Yeah, I know. I didn't have to go through and get long-winded about who's better between the Squire and the Barbarian in a case-by-case basis. I get that this was more technical than it needed to be. I could have just dropped the screenshots and done a Youtube video explaining how to perform the glitch itself in a three to five minute clip. I certainly didn't need to explain anything about hitboxes or how damage formulas are applied to characters.

But presenting the glitch and saying that CSG makes the Squire objectively better than the Barbarian would have been disingenuine. He's better in some cases and second best in others, and both of them suck in certain situations. All the long-wind is to keep my message clear: The CSG can bring the Squire back up to par with the Barbarian, if not exceed him at times.

Belief or disbelief rests with you.