Someone should really make a list of the foes that this can work on. Might as well be me, so here goes:

Alabaster Lord
Albinauric (2nd generation only)
Ancestral Follower
Ancestral Follower Shaman
Avionette Soldier
Azula Beastman
Baleful Shadow
Banished Knight
Battlemage
Blackflame Monk
Black Knife Assassin
Blaidd
Celebrant
Cemetery Shade
Clayman
Cleanrot Knight
Commoner
Crucible Knight
Crystalian
Demi-Human (except small knife-wielder)
Demi-Human Chief
Depraved Perfumer
Duelist
Exile Soldier
Fallen Hawks Soldier
Fanged Imp
Fire Monk
Foot Soldier (Godrick, etc)
Frenzied Villager
Glintstone Miner
Glintstone Sorcerer
Guardian
Highwayman
Kaiden Sellsword
Kindred of Rot (Pests)
Knight (Godrick, etc.)
Large Oracle Envoy
Lazuli Sorcerer
Man-Serpent
Marionette Soldier
Miner
Misbegotten (except flying variant)
Misbegotten Warrior
Night Maiden
Noble Sorcerer
Nomad
Nox Monk
Nox Swordstress
Omenkiller
Onyx Lord
Oracle Envoy
Page
Perfumer
Putrid Corpse
Rotten Duelist
Sanguine Noble
Servant of Rot (mushroom men)
Silver Tear (including the blobs)
Skeleton
Soldier (Godrick, etc.)
Starcaller
Thorn Sorcerer
Twinsage Sorcerer
Vulgar Militiamen
Wandering Noble

Note: I didn't test it on any of the bosses (because I was already half-way through the game when I started compiling this list), but it will definitely work on boss variants of the enemies I tested.

dark hand got insane

For large enemies this should still do the damage intended and heal you but no grip animation it would make this a lot more fun and viable

wish this had a little more range like when elemer does it

Well I wrote up a full post with actual numbers but Fextralife decided to just give me an error, not post the comment and delete all my work so here's a ****ing short version of it. The scaling on this is pretty weird / confusing. 25 STR, 15 DEX, +23 Spiked Caestus Heavy infused has around 40 more AR than Keen infused, does around 100 more damage on 2H R1s, so everything is as expected. But for some Marika forsaken reason, the WoA does ~30 less damage when Heavy infused over Keen, even thought it has more AR. Testing was done on the same enemy, 2H in both cases, no talismans equipped, tested multiple times. Pretty non-sensical.

Hope they patch the weapon buff damage shenanigans at some point in favor of making it scale well with arcane/occult infusion. Makes no sense that it's 2-3x more effective with a dex/str int/fth build than a pure arcane build.

It does work on night cavalry when they're not on their horse

Does it count as a critical?

“Only effective against foes of human build.”

*Shows gif of serpent*

Wait, since this counts as a critical hit, doesn't that mean the Cerulean Dagger talisman makes this free?