Outcast Engineer buffs are overkill

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Running the Bomb builds has made him 10x worse than BW ever was, to the point where I’m thinking of ways to not have them in my games.

Any sort of density on normal Cata doesn’t exist with him in the match. The other 3 players end up killing stragglers and roamers.

He was weak, but these changes just added power creep and didn’t make him feel good outside of the buffed Talents.

He was good with the Trollhammer Tordpedo and with the Flamethrower.

He was weaker with guns/Drakefires, and he has Bardin’s Melee Weapons, so he always struggled there.

The Health buff and some change to ammo/drakefire usage would have been better than this, along with Cranking changes (which was the biggest issue in his gameplay).

The Crank Gun was never weak, it was just horrible to Crank for half of the match, combined with low melee power to offset the risk of Cranking. It did not need a buff.

A playstyle/gameplay shift would have been preferred. More Melee + Ranged Weapon gameplay with short bursts of Crank Gun, and less cranking.

7 Likes
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Only one thing that needs a change is Ingenious Ordnance on him - it is OP as hell. Every other change he received was pretty good and thanks to those he can be played without Trollhammer and there is also many viable ways to play him now so I am very glad.

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I’d still like to see pressure stacks fall off one at a time. I feel like that’s the last change crank needs to not feel too annoying to maintain.

Yeah drake synergy is weird. You can just stack quite crazy amounts of ranged power now but that doesn’t really give me a reason to take Drake weapons over other options. Was thinking maybe his +50% ammo passive could apply to max overcharge on Drake weapons? That’d give you something to make overheat slowdown a bit more pleasant to play around.

I do really wanna mess around with grudge raker on a power stacking build but I’m kinda worried about my ammo just evaporating very quickly considering that gun normally relies pretty heavily on grungni’s. I miss the old free shot talent. It really made grudge and handgun feel unique on OE.

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@Kitten What would you nerf right now? Of course the cooldown which gives you free bombs, but what else? IMO he is too good as well, i am just deleting everything and the ones behind me are dying to boredom

Screenshot 2023-12-17 231042
Screenshot 2023-12-17 2310421920×1080 146 KB

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Same. All of the people I play with have said they’ll still just play Superior Gaskets. I get the feeling they won’t change it because of Achievements, which is really annoying. They should just have SG on two of them, and then leave one Talent called “Enjoy”, for the achi.

Flamethrower was always completely fine on him. I expected Pistols to be good though. Isn’t it Dawi Engineers thing?

You can make Grudgeraker work and it’s a nice feeling for killing Disablers in Hordes with Armour Piercing Slugs, but even if you go for headshots you run out of ammo. Going for headshots with the Shotgun doesn’t make sense though, due to Bardin’s angles.

The reload speed with other guns feels slow too.

Bomb Talents instantly. They need to just do something else, such as give the Explosive Ordnance Trinket Trait (bomb radius) instead of free bombs. It feels like a Darktide Class has been ported in. That was the most unnecessary buff they did.

They might even have to cut the damage of bombs in half on him or something.

That screenshot is what my games looked like too, I played as it and with it in my party and it’s horrible for the other 3 ppl.

Conclusion:
I think they focused on the wrong things with these buffs, and should have buffed his melee/ranged with a rework. Most of his guns still feel meh on him due to reload speed and other factors.

Full Head of Steam and Perilous Overclock still feel horrible, as you have to spam Crank.

The amount of ammo you get for the Crank Gun feels a bit too much too, for the way the gun works.

Having Bardin’s Melee Weapons makes him kind of weak as a hybrid.

He also suffers from the same issue every Career without a stun or WP (Packmaster Breakpoint on Career Skill) deals with, not being able to deal with Disablers in high density, due to noclipping. This is why he isn’t clutching.

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The problem I see with the other changes is that they’re focused on buffing the Crank Gun, and making you play with that more. This game just isn’t good for immobile ranged weapon spam.

So, I think they should have focused on making things like Drakefire Pistols/Shotgun/Handgun, and his Melee Weapons better, while minimizing Cranking.

Full Head of Steam and Perilous Overclock still require you to spam Crank. It doesn’t feel good. It has nothing to do with balance.

Honestly I think they should go with the RP of getting scrap metal off of Elite kills and using it as ammunation, to increase ammo.

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Indeed i felt like Perilous Overcloak gives too much cooldown back as well, imo it should give maybe 15% back (with 3 cranks you are at 45%), but the 5 base stacks shouldnt vanish soooo fast…imo superior gasket is much more comfortable, but i always take overcloak because it gives the most ult uptime.

In conclusion i would have wished a less OP overcloak which gives 15% back per crank and keeping the base stacks longer. The overcloak should be a tool for gaining some ult back in spicy situations and not to fill it 100% up any time you want ( you can do it with ease if you take a shield weapon + thp on stagger, the damage from overcloak doesnt matter if you have a shield)

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Wonder if they could add in the enemy cowering or getting stunned Trait from Darktide for Shotgun/Drakefire Pistols.

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That all are weapon reworks and dont have anything to do with engineer. If you dont want talents like more dodge range, and faster reload time wasting talent slots in exchange for better, more exciting talents then there is little you can do. But maybe they could have added a passive which gives more reload speed for example.

sounds op as well, please not more things from darktide. Darktide is a different game with much more range enemies. Stunning enemies who are close doesnt triviliaze the whole run because of all the snipers etc. For vermintide it sounds just op.

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Nah, they could have been Talents, instead of the Bomb one.

TBH I think every Talents on the level 20 row should become old Superior Gaskets (or just make it baseline), but with different Talents for guns.

True.

Considering how meh Shotguns and Drakefire Pistols are rn on him, I disagree. At least it’s not raw damage or Elite deletion mechanics.

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agree

On Fk i really like the blunderbuss, and on RV the shotgun is one of his strongest builds (but only if you count the damage dealt at the scoreboard and not the overall performance/ how strong it really feels handling different kinds of enemies)

Maybe the should add some armor penetration and ammo regain talents, for those his weapons. But not general penetration of armor rather a mechanic which you can use to help you out.

1 Like
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Flame thrower is fine on him because it’s flame thrower. There isn’t much direct synergy and no talent/passive interaction with overheat whatsoever. On the other hand I probably am underrating straight power stacking for an infinite ammo weapon on a class with 0 ammo sustain. I guess that technically is a synergy?

Drake pistols just seem generally under tuned but I’ll admit I’ve spent very little time with them, maybe they’re great on IB.

Stacking ranged power to over +50% kinda negates the need for APS on grudge IMO. That setup can hit like 6-8 maulers in a row, same for berserkers, like 20 fanatics from what I remember from creature spawner testing. You have very little ammo but it does straight up flatten infantry/berserker density which covers GPS nicely. Plus you’re running around with +37.5% melee power which makes you competent enough in melee to not need to pull the grudge out for raw hordes. You do miss APS on crank gun but it’s a decent and fun setup IMO if you’re happy to tread into non meta but still competent territory. Besides it’s not uncommon to end up with at least one party member that doesn’t use ammo if not more, in which case really you’re fine for ammo.

Some reload speed would definitely go a long way but honestly not sure where you’d put it in the tree. Adding another passive feels dodgy.

In general regarding bomb stuff having so much overlap between RV and Engi there is just uncomfortable. I’d probably just nerf bomb regen to like every 150 seconds, remove the no friendly fire part, then change RV’s parting gift to something else.

1 Like
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I disagree. Cranking is the core thing of the char and should remain (maybe the stack loss could be a little slower. Imho it feels like you loose stacks slightly faster then before the patch, but I might be wrong).
He needs nerfs, aye. But we shouldnt swing the nerfhammer too rough.

Suggestions:
Bomb Talent - no bombs at lvl start, raise CD for crafting new ones.
Ridiculous Overclock - Less CD gain (~20%), less CC per stack (~5%)
Linked compression chamber - less firerate increase (~10%)
And a buff:
Raise Crank gun firerate and starting firerate to old values or close to that.

2 Likes
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You just have to spam it too much with other Talents. It leaves you vulnerable and isn’t enjoyable.

His gun was fine before any of the changes, other than Cranking.

Not sure why noone suggests buffs for his actual ranged weapons, to make him fun outside of the Crank Gun.

The Talents don’t do anyhting to make Drakefire Pistols, Grudgeraker, MWP or Handgun feel that much better or more unique.

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Pressure Stacks have been implemented poorly since Engineer’s release. Before I’d always run Experimental Steam Capacitors, as it makes using the gun in bursts viable, as opposed to just using Superior Gaskets and ignoring the gun until you want to solo a wave or gun down a boss.

Even with this buff, it’s still way too much micromanagement on account of how punishing it is to ignore. If you crank mid-fight, you aren’t contributing to fighting or even defending yourself. If you don’t, you don’t regen your ability at all.

If I wanted to give a suggestion, they should make it so stacks decay to the next level, but they decay every 6 seconds. This reduces your maximum cooldown reduction slightly without changing your playstyle, however, you don’t stop regenerating entirely until after 25 seconds. By making this change, engies crank less often, but crank more times when they do so. This way it’s far less needy of a mechanic, and more about how much the player is willing to push the minigun to maximize their regen rate.

6s is very conservative, but it could be up to 8s, though at that point they may need to adjust more numbers to balance it.

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I would like the exact opposite. :smiley: After the update, managing the minigun is too easy for how powerful it is.

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If the current damage output will be kept then players should have to invest more. I am a fan of high risk high reward. High skill ceiling should result in high performance/damage. At the moment OE players have to invest way too less for the results they get.

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I think OE is good now after the update and doesn’t really need changes.

Apart from maybe making it so the grenade-generating talent should drop a grenade on the floor if OE’s grenade pockets are full instead of being wasted.

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So you want even more bombs, no way. He is overpowered and he needs a nerf.

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