Bardin All Base Game Careers Mechanic Guide

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

Increases reload speed by 15%.

Using any Healing Supplies, Potions or Grenades has a 10% chance to not consume the item. Stack with all similar effects additively.

When press the career skill key(default key: F), deploy a smoke bomb.
The smoke bomb hitbox is a sphere centred at Bardin, can go through walls and floors. Stagger all enemies within 7 units.
After deployed, creating a smoke area with the radius of 8 units for 10 seconds.
While inside the smoke area, Bardin is invisible to all enemies, but cannot walk through enemies. Hitting enemies does not break the stealth.
While inside the smoke area, Bardin's range weapons deal extra damage. All range attacks pierce armour/super armour.
Holding the career skill key(default key: F) will show you the stagger radius of the smoke bomb.

Anyone killing a special will result in an ammunition pickup spawns right next to Bardin.
The ammunition pickup has infinite duration.
The pickup shares the appearance of a normal Ammunition Pouch.
Ammo restore is rounded to the closest integer, and is at least 1.

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 Hammer and Shield weapons.

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 War Pick/Axe/Dual Hammers/Great Hammer/Great Axe/Cog Hammer.

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 Ranger Veteran mostly use range weapons for single target damage.

High value for niche melee focus builds
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave.
Triggers upon firing the last shot.
Projectile range attack will benefit from the 25% Power increase if it's the last shot. Since it requires the Ranger Veteran to be out of ammo to be functional, it is used by melee focus builds. Usually it's paired with Throwing Axe, as you can freely adjust the amount of ammo you carry. And since Throwing Axe is a projectile weapon, the last axe you throw will benefit from the 25% Power increase, allowing you to one shot almost all man-sized enemies.

Good value strong utility range/hybrid builds
Refund 2 seconds/1.67% of max Cooldown each time.
Throwing Axes can trigger this effect by either firing the axe, or picking up an axe/recall an axe when there is none left. Provide a decent amount of cooldown to most Ranger Veteran builds. Although it's not game changing, the strong utility and damage that Ranger Veteran's career skill can provide makes this talent better than other options on this row most of the time.

Low value hybrid builds
Although consistent, the damage increase you get from this talent is one of the lowest in the game, especially since most of Ranger Veteran's range weapons don't benefit from attack speed. Still, if you want to boost the melee aspect of a hybrid build without losing all your ammo, it is the only option here.

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

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

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.

Consistent all-around team boost
When Survivalist is triggered, there is a 50% chance that one bottle of ale spawns on top of the ammunition pickup.
The bottle of ale has infinite duration on the ground.
Drinking a bottle of ale grants 3% attack speed and 4% damage reduction, last 5 minutes. Can stack up to 3 times for total of 9% attack speed and 12% damage reduction.
Drinking a new bottole will refresh all stacks duration. Since the ale lasts 5 minutes, this talent basically provides 9% attack speed and 12% damage reduction to the whole team. It is also the second best ammo talent on this row as the ale drop does not replace the ammo pouch.
Overall a very good talent that provides consistent value in both offence and defence.

Ammo hungry builds/compositions
Triple the amount of ammo Ranger Veteran can provide to the team. For ammo hungry weapons like Grudge Raker and Masterwork Pistol, this talent is essential if you want to have high range uptime. And if there are melee careers in the team that also use ammo hungry weapons, or just a bit too trigger-happy in general, this talent can also help them sustain very well, as the base ammo pouch would most likely only gives them 1 ammo per pickup.

Difficulty spike solution
When Survivalist is triggered, there is a 20% chance that one item spawns instead of the ammunition pickup.
Speed/Strength/Concentration Potions and Fire/Frag Grenade all have the same spawn chance.

The items this talent provides can help you solve difficulty spikes like patrols/bosses very easily. No matter the difficulty, after couple items and/or bombs, no enemies will survive beside couple lords. However, the downside of having less ammo is definitely worth contemplating here. You will basically be limited to only use your range weapon for special sniping and boss bursting, unless you use Throwing Axe.
Overall, it is a talent with powerful benefit but requires the player to tailor their build or playstyle around it a bit.

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 damage or a more consistent passive defence tool.

Low player agency defensive utility
Provides damage reduction if enemies' attacks are not coming from front ~132.8°(cos(θ) = -0.68).
The universal damage reduction can be triggered by hitting either the head or the neck of an enemy.
Both melee attacks and range attacks can refresh this talent's duration. Fairly straight forward defensive talent. The 7 seconds duration makes it quite consistent in general, as both headshot and neckshot can trigger the effect. Overall, the most consistent and the default talent on this row.

Low use case DPS talent
Cleaving 2 units with range weapon increases reload speed, including Grudge Raker alternative attack.
After cleaving 2 units, increase reload speed for 2 seconds, regardless of how many reloads are initiated.
Require one singular range attack to cleave 2 units.
For Shotgun attacks, require one singular pellet to cleave 2 units.
Cleaving through teammates also contribute to the 2 units count. Due to the nature of this talent, it requires the player to spam range attacks into the horde. This makes Grudge Raker the natural choice here, but Masterwork Pistol/Crossbow can both work with this talent too for some extra range horde clear. Also recommended using this talent along with Master of Improvisation and Grungni's Cunning, as all three of these talents promote a heavy range spamming playstyle.

Consistent defensive utility
The healing/attack speed effect shares the exact area of the smoke(radius of 8 units).
The healing/attack speed effect is triggered every time players enter the smoke area. Players can gain temporary health rapidly by leaving and entering the smoke area repeatedly. Adding another usage to Ranger Veteran's career skill. Now, beside higher range uptime + range DPS increase, you can also use it to help your team establish a stable frontline during horde fight with the extra heal and attack speed. When used normally, this talent can provide a total of 30 temporary health. But if players exploit the healing tickrate by getting in and out of the smoke radius quickly with WS or AD spam, you can easily get 50+ THP from it.
Overall, a good defence focus talent that can provide consistent value to the team.

Good clutch tool and small consistency boost
Bardin now always has the full effect of Disengage during its duration(stealth/range damage/range armour piercing).
Cannot walk through enemies. Hitting enemies does not break the stealth. The most obvious usage of this talent is to utilize the effect for clutching. This allows you to move and attack freely for 10 seconds without any worries. At the same time, for the two closer range weapons, Throwing Axe and Masterwork Pistol, this talent also increases your boss bursting consistency. Normally when you try to burst down a boss with Throwing Axe/Masterwork Pistol, you will lose aggro when you put down the smoke, and the boss will run towards your teammates, resulting them either outside your effective range or force you to leave your damage boosting smoke. This talent can solve that problem.

Strong burst/DPS option
After using Disengage, grants Bardin a buff that makes the next bomb he throws to not be used.
The buff has infinite duration.

The free bomb buff last indefinitely until you throw your next grenade. If you don't have the free grenade buff and predict you don't need your career skill for the next minute or two, you should use it immediately. If with the grenade buff and cooldown ready, you can throw 2 free bombs in a row, or 3 bombs if you are willing to lose then potential future usage. One free grenade is already enough to deal with small difficulty spikes like one group of elites with horde. But if you manage your buff/cooldown correctly, you get to use 2-3 grenades + 10 seconds of invisibility and range power boost in a short period of time, which is enough to burst down basically any difficulty spike in the base game by yourself.
In general, this is the default option for Ranger Veteran, an amazing talent that can help both regular pacing and difficulty spikes effectively.

Reduces damage taken by 30%. Stack multiplicatively with other sources of damage reduction, including Impenetrable, to a total of 65% damage reduction during career skill.

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

Decreases stun duration after getting hit by an attack by 50%. Reduces stun duration from most enemy attacks, including guard broken duration.
Does not reduce the duration of disabler/charged stun/catapult.

The career skill hitbox is a sphere centred at Bardin, can go through walls and floors.
Stagger and grab the aggro of all none-boss/lord enemies within 10 units for 10 seconds, regardless if they are man-sized or not.
During the career skill, Bardin gains 50% damage reduction(to a total of 65% with Dwarf-Forged), 100% block cost reduction, and increases intensity decays which makes horde to spawn easier.
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/taunt radius of the career skill.

The next instance of damage from enemy or environment is nullified.
Does not prevent self damage/fall damage.

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 Hammer and Shield weapons.

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

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 War Pick/Axe/Dual Hammers/Great Hammer/Great Axe/Cog Hammer.

Drakefire Build
Removes the high Overcharge slowdown penalty completely.
At 0 Overcharge, Drakefire weapons have -80% range power and +100% Attack Speed.
Every 3 Overcharge, Drakefire weapons gain +20% range power and -15% Attack Speed. This effect can stack up to 10 times, maxing out at 30 Overcharge.
At 30 Overcharge, Drakefire weapons have +120% range power and -50% Attack Speed.
The power modifier changes Drakfire weapons direct damage and stagger power, does not change cleave or DoT damage. When used properly, this talent is the best talent for Drakefire weapons build. But the mechanic can be a bit confusing, and requires the player to play around with the drawback.
In general, this talent reduces Drakefire weapons DPS when below 12 Overcharge, increases your DPS between 12 - 30 overcharge, and at 27 you have the highest DPS.
However, this assumes your attacks are affected by the attack speed modifier, and that's not true for all Drakefire attacks. Plus, you can bypass the attack speed restriction by tap your venting key. Keep in mind that attack speed also affects the amount of time you need to wait to swap after attacking, so even just for safety purpose, it's good to know the tap venting trick.
For Drakefire Pistols, both the primary attack and alternative attack are affected by the attack speed modifier. Overall, for primary attacks, you can use them at any heat level, as you would use it for sniping purpose time to time, and attack speed is important in that scenario. For alternative attack, although you can use vent to keep your overcharge at optimal level, you can just play at 30+ overcharge and tap venting after each blast to bypass the slowdown.
For Drakegun, only the primary attack is affected by the attack speed modifier. And like Drakefire Pistols primary, Drakegun primary attack can be played at any heat level since it's mostly used as a quick CC tool for enemies in front of you. For its alternative attacks, it's better to keep at as high heat level as possible, since the fire tickrate is not affected by attack speed. However, it is important to keep in mind that while spraying your alternative attack, Drakegun will continually gain more overcharge. Pay attention to it so you don't accidentally blow up.

Passive DPS increase
When there are 0/1/2/3 allies within 5 units of Bardin, he gains 5%/10%/15% power level. Bardin himself does not count as ally in this instance.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. The simplest and most consistent passive DPS increase on this row. Although the numeric value is not high, there are no weird mechanics that the player need to play around with. Being a power level buff also means this is the only talent on this row that helps you no matter your build types, melee focused or not. Even certain Drakegun builds will prefer this talent over Under Pressure, as they have similar damage potential, but Blood of Grimnir does not require the player to micromanage overcharge level, so you can just stay in low heat to prevent slowdown and the potential of blowing up.

Situational team buff
Blocking an attack increase all players' melee power by 2% for 10 seconds, max out at 10%, regardless of players' location.
As a melee power boost, it in creases melee weapon damage/cleave/stagger. Has no effect on range weapons/DoT/Items.

Unlike the description, this talent only increases melee attack damage/cleave/stagger. Because of this, the buff you apply to the whole team most likely won't benefit 1-2 range focused careers much. And for Ironbreaker himself, this talent is just inferior to Blood of Grimnir. And beside just having a lower number and worse buff type, requiring the player to block in order to trigger this effect just doesn't work very well in most difficulties. When played properly, Ironbreaker should be hitting and staggering enemies with your melee weapon to provide space, rather than blocking them.

For Ironbreaker himself, this talent provides the least amount of damage on this row. At the same time for a pure stagger focus shield build, Enhanced Power is usually required to reach certain stagger breakpoints. Should be avoided most of the time.

Increases your single target DPS. Better for key target deletion. Should be picked most of the time when you are not building a pure stagger focus build.

Increases power level by 7.5%.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. Increase both your melee and range damage. Allowing you to reach certain stagger breakpoints and should only be used for that purpose as a melee focus career.

Inconsistent low uptime melee DPS boost
When Gromril is active, Bardin gains a stack of Rising Anger buff very 7 seconds, up to 5 stacks.
When Gromril is lost, Bardin gains (8% x Rising Anger stacks) attack speed for 10 seconds, up to 40% attack speed for 10 seconds. Although this is the only damage option on this row and the max attack speed buff looks interesting, this talent is just very inconsistent and counterintuitive to your gameplay loop. After the 10 seconds attack speed buff expires, you need to wait for at least 17 seconds to get another possible boost, which is only 8%. For 40%, you need to wait for 45 seconds. At the same time, you need to carefully avoid taking damage to accidentally activate Gromril, otherwise you will end up wasting the attack speed buff on low priority targets. It might fit lower difficulty horde pacing better, allowing you to store stacks before horde spawn and unleash it during horde. But on higher difficulty, the uptime is too low as there are too many small dangerous fight to store the buff stacks properly and horde itself is too big to be killed under 10 seconds.

High value defence utility
When Gromril is lost, stagger all enemies within 5 units of Bardin. Provide tons of utilities to yourself and the team. It can help you interrupt Monk/Berserker chain attacks if you failed to block/dodge it, stagger groups of elites when you are in the thick of it, prevent monster chain/grab attacks, and stop assassins/hookrat to disable you. Overall best talent on this row.

Overkill defense boost
Numeric value wise, this is a pretty good talent, makes Ironbreaker much tankier. However, Ironbreak is already extremely tanky with his base toolkit, you don't really need to add more onto that aspect. On top of that, it is competing against Gromril Curse, which provides a lot more utilities and may prevent more damage when used against grab/chain attacks and disablers. Overall a decent talent but lacks meaningful identity and is worse than other option on the same row.

Inconsistent niche defence
A passive boost to your block ability. However, between block cost reduction, extra stamina perk, and Impenetrable, it's very hard for Ironbreaker to lose all his block unintentionally. If you need more stamina, usually Miner's Rhythm is a much better choice, as it can give you more stamina to push too, not just blocking.
One interesting combo to keep in mind with this talent is weapon trait Parry. The Parry window can be reset by using push. Once your stamina is lowered enough after a lot of pushing, if you mess up your Parry then, there is a 50% chance you get your stamina back anyway, so you can use push to reset Parry again.
Overall, a pure defence talent that only provides it value in niche situations. Not recommended for most of the difficulties.

Weapon dependent utility
Any killing blow with melee attacks while having more than 0 stamina will refund refund 2.4 seconds/2% of max Cooldown per enemy killed. Although Ironbreaker doesn't have strong melee killing power, cooldown refund to one of the strongest career skill in the game is still useful, especially since Impenetrable has one of the longest cooldown in the game. You should still pair this talent with weapons that doesn't use push in its horde clear combo and deal decent damage though.
Recommend pairing this talent with Axe/War Pick/Axe/Dual Hammers/Great Hammer/Great Axe/Cog Hammer.

Weapon dependent utility
Landing heavy melee attacks or Grudge Raker alternative attack gives you 40% stamina regen for 2 seconds. A great crowd control tool if you can trigger this talent reliably and utilize the stamina it provides. For example, when combined with stamina regen trinket, Shield weapons can do the push-bash combo indefinitely. Axe/Hammer sometimes want to use this weapon too. Both of them can do a quick heavy attack to trigger this talent, and Axe wants to use the push to help with crowd control and Hammer can use stamina for more push attack combo.
Recommend pairing this talent with Shield weapons, or any builds that want to use more push/push attacks in general.

High value team DPS boost
When activating Impenetrable, increases alley power level by 20% for 10 seconds if they are within 10 units of Ironbreaker. Ironbreaker also benefits from the power level buff.
As a power boost, it increases damage/stagger/cleave. One of the few team power level boost in the game. On paper, it only lasts 10 seconds, which doesn't sound like a lot, but since it triggers when you use Impenetrable, it is basically guaranteed that your teammates can capitalize the DPS boost since now they don't need to worry about enemies attacking them for that duration.
Ironbreaker himself can also use this boost pretty well. Although you will have enemy aggros, you also gain a huge amount of damage reduction, allowing you to tank a lot more damage while attacking with the power bonus. You also have access to Trollhammer Torpedo, which benefit greatly from short duration high damage boost buff like this. You can also pair this talent with a horde clear melee weapon and The Rolling Mountain , to boost horde clear speed without losing all your cooldown.
Overall, an amazing talent for a more aggressive Ironbreaker playstyle.

Niche boss/lord fight tool
Impenetrable now stagger and grab the aggro of all enemies, including boss/lord. In theory, it looks like the best solution for boss/lord, but it isn't always the case for those fights and lacks other utilities.
For certain builds like Bounty Hunter Double Shots/Waystalker Piercing Shot, losing boss aggro can be devastating for their DPS, as it is a lot harder to predict boss head movement when they can't control boss movement themselves. If your team overall has good boss damage, or if Ironbreaker himself has Trollhammer Torpedo and some other items, Drengbarazi Oath can help to burst down the boss much better. And in certain situations, using Booming Taunt to pull all other enemies away from the team longer when they are fighting the boss might be just as efficient if not more in certain situations. The lack of other functionality really limits the use case of this talent.
Should only be used when you and your team are actively trying to adopt the boss fighting style of this talent.

Consistent numeric value boost
Increase Impenetrable radius to 15 units and duration to 15 seconds.

Straight forward boost for your career skill. The radius increase makes it so that it is very consistent to grab every single elites inside a patrol and/or the entirety of the horde. The extra duration gives your teammates more time to safely dealing damage, and allow yourself to benefit from the bcr/dr buff too.
Overall, a simple but effect option for a more defensive Ironbreaker playstyle.

Increases attack speed by 7.5%.

Charged attacks can't be interrupted by damage. Only immune to damage interruption. Stun/disable/push from enemies can still interrupt you.

Cannot be initiated from midair.
During this career skill, you can switch weapons/items, attack/charge with melee 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.
Cannot be cancelled by player after initiated.
The player is not invincible during this career skill. To help to 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 destination of the career skill.
Can leap through any units.
Slayer does not suffer from fall damage with the initial landing of this career skill.
After landing, create a small explosion around Slayer. Apply moderate amount of stagger to enemies within 2 units, and small amount of stagger to enemies within 4 units.
After activating the career skill, during the next 10 seconds, Bardin gains 30% attack speed, all his attacks cannot be interrupted by enemy damage, and cannot be knocked back by enemy range attacks(e.g Rattling Gunner/Warpfire Thrower).
Can be initiated without leaping forward by aiming your camera down. Still apply the stagger and Bardin still gains all the beneficial buffs.

Gain 1 stack per enemy hit. Can receive multiple stacks if the attack cleaved through multiple enemies.
Provides up to 30% weapon damage.
Increases all weapon direct damage, except Throwing Axe.
The attack that gains the Trophy Hunter stack also benefit from the new stack damage increase.

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 when you have a fairly passive playstyle.

Can be triggered multiple times per attack. Does not include melee explosion kills or melee DoT kills. Should be used when you have a fairly aggressive playstyle.

Can only be triggered on the first target the attack connects to. Dual wield attacks can trigger twice. Should only be used with Axe and Dual Axes when you have extremely high headshot rate.

Good flavour option for one-handed builds
One-handed weapons include Hammer/Axe/Dual Hammers/Dual Axes/Throwing Axe. Although intended for one-handed builds, this talent falls behind in terms of DPS compare to Hack and Slash. Still a decent option if you prefer higher attack speed for your builds.

Best-in-slot for two-handed build
Two-handed weapons include War Pick/Great Axe/Cog Hammer/Great Hammer.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. Provides highest amount of DPS increase to two-handed builds.

Best-in-slot for one-handed builds and mixed builds
Provides highest amount of DPS increase to both one-handed and mixed builds.

Increases your single target DPS. Should be picked most of the time.

Increases your horde clear DPS. However, Slayer already has enough horde clear capability from is weapons and attack speed buff, and his job should be more on focusing down high threat single target. Should avoid 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 focus career as much as other talents.
Should be avoided.

Niche utility
Trophy Hunter now provides up to 30% weapon damage and movement speed. Movement speed gives you an easier time at evading enemy attacks, as you can move out of their hitbox or move to a more favourable fighting position easier. For Slayer specifically, it also provides higher melee uptime and easier to deal with specials, since now you can chase them down.
However, Adrenaline Surge + No Escape provides same utility and more DPS because of higher Leap uptime. And stacking both Impatience and No Escape is overkill amount of move speed outside of speedrunning.

Niche DPS increase
Trophy Hunter now provides up to 40% weapon damage. At first glance, this talent seems like the only damage option on this row. However, Adrenaline Surge provides 100% uptime of Leap attack speed buff during combat, which in practice is almost always more DPS than the ~7% increase High Tally can provide, especially during patrol/boss/lord fight where you cannot get cooldown back fast enough with Cooldown On Hit effect.

Consistent DPS and utility
When you have 3 stacks of Trophy Hunter, gain a buff that provides 200% Cooldown Regen.
The buff lasts as long as Trophy Hunter is on max stacks.

The cooldown regen gives Slayer 100% Leap uptime, even when fighting single target. The more frequent activation of Leap itself also means synergy with all level 30 talents and chase down specials easier.
Overall, by far the best option in this row in both DPS and utility.

Medium coverage consistent damage reduction
After all other damage reduction calculation, reduce direct damage from elites/bosses/lords to 10 or half of that, whichever is highest.
Has no effect if the damage is below 10. Provide up to 50% damage reduction against elites/bosses/lords direct attacks.
The best part of this talent is that the player doesn't need to micromanage the buff uptime. Unlike Grimnir's Focus which requires you to use heavy attacks time to time, Oblivious to Pain has no such requirement, which means with certain weapons you don't need to sacrifice DPS for damage reduction, if their optimal DPS combos skip heavy attacks.
However, there are still huge portions of total damage taken that this talent doesn't cover. All special damage dealt ignore this talent, and while it's pretty easy to get net positive THP gain during horde, taking a stray hit from a roaming loner regular enemy can be very devastating too, as they deal increasing damage when alone. This makes Grimnir's Focus the better option when you have high uptime, as when both are activated, in the worst case Grimnir's Focus is only 10% less damage reduction compared to Oblivious to Pain, but covers all types of damage.
Overall, should only be picked if you don't have good uptime with Grimnir's Focus for any reason.

High coverage damage reduction that requires player agency
A very high numeric value damage reduction talent, and its trigger condition is fairly easy to meet. However, the 5 seconds duration means the player need to micromanage its uptime pretty well, and may lose some DPS if the currently required melee weapon combo does not utilize heavy attacks. Still, it's worth learning and using this talent as this provides by far the best protection for Slayer on this row.
Overall, should be picked most of the time as long as you can keep a good uptime for this talent.

Extremely niche crowd control
When initiating an effective dodge, create a small explosion centred around Bardin.
Dodging without effective dodge count does not trigger this effect.
The explosion has a radius of 1.5 units. Has the same amount of stagger power as a light push(pushes from Dagger/Dual Daggers/Rapier, or outer radius pushes from normal weapons). Both the stagger power and radius of this talent are underwhelming. The only units this talent can stagger are skaven and low tier chaos horde units, and their attack ranges can be larger than the stagger radius too. Even for low cleave weapons, a couple well-placed pushes will have much bigger impact on crowd control than its effect.
Should be ignored most of the time.

Crowd control tool
The stagger effect from the explosion created by Leap is improved drastically.
Stagger power is increased to up to ~343% depends on the difficulty. Apply strong stagger to enemies within 3 units, and medium stagger to enemies within 6 units. When combined with Adrenaline Surge, this talent turns Slayer into one of the best crowd control career in the game. The inner stagger radius is able to stagger every single elite enemy attacks except Chaos Warrior overhead even on Cataclysm, and you can put all other enemies into heavy stagger. And with the extra cooldown regen, you can use this effect every 10 seconds or less.
Best choice if you prefer the style where you hold the ground with your team when fighting.

Niche burst damage
Increase power level by 150% until landed with Leap.
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave.
Also affects the explosion applied by Leap landing, increasing its stagger power. The most obvious synergy for this talent is by using Cog Hammer or War Pick, as they have a high damage heavy attack that can one shot most elites when combined with it. But Throwing Axe can also achieve the same breakpoints, and give you the option to leap at a different direction. And lastly, unlike the tooptip, Dawi-Drop just provides generic power boost. Which means when combined with Strength Bomb, it lets you instantly delete 30% - 40% of a monster's HP on Legend and Cataclysm with Shrapnel, or blow up half of the patrol with Explosive Ordinance.
Despite all these potential use cases, the mechanic of this talent makes it quite finicky to use, unlike other options on this row that provide consistent value. At the same time, with a proper build, Slayer doesn't really require the boost from Dawi-Drop, as he can already one to two shot most elites with the right weapons.

Consistent numeric value boost
Activate Leap now also provides you 25% movement speed for 10 seconds.

Compare to Impatience, Adrenaline Surge + No Escape provides same utility and more DPS because of higher Leap uptime, thus it is the preferred option when you want movement speed for your build to help you evade enemy attacks and chase them down. Especially for two-handed builds where all your weapons have below average dodge status, mobility boosting options become even more valuable.
Best choice if you prefer the style where you consistently manoeuvre your way around enemies for advantageous position, or if you need more mobility in general for two-handed builds.

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