Hello!
I’d like to share some thoughts about future careers, their “specializations” and possible lore background. But before we proceed, let’s define several career skill types used in game at the moment:
- "Shout" – Area-of-effect crowd control skill type. It’s a small explosion that staggers infantry and optionally deals damage or also staggers bigger targets.
- "Dash" – mobility related skill type. It forces character to chrage forward or move to a certain point with some optional effects.
- "Stealth" – that skill type allows character to become invisible to enemies. Again, there are always some optional effects.
- "Extra Weapon" – fire-and-forget skill type. It allows character to do a lot of damage within a fraction of time and can do critical damage. Usually comes as a weapon.
With that done, let’s get back to the point.
As you probably noticed, there’s a pattern of every hero’s careers.
After getting premium career every roster of every character’s careers contains all four skill types mentioned above.
To make sure of it, let’s take a closer look. I’ll add extra description for some unclear moments.
Kruber
Our best boy has the most pattern fitting careers.
- Mercenary – “Shout”.
- Huntsman – “Stealth”.
- Foot Knight – “Dash”. Though can be considered combined with “Shout” at some point.
- Grail Knight – “Extra Weapon”. Extra sword that deals a lot of damage.
Bardin
There’re some tricky skills dwarf can posess, but he fits the pattern as well.
- Ranger Veteran – “Stealth”. Though it staggers enemies within a certain radius and thus can be considered “Shout”, its primary function is to make Bardin invisible.
- Ironbreaker – “Shout”. Plain and simple – Bardin staggers enemies nearby and gets their attention for himself. Monsters are optional.
- Slayer – “Dash”. Bardin literally jumps forward. It also has effect of “Shout”, but, again, its main goal is to reposition dwarf.
- Outcast Engineer – “Extra Weapon”. Literally a minigun. The very defintion of an extra weapon. The only exception is that it deals small damage per bullet.
Kerillian
Wutelgy doesn’t break rules as well.
- Waystalker – “Extra Weapon”. Though Trueshot Volley can hardly be called a weapon, it fits description of the skill type. Kerillian shoots homing arrows dealing a lot of damage to one or several enemies.
- Handmaiden – “Dash”. “Stealth” part can be added via talent is optional.
- Shade – “Stealth”. “Dash” part can be added via talent and is optional.
- The Sister of Thorn – “Shout”. Though Kerillian doesn’t really shout, this career skill does exactly what “Shout” does. It staggers enemies in a small area and controls their movement. Even more so in its alternative version.
Satlzpyre
Victor doesn’t have all his careers yet, so let’s observe existing ones and make conclusions later.
- Witch Hunter Captain – “Shout”.
- Bounty Hunter – “Extra Weapon”. Pew-pew.
- Zealot – “Dash”.
- ??? – ???
Sienna
Sienna has her last career yet to come, let’s look at the current ones.
- Battle Wizard – “Dash”. It also has effect of “Shout”, but the main function is to teleport wizard.
- Pyromancer – “Extra Weapon”. This time it’s a spell, not a weapon, but does exactly what “Extra Weapon” does and is homing as well.
- Unchained – “Shout”.
- ??? – ???
Can you see what skill type Sienna and Victor lack at the moment? Correct, it’s “Stealth”. The new careers will most likely be the stealthy ones, but not necessarily infiltrators like Shade. How can this happen? Hear me out.
Let’s start with Saltzpyre. He also lacks a tanky career.
And before we proceed further, we need to set a rule about tanks in Vermintide 2
Tank is career that meets 4 conditions:
- Has 150 health and damage reduction.
- Can provide decent crowd control.
- Has access to bashing weapons, such as sword/axe/mace/spear and shield, fire sword and dagger, making it easier for them to provide even more crowd control.
- Has Bulwark talent.
Currently, there are 4 tanky careers in the game: Foot Knight, Ironbreaker, Unchained and Grail Knight.
Kerillian is a special snowflake, but it’s not about her.
As you can see, Zealot is not a tank, he doesn’t meet the rule we established before.
Thus, Victor’s last career is gonna be a tanky and stealthy one at the same time. And there are at least two possible options depending on lore development.
At the moment, Saltzpyre has just gone through crisis of faith and has two possible outcomes for him (maybe even more).
Firstly, he not only restores his faith, but even boosts it all the way beyond reason. And becomes SIgmar/Ulric War Priest. In this case god matters only in terms of new weapons, outfit and special effects (axes/hammers, normal armor/wolven cloak and light/lightning). His career skill is going to be a flashbang (Saltzpyre raises his weapon, call to his god and creates a strong shining around him). They can’t see you if they’re blind.
Secondly, he has no response from any god in Citadel and his hopes and dreams get crushed. After that he either seeks for another source of power to defeat Pactsworn or stumbles into it accidentaly, but he finds a vampire (or a certain vampiress, to be more exact) and get Blood Kiss. So, his next career is going to be Vampire with a skill that transform him into a flock of bats for short period of time. They will remain invulnerable, making Victor effectively invisble, bite enemies and drink their blood, restoring Victor’s health. Also I want to see vampire being slapped to death by some random slave rat, it’s gonna be hilarious.
In both cases he’ll have access to shield weapons, be it sword, hammer or axe and something heavy.
Now let’s have look at Sienna. Recently we’ve discovered that she has evil twin sister Sofia. She’s alive and well and this time keeps low profile.
Sienna, remembering how her previous attempt to kill Sofia ended, wants to try a new approach. She thinks a little, consults with Olecia and decides to use smoke related Aqshy spells (there are some actually), puts on some rags and goes stealthy. Most likely, we won’t be allowed to kill Sofia by ourselves, but there’s going to be another Lohner arctile or career reveal trailer where we can see her doing that.
So, the career is going to be called Master Vigilant. Or Smoke Wizard. It doesn’t really matter. What actually matters is that this career is an actual stealthy infiltrator. My call is that her skill will turn her into a smoke cloud and let her move really quickly. Skill type combinations are quite possible and already exist in the game.
Her first new weapon will most likely be throwing knives. We have spears and axes, knives are the only ones left. Maybe not even just knives, but stealthy explosive ones. Killer Queen style.
Second weapon will probaly be another staff that has something to do with putting traps. Maybe landmines.
That’s about it.
Thank you for your attention!