1st impressions from darktide player

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 General Discussion
1

Just some random thoughts about the game after 5 hours.

  1. I can see where roots for dt grow from. Lots of similar stuff, in abilities, in weapons, in classes.
  2. Someone on dt forum said that darktide turns into rpg, but vt 2 also got plenty of rpg elements. So far the biggest difference i noticed is VT 2 got very simple talent tree.
  3. Due to lack of sprinting and dodges gameplay feels more primitive and limited. Running away harder or impossible.
  4. Also for some reason push attacks harder to proc than in dt and character often goes for regular light or heavy.
  5. Not all weaponry got special attacks, in fact most don’t have them it seems or maybe i am missing something, but so far only rapeier of Saltzspyre got it from what i saw.
  6. Missions got infinitely more unique bosses than darktide. I think i for some reason skipped act 2,but act 1 and 3 had unique non repeated bosses. That’s so much better than lazy crap Darktide offers in its captains who are nothing more than boys to be bullied.
  7. Analogue of pogryn(?) can blind players. Bosses feel stronger. But in case of chaos spawn it partially comes from it’s erratic behavior, while being pretty much the same as dt version it does some absolutely insane and unpredictable 180 turns when switching on players to attack and can do it very fast. I think in Darktide it got some delay or just turn speed, here i had it distracted from ally, it did 180 with attack on me, i blocked, it instantly did another 180 back on ally, it all happened so fast.
  8. Some additional difficulty comes from health mechanic’s in game. It is harder than darktide.
  9. Missions biomes very diverse, which probably promted by the games settings, where darktide limited by hive city and typical post apocalypse or war landscape.
  10. Further speaking of missions, i feel like stuff that happens at least in some them is more dynamic, go through portal, do some stuff, go back fight boss, escape as everything around collapse. I also on one of the streams i saw mission with ship combat, Darktide got nothing like that, maximum some doors get blown up.
  11. Psyker analogue got interesting idea of balancing peril with damage to health on overheat, which forces her to into melee, but i feel like she is better at it in caster subclases,that psyker in Darktide without his melee talents. 2 subclass got good ultimate but it feels bad to play otherwise for some reason. 3rd subclass is really just melee psyker and solves problem of peril management of other two subclases. Loved the ultimate on 1st subclass though, super useful in some situations.
  12. Cruber charge ability is insane, arbiter analogue incomparable, the amount of enemies it can push and distance it goes trough very high. Can push bosses. Really *uckin battering ram.
  13. I expected game to be more melee oriented, but it is not, some starting classes are straight up ranged. Maybe with higher difficulty it changes since theres friendly fire and less ammo
  14. Stealth rat feels as canc*rous enemy as dt trapper.
  15. Some enemies way dangerous and that’s not chaos warriors, at least not on starting difficulties. Gun rats is like Darktide reapers on steroids. Flamer rat burns harder and in bigger area. Not sure what analogue in dt to chaos wizard is, but it is very dangerous, the only game i lost was because of this dude.
  16. I don’t know what to think about system of keeping team together after mission, on one hand if it’s good, the sure why not go further. On the other hand, there’s need to lvl up, change gear, open these damned crates, not to mention going to drink or toilet or something else in real life, so there’s need to hurry because next mission is already offered. I your found no way to quit team immediately after mission and if do it in lobby, it’s another loading screen.
  17. Forced class system is whatever, I’ve been forced to switch only once, but since everything is new, it’s not a problem so far and likely won’t be. In Darktide for havoc i know/feel need for class switch because it would be better, but still darktide can offer better variety in team compositions.

If i get other impressions I’ll leave them here.

2

Yeah bosses and character vocalizations are definitely worth returning to. Another thing bizzarely worse with the melee system is the lack of combo sequences between the two standard types of attacks. A lot of weapons can only return H2 from H1, which makes some of my old favorites extremely obnoxious to come back to (looking at you, flaming dagger). The Rotbloods are also a decent enough mix up to feel like their own faction in the game as well but the Beastmen feel more obnoxious than anything with their lack of variety (especially when you get pushed off the map by 10 surprise banner guys hopping out of a chaos wastes chest).

The assassin rat feels really annoying but you can make them jump into walls and they instantly die, which is funny. Packmaster I feel is a lot more fair than the trapper. Especially since you have a chance to take them out when they try to yank you out of a crowd, they don’t attack from inside a chaos warrior’s butt or shoot a projectile through a bunch of shield vermin. They get really close, you dodge and they back off.

3

Right, weapon combos also lacking, i tried hard to make cruber gs do something, other than diagonal slashes. Witch dagger do get at least one combo, heavy-light, to clear horde.

4

There are many weapons with great combos…

5

push attack for a vertical strike

6

It does change quite a bit on higher difficulty. In addition to FF and ammo economy, there are simply many many more enemies, and running around with your ranged weapon out is a recipe for getting rekt.

7

That i know. I mean other weapon combos, like what witch dagger got, h1-l1, or what relic blade has on zealot, where you acreate chains that are mix of both attacks or start with light then chain heavies that not avaliable otherwise.

Then it is as expected.

8

You mention the lack of sprinting/sliding as a drawback only, but that’s precisely what leads teams to have great cohesion, especially at higher difficulties. That feature (combined with the superior firepower) is what makes DT formations a lot looser.
Havoc is pretty much the only difficulty that’ll lead to VT-like gameplay.

9

I’ve been playing Vermintide 2 more often recently too, doing Legend runs now with bots. I’ve previously had 150 hours in the game, before I started playing Darktide. After I’ve sunk around 1500 hours in DT, I’ve decided to go back to V2, because it reignited my love towards the game

I came back recently and was very happy with 4 new maps (parting of the waves and the whole verminous dreams campaign). They are really, really well made and well-balanced maps (aside from the final event with the barrels in the waves map XD)

10

In general yes, people do stand closer, but not always, i already several times expirinced being left in the dust, by players sprinting way ahead and sometimes it wasn’t only me who left alone, but other teammates too. Usually it is priest and elf, mostly priest.

11

I do have around 10h in VT 2 now( steam says 15, but game was just running), so not sure about what maps are new, except one with ship, but i didn’t get ship combat map yet, but i do have a grudge against maps in general.

If in darktide, when i started, i was only slightly confused on some maps, in VT 2 it is worse, especially today, i had one chaos wastes run and on one of the maps there i got lost completely, if other guy didn’t join, not sure i would find a way out or how much longer it would take, i already was there long enough to kill 5-6 timed hordes. Joined player also didn’t do it before and he also was lost with me for some time.

On many other maps i also got lost, though not nearly as hard, and saw other’s get lost either with me or on their own.

Otherwise i think maps good, events more diverse than what darktide offers, though there’s similar. Also maps feel more dynamic, you can see directly various consequences of events, like rock fall on trolls, environment changes, like with destruction of catapults.

12

Chaos Wastes maps can indeed be quite confusing. There are always multiple path options, some of which are dead ends. I enjoy the puzzle aspect, but I always play with at least one friend… wandering around saying “where the f*** are we” is always more fun with company :joy:

The regular campaign maps are generally more straightforward to progress through, but some are a bit confusing the first time through. Again I like it because it feels like moving through a big detailed world instead of a confined instance map. Of course, once you get enough hours under your belt then you know all the maps by heart.

If you want to try a truly confusing map, Vermintide 1 had an unlockable secret level called “Trial of the Foolhardy” that is absolutely bonkers Trial of the Foolhardy - Official Vermintide Wiki

13

VT2 has alot more depth than Darktide, the combat is deeper than you’d think and teamplay actually matters so people on Cataclysm & above actually play together.

Havoc does this too but not nearly anywhere as well, Darktide = Actiongame, VT2= Coop game.

14

This mostly happens on the hardest difficulty or modded difficulty.

Even then, there’s a lot of range spam Classes, but if you don’t have the Stamina to survive ambushes the group falls apart.

15

I now have some extra thoughts about game.

I mostly like the game, i guess it is expected result, due to it being Darktide predecessor, with a lot of similar stuff.

I think missions is simply made better, more engaging, with more diverse and fun events. Though maybe it is just me being enamoured with new game.

Chaos wastes is a better mode than mortis trials, i don’t understand why they didn’t copy pasted it in darktide.

But it is not all nice, i am forced to conclude that darktide having dedicated servers is a better solution, because even if i get error there, i likely can join back and there won’t be no further lags or errors. No fear of host closing the game or whatever.

VT 2 being p2p game is bad, sometimes in quick play it says that game is found, but nothing happens and this may go on till game assigns me as host.

Then, assuming i get to random quick game, very often, probably in half games, i will either get severe and deadly lags, be disconnected, likely without ability to go back or get mixed of both of these variants.

Darktide got instant down bug for when shield of captain pops, Vermintide 2 got instant death on simple jump.

About classes

  1. Unchained,fire mace, flame arrow staff, turn out to be the one i like most, other’s witch subclases not for me, even if they are stronger, like battle wizard with which i did more damage.

It is my most levelled class right now. It’s kinda like melee psyker in dt, which is only type i really like to play, but it got more ability to survive, unless of course i will nuke myself.

  1. Witch hunter is very strong, rapier is basically DS.4 version 1.0. Triple shot crossbow is also very strong, kinda like executioner shotgun on arbites. I finished 1 time chaos wastes on difficulty below legend with this class and weapons. His ultimate is strong too, with stagger on top.

  2. Cruber mercenary and battering ram both strong, but I’d say battering ram is better for combat. If there’s no heavy chaos warrior, it goes way further than arbites copy pasted skill, without any additional talent point investing. Mercenary ultimate got great team utility with giving out temp hp. Weaponry that i tried is also good.

  3. Stealth elf is strong, kinda like stealthy zealot in dt. Maiden elf, i didn’t get it, i guess it supposed to be some sort of support with her faster revive speed. I gonna need to play way more.

Got nothing to say about dwarf, except that Ironbreaker is nano ogryn and for slayer i really need more weaponry.
I hardly played ranged classes, except witch and 1st games, mostly due to connectivity issues, majority of which fallen on attempts to play ranged classes.

16

Oh yeah, and the sheer number and variety of VT2 missions is amazing. The DLC maps are worth every penny too!

You think it’s bad now, you should have seen it the first few years after launch :joy: but I agree, the P2P nature is a huge downside and frequent source of frustration.

Handmaiden specialty is being nigh-unkillable and ability to save the team from total destruction. Dash/phasing through enemies let her reach downed teammates, and if you stack revive speed buffs you can pick someone up in about 1/4 of a second. She also heals for 20 health when she revives.

I usually play her with the spear & shield, which might be a DLC weapon, but the base spear is also good. Focus more on stagger and crowd control than on getting kills, and the whole team does better as a result. (Though on difficulty below Legend, you can just go ham and kill stuff).

If the rest of the team does die, Handmaiden is the best class for clutching and making it to the next respawn area.

17

Thanks to mod that gives ability to host quick play, i was finally able to play as ranged classes more.

For elf and cruber i still don’t have final opinion, except that they are better than Bounty Hunter who i didn’t like at all, i will play more, maybe something change, but unlikely

Opinion about ranged dwarf is generally final and that is he is the best. Be it crossbow, gun, shotgun, all works. Best ultimate among them, staggers enemies, boost ranged damage, can be used as safe revive or heal while under effect. If there’s nothing to shoot, can be used for safe melee. Talents both innate and the one’s that can be picked give great team and self support.

Because i played ranged dwarf a lot, i lvl up him a lot and got golden weaponry for other two classes, so i played them too more.

Slayer i is kinda weak on survival aspect, can’t shoot special’s, encourages reckless gameplay. Two axes for some reason got cleave on heavy attacks, which i find a somewhat weird and inconvenient, considering that class from it’s ultimate encourage fast,light attack spam. Thanks to high attack speed they still do kill horde, but i feel like i didn’t get much benefits for THP regen. Also they got low stamina, so 2d weapon, regular 1h hammer, was just with me in case i need blocking much. He’s got dps, but overall at this point, this class, bounty hunter, pyromancer are the one’s i don’t like.

I also dipped my toes in legendary difficulty as iron breaker, run it 3 times with 3 different melee weapons, all wins.

Iron breaker is as brain dead easy to play as ogryn, maybe even more than ogryn tbh, only with worse taunt, which i think don’t do too much real aggro reduction from allies and don’t aggro bosses without special talent, it’s got other benefits though. Overall class got obscenely high dr, ok thp regen, not as low damage as i expected from him. I pretty sure that out of 20 classes he is within top 10.

About weapons.

Single axe is bad. Same goes for Saltzpyre version.

Axe+shield and hammer+shield is ok weaponry, mostly thanks to high stamina and shield itself with its high stagger on push and h1, which can be chained easily into each other.

Pickaxe got strong horde clear light attacks, strong heavy attacks against armor, though very slow, especially with additional charge.

One handed hammer i think is best non dlc weapon for any Bardin class, good enough speed, easy combos for horde clear with decent cleave per attack, high stagger, high armor damage on heavy attacks, both of which also decently fast, good amount of stamina for defence.

Legendary difficulty on Ironbreaker didn’t feel hard, aside from one moment, so it’s early to judge how it fares against what darktide offers.

Earlier difficulties harder than in DT.

18

The thing I like most about slayer is how much cooldown he can get for his ultimate when there is a horde you can get constant uptime on your ult. The dual axes are very odd but with the right build the push attack one shots stormvermin which can be useful and they have a higher innate crit power 2x instead of 1.5x I think, making them interesting for a crit focused build (although single handed axe has increased crit chance on it’s strikes which also synergizes).

I don’t really play bounty hunter since the nerf to his ult.

I’m a Pyromancer main, she is not for everyone but I get crazy amounts of damage out of her. Lots of people choose blazing echo because they are gambling addicts but her ult legitimately sucks, it’s just an inferior waystalker ult. Once you start using Dissipating Rictus she becomes so powerful, fireball staff or bolt staff are great for this I usually go bolt staff + dagger. Stack up crit chance and crit power and just don’t get hit.

19

Why people don’t or barely play deeds and weekly?

20

Crossbow Special killing (most satisfying).

Dual Shotguns (S+++++ build).

Volley Crossbow for Elites and a slight bit of Boss damage (Ult with CDR works better).

Repeater Pistol has Chaos Warrior chunking build.

Can get 1 shot breakpoints with Brace of Pistols, but the build runs out of ammo and doesn’t feel satisfying.

Rapier/Axe and Falc/Falc.

He’s got some of the least build variety of any Character.

Greathammer - BCR/Stam (Opportunist) + Coghammer (Parry). :+1:

Fire Dagger (Parry) makes it less of a glass cannon, and gives it viability during high Elite density.

There’s 100 enemies on your screen, and you hit one of them at a time. :smiley:

Ends up only good for Slayer Elite killing sadly. Everything else gets overwhelmed or stuck on shields.

Deeds are ok if you have increased Hordes/Elites, but other modifiers kind of suck.

Weeklys usually suck unless it’s Tzeentch Twins (enemies split into more enemies) + any other enemy density increases.

They usually spam Bomb Rats, which is fun for like 1 match.