Some final thoughts after slightly more than 100h. I did one cataclysm on slayer, one duo w/bots legendary chaos wastes run and had many previous attempts.
- Game is harder than DT, there’s several things that contributing to this fact:
1.1 No sprint = low ability for most classes to kite and run away. It is still possible, but very limited to both class and weapon pick.
1.2 THP instead of toughness. Any damage player takes, he takes straight to his health
1.3 Stamina is more limited and important than in darktide.
1.4 Block and push got angle, while DT got 360 block, with exception of ranged attacks.
1.5 Friendly fire, but this one actually is not as bad as i expected and difficulty it adds is marginal.
That’s main mechanical differences that make game harder, bosses and monsters harder than what DT offers, but not by much, aside from minotaur, who is just relentless and almost impossible to hold him out like others and make stand in place for long.
Also bosses too snappy with their target switching, they can do attack on one player and while it’s animation going they snap on another with 180 turn instantly landing strike on new target. Still in tiers of enemies they go at the bottom just like in darktide.
- Speaking of enemies
Elites with exception of monks and much lesser extent berserkers go to the bottom of danger, they just like in darktide only dangerous if there’s many of them, where by many i mean patrol + something on top. Classes and weaponry also influences their lvl of danger, but unlike darktide where to kill crusher players need to have armor bane weaponry, blitzes, talents and ults, here any weapon can kill chaos warriors because their head is weak spot.
Monks are dangerous because they attack too fast, their animation poorly telegraphed compared to chaos berserkers or DT ragers, they are more stagger resistant and recover from it fast.
Hordes are also more dangerous than in DT because players don’t have as much cleave as players in darktide, which multiplies with core mechanics that make game harder.
Specialists most dangerous enemies, just like in DT.
Some are basically same specials in DT, gas rat, flame rat, gun rat who is like reaper or heavy gunners, sometimes more, sometimes less dangerous.
Sneak rat i harder version of dog, due to teleport (stealth), worse sound design i.e i can hear his “always sneaking and stabbing” in my left ear but he can came from any other direction, sometimes instantly jumping from out field of view. When he works properly he can be pushed, though it is also harder to do than with dog. But his ai breaks every game, constantly jumping in the same place, slowly going to me without jumping, then turning back, slowly going away, then jumps with his ass forward. Just unpredictable little sh*t. Ping sensitive, i had moments where i pushed him, still get jumped, then he instantly gets pushed away, while my character goes into getting up animation.
Hook rat is local trapper N. 1, poor animation of his hook attack, hard to read it, hard to see him in crowd of horde rats, sound gets muffed by big hordes. Even more sensitive to ping, i got grabbed when i was sure that i dodged, there’s even noticeable delay in time between failed dodge and grab. Surprisingly fat, in fact it is general thing in local specials, some got armor and all pretty fat.
Speaking of fat. Leech is weaker trapper version and despite teleports easiest special in game.
Blite storm bringer on other hand is most infuriating special, always casting somewhere far away, sometimes out of bounds on some roof in place where there’s no way to shoot him, being another fatass specialist even if he somewhere close enough, not killing him in 1 strike make him teleport and with tag i can clearly see that he goes really far away. He reminds me more of a pox bombers in DT, than even gas rat, because they also have tendency to throw their crap from somewhere far away and hide in it.
Sometimes his wind and gas rat useful against other enemies, but only sometimes.
I love loot rat, best special ever.
There’s also beastman special goat with banner, one is nothing much, but when there’s many of them and many banners placed, it becomes very hard. For some reason these banners not only can’t be shot when placed, but also some melee attacks don’t work on them. Sometimes bomb works on them, sometimes not.
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Any sort of danger from any amount of elites and bosses cab be solved with local bombs, especially fire ones, if u have them.Scum chem nade is basically fire bomb brought to Darktide. It feels like end effect from use of bombs here, gives comparable results to high nade spam in DT. Also local barrels much stronger than their analogues in DT and they are portable on top of it.
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Maps. I think they mostly ok, they got more varied events than what Darktide offers, they provide way better spectacle than darktide, even when you have to do same things on them like put barrels on cart and nuke something. They offer some unique events like ship combat on new map, unique boss fights, way better than bullying another captain or clicking terminals.
Though, some are kinda way too long, especially newer ones. Like this newest with ship combat, it pretty long and when i thought that it ends on beach with this big ass combat, but no, there’s one more event. Some got very unpleasant dark moments, kinda like light’s out in dt, but your source of light is torch and if you lost it, then it is over. On top of it, they also happen in tight spaces. Darkness in these maps darker than lights out in Darktide.
On weekly events, 2 modifiers are total crap, blowing rats and one that forces to be close. Blowing rats way worse than pox bursters.
On chaos wastes there’s some really bad modifiers that make either whole mission or trial chests impossible or so hard that it is not worth it.
- Game modes, difficulties.
Generally game is harder like i mentioned before, but lower difficulty still poorly designed and boring. Every player in both games should aspire to play on aurics/legend/cataclysm, otherwise it is boring.
Cataclysm turned out to be a bit harder than i expected, but not the point of high havocs in DT. I am completely adapted to legendary, cleared several solo w/bots including newest map for example as huntsman, so going to cata is just a matter of time and gear.
Chaos wastes are interesting, though take a lot of time, their difficulty have high variety, it depends on boons players get, path they choose, challenges that will be on map. Slightly buggy, my teammate in winning legendary run was thrown out of bounds by boss hit, on same map i found invisible coins i.e they can be picked, but if my mouse didn’t hover over them neither of us would know that they there.
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Some bots in this game better than most players, they actually can cover player and if he is taking care of them, they will last and be useful enough to clear missions with them, they will be more useful than many players. They do bug out sometimes or do unnecessary dumb stuff, but over all they are better than what darktide offers. I honestly had easier time on legend with bots than with most players.
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Classes.
Worst: pyromancer and engineer.
I don’t care about pyromancer high damage potential, there’s nothing she can do that other Sienna professions cant, sometimes they will do it even better.
Her ultimate sucks, just worst version of Waystalker ultimate. Sitting and watching to left corner of the screen for buffs that remove self nuking from overheating is not the kind of gameplay i want.
Outcast engineer got same problem, there’s nothing he to do better than other ranged classes can, his crafted bombs weak and while having trollhammer torpedo not do damage to team is nice, trollhammer is very unwieldy and mostly fit for boss killing and maybe for elite packs if he got time to actually reload and use it. No ammo economy aside from using ultimate for killing specials and whatever else.
Ultimate got no perfect option and always comes with some significant drawback and with no clear purpose for any of them, cause of freindly fire, cause of thp i.e killing horde is just robbing thp from whole team, himself including, cause it is low mobility and makes him vulnerable.
The best use i found is to cut down some monks, patrol, maybe boss and special here and there, while rest of the time being mediocre at the best melee class with 20% of the time if not more going around pumping pressure. Exciting gameplay.
Most other classes fall into normal/b/a tier categories, they good at what they do and some of them i like to play more than strongest classes: waystalker, zealot, bounty hunter, handmaiden, slayer, huntsman, unchained, necromancer, stealth elf, foot knight.
Slayer in my eyes got biggest glow up from all my previous thoughts, in large part thanks to DLC weaponry, specifically cog hammer. Cog hammer + 2 handed axe just take slaying to whole other level, be it boss, crowd, elites, irrelevant if they don’t hit me they dead and dead fast. 2 hammers also nice upgrade to 2 axes and nice 2d weapon for them. Throwing axes good too, but sometimes when i use them, i feel lack of another melee to cover up main weapon problems or just make things more simple.
Bounty hunter is tolerable now for me, still don’t like him much, but after engineer… Also got glow up thanks to DLC weapon.
Best are: grail knight, mercenary, sister of thorn, warrior priest, *itch hunter, iron breaker, ranger veteran, they are all great team support, good enough or great damage, crowd control. They provide easiest and most stable experience for both me when i play them and when i play in team with them.
I am not sure where to put battle wizard, her ultimate is extra spicy, but i didn’t play as her enough to form firm opinion, literally on everyone else i have more play time than her. I personally like unchained most out of Sienna careers, extra points for how she looks.
- Finally i want to touch on weapons a bit. Some DLC one’s i didn’t like much, some are just kinda of ok, some abysmal dogsh*t(bretonian sword and shield), but some are just outshine other options and straight upgrade to their analogues, bretonian sword, griffin foot, cog hammer, two hammers, flail+shield, flaming flail, spear+shield for handmaiden. These weapons maybe not straight pay to win, they won’t win game for player, but they are upgraded version of original weapons or just new and best options to classes on which they are available, locked behind paywall.
In general I’d say weapons more balanced, it is possible to make build for each of them, to make them more viable, than they already are, unlike Darktide where sometimes you need build to make weapon viable in general.
But i think it’s just not worth the effort with some of them, especially when there’s better options or better analogues. Prime example would be elf spear, with which i played plenty prior buying dlc, but it is giving me serious strain on my finger while i can just take dlc spear and shield that gives less strain and is more effective.
Overall i like the game, i will still play it, there’s plenty of new stuff for me, while it is being very similar to Darktide, it is also different enough. I think graphics still holds, music is good enough, especially i like last man standing soundtrack. There’s some things darktide don’t have for some reason like hub hotkeys, for which Darktide need mods, there’s ability to put same action on two different buttons, which is convenient.
Crafting system and gear system is bad, maybe worse than what darktide got, though not sure, both demand absurd amount of grinding for best gear and stats on it.
Levelling is slower here than in DT and i levelled with extra xp from event, still slow.
Psykanium is better than dummy training.
Characters are great.
Worst part of Vermintide 2 is p2p connection, i can play both games with around same or even lesser ping, but guess in which i will feel it more. In darktide i don’t feel ping if it don’t go to 120+, here even 90 feels. And let’s not forget that if host rage quit, then it’s over. 2010 gaming experience.
