A comprehensive guide on how to fix huntsman (and other Kruber careers)

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
1

Bug fixes:

  1. Lighting bug from active. Easy fix, give a buff instead that appears in bottom left corner, do not change the lighting / coloration of screen during active.
  2. Huntsman active sound bug. Remove all sound from huntsman active outside of voice lines
  3. FoV bug, there is already a mod to fix it, I suggest using something similar for live side

Balance:
Huntsman is in an “OK” spot, competing with other ranged careers can be difficult or seem pointless if the players involved are competent.

Biggest issues:
Slow weapon swap: This one is honestly fine as long as power is restored to the weapon, as of now its pitiful vs bosses and CWs outside of active and even then it only puts huntsman on par with say a BH

Longbow Zoom: Also fine, but could be removed, seems useless in the longrun

Huntsmans biggest drawbacks is that he is given the option of 2 weapons for range Handgun or Longbow, both of which are relatively slow to aim and reload, he has no options any longer to easily deal with CWs or Bosses (like shade / BH) and should be compensated accordingly, as in 1.0.7 huntsman longbow hit very hard and easily compensated for the lack of speed in which he could fire.

As it stands now longbow is outclassed by elven longbow (due to drop, ease of fire, accuracy (only if you use full zoom or are shooting outside of suggested range where HS longbow has significantly more drop off), outclassed by Xbow, after buffs Xbow does more single target damage per shot even when used on non-ranged careers, this seems very poorly designed considering huntsman is a ranged squishy.

Another big drawback applies to Kruber in general, the halberd is the only weapon worth using on Legend period, this is fine for FK and Merc because they are melee centric and are compensated to deal with melee combat much easier than huntsman however the Halberd slows the player considerably (I feel like now its even more than 1.0.7, i’ve been less successful with kiting in general) This is a MASSIVE issue for a ranged career like huntsman who basically plays like a mustache elf, the bigger issue is even if you aren’t using halberd all of Kruber’s weapons slow him considerably compared to other ranged careers or are just plain bad, such as 1h sword.

Ultimately Kruber is underplayed for a number of reasons.

  1. Stale cookie cutter weapon options for higher difficulties
  2. Class roles are generally under performing across the board. Merc is good at hordes but hordes are generally trivial and easily handled by other careers that have more versatility, Fk is tanky and can stagger bosses, but bosses have been made easier it is less necessary to take him for the sake of utility and IB is all around a better tank class while handmaiden is better for utility.
  3. Talent options actually make all 3 Kruber careers feel unique and different but this is limited by weapon options and a lack of usefulness in fulfilling multiple roles.

Are Kruber careers playable on legend? Very much so
Are they all steadily dropping in terms of viability compared to other classes. Most certainly
I currently play Kruber and probably always will for the lifespan of V2, that being said, i’ve dumped numerous hours into this game and I can understand why this hero in general could be unappealing to newer players, or even legend players that occasionally struggle with maps.

Now, while I do think certain careers could be tweaked to be less brain dead (BH, Shade, Pyro, ect) I do not think these classes should be brought down to the level of current huntsman or even Kruber in general, he likely deserves some buffs of QoL improvements so he can see more play while the other classes can receive subtle changes to make the play more engaging and less brain dead.

6 Likes
2

no feedback?

3

Honestly my only real complaint for Kruber is that there’s only one vaible option when it comes to weapons, the Halabard. It would be nice if FS started buffing, NOT nerfing other weapons. As it stands right now the only weapons that are somewhat decent are the Halabard, the two-handed hammer and the one handed mace, all the others are utterly useless on higher difficulties, mainly due to the lack of ap (armor penetration)

1 Like
4

My gripe with Kruber is that to me, 2 out of his 3 carreers fall into the category “you can, but why would you want to?”. I don’t know why so many people consider FK a bad choice, I am having no problems with it whatsoever. FK is an offensive Tank, he could use a little more… tankyness for this, but other than that, I think he’s fine. He works well with 2h hammer and halberd (obviously) and can be quie good with x-sword.

Merc Kruber is just boring and pointless. He is kinda strong vs. hordes and with x-sword or halberd can do quite a number on armoured elites, but so can alot of carreers without being so squishy and without having such a boring and ultimately gimicky at best active (the only strong aspect is has is instant revive, which is the only option I ever see in use. The effect is simply to meh and cooldown is too long to consider going cooldown route effectively).

HS, you said enough about that. He has worse ammo regen than the other ranged carreers (could easily be countered by giving him both 1 ammo on 1hs and 1 ammo regen on crit as passive, but his passive is overall bland and not very appealing), he gets severely gimped when his active is used in movement and vision and he cannot reliably kill priorities anymore without heavy stacking of “power vs”. Oh my, he can one shot SV with body shots. You know what? Run Hunter on WS with longbow, land a crit on a stormvermin and then fire away and delete half that patrol during the time Hunter is active. His boss damage gets outpaced by other carreers, BH and Pyro can do the same or more damage with less effort, WS and HM don’t have the same burst damage but can get nearly the same sustained dps and Shade really wrecks bosses anyway.

2 Likes
5

sorry no. i disagree.

the ability to 1 shot bodyshot all specials (except packmaster) and kill chaos warriors quickly from afar more than makes up for it’s slow draw. it’s a powerful and slow weapon. the xbow can’t do that as well. not sure what you mean by no options to easily deal with CWs or bosses, it deals with them very well, in fact better than most classes.

not sure what u mean by this also, one headshot = 3 ammo which pretty much means you can regen on almost any mob. ammo is not an issue for the huntsman. if you are close to empty on a huntsman, careful play will get you high again. if you are close to empty on a waystalker, you have to pray for crits or wait for the slow 7 seconds regen or use the ult, which is very much slower than aiming for headshots for ammo on mobs.

you mean, try to land a crit on a stormvermin, only to find that your luck isnt’ that good, so you end up having a string of shots without crits, and by that time half the patrol is gone from the huntsman already. the thing is, crits are RNG, but a confirmed kill on a bodyshot is reliable.

3 Likes
6

You could argue that his ammo regen is maybe better than RV, though it still requires more effort, but it is sort of more reliable than RV. With WS and BH, you don’t have to do anything.

1 Like
7

i feel it is balanced because those classes won’t be able to (without ult) kill a blightstormer that’s mid casting on your feet from an extreme range, you’d have to pull off 2 shots or pray for a crit. it’s kinda like, they have plenty of ammo but shots are weak, vs needing an effort to maintain ammo, but shots are very strong.

iunno, to me kruber’s bow = strong but slow, keri’s bow = weaker but faster, which fits very nicely with their lore: kruber’s supposed to be a brute, keri a graceful nimble elf.

8

While I agree that the 3 bugs you mentioned should certainly be fixed, removing stuff, instead of fixing it, is not the best approach and shouldn’t be encouraged even further. Fatshark has already solved several problems this way already and players don’t seem to happy about it.

The slow weapon swap is certainly a huge problem and should be fixed asap, but the damage isn’t pitiful. Longbow with ult damage talent does quite a lot of damage to bosses. It can’t kill them in less than 5sec anymore but by no means it is weak. One shoting CW was broken before, now you actually have to aim for the head.

The zoom is better than before but it is still more inaccurate than without the zoom which is quite annoying.

You couldn’t be more wrong about Handgun and Longbow. Both of them are by far the best weapons for special and elite killing. Handgun is the only ranged weapon that can reliably kill CW without relying on crits or potions. I haven’t checked the exact damage but I usually kill CW with only 2 headshots although I’m not sure if 1 of those wasn’t a crit or some teammate manage to to a little damage as well but anyway it deals lots of damage to CW. Also you don’t have to aim for the head to kill most specials which means that you can kill much faster and more reliably than with an elven longbow for example. Also the reload speed is exaggerated. It’s slower than elven longbow but it’s bearable considering you oneshot almost everything. There is also the halberd for armor if something manages to reach you up close. The ammo regeneration for huntsman is great. You can either go for crit build with scrounger or for headshots. Either way is fine and you shouldn’t run out of ammo unless you’re missing half of your shots.

The drawback of having one melee weapon so much better than the others is annoying of course but the same goes for glaive but I don’t see you mentioning that.

Kruber is underplayed because he feels like a generic soldier (which he is) while the other choices are dwarf, elf, wizard and one eyed yelling dude. People want to play something interesting in a fantasy world.
His weapon options are better than elf’s as i mentioned before. None of his roles are underperforming, merc is able to deal with everything and his ult is great, huntsman is ranged god, footknight is better than ironbreaker for cc with his charge ability while also great for special sniping and horde killing. Kruber can fulfill both special sniper, horde killer and anti armor roles with all 3 of his classes. What more do you want?

Speaking about the game difficulty, I don’t think kruber should be buffed. The game is easy enough already for experienced players and legend was never meant for the average player. If anything, pyromancer and bounty hunter should be tuned down so that people would finally learn the basic melee mechanics before going on legend and dying all the time.

1 Like
9

I don’t disagree with his shots being strong. But I do question giving him a passive that relies on finesse, which kinda counters him being a brute, and then giving his only exclusive weapon shoddy accuracy.

2 Likes
10

eh? shoddy accuracy?

you are talking about the longbow right? that thing is dead accurate.

1 Like
11

We talking about the same longbow that gets less accurate when zoomed in, right? Yeah, dead accurate. The bow doesn’t have pin point to near pin boint accuracy like Keri’s LB and considering you are supposed to regain your ammo by landing headshots, yes, I’d call that shoddy.

2 Likes
12

It’s absolutely weak compared to what other classes can do, without needing to spec for it or lose their 30% faster cooldown. The boss killer isnt very good at killing bosses.

But you don’t. Unless you headshot or spec 30% into it, you won’t bodyshot SV, Maulers and more. Handgun is a different story, but that thing is so slow you’re only going to be first to kill the first elite/special.

Much faster to just walk up to a CW and smack it than wait for a HS to whittle it down. As you said yourself, you haven’t exactly checked the damage or checked if you need crits to do it. So much stuff in this game deletes a CW much, much faster than a HS.

He has terrible ammo regen unless you use handgun, lose extra crit and go for 3 ammo on headshots. You wont be shooting much with the handgun anyway, so ammo isn’t as much of a problem on it. On the bow, scrounger doesn’t proc often enough, leading to HS using their bleeding ults during hordes just so they don’t use ammo on the horde. A very good use for the ult, yeah? If his ammo regen was so damn good, I wouldn’t see every single bow HS doing this.

Elf has a number of great melee weapons all depending on the playstyle you want. Glaive is much more mobile and much better than halberd, by the way. Use SnD if you want the fast dodgedance with AP, use SnS if you want to clear hordes without needing Swift Slaying and can run CDR, elven 2H if you want amazing hordeclear, decent AP and good mobility.

I’m really starting to wonder if we’re even playing the same game at this point. Merc has no really useful damage reduction talents, and his passives only activate against hordes. He’s basically a dedicated melee hordeclearer, which has to be one of the most useless things in this game. He has 0 - ZERO power or attack speed or damage reduction gained versus elites, specials or bosses. Like other Kruber careers, he is also extremely limited by poor melee weapons with no mobility, and poor ranged options.

Again, we can’t be playing the same game on legend. HS underperforms compared to the other ranged careers, and he underperforms compared to a number of melee careers. Claiming he is better at deleting specials/elites than WS or BH is spurious at best, and RV is much better at deleting CW than HS is. His ultimate is more or less worthless because it gives him so little, and has such extreme disadvantages built into it.

HS will also fall down in seconds during melee, even with the almighty halberd, because you stop dead when using it. Mobility is key, and HS just goes down right away unless there is a clearly defined front/funnel, whereas both BH, WS and even Pyro can dodge-dance to their heart’s content and stay alive.

FK better tank than IB? I really, really want to know what you’re smoking. IB can taunt, and remove all enemy damage and be an immortal god. He is also tankier than FK in general, and has much, much, MUCH better ranged options. FK ult is useful, yes, but it doesn’t come close to making up for lack of taunt and lack of IB’s ranged options.

This is the crux of the matter, isn’t it. Everything you have just said is biased by that you actually want all careers to be as crap and meh as Krubers, so you can feel better about playing legend because it will be less fun and fewer people will play it - note that I said less fun, not harder. Because if you think it’s HARD to play Zealot, Slayer, IB, HM as melee chars, then you really, really don’t know what you’re talking about.

Nerfing viable classes and removing options and removing fun from the game is NOT the way to go, even though I’m sure you’d feel better about yourself if less people played legend.

3 Likes
13

Sorta wish the zoom on bow was more staged, like not noticeable if you just RMB quickshot but any further than that it slowly zooms to max as you peak towards full charge. Now it just ‘‘snaps’’ into place. If you’re going to have a ‘‘stationary’’ (see: immobile while fully aiming) archer you’re going to want to enforce that pressing RMB means aim-down-sights and not simply pulling back a string to just hit harder.

The way they do it where it locks you into place at full charge makes sense but for aiming it doesn’t especially not with the fact that you have a pretty noticeable spread left on your shots - if that’s intentional he needs work on other areas mostly pertaining to the useability of his active ability.

The whole concept of it works but the way it’s laid out puts a lot of work on the player to do it just right in order to maximise damage, some weapons downright punish you for aiming before pressing ‘‘F’’ with the weird animation it triggers. All this while trying to play the game through dynamic situations can make the ult quite punishing to use sometimes to the point where, when I play with HS, I’ll knowingly cling to the sides of an area to give him space to use his ult if I hear him use it since both the damage, stealth etc are all bound to that short window of use.

14

I also kinda find it funny, that the claim “he so great at ammo regen” is kinda counter-acted by “he can bodyshot anything if power is stacke”. Yeah, but then he won’t regen ammo. Okay, you could argue that this might be a balanced trade of, but considering how little value body-shotting stormvermin has, it really isn’t much to carry a hero concept imho. Come to think of it, the only thing I really keep reading over and over again is “he can bodyshot stormvermin” and “he can kill two cw during his active”. Seems like a really narrow focus to me.

3 Likes
15

Define quickly

Not post 1.0.8, boss damage is insignificant outside of active and with active a volly Xbow is still pacing you, and shade does more damage, in regard to CWs BH can still use his active to kill 1-2 if they are lined up shade can kill 1-2 if they are lined up. Huntsman it takes 4 body shots or 3 headshots with no crits and active up to kill 1 CW if you don’t run chaos / armored breakpoints.

True, but you also don’t have to be good, I personally run the 3 ammo return per headshot on huntsman but that also forces you to run Taals and be a good enough player to consistently hit headshots, personally I think this is fine, but as I said BH and WS have more braindead ways to be a functional hero, Huntsman was nerfed somewhat drastically

from 1.0.7 even where he performed just fine, but he always had a higher skill floor than other ranged careers.

you have to run a high breakpoint to 1 shot body storms outside of active, its generally not worth it, with active sure but SVs are free headshots anyway and SV patrols are a joke for any class.

1 Like
16

Im fine with that but its currently lackluster in general.

1 Like
17

Bingo, also I agree with everything else you said.

2 Likes
18

the halberd is the only weapon worth using on Legend period

Wrong. 1h mace is just as strong of a choice. It outperforms halberd heavily when fighting multiple armored targets.

plain bad, such as 1h sword.

Again wrong. 1h sword only lacks armor damage which is a big deal on Legend. However it is a miniature 2h hammer in that it cleaves almost infinite number of enemies and deals excellent horde dps while doing so. Then you realize that Huntsman can compensate for the lack of armor damage through ranged and thus the 1h sword has a very valuable niche as his backup weapon.

2 Likes
19

In my opinion, none of his melee weapons stack up well against the magnificent selection of awesome Elf weapons. I also personally prefer the falchion to the Halberd any day, all day. Excellent hordeclear, good AP on heavy and great mobility?

Yes, thank you.

2 Likes
20

Melee weapon selection is indeed a huge problem in this melee focused game. Bardin’s melee weapons are in a good place and so are, by and large, Keri’s (2h sword is trash as it’s good horde clear isn’t that much better than, say, DS oder SnD, and trying to kill armoured enemies with it is atrocious). Salty is kind of a mixed bag, his melee weapons are rather specialized and somewhat quirky, and his only 2h weapon is, again, trash. Sienna, let’s not talk about her melee weapons, she has one.
Problem is, it’s not only about how good the weapons are on their own, but how good they can compliment the ranged weaponry available to the character. Bardin’s 1h axe, which is a good weapon, compliments a setup with grudgeraker or crossbow very well where you do your horde clearing, special and elite killing with the ranged weapon and take out your axe against CW or if larger numbers of SV got too close for safely using ranged, and it can still do quite the number on hordes.

2 Likes