The Careers Feel Kind Of Pointless

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Feedback
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In Vermintide 2 it feels like the addition of classes and careers was misconstrued. The blandness and usefulness of classes in end game feels rushed and unfinished. So for a moment lets ignore the horrid amount of bugs infesting this game at this time, which unfortunately there are many, and focus on my main critique of this game - The classes.

During the beta it was already evident that some classes were just ridiculously better than others. Krubers Huntsman class could essentially mealt any boss he wanted by combining his ult with a blunderbuss, Kerillion’s Waystalker class could not only instantly pick off any special but also negate need for health potions in the hands of high skill players, Siennas Pyromancer was the only class of hers that had a ult that could do damage, and Witch hunters bounty hunter could pop clan rats for one shot kills up to heroic difficulty with the added bonus of a squadron deleting ult. Notice any similarities here? I’ll give you a second.

ALL of the classes listed above are the ranged dps of their respected Hero. Even with the recent nerfs on release the current meta for Legendary is one Tank and three ranged… which is just so absolutely boring. I have NO idea how anyone would get any enjoyment out of that. The thing that I just don’t understand the most is the fact that all of the classes have access to essentially every weapon in the game. Like, what?? That pushes the meta to be based off of SKILLS and SUB TALENTS. Everyone would basically just use the same weapons 24/7 even if they DO fix the classes. I think to fix this game for me and a lot of other people, with that same itch I have, they need to rework and re-balance the classes completely and limit the weapons that career can use. As it stand currently it just doesn’t make sense to even have careers.

Kerillian
Waystalker - Why did she have regen in the first place exactly? That seems like it would fit better on Zealot or Berserker or Unchained. I think instead she should have her original large amount of ammo from the beta returned, and a passive to penetrate more enemies on ranged attacks. That would push her to be played as what she’s designed as: RANGED. Make her talents things like less bullet drop, higher damage on enemies hit with penetration, faster firing speed, and faster movement speed while zoomed.
Usable weapons should also play off her Ranged focus
Melee

  • Sword
  • Sword and Dagger
  • Single dagger?
    Ranged
  • Long Bow
  • Swift Bow
  • Bow Staff? (An Idea I had dancing around in my head. Much like WH’s Rapier and Gun but able to fire around and have low damage sweeping swings to knock back hoards.)

Warmaiden
“Dash through enemies and cause bleed”, that is perhaps the worst idea for a skill I have ever heard in my entire life. Well maybe not… just doesn’t work in this game, like at all. Get rid of that skill and try something that suits her style better: MELEE. An idea my friend Troy and I had was a spinning slash. Much like Mercenaries but more damage focused. This would push her meta to be more front line and direct contact oriented. You could have clutch moments where your team would be surrounded by enemies while fighting a boss, where a well places spin slash would help the team greatly to take out those stragglers that are behind your block. Makes more sense than team mates beating up enemies around them while one person gets devastated by the boss. Make her sub traits focused around this like more weapon ranged, attack speed, stamina, cleave damage, and knockback(to support the ranged classes)

Her weapons should be more melee and crowd damage focused.

Melee

  • Spear (Great weapon, I hate seeing it being used by waystalker because then a player can have hagbane for crowd destruction, Truflight ult to kill specials, and a spear for great offense.)
  • Glaive (Tweaks here and there and it could be much better.)
  • Wardancer Blade (Makes zero sense to be used on anyone but this class)
  • Duel swords (Blade dancer?)

Ranged

  • Swift bow
  • Crossbow
  • Long Bow? (much less ammo so the focus stays melee but doesn’t eliminate her usefulness for specials.)

Shade
I honestly LOVED the idea of Shade being that sneaky high damage presence on the battlefield. Unfortunately the way fatshark has it set up is just weird… In a game like vermintide when are you ever behind enemy lines and not aggro-ed? It’s possible with Tank class support I guess but still just seems to miss the goal. I like the invisibility on this class and this class ALONE. I would say change the ability to be more focused on the invisibility and less the “One shot damage”(Lame). It’s a stretch and would need major tweaking but say the elf had a long invis time that didn’t break on melee attacks but dealt less damage. INSTEAD have her attacks deal continuous poison damage on hit. So her job would be to get up around bosses or hoards and start debuffing all the enemies. Her sub traits could be things like bonus damage on back-stabs, increased critical chances, enemies who are poisoned deal less damage and attack slower, charged attacks while invisible deal increased damage but break stealth, increased movement speed while not detected, Kerillions presence does alert enemies who cannot see her. Her weapons would be low damage but fast speed and ranged more or less the same.

Melee

  • Duel Daggers (Duh)
  • Glaive (Damage focus?)
  • Single Dagger?
  • Spear (Something about a poison tipped spear just makes me feel bubbly)

Ranged

  • Hagbane (playing off the poison focus of her kit)
  • Swift bow
  • Crossbow (More DPS?)

Kruber
Mercenary
Honestly my favorite class atm. He actually seems to have a real front line melee focus, with a twist of being able to be a support build as well. I wouldn’t change much other than maybe the weapons he could use.

Melee

  • Halberd (My fav, greatly designed, maybe more area attacks)
  • Great-sword
  • Executioners sword(Rewarding for those who could aim.)

Ranged

  • Blunderbuss (Great Crowd control)
  • Repeater Gun
    (Kruber needs more ranged in my opinion.)

Hunstman
Why? Why. Why?! WHY does this class have invisibility? Is like supposed to be camo for hunting deer or something? It’s weird and makes the kit feel weird. Maybe instead give him a “Hunters Site” kind of ability. Basically he can pop the ability and be able to see where on the map the specials are hiding like that one damn blightstormer that tornado-ed you and poofed away or a packrat closing in on your team behind a wall or a hoard. I think this would help him be more helpful to a team rather than having another damn ranged dps. Have his traits things like activating hunters site restores some health, LVL 25 arrows and bullets can penitrate walls during hunters site, allies can see specials as well when hunters site is activated, and kruber highlights critical spots upon hitting them. His weapons should be again: RANGED FOCUSED.
Melee

  • One handed sword
  • One handed mace
  • Huntsmans axe?

Ranged

  • Bow
  • Handgun

(again hes lacking in the ranged department.)

Foot Knight
Decent Tank . The dash makes more sense because your team can follow up by taking out downed enemies. Plus its a good chase ability if someone is grabbed and you need to get through a hoard to save them. I saw a top player on Twitch tell his team mate that he was “Dead anyway” when he got grabbed. What kind of lame excuse is that to just kind of let someone stop playing because of a special. Obviously his weapons would be shield and stamina focused. His traits could be changed around for the better. Here’s something, why does EVERYONE have the same level 20 stuff? Would it make more sense for the TANK FOCUS to FOCUS ON TANKING and not kills? What if the DPS needs those kills to heal?

Melee

  • Sword and shield
  • Mace and Shield
  • 2h Hammer (I like the idea of a tanky bruiser who beats down enemies with his dash and wide hammer swings.)

Ranged

  • Gatling gun
  • Blunderbuss
  • Pistol?(why is WH the only one who gets those? Surely the soldier can aim pistol? Plus it could be a quick pop out of block to knock an enemy like a berserker)

Sienna
Battle wizard/Pyromancer - Okay can you tell me something? What exactly is the different between Pyromancer and Battle Wizard other than skill. Than can use essentially the same staffs and the same melee weapons and both have increased ranged damage. The Pyromancer just has a better ability. Here’s an idea, maybe swap them up to be an AOE focus and a single target focus. Battle wizard could have an ability to leave a wall of fire in front of her to DPS hoards as they charge though a tight space and support the team with the fireball staff and Flame River staff, while the pyromancer rained hell from afar with a fiery beam that ripped through hoards at a certain target like a boss or special with weapon support such as Beam staves and bolt staffs. As for melee weapons it doesn’t really matter because IMO they all kind of blow and the focus should be more on the staff power. Have traits like enemies on fire take more damage for Battle Wizard and fire deals more damage the farther it travels for Pyromancer.
Melee (Both)
All except maybe mace and Flaming sword

Unchained
Gotta say, I LOOOOOVE the idea. Her ability makes sense for the close to enemies kit but falls real short in damage. Like this is Sienna releasing the tension and pain from the boiling magic inside her in a giant boiling explosion! Yet it’s more like setting your finger on a hot stove for half a second. Up the damage! Make melee stronger and hits feel heavier! A melee focused Sienna is an AMAZING idea and I think with the right tweaks could be crazy good. Make her traits things that boost her damage and damage resist on higher thresholds, faster attack speed while it rises, small reflect damage(She’s literally on fire.) and health regen while having no threshold up. REWARD the play for being able to balance how much they use the deep fire power within with how much they play it safe and defensive.

Weapons
-Runeblade/channeling staff? (My basic idea here is to have the player able to make the Sword hotter and more powerful by channeling energy through the staff. This is a 1000 degree knife people, it’s going to cleave right through armor and hoards as her threshold rises but damage her as she pushes the limit.)

Barden
Veteran Ranger
What it kind of seems like you were pushing here was a resourceful ranged support. I like that idea and I think it works well, sort of. The smoke cloud is a cool idea but why does it only affect barden? Quick! A storm vermin pack is coming! Bardin can HIDE his team as they pass. He can help a downed player in the middle of the fight or heal an ally without aggroing the boss or hoard enemies. The ammo replenish is nice but maybe have based on all enemies but also ranking them. Little puny enemies sometimes return ammo, Elites reward 1 or 2 ammo, specials restore two, and bosses give back 5. Have his traits based of this resourcefulness like having a chance to not lose a med-kit upon using it or potions having a chance to duplicate.
Melee

  • 2H axe
  • 1H axe
  • 1H hammer

Ranged

  • Crossbow
  • Handgun

Ironbreaker
Nice tank class. I like the aggro pull and his passive to ignore damage. Honestly there’s not a lot that doesn’t work about this guy me. It’s a good class.

Melee

  • 1h hammer and shield
    -1h axe and shield
  • Greathammer

Slayer
Hmmm. I like the idea behind this one two but the usefulness kind of falls short. Great dps for bosses but seems like he’d have to stick behind a shield while attacking. Plus 0 ranged is unique but also eliminates most of his special killing ability since he can jump on a packrat and kill it sure but then he’s away from his team and should he fail he’s now away from his team and being dragged away. He needs traits to back him up like maybe after a jump he in immune to damage for a few seconds or cant be grabbed. Maybe even give him the temp health on kills so it balances out the damage he takes from being on the front line with constant damage being thrown out in front of him.
Melee
-Duel axes
-Duel hammers?
-2handed axe
-ice pick of doom

Victor
Never played it so it wouldn’t be fair for me to change anything. I hear he’s pretty low tier rn though so maybe re look into some traits to fit the kit.

Anyway these are just some idea’s I had jumping around in my head about characters. The classes were so hyped and I just feel like really low effort was actually put into them. All of these recent patches just being nerf after nerf makes me pretty nervous. I want this game to be the absolute best it can be, and I feel like it’s weakest points are the classes.
Please share any further ideas or critiques about my classes, I’d love to pool together ideas for fatshark to see and also hear what others think could improve the game.

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Why do people insist starting their feedback posts with “HEY FATSHARK, FU!” They definitely will read your feedback and give it a proper consideration, now that you’ve told them off.

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Well, didn’t exactly cuss them out. But sure maybe it’s harsh to say something as critical as that.
However they want honest feedback and critique for their game no? I have a feeling that their feelings are a little stronger then you seem to think.

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Your first paragraph is nothing but you disparaging them. You can say that you think someone did a bad job without focusing on the fact that they did a bad job (and that they should be ashamed!).

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Well again I don’t believe I said the phrase “Bad Job” either. I think the team did a very good job on a lot of aspects of the game. However as I said “What it looks like to me” which states that it is solely my opinion. I also mention the blandness of the current classes which is once again my opinion as it is clear that a large number of people would disagree with me. I also mentioned the large amount of bugs in the current version of the game which, I’m sorry that’s just true. It’s really kind of ridiculous how many bugs were in version 1 since that was supposed to be the release and it still feels more like a beta. If there’s a horrid amount of hair in my pasta at a restaurant I’m going to tell my server “Hey. There’s a horrid amount of hair in my pasta.” Not sugar coat it with “Oh! It’s still a GOOD pasta I just hate picking hair out of my mouth but the PASTA is good okay?”
The same kind of thing goes for the classes. I shouldn’t have to sugar coat my feedback when Fatshark asked for truthful feedback. Sorry man that’s just how it is it’s not like I’m screaming to the hills about how terrible I think Fatshark is, that would be negativity and essentially fixing nothing. You should read this critique as, simply put, critique. Not an attack.

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Let’s talk about pasta. You screwed up the napkins by putting them wrong… obviously. But this pasta… it makes me sick to the stomach as a fan of the pasta they used to serve here. I know your job is cooking pasta, but it seems like you have no idea how to do it. Well let me explain how to do it by being a condescending *hole:

Notice any similarities here? I’ll give you a second.

I have NO idea how anyone would get any enjoyment out of that.

Pathetic. Absoltely pathetic.

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Okay I hear what you are saying. This was originally copied over from a review I posted on steam but could not get out all of my idea due to the word limit. Perhaps in the context of how it was written it does seem very crude and I should edit it to fit more of an opinion base context and I thank you for pointing that out.
That being said those are my true feelings of how I am experiencing the game thus far and if we’re going to follow the Pasta analogy here I should feel free to digress my distaste for said pasta to the maker OF said pasta. My goal was not to tell the chef how he should make his pasta it was simply to express my ideas of how the changes they made do not work for the overall flavor that I had grown to love.
The first vermintide was very combat based and I believe that’s what people should focus on learning before they judge the new mechanics. However Fatshark released this with this huge change from combat to skills and career positions so I think it’s fair to give my two cents on how it could be improved. The problem is that the game is still very focused on combat making the career choice to seem very linear on what should be chosen as classes have better tank, ranged, or dps options than others such as the WS being a better choice than the other two jobs. Please try to understand that in no way is my goal to tell Fatshark how to do their job because simply I don’t KNOW how to design a game so it is not my place. Once again this is a critique but I will edit what I wrote to better fit the context of positive feedback with a splash of ideas and opinions on what I do and don’t like about the game.

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I think you bring out a lot of good points to improve the game. You gave this topic a lot of thought, and sort of ruined my innocent view of the game. However, I do notice these things you mentioned. The classes are not as unique as they should be, and I haven’t found a class that really stands out.

I don’t have any suggestions for now, but I hope they do some revamp or changes.

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Boy am I glad you dont work at fatshark. Or as a game designer at all.

Too many points to adress seperately while on phone. Boooooy am I glad you dont work there :slight_smile:

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Thank you Sliyer and I’m sorry for putting you in that perspective lol.

perek586 I agree with completely, there’s no way I’d want to be under that kind of pressure. If it isn’t to much of an issue I would like to know what points you’re referring to later, feedback and criticism is always appreciated .

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I don’t think it’s so much of the classes are pointless, I think it’s each hero has a class that is so much of a better choice the other 2 are not really viable options. This is either because of nerfs or simply the wombo combos that can be made. Saltz for example, at 15 you can get effectively unlimited ammo. While classes like the witch hunter are so under powered, offers nothing, so why even bring them? Same issue with the dwarf, really the only choices are iron breaker or slayer because ranger got nerfed with his health drops so no reason.

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Jberns407 interesting. You’re right I’d say the classes aren’t pointless per say. The things that bugs me is that every class can use everything other than maybe one weapon. For me it doesn’t really feel like we got any new careers just a choice of 3 skills where 1 outshines the other two. I’d like to see them drive the Career paths a little more than they have.

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I agree that there are alot of Issues with the way the classes are right now, I will just give my thoughts on the topic, but not really any concepts or ideas for improvement as I haven´t put much thought into it yet, I agree with you overall though.
Kerillian,
Waystalker: yeah its pretty much only waystalkers out there it seems, some shades and basically no handmaidens, not surprising considering the simplicity of the character.
Limiting the usable weapons would be welcome for me, it actually gives the classes some much needed distinction and we already have it for a few ranged weapons (crossbow Kerillian, Bow Kruber…).
Her passive should be changed, the regen is just too good and makes little sense on her either way so I basically agree on that.
Handmaiden: Yeah pretty worthless atm which is kind of sad since I really like the looks of that class, her skill is nearly worthless especially on champion and up since it can put you in a really bad spot really fast and doesn´t have the knockdown of Foot Knight Krubers charge, a spin slash sounds interesting but I am not sure on that, they could also make it like a spear throw or charge to clear a path or help people through hords when grabbed.
Shade: Boring seems the best way to descirbe her, she plays the same as waystalker only weaker until you encounter a boss wich then leads to either the boss or kerillian dying rather quickly.

Markus Kruber,
My personal favourite, also probably the only one where all classes are actually good enough to be useable, but he really need more ranged options.
Merc: Melee focused crowd clearer with a support ability that does too little for the CD it has if you ask me, though I can´t say I have many ideas of improving it.
Hunter: honestly yeah why give him stealth? You really don´t use it for much except maybe a combat res or for the damage boost it falls really flat on utility for him being a huntsman and all, you could just as well give him a super power shot like the Bountyhunter has would ammount to the same in the end.
Foot Knight: I love playing as this class, you really feel the difference in damage you can take and his aura and his charge are great supports can´t think of anything to change here.

Bardin,
Honestly I don´t play him so I can only state some observations.
Ranger Vet: Almost uselsess ability, even one that can become a nusiance to your own team as it can block the view for your ranged attackers, otherwise he seems the weakest of the ranged classes.
Ironbreaker: Great Tank, awesome ranged weapon always nice to have in your team, sadly its so good it completley outshines the other classes.
Slayer: Only seen 2, soo no comment.

Witch,
I don´t even know her name, but I basically agree with you on her, also she is really annoying on champion and up.

Viktor Saltzpyre:
He really seems to fall behind after Veteran.
Witch Hunter Captian: His ability is… boring, really boring, I mean I kind of expected more from a Witch Hunter Captian, doen´t feel all that usefull either.
Bounty Hunter: Probably the most played, understandably as he can do great damage with his reapeating pistol+guaranteed crits and his active.
Zealot: He gets power the lower his HP is matching what he is supposed to be, but you usually want to be above 50% hp on champion, especially if you plan on collecting grims. It just feels like his whole gimmick is not supposed to work on higher difficulties.
Not much experience with Saltman hence me lacking any kind of detail.

The fact that you can sum up the classes to: Melee tank, Melee DMG and Ranged DMG (except for the witch) fells weird, it makes the charakters interchangeable and they don´t feel unique in what they do and become completley interchangeable and many feel just plain boring design wise.
So thats roughly what I think about the current situation, not really happy with it but not terribly unhappy with it either, its a still a good game and I enjoy it alot, even if it can be kinda frustrating.

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Can confirm. Witch hunter captain skill is super boring to the point I usually forget to use it because i dont feel it does anything other than a second area knockdown.

Bounty hunter is the best one. Unlimited ammo and one shotting elites.

Zealot is my favourite but has weird talents in some places and the skill is kind of meh. Obviously the best talent should be pleasure in pain that heals when the skill is active but the heal is so tiny its barely noticeable. (2 hp per hit only when the skill is active in games where enemies can take half your health in one hit). It could be so its 2hp every hit all the time, increasing as health gets lower and even bigger increase when skill is active. That way the lower hp gets the more damage the Zealot does but the more health he restores, if he restores too much without taking damage he loses the damage buffs and needs to get back on the pain train.
So like how the pyro has to balance the overheat thing, the Zealot would have to balance his health by keeping it low enough to get the buffs but not so low that he dies too fast and not overhealing himself by avoiding damage.

The skill has a charge which more than likely will just put you out of place as the target moves so you have to spend precious seconds catching up to the target to get a few hits in. Would be a LOT better if rather than a charge it would add a huge amount of movement speed so Zealots can control it more.

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Thx god you are not working there. Even if i dont like what they are doing with some classes your suggestions would make it even worse. At least for me. Fun is kinda subjective term.

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soooo your brilliant idea to make them unique is to limit weapon choices more?

O.o

The passives and Active abilities absolutely have a pretty noticeable effect. There are a few exclusive weapons for flavor where appropriate as well, but not so excessive that it’s obnoxious in forcing specific careers for most people.

They could do more with the Talent system, but frankly OP, you’re way off base.

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I agree with the title but not the post, the careers do feel kind of pointless because there seem to be no special interactions between characters from different careers. Its like the dialgoue was just all mixed up into one pool without any thought given to interactions between different careers. It would be nice to get some classic Vermintide dialogue with the base careers but then some other different lines for others. Sienna being truly insane in the Unchained career would feel more insane if she was ranting and raving more, but instead has the same personality as all the other characters.

Sure, careers have different mechanical effects but they really do not effect the characters themselves in any meaningful way. Which is a shame, because I play Vermintide for the sick lore as much as I do the gameplay. I was hoping this game would make replayability enjoyable by having just a TON of lines you’d rarely hear due to different hero combinations.

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There are plenty of threads already decrying the blandness of classes, and I have no doubt most people agree with the statement that they are, indeed, bland.
I don’t have a problem with limiting more weapons to certain classes, either; it is fitting, both from a lore and a balance perspective.
That said, limitations, and lack thereof, should always be instituted with balance and fun in mind.
And I see no such concern in your suggestions - either the weapons limited to a class are clearly better/ more beneficial to that subclass, in which case we might as well limit them to only those, as who would ever pick the others, or they are not, in which case there is no reason for that class to exclusively have them - lore not withstanding, of course.
I’d certainly be ok with subclasses having bonuses that specifically benefit certain types of weapons:
A Handmaiden could have an increase in melee weapon range that would benefit larger, already longer ranged weapons more, emphasising their use without forcing them or making them a clearly better choice.
Thus, the only reason I see for withholding equipment from a character is if it would be too strong with it.
Randomly limiting choices will make no one happy and only cause classes to be seen as gateways to a specific loadout, unless the talents can stand on their own as reasons to pick the subclass, and if they do, then there’s no reason to limit the equipment, and thus, the potential fun of thousands of players.

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Vanarian - Thank for going into such detail I appreciate your personal feedback on the matter

Maud - I’d actually have to disagree with you here. When fatshark announced the addition of classes and careers that almost pushed Vermintide into another genre, not completely but enough that it would have a different feeling to it. I think the first Vermintide was very combat based, and they focused on combat again for this game aswell. However that left a sort of empty feeling to the classes for me. Personally I would find more fun in learning how the different careers work and play. Obviously my ideas are not perfect in any sort as I said they are just opinions and anyone is welcome to disagree. I would be interested in hearing your ideas.

Papa-Ronin - Not exactly my main idea. I don’t fee like classes should have exclusive weapons per class but maybe more of an added bonus. For example the difference between WS and HM: WS has better ranged than HM, but they both get essentially the same bonuses for melee. I don’t think we should turn this full on MMO but atleast have more attention put into the classes because as it stands now where is the point in playing not WS?
UnLimiTeD - Couldn’t agree with you more. I think bonuses would definitely be better than complete limitation. I’m more or less trying to push the point that I think skills and talents are not enough to cause diversity in classes. After all Handmaiden, shade, and WS all use a spear the same. Regen and truflight are simply better.

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The thing is im pretty comfortable with all my career choices. ( I play Kerillian only) If you exclude tons of bugs. But they wuold be fixed later. Stuff you propose is basicly lets castrate some choices to make classes feel more uniq it would narrow customizaion a lot if you limit people. Career path should represent potential but not lock you at 1 playstyle. Want melee waywalker? Feel free to do so. Ranged Maiden ? Easy. Tank Shade? Why not? It wont be as effective as if you boost main career strenght but it gives freedom without making careers just different skns.