Such as?
I’ve made the suggestions because I only play Cata/+, and these changes tackle the weaknesses me and my duo see with these Weapons and Careers.
I don’t know, man. RV and IB aren’t classes I want to see with a passive attack speed on. IB is incredible by sheer virtue of his current passive and RV… eh… not to mention most of the big offenders in his melee arsenal are still bad on Slayer. I’d rather just tweaks and slight buffs to his weapons, especially since 90% of his arsenal is also in Kruber’s and Salt’s inventory.
Their talents could use a tweaks. Drakki-wrath is pretty bad, spent a good few hours the other day trying to find a meaningful break point that made the OC increase tolerable and their just isn’t, SV always die between 3-4 lmb bursts and Packmasters and some elites always die in the rmb full charge before they get to you.
Foe-feller could always be buffed to 10%. I think it’s fair if you want to be better in melee as RV, you should spend a talent for it. Not saying none of Bardin’s melee should be looked at, I just think a passive atk speed boost in your suggestion could be better implemented by putting it with that talent.
For greataxe I would just straight up make L3 and push-attack do the same damage as L1 with more cleave. It fixed 2h hammer when they did that in 2018.
I’ve no problem with axe and shield, but passive crit chance as a characteristic of axe weapons is fine with me, buff elf axe, dual axes, & greataxe like that.
The slow reload on handgun kills it. Not even RV or Huntsman with their increased reload can handle it. Not to mention Crossbow just does everything more efficiently and has fantastic cleave and monster damage. I can accept the steep 1-shot everything requirement to it, but the cleave and reload needs to be addressed. It’s weird that in high difficulty play, the 1-shot everything weapon can’t be a viable pick for the backline.
Make elf spear great again
I would not buff exe sword at all. It’s great and has the right amount of downsides to make it not a god weapon.
I would not tone down repgun on Kruber when Handgun is too risky to justify, manbow too slow, and blunderbuss straight up lies about what it’s for. If ranged weapons aren’t allowed to be reliable against anything than why are they even in game?
More stamina for Falchion, definitely.
I would leave BH’s THP talents alone. Fake Zealot build + Job Well Done + a little bit of patience is a heck of a niche build with Salt’s weapons.
So, the 1h sword on Kruber and Sienna, I don’t think it actually needs much, if at all. Really underrated weapon. If anything about it were tweaked for Cata, maybe the L3 attack alone to strengthen its versatility.
For 1h axes (and Falchion to a lesser extent), 1 or 2 more shields and more dodge. Before 2.0 this was my absolute favorite weapon, because of the lower density of hordes, more reliable stagger, and the affect of dodges made engaging enemies with this weapon fun. It doesn’t need to be an effective CC weapon if you have the right tools and skills to mitigate damage. 2.0 killed dodge and buffed everything’s stagger resistance, and the horde dance just isn’t effective at all with the axe’s low dodge range a d count. It’s damage output is still fine (minus charge attack), but you’re in for an extremely bad time if you think you can support your horde clear guys in anyway with this weapon once you get aggro. Again, damage output is fabulous. High damage, high passive crit chance, everything you would ever want in a low cleave single target weapon except for its non-existent defense.
tl;dr: I said stuffs about stuffs.
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Firstly, I think I’ve done a bad job of explaining this. Attack Speed Passive suggestion or Greataxe/Mining Pick/1H Axe buff should be one or the other, and not both at the same time. So with that being said, what did you think of the suggestions to increasing their *Push-Attack Speed, and increasing Crit% on them to guarantee Swiftslaying?
The problem with Dorf’s Weapons is that they require too much AS to be built in to make him safe. What do I mean by that? When he’s starting a fight without Swiftslaying, he’s incredibly vulnerable to getting hit during his Attacks, therefore making squishy RV reliant on heavy AS building, with IB however, able to take more hits with this vulnerability.
While your suggestion for the 10% AS Talent on RV is one I considered myself, I think it just creates less build choice, because you’ll be forced to take it or suffer in melee.
The argument that Slayer has better options doesn’t seem fair to me, as he can still use all of the Melee Weapons to great effect, even making 1H Axe viable if you run Crit/Crit Power and the Crit Talent (Hack And Slash), because of 1H Axe’s inherent 10% Crit%. And Mining Pick with a Movement Speed build. Giving him 3 Melee options more than IB or RV.
And the last argument I’ll make is that Bardin doesn’t really have an Axe and Falc, a SnD, or the general Passives to make them worthwhile. While 2H Mace is close, much like most of his Weapons, it doesn’t have the amazing killing power that other Characters do. This is why I suggested the 5% AS buff to begin with, to lift all of his weapons.
Yeah, I thought this one would be a tough sell. My argument is the same as with the Dwarf slow weapons. When you face Shield enemies in Hordes with these Weapons you just slowly get chipped down unless you have help or Swiftslaying up.
These suggestions have been more for survival than for being offensive, as AS is a survival stat on Cata.
I also somewhat agree with everything else you said.
Everything should be balanced around Legend.
Cataclysm is for people to test their own skill levels. It’s not for everyone therefore nothing should be balanced around it.
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The point here is that some weapons work fine in Legend, and then completely fall apart in Cataclysm due to relying too much on breakpoints or having really weak cleave etc. It’s not about making Cataclysm easier, but making certain weapons better in Cataclysm when there are other weapons that work fine in both Cataclysm and Legend.
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So when are all of the nerfs coming? 
There are things like Shade, which can be considered op for Cata+.
Also Weaves go to Cata and Cata+ levels.
Right, but careers like shade and WS aren’t much better. WS absolutely doesn’t need to put herself in danger at all to do insane damage, and shade has access to a bunch of mitigation as well as consistent strong invis letting you avoid being punished for any positioning errors.
Which squishy careers do you think apparently require super high effort to do insane damage?
And how is WHC too tanky to die lol, he can at best eat one more hit than shade. They both have access to pretty strong methods of avoiding damage.
Zealot is just clearly OP and balancing classes around him would be insane, imo.
edit: I also take issue with the idea that something taking a bit of time to learn should mean it gets to be OP.
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“Cata-viable” isn’t the same thing as “viable”. (And “viable” is a pretty subjective term anyway. If you’re good enough, isn’t anything technically viable?) I don’t think everything needs to be decent on Cata, when the game is really designed for Legend.
Every weapon change where you say something like “this is good on career X, but it feels underwhelming on career Y”. I don’t think every weapon needs to be good on Cata with every career – but every weapon should be good with at least one career.
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But the changes I’ve suggested for Bardin, for example, wouldn’t even effect Slayer in the slightest. They just buff it for those who struggle with it. There’s literally no downside to buffing things like Push-Attack (Crit% or Speed of the attack), it only gives IB and RV more choice.
In the 1H Axe/1H Sword section, the reason I’m pointing out which they work on is because they can make similar changes as I’ve suggested for Greataxe and Mining Pick, which buff the weaknesses on Careers that can’t use them.
If they’re truly only supposed to be used by one Career, lock them off. If not, buff them in ways that benefit the Careers they’re weak on.
Bardin is the best example of this because Slayer can use 3 Weapons that the other two struggle to make use of without being overwhelmed. Mining Pick, Greataxe, and 1H Axe.
What’s the downside to buffing a Weapon in a way that buffs it for Careers that struggle with it, and barely effects the Career that can? Is greater build potential/variation a bad thing?
For this reason it’s time to buff things… we saw already a lot of nerf. Some careers are still overshadowed, you right, but if we continue to nerf the strong ones we will play with bare hands.
Moreover we have many examples of careers/weapons that literally “miss something”.
p.s maybe I haven’t understood your words, but, speaking in general… why do some players say “even post nerf is still strong” like it was bad thing? °-°… A nerf’s purpose should be make the subject balanced and strong… not make it the umpteenth flat weapon.
The problem that some weapons are “not viable” at Cata borns from Legend. It’s a consequence.
99% of the weapons that “can’t be used” at Cata are those weapons that are overshadowed at Legend but still pretty decent because it’s Legend (and we are, on this forum, the strongest players). But if a weapon is overshadowed, we have already a problem.
Apart this I don’t know around what the game is balanced… because most players play Veteran, not even Legend… but Fatshark continue to work on end contents like weaves (wich are even Cata+!). To not talk about the fact that we saw many nerf realized to balance these end contents (again, weaves)
The term “balancing around Legend” seems to get thrown around quite a lot without too much explanation. Personally I think all weapons should be good and viable regardless of difficulty, and weapons like conflag, hagbane, fireball, executioner etc. all achieve that. Weapons like manbow rely too much on their breakpoints, when instead it could get properties like cleave through elites to make it work in all difficulties.
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I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Shade was nerfed and is only OP depending on who is playing her. I’ve been in tons of cata QP and cata twitch pugs where shade dies all the time.
Cata isn’t for everyone and is only for players testing their own skills. I’ve even seen a few streamers using off meta builds and still completing that difficulty.
Please do not judge your reasoning on balancing for cata difficulty based on the few people who can true solo that difficulty. For most people, it’s a team effort.
Fatshark can nerf careers all they want but they cannot nerf the players who play them.
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Joking, but also making a serious point too. If you think the game is balanced around Legend I’m not sure what to say because that would leave it in an even more unbalanced state than if I were to say it’s balanced around Cata, which I don’t think it is, but it’s a far more balanced version of the game, because it keeps the ‘hard carry’ Careers in check and forces them to play with a team, other than Shade and Zealot, which are capable of playing solo.
It’s still OP. Play Exquisite Huntress with DnD or SnD on Cata Twitch and you can kill the Bosses without Ult because it chunks them so heavily. It trivializes the game like crazy.
It’s a team effort for us too. I play with four people, but my friend is the one I join them with. The point is, we play duo and bounce our builds off each other, which leads to seeing which weapons need support and for what reason. E.g. Longbow Huntsman is one of the better carries in the game, but requires babysitting on Cata, so HM is the perfect combo with him.
Greataxe is usable on IB with someone spam staggering, but once alone goes down pretty quickly because of low Cleave/Attack Speed, even if heavily building for it. If we play Greataxe IB we usually play it with two Careers/builds with high Stagger to make up for his lack thereof.
You’re saying don’t judge it off people who are playing the hardest+ difficulties, but we’re telling you that in our experience making those Weapons workable is difficult, and I’m offering suggestions that would fix their shortfalls on the Careers that need it, without buffing the Careers that don’t.
I don’t understand what the problem is, when I’m mainly pushing for making Weapons, such as Falchion, which are rarely ever even seen in Legend, let alone Cata, to get some sort of buff. Or for Weapons to be made workable for a difficulty that’s part of the game.
Legend:
You can make breakpoints in this to kill Elites in 1/2 hits with Ranged Weapons and pretty much solo half of the map. In what way does adding a Push-Attack inherent Crit%, or even the 5% Passive Attack Speed on RV/IB, even compare to that level of absurdity?
This was the question I asked someone earlier:
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What’s the goal? Should all careers be able to use all weapons equally effectively? In one way, that’s the opposite of variety. I think it’s fine that some weapons fit better with some careers than with others. And finding a way to make a weapon work with a disadvantaged career can be pretty cool.
As for specific weapon tweaks, I’m still firmly in the camp that 1.6 combat was better than 2.x. So… yeah. I’m not sure you or the rest of the forum need to listen to my opinions on weapons. 
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Not at all. The changes I’ve recommended, other than the Exe Sword one, are pretty weak compared to what I usually see suggested. There’s just a lot of them.
I think if you look at Slayer’s Passives compared to the other two, and the effectiveness of RV/IB Melee compared to other Characters totally, it’s not even close to being on the same level.
Guess I’m trying to make the Weapons work on other Careers, but with somewhat of a different playstyle. Slayer doesn’t really Push-Attack at all with Greataxe/Mining Pick, and just switches to his defensive Weapon, and him getting SS up isn’t as difficult, nor as necessary.
Not necessarily… But the problem is that some weapons are bad (or overshadowed by other ones) with every career.
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The weapons in vermintide has a glorious amount of variables to tinker around for balance; damage, attack speed, cleave, stagger, movement speed, crit chance and dodge all having different values for different attacks. Not to mention weapons sometimes behave very different depending on what specialisation you choose.
The issue is few people probably agree what good balance is and might have different reference points altogether.
Do you compare weapons compared to the arsenal of the character itself? Like Bardin 2H axe vs 2H Hammer
Do you compare weapons with other weapons in other characters of similar specialisations? Like the melee potency of a bounty hunter with FAx vs Waystalker with SnD
Do you compare weapons with weapons of similar purpose? Like kruber spear vs kerillian spear?
Should weapons be balanced purely numerically? That a certain Y amount of armour damage is = X amount of stamina shields etc
Should versatile weapons be jack of all trades but master of none?
Nothing fun with having a team mate making runs trivial on thier own. But at the same time it’s no fun if the harder content would only be feasable with “meta loudouts”.
Personally Id like to see weapons quite specialised for different niches to promote team play, In my opinion weapon choice should be tactical. Do you want to enhance your class/party strengths or do you want to cover up for a weakness?
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I agree, but I don’t see the changes I’ve asked for as that drastic other than the Exe Sword one, which was more QoL than anything. Once I get my SSD in, and my net back to wired, I’ll make some gameplay videos with the Weapons I’ve mentioned compared to others to give people a better idea of my reference point.
All I can really do for now is say that I’ve been someone who gamed competitively, and got extremely frustrated with the balance design of other games, so I push for as much of a level playing field as I can.
I’ve also been playing Vermintide since the first one, worked my way up to Cata in that, and then went from Legend to Cata in this game too. Either doing duos with bots, so me and my friend can bounce builds off each other, or queueing into QP (or inviting someone from our friends).
With that being said, the playstyle of holding a frontline, and protecting ‘x’ role (Special killer/Elite Killer, etc) when it’s necessary, and staying within 20ft of each other for the majority of the map, is a good summary of how I think this game should be played, and our success rate as we’ve improved seems to reflect this.
Definitely, but the roles and playstyles of those Weapons are very different, which is why I’m not asking for more Stagger/Cleave on the Greataxe, Greataxe is an Elite/Boss killer, but in my eyes suffers too heavily against Hordes on IB/RV to make it workable. The downside of the Weapon is too much compared to the payoff.
Somewhat, but I then tie it back to what their Career does to the Weapon because I think that’s a better way of balancing. Balancing around the full Weapon just ends up making certain Careers overpowered, DnD before, for example.
If you’re going to give the actual Weapon a buff, doing it intelligently based on the playstyles of the Careers it’s weak on, and not the one it’s strong on seems like the best way to do things. E.g. Greataxe Push-Attack buff. Slayer doesn’t Push-Attack much with Greataxe, he just switches to his defensive Weapon for that, but uses Greataxe for Elite killing, and only really has it out for opportune moments. IB and RV, however, could use Crit% on Push-Attacks to give them more survivability and damage output with the Weapon.
Tiny buff to Slayer, big buff to IB/RV and their playstyles.
Somewhat. I categorise most of the Weapons with roles. Kruber’s Greatspear seems more of a supportive CC Weapon (and one of the best peeling Weapons in the game), whereas Spear is a Horde clearing Mobility Weapon, which is decent against Bosses, but weak against Elites.
Once again in this example, the weakness of Spear is it’s Elite Killing, which on Cata becomes way too much of an issue. Even if it got a buff to this, it still wouldn’t have the level of CC that Greatspear has, and also wouldn’t make Shade OP.
I’m not just trying to stuff my changes down your throat btw, this is just as an example of my thought process.
I don’t hold my breath when it comes to asking for Weapon Attack Chain changes, which would include animation changes, such as the Sienna’s Dagger QoL change I suggested (Push-Attack > C2), or a change that would include a moveset or Attack direction either.
So numeric changes seem like a good way to do things, the problem with this though, is that we need Mods to see the inherent Crit% and build around them.
I see a lot of people calling Elf’s Greatsword bad, but after finding out, on the Armory Mod, it has inherent Crit% on the Push-Attack, it changed my view on it completely, and it’s become one of my favourite Weapons.
On Stamina Shields: these are extremely important when it comes to Cata, as I think in future you’ll see the meta builds become something similar to: Crit/Stamina or Block Cost (Swiftslaying) on Weapon with Health/Stamina or Block Cost on neck, this seems like the best build to us, as you can pretty much be invincible unless you’re playing a Weapon with low Stam. Hence my Falch suggestion.
I think they can be, but the versatile Weapons right now seem overtuned, insofar as they’re carrying out the roles of more specialised Weapons better than them.
True, which is why changes to most of these Weapons, which are perceived to be weak compared to others, would reduce the necessity of using meta builds.
This is how I feel too, but the issue is that this argument doesn’t really apply to Greataxe, Mining Pick and 1H Axe on RV/IB, because they either suck up too much build, require your team to babysit you constantly, and even with all that, the payoff isn’t as good as just using 2H Hammer anyway.
Why should 3 Weapons be so difficult and unfun to use on IB/RV? Why not just lock them off completely?
The changes I’m asking for would mostly improve QoL for the Weapons, which is why I find it strange I’ve had so much push back. Shade, Zealot, WHC, WS (Hagbane), Pyro, BH, and Huntsman all exist in this game and can be ridiculously Versatile to the point of almost breaking the game (Shade Exquisite Huntress SnD), now compare those to what I’m suggesting for some of the weakest Weapons in the game.
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I get where you’re coming from, definitely. IMO I think an easy way to describe what’s off about dorf weps is that he lacks “versatile” weapons. No swords, daggers, rapiers, spears, or halberds for the midget (which might be a problem with the lore). Not only that, but the one Jack-of-all-trades weapon he does have is the dual axes, which haven’t been readjusted since their push-attack nerf in 1.5. Dual Hammers sort of fill it for RV and IB, but not on the same level.
And probably other stuff I could rant all day about.
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Something else a little off topic that I wish was Cata viable (or, heck, even Legend viable): FK’s talent Taal’s Champion.
I think giving up a class passive should have a much higher buff. That talent is weak!!