The Stagger Talent has been over-nerfed

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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The basic point I want to make in this post is that some of the weapons have been over-nerfed with the temp hp gain on stagger. But before I do that, I want to say a little bit about the temp hp system in general.

(You can skip the following paragraph to get to my point about the new changes.)

I think the temp health system in Vermintide makes the game too difficult for new players, and Darktide’s refillable toughness (which replaced the temp hp system) is a notable improvement. I think it would be best to adopt something like toughness for Vermintide 3. This is partly because in Verminitide you’re sensitive to tiny hits and it leaves little room for error, even for tanky careers. You always have to be “on” when you’re playing because one hit from a small slave rat after you’ve cleared the area can tank your health. Temp hp is the one of the ways that players can mitigate this. You build up temp hp to create a buffer from going down and dying. All of this is to simply say that temp hp is a crucial part of the game and should be balanced correctly. I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial here. This is what we all know.

Now what about the new temp hp changes? So, while on the one hand, some of the new changes are good in that they remove the useless heal share talent that nobody ever used. It’s also nice to see the (earlier) buff to crits/headshots talent. It’s nice that slave rats give more on temp hp based on kill. But the stagger nerfs are too much in my opinion (and this, partly due to the overall role that temp hp plays in the game, which I described above).

For example, the shielded weapons on Bardin don’t kill very much, and they’re not supposed to; with those weapons, you trade damage output for survivability – a crucial part of which is the temp hp. If you can’t get good temp hp gain with it, it’s useless as a weapon because with just one slave rat to hit you in the butt after you’ve cleared the horde, you lose all your temp hp and health when playing certain careers.

My final (and controversial) opinion is this. A final note – maybe not about Vermintide 2, but for future games (Verminitide 3, anyone?) – is that Battle Wizard’s firesword temp hp gain on stagger should be the standard for refillable health (toughness/temp hp), not something that’s seen as overpowered and abused. The challenge of the game should come from the sheer number of enemies – it’s a Verminitide after all – rather than taking too much or too little damage and struggling to get your temp hp up.

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I agree that the nerf was overdone. I don’t agree that Fire Sword or Shielded weapons or shotgun bashes should have been the golden standard that THP should aim for. They were overpowered in terms of THP generation, allowing you to not only control massive amounts of enemies but also refill an entire healthbar in a few swings, way more than any other option allowed. I think the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. Not what we have now, but not what shields and shotguns and other “infinite cleave” stagger weapons had. A Greathammer as it was before the patch seems like a good benchmark.

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The kind of nerd that’s needed for Stagger THP is a cap on the total. That’s it.

The problem with stagger THP (and AoE effects in general) is with no cap, they rack up massive numbers.

Slamming the shield heavy 1 attack is used in a dense horde with massive stagger cleave to get up to sometimes 20hp per hit.

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I’ve tried getting cleave instead for my greathammer. I regretted it immediately. Stagger is superior to it on legend, even more so on cata. I was getting reliable THP from it. It didn’t feel overdone.

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I agree with the OP, unnecessary nerf… and the temp health gained from shields and similar, was just perfect… it was their niche, a trade of for their low mobility and low damage

Moreover this over-nerf careers like GK too… a really squishy one, that based his defence on temp health too

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For a melee career with 150hp, I wouldn’t call GK squishy. Like the slayer, he is a high melee damage career, but with more stagger and hefty power bonuses.

However, this nerf does hit the squishy Ranger Vet and Huntsman pretty hard. I don’t play these careers with shields or stagger weapons much, but that’s a super risky, and less optimal way to play. I can get away with just about anything if latency isn’t a major issue as I have thousands of hours, but that’s not the average player.

I don’t think it’s good game design in the first place to make it so that the slower ranged careers like Huntsman and Ranger Vet are so squishy that they rely heavily on shields for THP.

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Well, in summary of everything that was done in the last updates, we basically have: little added fun and many unnecessary changes… the simple truth is that the bad/boring/non-competitive talents with others in the same line, continue for YEARS AND YEARS, without any change, and things that are part of the base of the game, being nerfed or even removed from the game. for me the APEX of fatshark’s mistake was REMOVING divine excoriation to put a STINKY talent that is “take damage and gain an ult”

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It’s true, many of the dead talents remain untouched and useless. We could go on all day about those, and there’s plenty of forum posts on talents that are way too niche or near useless.

Many of the passive 5% bonus talents remain mediocre. At least they bumped Slayer’s passive crit bonus up to 10%.

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As FK with shield and sword I know my role is to stagger stuff so the elf-HM could kill things on CATA fast. This is much harder to do now. That is all.

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But has it been over-nerfed? My FK bot had an almost entirely white HP bar for 90% of a map

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Uhm I mean, both GK and Slayer are what I call glass cannons… a lot of dps but fragile (of course still not as a ranged career)

I wrote about GK because I was mainly (but not only) talking about TempHealth on stagger based on Shields playstyle. It was just one of the more examples

But, if I have to birefly say mine about GK vs Slayer, I think the latter is way less squishy. Both bacause he has some good damage reduction talents, both due his great mobility

Yep, I agree on this, for sure it’s a more serious problem

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thp on stagger nerf was definitely too much

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Ok having played a bit more I happen to agree with @WhereIsBaoDur in that you can still have full white bar, but without the casual arrogance of before. I need to kind-of concentrate to play as FK with Sword and board. Still dont kill armoured stuff though XD

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the problem with this is that stuff like firesword gets stronger the more things there are to hit so you end up not being challenged less by enemy density than non-firesword type builds are. Additionally the thp gains are so extreme that the only thing that will down you is getting one shot which makes most of the enemies and attacks in the game a non-threat.

GK is not squishy at all??

Anyway I’m surprised people feel it’s over nerfed given I’m personally having no issues staying on full temp with stuff like mace and tuskgor spear, let alone shields. I just can’t hit trade quite as ridiculously any more which is a good thing.

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Can’t agree. It’s the only melee character without dmg reduction talents, mobility nor ability to make space

Probably the only more squishy is WHC… but with his ult and Rapier, I still feel he has more survivability

But still GK is the hill on which I am willing to die: imo he’s the most overrated character, one of the few without a niche, and the latest nerfs he’s received have disgusted me

However, both for lack of time and not to go OT, I prefer not to elaborate further

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Rare Incan sighting

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I’d highly advise you on bonking the rats in front of you, 125hp with almost 100% uptime of 40% dcr without barksin etc and 150hp on a class that in my opinion is arguably the 5th or 4th easiest class to generate thp on no matter the situation is definitely not squishy or glas cannony.

Both reduce chip damage by a big margin, both can’t be oneshot and have a way of mitigating the damage from the overhead you have to take to get oneshot.

stagger thp was way over the top. It’s still stupid strong on every shield weapon in the game and allows you to get full hp with 1 or 2 bashes on a cata horde wave. GK has both carve and execute now, so realistically you shouldn’t be taking it on him without a shield in the first place.

Not to mention the baseline 10% ms increase on gk - slayer apparently doesnt have it wutface - leap/trophy + high AS attack ms icnreases still

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Slayer and GK are not really glass cannons; they’re a happy medium with massive melee offensive capabilities. Careers like Shade (Daggers), Pyromancer, or Bounty Hunter fit that label more accurately.

Fatshark took the Tourney Balance mod seriously, giving all three careers three viable THP options to suit various playstyles. The downside? Defensive careers feel even less interesting now, as everyone can sustain THP fairly well, but not all careers have equal damage output. Most players just rush ahead for kills on roaming elites.

Huntsman’s ult damage vs. monsters was nerfed long ago, and he lacks utility for a squishy ranged class. Ranger Veteran’s best DPS option is the Grudgeraker Shotgun. It is rivaled by Ironbreaker’s Drakefire Pistols. If I top damage with either on Legend or Cata, it’s usually because others aren’t running DPS or are newer players.

Both Huntsman and Ranger Vet are squishier and do less damage than most other 100 HP careers. Ranger Vet at least offers some team support: item/ammo drops, a 10% chance not to consume items, and healing vape clouds. Still, his damage reduction talent is weak. Both would benefit from the Engineer’s 100 to 125 HP buff. Before the Stagger THP nerf, they were more survivable with shields; now, the other two THP talents let them sustain better, but playing offensively with them is risky. Their DPS still lags behind other squishy ranged careers, and their utility doesn’t make up for it.

Power creep has left Foot Knight behind. He’s built for stagger, and with limited ranged options, the old stagger THP allowed him to be more effective, while Ironbreaker deals heavy damage with Drakefire and is a stronger tank overall with decent enough stagger. Handmaiden offers comparable team survivability with much better damage output. Warrior Priest is a massive benefit to the team even without ranged, and deals excellent damage in melee with power bonuses that nearly rival FK’s stagger. I think the other tanks are fine, but Foot Knight has been left behind. He’s mainly useful as main purpose stagger on modded difficulties.

I also suggest the game could benefit from adding elites to hordes at all difficulties to keep tanks and stagger relevant, and so that players numbers don’t benefit as much from leaping ahead to compete for ranged kills on elites, as they do from fighting hordes with elites naturally mixed in. In general,

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I gotta show up every now and then like a cryptid

you’re free to not agree but he factually does have mobility and the ability to make space along with other survival tools

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  • Slayer’s damage reduction talents are way more efficient;
  • GK’s 10% damage from the duty is totally RNG;
  • Virtue of stoicism isn’t a real dmg reduction talent, moreover it stops you from using the stamina regen, the career’s core
  • what really gives to Slayer way more survivability than GK is the leap: a powerful tool of costantly stagger and repositioning

Infinitely inferior to a Slayer’s leap or an FK’s charge. This is true mobility that allows you to reposition yourself or escape from a tricky situation. As well as a WHC and Merc’s shout create much more space