Melee Weapons
Kruber
1H Sword (Kruber + Sienna)
- Finesse multiplier (headshot/crit multiplier) increased to ~2 for all attacks, up from 1.4 for light attacks, 1.5 for heavies.
Modder comment: While the change is simple, this will increase the horde damage of 1h sword to a point where it will feel like it performing its niche adequately. As an added bonus, the armor damage should feel somewhat better on headshot.
Designer comments: Sensible change. Generally the archetypes that are contained in the sword doesn’t lend itself to a headshoting focused playstyle, but being a 1h weapon means it’s a fine tweak.
1H Mace / 1H Hammer
- Light attacks 1 and 2 and push attack now have Tank hit mass multiplier.
- Light attacks 3 & 4 now have the same single target damage profile.
- Light attack 3 now has 20% bonus crit to compensate for being an uppercut animation.
Modder comment: One handed hammer will remain largely unchanged. It already had high stagger on light attacks, but against many targets it essentially did single target damage which could make it feel like a worse one-handed axe (it failed to cleave marauders or gors on Cataclysm). We’ve now increased its damage cleave and gave some more punch to light attack 3 while making it single target which lines up better with its animation.
Designer comments: Part of the “hitting and staggering many targets” class of attack is to deal a bit higher damage but to the first few targets hit. But this only matters if the weapon also fulfills the role of adequate crowdcontrol. More damage cleave is interesting, might feel to similar to a sword. Really liking the additional critchance on uppercut attacks. Applied across the board for attack with uppercutting animations. Also increased the bonus from an original 10% to 20%.
2H Hammer (Kruber + Bardin)
- The push attack now has the same damage profile as the heavy attacks. No tank hit mass count.
- Heavy tank attacks now properly puts enemies into stagger level 2 (fixes a bug).
Modder comment: By changing the push stab, we are attempting to make this weapon a little more forgiving on classes not named Slayer, giving it better horde control. Slayer already has the attack speed to get off heavy attacks reliably, and the push attack was mostly used as single target DPS. Push stab can now be used on other characters to make space to get off a heavy charge attack.
Designer comments: Making the push attack more similar to the heavy attack leans the weapon more into it’s crowd control core.
2H Sword (Kruber + Saltzpyre)
- Move speed charging heavy attacks increased to 60% from 20%
- Light attack animation speed sped up by approximately 10%
Modder comment: In the first iteration of the mod, light attacks were inadvertently increased by 15%, making the weapon feel overtuned. The goal is to make light attacks useful so you aren’t always just spamming heavy attacks. Lights should be better against pure horde and heavy attacks should be better against mixed hordes due to being able to cleave armoured enemies and maulers (both of which require armour sliding properties) unlike light attacks.
Designer comments: The charge movespeed on heavy attacks makes the 2h sword a very mobile weapon. Could make it abit too strong compared to 1h alternatives. Need alot of feedback on this.
Mace + Shield/ Hammer + Shield
- Light attack 3 has 20% additional critical strike chance.
- Heavy Chain now begins with shield bash.
Modder comment: Making the shield bash more accessible was needed to put it more in line with Axe + Shield and Sword + Shield.
Designer comments: Slightly worried this change eats into the identity of the weapon, without necessarily solving it’s issues that it lacks compared to the other shield alternatives.
Mace + Sword
- Lights 1 and 2 now have the same damage profile as 1H Mace.
- Lights 3 and 4 now have the same damage profile as 1H Sword.
- Each weapon in the heavy attack now has the same damage profile as the original Falchion Heavy.
- Heavy attacks and light attacks 3 & 4 now have Linesman hit mass count.
Modder comment: The goal here was to make the weapon actually feel like a mace and sword rather than 2 swords stuck together (the original damage profiles were too similar). Now the first 2 light attacks will provide control and stagger while the sword light attacks provide horde clear and damage cleave. This should allow you to push-stab heavy heavy for maximum horde dps. The change to heavy attacks make the slow, low range heavies now feel far more rewarding.
Designer comments: Cool changes, makes the weapon more versatile.
Halberd
- Heavy chain order reversed, the first heavy is now the Heavy Stab, and the second heavy is now the Heavy Sweep.
- Intact Attack Chains:
- Light chain and push-stab chain remains intact
- Light 1 → Light 2 → Heavy stab, Lights → Heavy stab chain intact
- New Attack Chains:
- Light sweep (L1) chains into Heavy sweep (H2) → repeat
- Heavy stab (H1) chains into light stab (L2) into light overhead (L3) → repeat
- Heavy stab (H1) chains into light stab (L2) → repeat
- Light sweep (L1) chains into Heavy sweep (H2) → repeat
- Heavy sweep (H2) chains into Light sweep (L2)
- Heavy Linesman added to Heavy Sweep (H2) Armory mod will not reflect the change in heavy attack order
- Dodge range increased from 0.95(-5%) to 1.0 (0%)
Modder comment: Halberd had a lot of complexity to it, hidden behind suboptimal weapon chaining, the idea with the animation swap of the heavies was to create some new attack combos that would be quite useful while retaining the useful orginial weapon chains. Should be quite an interesting buff, give it a try!
Designer comments: Was very difficult to wrap head around the changed moveset but once you get used to it it’s pretty cool. Need alot of feedback on this one aswell.
Executioner Sword
- Reduced animation speed by 8.5% for all attacks.
- Light attack 3 now has 10% bonus critical strike chance.
Designer Comments: Executioner Sword is highest pickrate melee weapon for Kruber together with Tuskgor Spear currently. It performs extremely well in almost all situations, wether it’s hordeclear or elite slaying while staying relatively safe. To make the weapon abit more high risk high reward we’re reducing the animation speed slightly so you have to commit and open up yourself to danger abit more to get the maximum possible output.
Tuskgor Spear
- Reduced max stamina from 4 to 3.
Designer Comments: Alot of the power of the Tuskgor Spear is frontloaded in the push attack having the same profile as heavy attack 2. This change should make it so you have to play abit more conservatively.
Bardin
1H Axe (Bardin + Saltzpyre)
- Animation pause after Light 3 reduced from 0.42s to 0.3s
- Light attack animation speed increased by roughly 8%
- Move speed while performing light attacks increased (from 75% to 85%)
- Heavy attack charge time reduced from 0.6s to 0.5s
- Heavy attacks now share a damage profile with 2H Hammer light attacks
Modder comment: One handed axe should be a high damage armor killing weapon that struggled somewhat with hordes. This was already the role of the weapon, but unfortunately, it did not perform that role adequately. These buffs should help it with its place relative to Axe and Falchion. Heavies were buffed to be a bit faster to keep them competitive with lights and similarly the damage profile change was mainly to put it significantly ahead of lights in super armor damage.
Designer comments: 1h Axe becomes a super aggressive weapon with these changes. Cool stuff!
2H Axe
- Heavy attacks now have linesman hit mass count.
- Light attack 3 now has the same damage profile as light attacks 1 and 2.
- Push attack now has linesman.
- Light attack 3 has 20% additional critical strike chance.
- Now has 6 stamina (3 shields), up from 5 stamina (2.5 shields).
Modder comment: 2H Axe has long been stuck as 2H Hammers’ anemic little brother. Now, 2HH will still provide superior control and super armor damage. 2H axe will be better damage against single target infantry damage and monster damage. The heavy attacks will have more horde clearing potential than 2HH at the cost of stagger and control.
Designer comments: Heavy attacks cleaving through more enemies is definitely gonna be a big change for the performance of the Greataxe. This together with more stamina should help in the situations where it struggled previously.
Axe + Shield
- Light attacks sped up slightly
- Charge time required for heavy attacks decreased slightly
Modder comment: Attack chaining should feel a little bit smoother with the attack speed buff.
Designer comments: Minor tweak, should make it abit more choppy, as is appropriate!
Dual Axes
- Finesses multiplier on all attacks increased to ~ 2.0 (up from ~1.5)
Modder comment: Dual axes will now have higher damage potential for the skilled dwarfs who can reach for the heads of rotbloods.
Designer comments: Finesse multiplier on an axe weapon is abit controversial. But since it’s specifically on a slayer weapon it’s pretty appropriate.
Warpick
- Linesman hit mass count added to light attacks
Modder comment: Warpick is the highest armour dps melee weapon in the game, limited by overkill damage and long charge times, but it has a niche. It retains that niche, but is now less punishing against hordes due to increased cleave and increased stagger cleave for its rather slow light attacks.
Designer comments: Interesting addition. Needs testing to see if it’s enough to up the pickrate of the weapon.
Kerillian
Elven 1H Sword
- Light attack Finesse multiplier increased to ~2.0 from ~1.4
- Heavy 2 changed to the damage profile of Crowbill Heavy 1
- Light 3 armor damage increased by 20%
Modder comment: This weapon should be the highest armor dps of any 1H sword. It received a buff to light 3’s armour damage to make it more useful in comparison to heavies. The change to heavy 2 will allow users to chain heavies for better armour damage. The horde clear of light attacks was increased via improved headshot damage to reward skillful play.
Designer comments: Good changes all around. It sticks to and enhances the identity of the weapon.
Elven 2H Axe (Glaive)
- Reverted WoM nerf. Linesman added back to light attacks
- Now has 6 stamina (3 stamina shields), previously 4 stamina (2 shields)
Modder comment: 2 stamina shields on the weapon was too punishing relative to its mobility, so it was buffed to 3 stamina shields. Reverting the nerf to linesman on light attacks helps it to be less overshadowed by Sword and Dagger in horde clear.
Designer comments: With how important stagger and pushing have become it’s hard to justify weapons having less than 3 stamina shields nowadays. Appropriate change.
Elven Axe
- Heavy attacks now share a damage profile with 2H Hammer Light Attacks
- 20% bonus critical strike chance added to push stab
Modder comment: *The bonus crit was added to the push stab to make up for a lack of bonus crit on the other lights in comparison to 1h axe. This weapon compensated for the lack of crit chance on light attacks by having increased attack speed. However, this buff was partially negated by having reduced swift slaying uptime. The crit on push stab should alleviate this issue. Heavy attacks were also buffed to be more rewarding in comparison to light attacks. *
Designer comments: Tying more power into pushattacks is a cool concept, especially when it comes to procing effects. Going to be interesting to see how this and the heavy attack change will effect attractiveness of the weapon.
Elven Dual Daggers
- Removed bonus 10% crit from lights 1 and 2
Modder comment: Dual Daggers perform extremely well even against hordes for a single target weapon because of its excellent headshot/crit multiplier(finesse multiplier) on light attacks, its 10% critical chance reduces the necessity to land headshots, and is now removed from lights 1 and 2 to encourage headshotting (high finesse weapons should encourage around headshotting). Critical chance is left on lights 3 and 4 to compensate for the slower animation time of light 4.
Designer comments: Dual Daggers have been one of the weapons with highest pickrate for Kerillian ever since the launch of Vermintide 2. Definitely one of the few weapons that should be targeted for a nerf in the current landscape of the game.
Elven Sword and Dagger
- Removed bonus 10% crit from all attacks
Designer comments: Sword & Dagger, similar to Dual Dagger has been one of the most highly used weapons of Kerillians for a long time. It’s one of the most versatile weapons having both proficient crowdclear, single target damage and mobility. Removing the additional critical strike chance aims to take some off the top end off of the weapon.
Elven Dual Swords
- Dual swords light attack damage increased by 25% against infantry.
- Push-stab armor damage increased by 20%
Modder comment: Dual swords are a horde clearing specialist weapon that was too heavily reliant on critical fishing on lights 3/4 for damage, and with extremely poor armour damage that limited its usefulness off Shade. The boost to infantry damage should help it better excel at its role, and the boost to the push stab was to help it have a better way to deal with armour that also increased the usefulness of its push-stab.
Designer comments: The change follows the weapons niche appropriately.
Elven Greatsword
- Light attack animation speed increased ~10%
- Light attacks have 20% additional critical strike chance.
Modder comment: This will make the weapon less dependent upon the push stab for horde damage. (push stab is about 30% faster than a light attack with +25% critical chance by default)
Designer comments: Kerillians Greatsword is an often forgotten weapon due to her strong melee weapon kit. The light attack animation speed is a good step on the way. With the change to uppercuts having an innate increased critical strike chance modifier to compensate for harder headshots I added this to these light attacks aswell.
Elven Spear
- Push attack, Light 3, & Heavy 1 now all have Linesman hit mass count.
- Reverted 25% nerf to light stabs that came with WoM, (base damage up to 0.25 from 0.2)
Modder comment: The goal for the elven spear is to make it a high-skill high reward weapon. The weapon should be focused on landing headshots, but the nerf to its base damage in WoM and the removal of 50% headshot bonus talent on Waystalker made the light stabs and the weapon itself struggle, so the nerf to its base damage has been reverted to help it against armour and superarmor. At the same time, we wanted to make the various attack chains (push attack chain, entire light chain, heavy sweep opener light chain) have a place, so you are incentivized to not cancel out of light 3 in the light chain against hordes, so light 3 received linesman. Similarly, the push stab and the heavy 1 sweep received linesman to help them cleave.
Designer comments: Should definitely see an increase in popularity of the spear.
Elven Spear + Shield
- Light 3 changed from a poke into a sweep, added linesman to light 3
Modder comment: More of a consistency change with Elven spear, but does not change much about the weapon itself.
Designer comments: Abit of an odd one, but it does add to the crowd control capabilities of the weapon. Appropriate with a shield weapon.
Saltzpyre
Axe + Falchion
- Removed heavy linesman and bonus 20% crit from push attack
- Increased dodge count from 3 to 4
- Increased dodge distance from 1.1(10%) to 1.2(20%)
Modder comment: Its mobility was the lowest of any dual weapon, while its components, the 1H axe and 1H falchion were not the least mobile 1H weapons, so its mobility(dodge count/range) was buffed slightly. Heavy linesman and +20% critical chance were a bit much for its push attack when it already has an excellent light attack chain.
Designer comments: Axe and Falchion has some of the highest occurance rate for Saltzpyres weapons, and with changes to mobility am not sure if this will necessarily change much from just the push attack change. Will need testing.
Falchion
- Now has 6 stamina (3 stamina shields), previously 4 stamina (2 shields)
- Heavy attacks 1 & 2 now have the same damage profile as Elf 1H Sword Heavy 1
- Light attack 3 now has the same damage profile as Heavy attacks 1 & 2
Modder comment: The goal for Falchion is be an “in-between” weapon compared to Kruber/Siennas’ 1h sword and Kerillians’ 1h sword. It will have better armor damage than Kruber/Siennas’ 1h sword, but worse horde clear. Compared to Kerillians’ 1h sword, it should have worse armour damage but better horde clear. Stamina was buffed because 2 stamina shields was way too punishing for a 1h sword analogue on Saltzpyre.
Designer comments: Originally the Falchion was designed as an intermediate between a 1h sword and an axe, with armor piercing light attacks and high headshotting damage traded for low stamina. Seeing how Kerillians 1h sword has the best armoured damage out of the bunch the intent isn’t too far off. Looks good.
Flail
- Lights 1 & 2 now have Tank hit mass count
- Damage of Heavy attacks increased by 30%
Modder comment: We wanted flail to keep its unique feel and its unique role as an anti-shield, high control weapon. In order to buff its control and damage slightly, we added tank hit mass count to the first lights. The change to the heavy attacks was to make the long charge up feel more rewarding.
Designer comments: Adding more crowdcontrol to the flail is appropriate.
Billhook
- Increased dodge distance to 1.15(15%) from 1.1(10%)
- Decreased dodge count from 99 to 3
Modder comment: Billhook is a two handed weapon, 99 dodges does not make a whole lot of sense. 3 dodges with 15% dodge distance puts it on par with elven spear.
Designer comments: This is going to be huge for users of the billhook. They will need to be alot more conservative with their dodges now that it functions similar to other 2h weapons. It still has the extremely strong stagger special attack so should have a niche still, but should bring down the high pickrate for other considerations.
Sienna
Dagger (Sienna)
- Now has 6 dodge count instead of 3
Modder comment: Weapon doesn’t struggle with dodge count, but 6 dodges instead of 3 was more for consistency with dual daggers and the mobility a dagger should have.
Designer comments: Sienna isn’t the most nimble character out of the bunch, but with a dagger in hand this is fine.
Mace (Sienna)
- Max dodge count increased to 4 from 3
- Heavy 1 now has the same damage profile as 2H Hammer Light attack (23% buff to damage)
- Animation time of Heavy 1 sped up slightly
- Range of Heavy attacks increased slightly
- Damage of Heavies 2 & 3 increased by roughly 30%
- Animation speed of Heavies 2 & 3 increased slightly
- Light attack 1 damage profile changed to Halberd L3 Damage profile (30% buff to infantry damage, 60% buff to armor damage)
- Range of all light attacks increased slightly
- Animation speed of all light attacks increased slightly
- Move speed during all light attacks increased to 80% from 60%
Modder comment: Siennas’ mace has long since been left behind ( at least since Back to Ubersreik). Our goal was to take a weapon with clunky and complex move sets and make it feel powerful and rewarding. Overall buffs to damage, attack speed, and range should make the weapon feel way better to play. Light attack 1->block cancel was buffed to be an excellent single target option, Heavy 1 similarly but excelling specifically for super armor.
Designer comments: The weapon definitely deserves some love and care to be brought back into the spotlight. Concerned that it’s missing out on some of it’s flaming identity with these changes, but might just add those back later into the beta. Weapon should have gained a big bump to it’s performance atleast.
Flaming Flail
- The explosion of Heavy 1 now deals direct explosion damage
Modder comment: Heavy 1’s explosion is no longer an empty animation. This attack will now deal AOE damage as an explosion. Previously it applied a DOT only to the primary target, created an AOE stagger, and only visually set multiple enemies on fire. Oddly, its intended damage profile is a direct damage explosion and not a DOT as its animation of lighting enemies on fire would suggest.
Designer comments: The reasoning behind this comes from being conservative about the number of fire dots from a performance perspective. So it was intended and not a bug. Adding it back in to see if it takes a hit. Flaming Flail is a highly popular pick for Siennas loadouts so not sure how much of a buff it truly needs, even if this can be seen as more of a “bugfix”.