Vermintide 2 Guide: Properties and useful tips and tricks

Hello,
This is a guide for properties, mechanics, useful tips and tricks that the game doesn’t really tell you, and I wish I knew sooner. I will not go into too much detail into specific career builds as that is a beast in itself. I will mention some talents and some builds as examples, but I will try and keep it all as brief as possible.

Most of this will be aimed at the legend difficulty, but it all should work equally well in champion and cataclysm. Seeing as this guide prioritizes new players, I won't talk about Cataclysm, I will also mention that I don’t play modded difficulties, but all of the information in the guide is applicable to all difficulties.

I will point out that I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here, all of this info is what I gathered from different guides and playing the game and testing stuff myself, and is just my opinion and not necessarily perfect, but I will try to be as objective as I can. So much information is spread out online, so this Is my attempt to put as much basic info in one place for easier reference for everyone, so that you can try to make your own unique builds or setups. It's also a test for my own knowledge to see if I can explain everything I know about this game, without going into all the niche and specfic details and situation that can happen, as there are already more than enough guides like that.

I don’t play Darktide, but I’m sure this will be helpful for newcomers from Darktide, AFAIK the game mechanics aren’t too similar.

Links to other guides and videos are at the bottom of the guide.

( Weapon properties are made in 2 parts because steam didn't allow me to put the whole text in one section, so look at Weapon properties 1 and 2 as a single section)

Melee weapons:- all melee weapons have 3(4) base attacks:

Block:- (hold mouse 2), this block attacks , some attacks (specifically some monster overhead smash attacks) cannot be blocked without a shield weapon. Shields can block rattling gunners, but only grail knight can block warpfire throwers.

Light attack (mouse 1)- quick swing.

Heavy attack: (hold mouse 1). I will note here that the more attack speed you have, the less time you have to hold the mouse 1 button for the heavy attack to go off and the swing will be faster. The heavy attack won't do more damage if you hold the button for a longer, but sometimes you may want to wind up a heavy for an elite or special that is approaching you. Two exceptions are Bardin’s pickaxe and Saltzpyre rapier, these weapons do more damage if you hold the heavy attack for longer, up to 2 stack recognized by the animation of the hands or weapon.

Push: While holding block (mouse 2) press the attack button (mouse 1). Push costs one full stamina shield (2stamina) or half stamina shield (1 stamina) on some weapons, so be careful not to just push like crazy and lose all your stamina. An important note here is that this attack is very important for killing Stormvermin with shields. Stormvermin shields block all dmg and you can’t break them, what you need to do is push two times, and at that moment the Stromvemin will raise its shield, then you kill it (also works on smaller shield enemies). If you have a slow weapon or are in a tough situation, or you just want to be helpful, just push the shielded Stromvermin and let your team kill them. THE SAME goes for when berserkers attack you, but in that situation don’t push, just hold block.

Push attack: After pushing, keep holding the attack button. A very useful attack on some weapons ( some examples dual axes, one-hand hammer, billhook, mace and sword, great sword, tuskgore spear). This attack is also useful for getting specific attack combos, an example of this is the elf's sword and dagger where you do a push attack into a heavy for big single target dmg.

Special attacks: some weapons have a special attack, I think the base button for this is “V”. Rapier and billhooks are examples of this.

Both melee and ranged weapon can hit HEADSHOTS for more damage. Keep that in mind and look at the direction your chosen weapon swings with. Some melee weapons swing directly through the small dot crosshair in the center, but some go slightly above or below, you will know it when you see it. Handguns are OP they land where you aim, and arrows drop down the further they fly. Flamethrowers are fun, but generally bad as when you burn and delete a horde your team loses potential temporary (grey) Health. They shine with gameplay experience.

A general rule you can follow (for most weapons) is that for two-handed weapons, light attack is for elites, and heavy is for hordes, while with one-handed weapons, it's light attack for hordes and heavy attacks for elites. Shield weapons use everything for hordes for massive stagger, but usually the elite killing combo is push attack into light attack (a very veeeery strong combo on mace/hammer and shield). Try the weapon out on the training dummy before you go into a mission.

Dodge: always dodge side to side, never backwards. Dodging backwards can trigger an enemy's quick charge attack, which can often drop you down. Dodging backwards is useful for monster kiting. Of course, there will be situations where you MUST go backwards, just remember *Learn, adapt, overcome*

There is a rhythm to this game, weaving attacks, push attack, dodges and ranged weapon attacks together into a beautiful symphony of carnage. For me singing a song helps out in tight situations. I recommend Another One bites the dust by Queen.
I will repeat, ITS VERY IMPORTANT to push between your attacks (especially in a thick horde), you will figure it out with practice. This is the reason many players find the jump from champion to legend difficult. As the hordes are thicker on legend, and you can't just spam you attacks and hope for the best.

You should always keep an eye out on specials. When a monster spawns, try to kite it and kill it last if you are surrounded by a horde, elites or some other vermin. Don't forget to tag elites and specials (''T'' is the default keybind), a situation where Tagging helps a lot is when a gas rat makes a big smoke screen and you cant see specials/elites behind it if they aren't tagged.

ALWAYS EXPECT AND ENEMY BEHIND YOU.

When you start playing, I highly suggest using a sniper type weapons. Handgun, longbow, crossbow, bolt staff. These weapons are for killing specials, and there will be a lot of specials. Combined with specific damage breakpoints these weapons will one shot - headshot or one shot/two shot - bodyshot all specials. Using other weapons like shotguns, repeater guns etc should wait until you can dodge/kill at least 1 special for every 3 specials spawned. But sniper weapons, are always a good choice.

When dealing with hordes, don’t just stand in one place and wait for it to come to you, unless it's a specific choke point or a useful ledge where you can kill enemies while they climb. Remember MOVE WITH THE HORDE, the more distance you pass while a horde is chasing you, the fewer hordes overall will spawn on the map. If you ever have a feeling that a horde spawns right after another over a short area, it's probably do to lingering in one spot for too long.

Don’t worry if you wipe and fail a map, it happens to everyone.

I will link some video guides about how to dodge specific enemies at the end of the guide, make sure to check them out!

All enemies have a clan and an armor type. Clans are Skaven and Chaos (Rotbloods and Beastman) and % dmg (example 10% dmg to Skaven) to clans work on ALL ENEMIES of that clan including monsters. Armor is different and describes a specific enemy type.

Armored: Stromvermin, Chaos warriors, Rattling gunners, Warpfire thrower, Bestigor, Wargore.

Infantry: All horde and small enemies, Maulers, Assassins, Leech, Blightstormers (Fartblasters).

Berserkers: Plague monks and Chaos savages. Unique enemies that have MASSIVE stagger
resistance.

Monsters: Enemies with health bars (DOES NOT INCLUDE ALL UNIQE MAP BOSSES) and hookrats.

Here I will quickly explain what breakpoints are.

Breakpoints are specific setups that use '10% damage vs CLAN/ARMOR'' to improve you ability to kill enemies in less hits, combined with your hero power and talents (so don't worry about breakpoints until lvl 35). Best example is: so you can one shot head shot, or one/two shot body shot specials and elites with ranged weapons.

There is a very good guide linked at the end by jtcLIVE, check it out for more info.

Good careers for learning fundamentals and leveling characters:

(Don’t worry too much about specific builds until you get lvl 25 or 30. Also don’t try legend unless you are lvl 20 or 25 at least. Fair warning some people will kick you if you are a level 6 ranger veteran joining a full book legend run.)

Keep in mind that the first time you finish a map with a specific character you get an extra 500 XP at the end. On the mission screen you can see what characters didn’t finish the map.

Mercenary Kruber, Ranger veteran Bardin, Witch hunter captain, Waystalker, Battle wizard. As its quite obvious, base careers are best for leveling up you characters. A good general rule you can follow Is that if the career has an area of effect ability that staggers it's better for learning fundamentals and leveling, while careers with dashes usually need some specific talents to pop off.

One career I will single out here is Ironbreaker Bardin. Many people will argue that, because it’s a very tanky career and has a ‘’get out of jail free car’’ in his passive, it will teach you some bad habits as not needing to dodge specials, and generally stay alive do to taking very little damage during a mission. And I completely agree with that, you will often stay alive last and die feeling ‘’Oh yea I stayed alive the longest’’ but if you played better you would all probably still be alive as an Ironbreaker can carry any game if played correctly.

NOW with all that said, I still think that Ironbreaker is a good starter class if you still do your best to dodge specials and play smart. Do to how tanky Ironbreaker is it will allow players that jump from champion to legend difficulty more time to get used to more specials spawning, more elites and the general boost to aggression and constant dangers. But keep in mind that if you only play Ironbeaker on legend, you will have a hard time playing any other career. I know that from experience.

Slayer, shade, Bounty hunter, grail knight, sister of thorn, outcast engineer, Unchaned Sienna are some careers I don’t recommend until lvl 30.

Now, for my favorite tip that the game doesn’t tell you. If you are wounded (grey screen) and you have medical supplies, when you heal someone else with them, your wounds will be HEALED AS WELL. This is important for zealots especially, but also to maximize your healing item usage. If two people are grey, you can get both wounds cleared with only one medical supply! If you just dropped and are wounded, but you made massive temporary HP back while killing the enemies that dropped you, see if a teammate is low, and use medical supplies on them.

Remember that this is a TEAM PvE game, try to stick close and help each other out, it’s the best way to get those good juicy red items!

All Vermintide 2 maps have tomes and grimoires, books you can find and if you finish the map with them in your inventory you will gain better loot chests. It makes the game a bit harder but is an essential part of legend quick play and item farming. If you want to go for full book runs ALWAYS use curse resistance on you trinket as grimoires lower your max HP (also why max HP on necklace is important), or you will probably be one shot by every enemy in the game and fail the run. If 2 or more players don't have curse resistance I recommend going for only one grim with 3 tomes. To find these locations just type “MAP NAME book locations’’ on google and you will find a guide or video for it.

Quick tip for lvl 15 talents. Smiter is generally the best, assassin Is good when you crit a lot and hit headshots a lot, enhanced power is good for heavy ranged career and if you want to hit specific damage/stagger breakpoints (enhanced power works on melee and ranged attacks, and is not limited to enemies being staggered) Mainstay and bulwark are not that good, but mainstay Is better than bulwark.

Level 5 temporary hp talents are simple, and its all about your preference, you will figure them out easily. If your weapon staggers a lot go for stagger TEMPHP (second wind), if it cleaves or hits very fast go for multiple enemies hit TEMPHP (Carve), if you can kill lots of elites or clear hordes fast go for killing blow TEMPHP (Execute).

I will not be explaining what Chaos wastes are, but everything I say in this guide applies to that game mode. Try it out for yourself, it has a roguelike level design and is good for farming emperor vaults, but I don’t recommend it for leveling, champion or legend Campaign quests are the safer route.

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF ANYTHING, jump into the fray learn how to kite monsters, dodge/block berserkers and specials.

Here are 2 specific career tips that I see my people don’t know about. The Slayer one especially…

When you use leap (Slayer ability) and while you have the attack speed buff is active (10 seconds) Ratling gunners and warpfire throwers CANNOT stagger you, so run up to them smash them.

Waystalker elf has a lvl 10 talent called blood shot, that makes your next range attack in the next 10 seconds fire an extra arrow. This also works with your ABILITY and with the correct lvl 30 talent you can shoot up to 5 magic arrows.

I will list them out from best to worst with explanations next to them. These are stats that you can get on gear that is green, blue, orange or red. Keep in mind that I WILL mention if something is just BAD, situational or just overshadowed by other properties.

Red weapons are the best as they always have max rolls on properties. Best red items to get are necklace, charm and trinket, as those can be put on all characters, and with the right setup greatly improve your gameplay.

I will note that you can get ORANGE items with max rolls with a bit of luck, and if the orange weapon has the correct properties, that’s great! If you get a good roll on one property (for example 30% BCR) if the other is 3% critical chance/attack speed, 1 stamina or some other bad roll, you should still keep it for that one good roll. Getting a 5% attack speed + 5% critical chance on an orange weapon is amazing, as its basically a red weapon.

At the crafting menu or inventory screen you can use materials gained from salvaging gear to reroll properties and traits on weapons, as well as upgrade them.
· By far one of the best properties for survivability, and by keeping you alive, it allows you to deal more dmg and end the map. Blocking is an essential part of Vermintide 2, blocking and pushing enemies while clearing the horde is a fundamental skill everyone needs to work on. One specific situation where BCR is god tier is when you need to resurrect an ally while tanking enemy hits. For the longest time, I was advocating that BCR is useless until I finally tried it and the whole gameplay rhythm suddenly makes sense. I could block elites while dodging them, and the block breaks less often. This property's max roll is 30% and you can put it on your melee weapon and neck You should almost always have this stat on your gear.
· Definitely top-tier property it boosts your damage by a lot and most importantly helps you with your Swift slaying uptime. Every career has 5% base crit chance (some have extra) I won't go into details here, but critical chance is amazing. Critical hits will help you clear hordes and kill elites faster. This property can be put on you melee weapon (big priority), ranged weapon (low priority) and trinket (big priority). If you are using crit on the melee weapons and trinket, you will have 15% critical chance without taking talents, and passive abilities from careers into consideration (with the hack and slash talent the Slayer can have 25% critical chance). Some careers, witch hunter captain, shade (or pretty much any elf class because a lot of her weapons have extra crit chance, more info later), mercenary Kruber, huntsman Kruber, Pyromancer have extra crit chance in their talents and passives, so they don’t need to prioritize crit chance on their items but nonetheless if you use it, you can't go wrong, more crit chance is always a good thing. One more thing, your critical chance on trinket works on all attacks (melee and range), but 5% crit on a melee weapon doesn't boost ranged crit chance and vice versa. the grail knight blessed blade ability is always considered da critical hit.
· Very good stat, here I want to point out that an important part of more attack speed is that the faster your attacks end the faster you can start blocking. You will notice that while you have Swift slaying active, you will return to blocking after an attack much faster. Attack speed also works on ranged weapons reload time and shooting speed as well as Sienna's staffs( necromancer soul drain staff heavy drain attack while maxing attack speed is something beautiful). Attack speed goes to 5% and it can be rolled on melee weapons and charm (big priority for charm imo, especially with slow careers or weapons). Not much else to say here, if you get an orange weapon ( especially slow weapons like two-handed hammers )with 5% attack speed, keep it and you won't regret it.
· Goes up to 33%, used for full book runs, which is what most legend quick play games are/should be. This stat can be put on the trinket. Not much else to say, if you can play without it that amazing as well, highly recommended for beginners or players that want to farm red items.
· Very good stat, and amazing combined with block cost reduction. This stat can be found on the trinket and goes up to 30%. This property regains your stamina faster. An important thing to point out is that if your block breaks, this property will bring it back much faster than without it. I generally don’t use it as I prefer crit and curse resist on my trinkets and I got used to playing without it (not on cataclysm tho I always take stamina regen on cataclysm), and some careers have it in their talents ( WHC and Grail knight for example). Amazing stat, nothing bad I can say about it, very veeery good on Cataclysm difficulty.
· Goes up to 20% can only be found on necklace. ALWAYS USE IT. End of discussion.
· This stat boosts your stamina for 2 points or one full stamina shield. It can be found on melee weapons and the neck. Now, without going into great detail, BCR is better than stamina for it's defensive purposes. You can use this stat for weapons that focus heavily on push attacks (Dual axe, mace and sword, billhook, tuskgore spear), but put it on your melee weapon, not your necklace. The necklace should be reserved for 30% BCR and 20% health. A niche example is the handmaid that has 30% BCR in her talents so she can switch up stats on her items to have 60% BCR and extra stamina. OR you can go for 90% BCR with her, and it's… well it's fuc*ing amazing to say the least.
· 10% cooldown can be found on the trinket, but generally it's not worth removing critical chance/stamina recovery/curse resist for it, as the amount of seconds you lose isn’t very relevant. Depending on your career, you get 5-15 seconds off your ability cooldown, even if its more (2 minute cooldown abilities like Ironbreaker or Necromancer), it's still not worth removing other trinket properties for it. Ironbreaker and Necromancer specifically have talents that provide better cooldown reduction. HOWEVER, if your career has innate % cooldown reduction talents to combine with the 10% it becomes a much better property
· Here are my 2 favorite examples of it:
o Witch hunter captain has a lvl 30 talent that gives him 40% CDR, in combination with 10% you get up to 50% CDR! In this situation, you can often use the ability 2 times during a horde or patrol, and if you manage it correctly, your uptime on that juicy 25% crit will improve by a lot, and your team will love you for it.
o Waystalker elf: Talents on lvl 20 and 25 give her CDR on her passive and 20% base CDR respectfully. With 10% CDR on trinket your ability is on a 40 sec cooldown, not taking into account that attacking and killing enemies also lowers your ability cooldown. This is one of the most OP build, and its super easy to pull off. Aim bot for the win!
o Bonus, Mercenary Kruber: lvl 30 talent has 20% base cooldown reduction.

When choosing a property/trait/career talents think about the UPTIME of it during a mission, and example of this will be BCR, which comes into play EVERY TIME you block an attack so it has big UPTIME during a mission.

· Goes up to 10% can be put on melee/ranged weapons and charm. Generally used to get good breakpoints for killing specials or elites in a single hit or 2 hits to the body. Generally, power vs Chaos on a charm (with attack speed) is always good, as Chaos enemies are more beefy (have more HP). All of these stats are good, but I wouldn’t put them on a melee weapons considering BCR/ATTACKSPEED/CRITCHANCE/STAMINA exist. It is used on some foot knight/warrior priest builds to get breakpoints to stagger Chaos warrior overhead attacks and plague monks unstoppable attacks. But I suggest you keep these stats off your melee weapons, as if you put 10% to chaos on a melee weapon and get a Skaven only map that whole property is useless for that map. Furthermore if the 10% dmg to ''SOMETHING'' doesn't work towards getting a damage breakpoint (for example if you kill an enemy in 3 hits, and if after you add the ''10% power vs'' the enemy still dies to 3 and not 2 hits), the extra dmg is not worth it. So ''10% dmg vs'' is primarily used for ranged weapon breakpoints, and don't worry about melee breakpoints until you get a good grasp on the gameplay. I will note that melee weapon breakpoints are best used for improving you ability to kill elites/specials in one or two hits. Breakpoints for killing horde enemies can be good as well, but less priority then Elite and Specials breakpoints.
· You CANNOT get % dmg vs Skaven + % dmg vs Chaos combo on a melee/ranged weapon, you can get it on your charm.
· Can be put on melee/ranged weapons, and charm goes to 10%. They are too situational and pretty much useless in my opinion. There are arguments for dmg vs monsters to get Hookrat breakpoints on cataclysm, but taking dmg vs monsters FOR MONSTERS isn’t worth it. Why not? A map takes about 20-40 mins to end, a monster fight is maybe 1-2 mins of that, and even on specific maps with extra monsters the amount of other enemies that are cover just by “CHAOS” or ‘’SKAVEN’’ (Including monsters, so its a 50:50) makes power vs monsters irrelevant in my honest opinion expect in VERY specific niche situations that I won't go into detail for here. Dmg vs Berserkers isn’t good, don’t use it. Plague monks are a bigger issue that Savages, so if you want breakpoints for them use power vs Skaven. · not good, not bad, can be fun. Goes to 30% on trinket, if you want to support your friends who get dropped often, it's good. It's very funny to take it on handmaiden, and get your teammates up so fast they don’t realize they need to hold block and then die instantly from enemy hits.
· not that useful, can be fun, try it if you want. Goes up to 5% and is found on the trinket. It can be good if combined with career talents that also give movement speed, but its not worth removing other trinket properties for it(Critical chance, stamina recovery, cure resist, cooldown reduction)
· It's bad, you shouldn’t focus on respawning faster, focus on not dying.
· 30% max, found on melee weapons and neck. Not really that good and the properties you would lose to use it are a 1000x better. I will note here that you already block in a 360 degree angle, only with bigger stamina cost, but BCR circumvents this. Not useless, but overshadowed by better options. Can be good in the Chaos Wastes.
· all very bad, as you need to lose Max HP, BCR, or stamina on the neck for it. Barkskin trait is all the damage reduction you need.
· Critical power sucks, don’t use it. I won't go into details for this, I think this I the worst stat in the game, especially when you consider properties you lose to make space for this one. Here is a link to a discussion that explains it all in detail.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/tdiaie/crit_power_bad_why/

A quote by r/Yerome from the discussion to sum up how crit power works:
” 40% crit power does not equal 40% more damage when you crit. Crit power increases the bonus damage of your critical hit. So say you have a weapon which deals 10 damage on normal attack and 20 damage on crit, then with 40% crit power you would deal 24 damage with a crit. If your crit chance is 20%, then in this case, 40% crit power would only result in ~7% increase in dps.
Crit power is better for weapons which deal high crit damage, but even on those weapons, the difference in overall dps is rather small.”

Its only good for a specific Bounty hunter build (on cataclysm its a good build where crits one shot every special, as he is the only career that can get reliable crits), but even then the other options are better. And a class without reliable crits the extra crit power will often turn into overkill dmg that goes into nothing, I often see necro sienna using it, and she already one-shots everything when she crits.

Basically if you don't crit with you FIRST attack on an enemy, later crits will go into overkill damage, and crit power does literally nothing.

I don’t play pyromancer, so idk if it's worth there, as pyro can have crazy high crit chance, but my guess is that it's still not worth it.
I will say that many people (new players especially) will find good spots for crit power or think it's good, but you really shouldn’t use it.

Gear traits - these are extra effects that you can put on orange gear or red gear. They don’t have any % rolls just their base effects.
· Swift slaying: Critical Hits increase attack speed by 20% for 5.0 seconds. Swift slaying is king, it gives you 20% attack speed on a critical hit( that’s why you should try and have 15% crit chance at least on all careers), always useful, always good, 20% attack speed boost your dmg, faster attack=more attacking= more chance to crit, less time for enemies to hit you between your attacks, and it also allows you to block faster. You should always aim to use this trait. · Opportunist: Increases stagger power by 50% against attacking enemies (including smashing door). Very good on shield weapons, and generally heavy stagger weapons like hammers, Ceremonial dagger heavy 1 attack, greatswords (not a heavy stagger weapon, but with opportunist its good) and one-handed mace. I will say that swift slaying is superior in every way but I won't say that opportunist is useless, it can help out with horde/elite control when used on a good weapon or career. Its often used to hit stagger breakpoints for berserkers and other elites. If you want to use this trait, prioritize 5% attack speed on your weapon and charm, as you will need all the attack speed you can get.
· I won't mention the other melee weapon traits ones, as they are quite niche and not good in general when compared to swift slaying or opportunist. Look them up on the wiki if you want, some seem good (like heroic intervention) but their uptime usefulness is too situational.
· Conservative shot: 1 ammo on headshot, amazing, beautiful use on every sniper weapon, you won't regret it. If you aren't using this trait, make sure to keep track of your ammo count. Some careers get ammo from killing enemies or other sources (Ranger veteran, bounty hunter, Huntsman). One thing to point out here, on a handgun(crossbow) your headshots should one shot Stromvermin (if it doesn't you need to fix your breakpoints), and each one will give you 1 ammo back. So with good aim, you can take care of a lot of roaming elites for 0 ammo and no danger. Possible on all careers with a sniper weapon.

There is also a setup with handgun Huntsman Kruber, who can one shot - bodyshot Maulers with a single body shot on Legend while also one-shoting Stormvermin and other specials. (10% dmg to chaos and 10% damage on infantry on handgun, and 10% dmg to skaven and chaos on charm).

· Thermal equalizer: good on overheat weapons (magic staffs and flame thrower weapons) to regulate your heat bar. I would say its essential, especially for beginner Sienna players

· Hunter: 25% dmg against the target of the same armor class (Armored, infantry, berserker and monster) for 10 seconds after a critical hit. This trait can be very good on a high-crit chance careers that don't worry about ammo (some examples, necromancer, bounty hunter, huntsman, any class with an overheat bar, but take care not to explode without thermal equalizer). I will point out that this 25% dmg also works for YOUR MELEE ATTACKS after it's Activated, as well as your damage over time effects (Sienna burn is the best example). This is my personal favorite ranged weapon trait (but I'm not saying it's the best).

For example, I will point out this Bounty hunter Build
· A build I like with the Hunter trait is billhook with crossbow on Bounty hunter Saltzpyre. Blessed shot cooldown is 10 seconds and hunter lasts for 10 seconds. Basically, you can always have 25% dmg to the enemy type you are attacking, Billhook heavy 1 one shot- headshots Stromvermin on legend with this buff. And if you use 10% infantry on your charm, your push attack into light attack with billhook will delete hordes. It's also a fun trait for high critical chance sienna builds. Oh, and one more thing, if you crit and hit multiple enemies, you will have the 25% buff for both armor types that you hit.

· Barrage: Consecutive attacks against the same targets boost attack power by 5% for 5.0 seconds. A good trait for swift bow, repeater weapons, masterwork pistol and other high fire rate weapons. This buff while active also boosts your melee damage to that target (I used to use it on a shade build where I would get it to 20ish% with my javelin on a monster, and then go full burst with my melee weapon, I don't recommend it tho). But in my opinion, the hunter trait is much superior, but it all comes down to preference.

Melee/ranged traits that lower you ability cooldown on critical hits generally aren't worth taking, they aren't bad, but I won't go over them as generally they are inferior to the other options.

· Barkskin: Taking damage reduces the damage you take from subsequent sources by 40% for 2 seconds. This effect can only trigger every 2 seconds. In 95% of situations, this is the best trait to have on your necklace. This will save you from quick burst attacks: Gutter runner stabs, enemies attacking you while a hooker drags you, Rattling gunners, Fartblaster tornado (a tornado without Barkskin can melt more than 50% of your Health), Warpfire throwers, berserkers, that pesky horde that spawned behind you and 10 rats hit you at once… TLDR Barkskin is always the right answer. Although if a class is naturally tanky (ironbreaker, warrior priest) or you have a good dmg reduction talent, you can (if you really want) go for some of the other options.

· Boon of Shallya: Increases the effectiveness of healing on you by 30%. All healing, this included temporary HP generation as well as mercenary Kruber ability and similar effects. Very good for tank classes if you struggle with TEMPHP generation.

· Hand of Shallya: Healing yourself with a First Aid Kit (Medical Supplies) or a Healing Draught also heals your nearby allies for 20.0% of their maximum health. Clears any wounds. Not bad if you want to be a support heal class, this was a God tier trait in Vermintide 1 tho. Barkskin and boon of shallya are better for sure, but this can come in very handy IF YOU USE IT PROPERLY. The best use of this trait is if 2 or more people are wounded, and you get them all to healthy with one healing draught. Very niche situations tho and throughout he map happens maybe once or twice, while Barkskin will be active non stop. I wouldn’t recommend it for non-experienced players

· Natural bond: Passively regenerates 1 health every 5 seconds. Healing from First Aid Kit (Medical Supplies) and Healing Draughts are converted to temporary health and cure any wound. I could talk about how good this trait is for hours, but objectively (especially for new players) it's not a good trait, Barkskin will always be better. Either way, I’m not saying it’s a useless trait, but it shines with experience.

· Healers touch: 25.0% chance to not consume healing item on use. I got nothing to say here, don’t use it its bad. It has 25% to double your heal item but the same argument as above applies. Throughout the map that happens maybe once or twice, and if you are doing book runs its very bad as your heal item slot will have a tome in it. Its better to take hand of Shallya as its at least 100% that you get extra value, and if 3 of your teammates are grey and all have books on them, one heal from you can get them all back to healthy. But seriously, use barkskin.

My favorites are Proxy on charm (Consuming a potion spreads the effect to the nearest ally) and Shrapnel (Grenades cause hit enemies to take 20% increased damage for 10.0 seconds) on trinket
Keep in mind that many of these properties and similar trait effects can often be found in character talents and abilities, so mix and match to make your perfect setup!

Good base gear setups, usable by all careers. ONE THING TO REMEMEBER when making/choosing a build, it doesn't matter how much damage you can do, if you die before you get to deal that damage. Focus on survivability before all else at first!

· Aggressive setup: 5% critical chance +5% attack speed, trait Swift slaying. Good when you are a melee-only class. Put this on your main dmg weapon and use a defensive setup on your other weapon (preferably a shield). 2 Stamina + 5% attack speed/crit chance is good on weapons that use a lot of push attacks.

· Jack of all trades: 30% BCR + 5% critical chance, trait swift slaying. I use this setup all the time and it is ALWAYS a good choice to have on any weapon and career.

· Defensive setup: 2 stamina + 30% BCR, trait swift slaying. You can also take opportunist here if you want or if you think that the weapon you are using doesn’t need swift slaying, but generally go for swift slaying.

· Opportunist CC setup: 30% BCR + 5% attack speed, trait opportunist. Best use when you want to tank and peel your team. Great for foot knight or warrior priest stagger breakpoints builds. Although in those situations, you might need 10% dmg to Skaven on your melee weapon for plague monk stagger breakpoints.

I will note here that I’m mostly talking about special sniping weapons here. Handgun, crossbow, longbow, bolt staff. I believe that these are the best weapons to use, for beginners especially, as specials are a big threat in any mission and its easy to get good quality breakpoints for them.

· Best setup: 10%dmg to Skaven + 10% infantry, trait conservative shot, go thermal equalizer on magic staffs and flame weapons.

· Crit setup: 10% dmg to Skaven/infantry + 5% crit change, trait hunter or conservative shot. If you want to play a high critical chance or The Hunter trait (25% dmg after crit) build, this is a good setup

These stats are interchangeable with other % dmg properties for getting specific breakpoints, but dmg to Skaven + dmg to infantry with dmg to Chaos on charm should work on all sniper weapons on legend to easily one shot or two shot specials with ranged weapons.

· 30%BCR + 20%HP, trait Barkskin. This Is the best thing to use in 99% of situations. The trait can also be anything else you prefer for your gameplay, build, or career. I won't say more as I already covered this topic.

· 20% HP + 2 stamina, trait Barkskin. If you have BCR on talents or don’t want it for some reason (you do want it tho). I will recommend that if a weapon you like has a strong push attack (mace and sword, billhook, tuskgore spear, greatsword) put stamina on your weapon and keep BCR and max HP on the necklace, as shown above in the Aggressive melee setup.

· 2 stamina +30% BCR, trait Barkskin (or what you prefer). This is a defensive setup, when you want to focus on blocking and dodging while avoiding damage as much as you can.

Here I will note that this item is often used for getting breakpoints with %dmg properties, so I will not be listing all of the possible useful combinations.

· 10% dmg to Chaos + 5% attack speed, trait proxy (or whatever you prefer). Chaos enemies are very beefy, so it's always good to deal extra damage to them. Another reason why you take dmg vs Chaos is that it helps with range weapon breakpoints on Chaos specials. Crossbow/longbow will one-shot headshot and 2 shot body shot specials and Skaven elites. Attack speed is god tier, you can't go wrong with it on the charm.

· 5% critical chance + 33% curse resist, trait shrapnel. If you get this on an orange item, keep it safe like the ONE RING, best setup for dmg and book runs.

· 30% stamina recovery + 5% critical chance, trait shrapnel. Aggressive setup, very good on non-book runs.

· 30% stamina recovery +33% curse resist, trait shrapnel. A defensive setup, good on careers that don’t need the extra crit chance ( witch hunter captain, shade, mercenary Kruber, necromancer and others), depending on your class talents and weapon choice.

· 33% curse resist +10% cooldown reduction. Trait shrapnel. Not a bed setup if you use CDR builds.

Always go for defensive gear, talents etc. and give them sniper weapons. BOTS ARE STUPID don't build them for damage build them for survivability. Best bots IMO for each characters, listed from best to worst:

Ironbreaker Bardin (He saved a lot of Mission on Legend, for me at least)

Mercenary Kruber

Warrior priest of Sigmar (or witch hunter captain) Saltzpyre

Unchained Sienna (TEMP HP lvl 30 talent)

Waystalker elf: elf is generally a very bad bot in my opinion, Sister of thorn can be ok if you have the DLC but you should try to go for the options above.

Here I will put some links to other useful guides that are scattered online, ALL credits go to the original creators, I am just here to help you find it easily if you prefer Video type guides.

The Vermintide 2 wikipedia was also updated, so you can check for info there as well.

https://vermintide2.fandom.com/wiki/Vermintide_2_Wiki

guide made by Royale/w cheese. Play around with all these different attacks and figure out the best weapon for you! Guides made by Royale /w Cheese are all amazing and you should follow them. He goes into all the nitty gritty details, including mathematic formulas and many diffrent details about the game. It can be overwhelming but everything is useful and correct information. His guides helped me a lot in understanding everything I wrote in this guide.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821186836

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/11dm2rg/revised_damage_and_breakpoint_spreadsheet_v1402/ This video got me into breakpoint calculations, amazing, and I highly recommend it when you get good enough gear. I won't go over it here, the video is 10 minutes long and pure perfection, so there is no point in me trying to explain it here.

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

Here is a link for screenshot for all weapons hidden properties. https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/j94ssl/outofgame_vt2_armory_mod_reference/ Here is a guide for it as well, ofc by jtcLIVE. Needless to say this YouTube channel is amazing for all your Vermintide 2 needs. Helped me a lot in the early days.
They are good and help out a lot! I often hear from veteran players that it's horrible to play the game without mods once you try them, and I COMPLETELY AGREE.
From ToBeGoated and WarmGun by jtcLIVE and Wet Magic. by jtcLIVE, should be quite helpful for new players. where you can find all the builds you want, almost always min-maxed to
perfection. You can filter search by author, all of Royale/w Cheese builds are good and breakpoint certified.
https://www.ranalds.gift/

And here is the end, if there are any questions or arguments share them. I hope this guide will be helpful. I will point out that even if this guide seems long, its still not cover even 50% of important information for specific builds, Chaos wastes and other fun more niche setups and mechanics. And a lot of it is quite essential. Remember that you don't need to blindly follow the gear setups I provided, but pls use the information I gave you to mix and match different properties an make a strong build.

Good fortune and may Sigmar protect you!

P.S. ALWAYS EXPECT AND ENEMY BEHIND YOU.

Added some more info on talents and properties.

Most importantly BOT priority under '' General base gear setup''.