Markus Kruber Mercenary Needs some slight buffs

For Example the Talent : Desperate Defiance is completely weak and useless. I would replace it With Zealot’s “Flagellant”
Faster Movement speed like the foot knight
and Dual weapons Mace & Sword should have faster attack speed to match Zealot’s Falchion & Axe

I think that zealot’s flagellant should be removed from the game, and 5% movement speed is a nigh useless skill to have, and Saltz’ falchion & axe is busted and probably should be knocked down a peg.

Desperate Defiance is a nice skill, even though I prefer the one that increases power myself, ‘The More the Merrier’. Mercenary Kruber is a well balanced career, and his talent tree is astoundingly amazing and probably one of the better designed talent trees of all the careers considering many of the talent choices are up to preference instead of being absolute cookie-cutter like some of the other trees.

In fact, his level 25 talents are all viable, and one even changes on how to you use it.

If at all, I see Merc Kruber, at least his talent tree as the gold standard.

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I’ve got to agree with @Tosspot here; Markus Kruber and his Mercenary career should be considered the Gold-Standard for talent-blocks.

Desperate Defiance is actually fairly useful when considering holding 2 grims; you pretty much get 25% damage mitigation around the clock which can make you an absolute monster, but I also agree that it’s fighting on your back heel. I’d rather be taking the fight to the bad-guys with The More the Merrier! because the power increase is just insane and it goes all-too-well when paired with his Paced Strikes.

Flagellent is an absolutely insane tanking ability. That and Ignore Pain, as had by Slayer Bardin, make them into freight-trains that just so happens to have legs and weapons. I don’t think Mercenary Kruber should have access to such an excellent tanking ability considering he is already such a powerful offensive fighter; giving him the best of all worlds might be a bad idea.

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Agree, merc is one of the most well balanced careers out there in pretty much every respect.

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I would say that flaggellant and ignore pain should work like barkskin and it would be ok.
Merc is gloriously balanced class and with shiet ton of possible viable builds, OP clearly dont know what he is saying

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He’s in a really good place right now. His dual wield is also really strong, and nowhere near as OP as Saltspyre’s Axe and Falchion. Probably one of the stronger frontlines in the game. Shield weapons even work decently on him if used properly.

The only weapon that’s mediocre is the 1H Sword, which can still be used pretty well. It just becomes a bit of a red shield farmer on higher difficulties and Onslaught though.

His Ult alone makes him extremely viable.

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Ready for Action And Stay Down! Battle Scars
Increases stamina regeneration by 30.0%. Increases critical hit chance by 5.0%. Increases healing effects by 30.0%.
The More The Merrier! Desperate Defiance Shrug it Off
Increases Power by 3.0% for every nearby enemy and stacks up to 5 times. Reduces damage taken by 35% when below 50% health. Reduces the attack interruption time when taking damage by 35%.

Okay, can someone explain me what talents you using and for what reason?

Ready for Action - can be used with shielded weapon?
And Stay Down! - for crit build?
Battle Scars - additional health mean additional temp health, seems like defensive option again?

The More The Merrier! - dd choice
Desperate Defiance - “tank” choice
Shrug it Off - hmm, tank choice again?

It seems like 5 and 10 lvl talent choice is not so well made.

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I use Crit for pretty much everything and sometimes Healing if I feel like I need it. The Stamina Regen one would only be worth on Onslaught or Deeds.

The More The Merrier, for a more offensive build, or if you don’t want to run any power vs on your Weapon. That way you can just go Attack Speed/Crit or something similar. Reducing damage taken is pretty good on higher difficulties, etc. I haven’t tried Reduced Interruption ever, but I rarely get in a situation where it’s necessary. Perhaps with 2H weapons and the 30% Healing Increase if you’re playing on higher difficulties.

So for me you have 2 offensive builds and potential for a third specific-to-weapon defensive build.

It’s clear from most of his Talents and his Ultimate, that he’s not supposed to be a full on Melee DPS (unless built for it), but a supportive frontliner.

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Well, healing effect with his ult is quite good and its work with natural bond to, crit chance is good for any build, stamina regen is dunno I actually never use stamina regen.
and pretty much there is no tank choice, its if you want to be more aggressive horde clearer or more cautious.

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Ready for Action is useful for any weapon that relies on a lot of pushes in its pattern. So shields, Mace, Two-handed Sword… Though the shields tend to have sufficient stamina anyway. And Stay Down! is used for, yes, crit builds, whatever exact setup you want to build for, or as a general effectiveness boost if you’ve no need for the others. Battle Scars increases your durability by a lot, mainly through affecting temp health gains, but also gaining extra effectiveness for healing items and potential healshare.

The More The Merrier! is a fully offensive option, and can allow extra horde breakpoints quite easily. I’d say there aren’t many weapons that could use it effectively, but I haven’t researched it any, so I might be quite wrong. Desperate Defiance again adds a big durability boost, and specifically at a point where any damage taken starts getting dangerous. Shrug it Off is something I haven’t really figured a use for; in my mind it fixes a secondary problem at best, and not even effectively; it allows for better hit trading and even with the Merc’s THP generation and other toughness modifiers it’s not something you really want to do.

Personally, I’ve gone for durability increases as that’s safe and reliable, and the Merc has good offensive capabilities anyway. And because I’m lazy, and can’t be bothered to change my builds (or to design new ones, as Loadout Manager is also a thing). Both added healing things (Talent and Trait) are a bit overkill though, so I might shift Battle Scars for the Trait.

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I gotta politely disagree. Merc is one of the best classes in the game, both as a frontliner and as a support class. He’s easily got some of the widest versatility build-wise, and most of his talents are quite usable, which isn’t common. You can throw basically any combination of weapons on him, and while they may not be the most optimized, you can make anything work, and some builds are just silly in how efficient they are. He’s maybe not THE literal best frontline character as far as pure DPS is concerned, but considering how good he is at almost everything else, he certainly doesn’t need to be. Comparing him to a very arguably broken build at the moment (Zealot w/ A&F) doesn’t really help. A&F are ludicrously powerful, and Zealot himself pretty well only brings frontline DPS to the table, Merc doesn’t need to compare to that: He’s far better balanced, and does so much more.

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I think you are mistaking the idea that there are “tanks” in Vermintide 2. There are careers/characters that can absorb a lot of heat for the team, but certainly no one is meant to be the only person taking hits.

Ready for Action is awesome because stamina regen is always great! Helps with hordes, patrols, when you get surrounded (this happens a lot in Fortunes of War) and any time you intend to block instead of attack. This can be used by any playstyle; it’s a raw stat boost and everyone blocks. It also couples well with being a support-Kruber; your goal is just to spread Paced Strikes to your team and then get in there to make sure that your sniper can remove specials and stuff.

And Stay Down! is obviously the crit build, as you mentioned.

Battle Scars increased healing means all HP and Temp-HP effects, including your level 20 talents, your Mercenary Kruber active career skill, and your Kerillian’s shared health regen. This talent also stacks with Boon of Shallya, the necklace trait! Tons of healing is as viable as the crit and also as viable as the stamina regen.

The More the Merrier! is the hyper-aggressive choice for sloughing through a horde/patrol; this is usable by any play style. More damage and cleave makes Kruber a happy man!

Desperate Defiance is a survival trait, as I listed above. In the event that you are running with a softer team, it could be really useful to have you with tons of additional survivability. That coupled with the Battle Scars talent or the Ready for Action talent makes you a juggernaut despite being a career that is still inherently deadly.

Shrug it Off allows you to keep smashing enemies when you want to. It means you can fit in additional swings into hordes… which couples VERY well with Temp-HP generation and also allows you to turn the fight from a defensive one back into an offensive one; it can play well with Battle Scars and And Stay Down! very well!

More or less, you can tech Mercenary Kruber to be a jack-of-all-trades or a master-of-one! Both are viable options for him, which is what makes him so awesome.

Also, the number of people who replied before I could type this out is astounding xD sorry to just add to the pile! I think @Kitten and @Yzneftamz nailed it on the head for sure. Well, really everyone did, so I suppose I shouldn’t name names. My bad!

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That kind of depends on what is exactly meant by that term, but I agree that it shouldn’t be used in this game’s case.

There is one Career that matches the MMORPG definition of a Tank (one that can stand a lot of hits, and control enemy aggro beyond the norm to draw enemies away from the others): The Ironbreaker. While there certainly are other Careers and builds the are “tanky” (i. e. can stand a lot of damage), they won’t take on any extra aggro unless others purposefully get passive for a moment, and it’s very limited then too. Everyone will get their fair share of enemies. I guess it could even be said that Handmaiden is a “dodge-tank”, one that gets their durability from not getting hit, but she also uses the standard enemy control methods.

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I use Battle Scars for increased healing, and then also put increased healing on my necklace (Boon of Shallya I think it is?)

I usually run Desperate Defiance, just because the nearby-enemy detection for More the Merrier seems wonky at best. (I haven’t used it in forever so it may be better now, but before it just didn’t seem reliable even for people in hammer range).

but yeah, I use 2h hammer with atk speed / crit chance and swift slaying, that combined with merc passives means some crazy fast hammer swings. I basically just go ham and hit trade like a lunatic, because the 60% increase to healing effects + temp health on stagger means that every hammer swing into a group grants a ton of temp health. Sprinkle in an ult here and there and it’s a ridiculously survivable playstyle, but you have to be able to maneuver and keep landing those hammer swings without interruption.

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Just to clarify, I do not consider Mercenary with tough build as tank. I used this term figuratively. IMO tank is character that can absorb good amount of damage and have means to protect his team. In Vermintide 2 it is Iron Breaker with his ult and Foot Knight with his aura. There is Handmaiden with stamina regen aura but she is much more support than tank.

P.S. @Yzneftamz outpaced me here.

P.P.S. The point I wanted to make when it was said, that Mercenary is considered to have one of best talent list, it is so, but there are two talents, one of those have doubtfull usefullness (Shrug it Off), and the other at least partially overlapping another talent from the same line (Ready for Action and Battle Scars).

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Ye you can argue that the level 10 talents apart from merry are kinda stupidly situational or just bad.
However the level 5 talents are all usable and won’t suddenly make you weaker if you pick any of them instead of crit for instance (which happens to be the most common).

Recently i messed around with ready for action + 30 more regen from trinket and it was absolutely bonkers how much you gain stamina. You can make lots of odd builds with these 3 which is not something you can say for most other careers talents currently.

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well he is bad at boss killing

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that’s why he needs a slight buff

Thats why he dont need it, he is balanced. Just learn to play good and like yourself said so many times chillax.

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