It only hurts you if you currently abuse crit fishing, it won't really affect its average availability otherwise.
Every aspect of it is too good. Beam without crit fishing is still insane CC, the sniper shot is absurd special/elite clear, and the shotgun is better waveclear and CC than all the other staves.
By the time I have high-max overcharge I nearly always have the special available to dump my overheat, and it's much more universally useful than my standard attacks, one-shotting that charging chaos champ or tagging that special that's hiding(or dragged a team mate) around a corner/ledge. And with the improved targeting as of the launch patch, it's an elegant wisp of death on regular mooks, frequently dancing around to tag flankers that the team might not have even seen.
Pyro only gains higher crit at high overheat, and crit is an unreliable metric to try to use for raw damage output when you can just throw out the special for way more immediate damage.
you keep talking up how great the special ability is.. and his point was getting the 30% reduction in cooldown so you could use the special ability 30% more often? I have 0 problems with overheating with a beam staff because the second I get a crit (Which happens more often with higher overcharge) the overcharge completely dissipates because of the 8 less overcharge per crit and beam staves getting infinite crits once it starts up.
The point is greater availability than the 30% provides. During mook-heavy encounters(I'll even assert that with a BW on the team, rando bosses aren't actually the big threat of champ+), you'll get more uses out of it because you're hitting large amounts of enemies at once. Overheating is an irrelevant topic if you're not having overheating problems with either method, but having the special available more often is definitely a bigger bonus.
I really don't want to condone relying on abusing a mechanic that Fatshark has already said they're going to fix(crit fishing), so I'm just talking in terms of average availability. In practical terms I don't like relying on that(especially as the center of a build) because the beam isn't armor piercing, which is... bad. And time you're spending trying to get a crit is both time you're not actually killing something, and time you're spending channeling while nearly immobile with a scoped camera. Given how often enemies love to flank and the fact that BW is made of wet paper, I'm generally paranoid of not being able to always have an eye on my surroundings.
It only hurts you if you currently abuse crit fishing, it won't really affect its average availability otherwise.
Every aspect of it is too good. Beam without crit fishing is still insane CC, the sniper shot is absurd special/elite clear, and the shotgun is better waveclear and CC than all the other staves.
It's also one of the best in the game for killing the armored shield rats and shielded chaos mooks as well, once you get the timing down. Channel the beam until you see the stagger animation and then immediately burst them, and they die. Melee only wish they could kill them that easily.
Donnicton on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Why would you want to empty overcharge? More overcharge is better damage. Just hit R sometimes.
The beam staff can "lock" the crit hit state, which means you can activate the crit state during the entire beam duration to constantly dump heat and essentially have infinite beam (with the right stave trait).
The benefits of high overcharge are really slim compared to the benefits of being able to dump all heat with a special or have infinite shots (which are also building temp HP with every hit). You can hose down a boss with faceshots and have zero heat buildup; even stuff like trolls get readily murdered because it's just a constant stream of damage output, and their healing doesn't come close to outpacing the beam damage.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Is there any word on how they plan to fix the crit fishin? I would imagine they'll just change it to work with every tick of the beam instead of getting "locked" into crit hits, but even then, the beam hits so much that it will still amount to quite a lot of critting.
It is funny how every single Sienna is using beam staves right now.
I don't think I've been in a group without one in a couple of days (including me).
It's kind of her best staff. Fireball staves were never very good in Vermintide 1, and they seem to continue that proud tradition in V2. Conflagration is basically the fireball staff but better, and is a pretty decent staff, but you're still trading out single target power for better trash-killing compared to a beam. Flamethrower is fun, but you're trading away your ranged and single target capabilities to be even better at killing trash enemies (and if you really wanna throw flames, Ironbreaker can do it while being super tanky). Bolt staves are the closet competitive weapons, but personally I find them to generate heat a little too fast for my liking and I find their sniping capabilities more inconsistent than in the first game. The beam staff gives you sniping capabilities, good AoE, and crowd control capabilities and isn't too bad on heat generation.
Fireball staves were never very good in Vermintide 1...
Actually there was at least one period, and it’s when I spent most of my time running nightmare and cataclysm, where it was the best weapon in the game. Uncharged fireballs (level one) did more than the next balance pass and current Verm2 level three fireballs; they did have the small AoE like current level ones though but it didn’t matter.
Between bloodlust, hail of doom (chance to proc an extra projectile so two level one fireballs), aid or whatever it was called (on her red staff where if you attacked enemies hitting downed opponents their downed health increased), chance to vent on damage, and one or two other useful staff traits you could solo cataclysm on Sienna easily.
Are rat ogres given the same spawn chance and weight as other bosses? Because they're like, easily one-third the difficulty of a flamethrower ogre or bile troll.
Are rat ogres given the same spawn chance and weight as other bosses? Because they're like, easily one-third the difficulty of a flamethrower ogre or bile troll.
Stormfiends and Rat Ogres are both the easiest ones. The flamethrower's damage was neutered after the beta, so hes tanky but not really a threat. Rat Ogre can still take people out if they dont know what they're doing, but hes also much easier than bile troll or chaos spawn.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited March 2018
Yeah, stormfiend is a nothing boss if everybody knows to use cover decently and make sure to take their turns attacking. Not hard to get through that fight with pretty minimal damage.
I'd put chaos spawn down as the most difficult boss, because the entire run can fall apart instantly if he grabs one person (and it's not hard for him to land the grab, especially in the middle of a swarm). He's just too tanky in my opinion, given how much damage he can deal and also his huge attacks.
Stormfiends and Rat Ogres are IMHO Pretty easy. The Stormfiend even more so than the Rat Ogre, at least in my opinion (since the Stormfiend is far less mobile).
Bile Trolls and Chaos Spawn are worse by several magnitudes, mainly due to their control/stun powers and regen abilities.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited March 2018
Players can at least stack on the bile troll and attack pretty aggressively without getting caught with a quick big-ass attack. Its regen phase also actively works against it with a decent team, as everybody will get in there and smash it in the head to deal far more damage than it can heal. It's a tough fight, but a lot of it comes to people realizing they're getting aggroed and to start evading or blocking.
But the lack of a grab is what really sets it apart to me. If the blight spawn grabs you in the middle of a swarm, which happens very easily, you're fucked. Just about an instant down, no matter your health. Somebody might not even be able to reach the spawn with a special or bomb to interrupt the grab, either, and so the spawn ends up not only downing somebody easily but getting a chunk of HP as well. A bile troll might actually knock you out of a swarm if you pay attention on the block, in comparison.
Fireball staves were never very good in Vermintide 1...
Actually there was at least one period, and it’s when I spent most of my time running nightmare and cataclysm, where it was the best weapon in the game. Uncharged fireballs (level one) did more than the next balance pass and current Verm2 level three fireballs; they did have the small AoE like current level ones though but it didn’t matter.
Between bloodlust, hail of doom (chance to proc an extra projectile so two level one fireballs), aid or whatever it was called (on her red staff where if you attacked enemies hitting downed opponents their downed health increased), chance to vent on damage, and one or two other useful staff traits you could solo cataclysm on Sienna easily.
Ah, I never made it that far in Vermintide 1. I just recall never finding one of any value when I played, but I mostly played lower difficulties and had trash for loot.
Yeah, stormfiend is a nothing boss if everybody knows to use cover decently and make sure to take their turns attacking. Not hard to get through that fight with pretty minimal damage.
I'd put chaos spawn down as the most difficult boss, because the entire run can fall apart instantly if he grabs one person (and it's not hard for him to land the grab, especially in the middle of a swarm). He's just too tanky in my opinion, given how much damage he can deal and also his huge attacks.
Yeah, the only answer to the Chaos Spawn grabbing someone is to stagger it and you may simply not have anything capable of doing so. Especially if you get one early so you don't have bombs, you kind of just have to hope someone has an ability to do it. I was very pissed to find that Living Bomb does not interrupt it.
First Champion Run, make it to the end with two rescues. . .and the game spawns a hook rat and an Assassin out of nowhere. Nothing we could do. Shit like that just kills my interest in the game because it doesn't feel like a legit loss. Just feels cheap.
I was really hoping the sequel would have added a long clamored for feature: versus mode like Left 4 Dead where one team gets to play the specials spawning in to try and stop the other team of heroes.
Leveling up my midrange Saltzpyre in some veteran pugs and I join a group with two C9 members on it(from... apparently they have a PUBG team?) with one of them playing a level 25 Sienna, and that... well it was a pretty bog-standard run as far as runs go, but watching the habits of other Siennas can sometimes be confusing after 30+30 levels of hogging her. It's the gameplay of a Sienna that clearly isn't yet cognizant of how fragile Sienna actually is, I'll go with that. But it's veteran so I suppose he doesn't yet have to be.
On the topic of Saltzpyre though, Blessed Shots with ammo return on crit and a volley crossbow is some pretty toasty memes. It's pretty great/hilarious to snipe a special and get 2 ammo for it, or getting half my maximum ammo back every melee kill and firing a spread shot into a pack.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
The Stormfiend actually has a super-devastating melee sweep that it never uses. I feel like if whatever AI deadlock preventing its use is broken, meleeing Pack Master will get a lot riskier, which is probably what was intended.
Reddit has datamined the relative chances of getting a red(perfect) item per standard loot chest. It so far looks like the following(per chest, not per item):
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I know Slayer is kind of a dirty word around here but it's SO MUCH FUN. Duel hand axes work with my play style so well. When I get in the rhythm I am a tiny ginger tornado of fury, cleaving heads left and right. Being able to jump into a swarm of baddies, stun and come out unscathed is so much fun. The other night the party had gotten a little separated and someone was getting mobbed from all sides. I jumped on top of him and totally saved the day.
Its only a dirty word in pugs, if I know someone is a good player they can play whatever they'd like. if I join into a group and a slayer joins theres a 99% chance that we're carrying him through most of it because he dies so fast. I really enjoy slayer, but hes SUPER squishy and just melts if you fuck up, means that you need to be better at playing him than playing other classes, which just isn't something to be expected from pugs. Its the same thing with other classes too. Mercenary is super hard to fuck up, you see a pug foot knight? Hes charging through hordes, knocking them away from the cluster, and then hes going to die on the far side of the horde that you can't get to.
Even ironbreaker isn't a guaranteed decent run, I just had a champion pug where our fucking firebug ironbreaker light the entire group on fire every single encounter. He had the most damage dealt because he was burning the horde and his entire team every single time.
In other words, Rock that slayer, get better, faster, stronger, but be terrified when a slayer joins your quickmatch.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Yeah, if I drop into a game with a Slayer, I don't stick around. It's not worth my time to find out if they're one of the very rare Slayers that isn't going to jump away and die right when we need them against a swarm. I also commonly see Ironbreakers doing dumb stuff like focusing waaaay too much on their drake pistols, or (ugh) hosing down the team with the flamethrower.
I have no idea why people who pick the tanky classes are so resistant to tanking with them. The ones that are knocking down hordes and making a shield wall are the ones that make games go smoothly, not the ones blindly chopping away and trading hits with swarms off by themselves.
I just unlocked the Slayer too and he's great, assuming you have the hero power to take advantage of his A.speed buff to perma-stagger everything around you while you beat it to death. I did find his Leap more useful for the buff than the movement. Do feel like he'd benefit hugely from one of the temp-health Talents I've not got to yet and from the Talent that makes him more durable with stacks.
I also had a rather hilarious experience in Righteous Stand. At the very end, I was by the Health packs down the stairs from the cathedral doors and was trying for a short leap at the approaching Chaos Warrior. Somehow I bounced off the scenery, rammed through all the enemies on the stairs and ended up in front of the Cathedral doors. Way outside normal leap range.
If you leap and hit a slanted area, like stairs or hills or anything, you will continue on crazy far. Its happened a lot near the big tree in against the grain for me, or any stairway. It'll also fuck your camera as you go flying, making you look down. Something is buggy about the leap and slanted terrain.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
If you leap and hit a slanted area, like stairs or hills or anything, you will continue on crazy far. Its happened a lot near the big tree in against the grain for me, or any stairway. It'll also fuck your camera as you go flying, making you look down. Something is buggy about the leap and slanted terrain.
If you leap and hit a slanted area, like stairs or hills or anything, you will continue on crazy far. Its happened a lot near the big tree in against the grain for me, or any stairway. It'll also fuck your camera as you go flying, making you look down. Something is buggy about the leap and slanted terrain.
How does one play the BH efficiently? I was using the mace and single shot xbow.... getting outclassed all round.
I seem to suck with him after Kruber
I saw a kid get handed a JB poster by who I presume was his parents outside my store today....he tore it in half infront of his horrified parents.....There's hope for our youth yet!
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
For the Bounty Hunter, my melee weapons of choice are Two-Handed Sword and Flail, while my ranged weapons are anything that fires quickly, so the Volley Crossbow and Revolver.
As bounty hunter, at 15 your trait makes your next shot cost 0 when you use the blessed shots. Bring a volley crossbow. Every 10 seconds, or per melee kill, switch to volley cross bow, right click then left click to fire a triple volley of arrows. Those will be a guarantee crit, and cost 0 ammo because of the talent. Repeat until you've cleared the level.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
as a pre-level 15 Bounty Hunter, I prefer the rapier for the heavy jab and offhand pistol spam, and the brace of pistols for medium range special sniping or akimbo spamming on hordes. Unloading my special on Chaos Warriors also feels very satisfying.
Black lives matter.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
as a pre-level 15 Bounty Hunter, I prefer the rapier for the heavy jab and offhand pistol spam, and the brace of pistols for medium range special sniping or akimbo spamming on hordes. Unloading my special on Chaos Warriors also feels very satisfying.
I found myself very underwhelmed by the backup pistol on the Rapier. I recently picked up a 170ish power Rapier and its pistol can't even bodyshot a horde zombie on Veteran. At that point I'd rather just ignore that the feature exists in the first place.
How does one play the BH efficiently? I was using the mace and single shot xbow.... getting outclassed all round.
I seem to suck with him after Kruber
I saw a kid get handed a JB poster by who I presume was his parents outside my store today....he tore it in half infront of his horrified parents.....There's hope for our youth yet!
How does one play the BH efficiently? I was using the mace and single shot xbow.... getting outclassed all round.
I seem to suck with him after Kruber
Blessed Shots is an automatic critical hit on the next ranged attack, every 10 seconds or on a melee kill.
Level 15 has a talent that makes that attack consume no ammo
Ranged weapons can roll with a trait that makes critical hits return 2 ammo
Use a piercing, multi-attack weapon(volley crossbow)
????
Profit
This basically. I run with a volly bow that give ult charge on crit instead. Firing into hordes is tons of free charge. Never find myself running out of ammo as I mix a lot of melee in. Really both ways work depending on if you prefer more ranged or melee.
as a pre-level 15 Bounty Hunter, I prefer the rapier for the heavy jab and offhand pistol spam, and the brace of pistols for medium range special sniping or akimbo spamming on hordes. Unloading my special on Chaos Warriors also feels very satisfying.
I found myself very underwhelmed by the backup pistol on the Rapier. I recently picked up a 170ish power Rapier and its pistol can't even bodyshot a horde zombie on Veteran. At that point I'd rather just ignore that the feature exists in the first place.
Witch Hunter Salty makes good use of the off hand pistol given his headshot crits kill man sized enemies outright.
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I don't think I've been in a group without one in a couple of days (including me).
The point is greater availability than the 30% provides. During mook-heavy encounters(I'll even assert that with a BW on the team, rando bosses aren't actually the big threat of champ+), you'll get more uses out of it because you're hitting large amounts of enemies at once. Overheating is an irrelevant topic if you're not having overheating problems with either method, but having the special available more often is definitely a bigger bonus.
I really don't want to condone relying on abusing a mechanic that Fatshark has already said they're going to fix(crit fishing), so I'm just talking in terms of average availability. In practical terms I don't like relying on that(especially as the center of a build) because the beam isn't armor piercing, which is... bad. And time you're spending trying to get a crit is both time you're not actually killing something, and time you're spending channeling while nearly immobile with a scoped camera. Given how often enemies love to flank and the fact that BW is made of wet paper, I'm generally paranoid of not being able to always have an eye on my surroundings.
It's also one of the best in the game for killing the armored shield rats and shielded chaos mooks as well, once you get the timing down. Channel the beam until you see the stagger animation and then immediately burst them, and they die. Melee only wish they could kill them that easily.
The beam staff can "lock" the crit hit state, which means you can activate the crit state during the entire beam duration to constantly dump heat and essentially have infinite beam (with the right stave trait).
The benefits of high overcharge are really slim compared to the benefits of being able to dump all heat with a special or have infinite shots (which are also building temp HP with every hit). You can hose down a boss with faceshots and have zero heat buildup; even stuff like trolls get readily murdered because it's just a constant stream of damage output, and their healing doesn't come close to outpacing the beam damage.
It's kind of her best staff. Fireball staves were never very good in Vermintide 1, and they seem to continue that proud tradition in V2. Conflagration is basically the fireball staff but better, and is a pretty decent staff, but you're still trading out single target power for better trash-killing compared to a beam. Flamethrower is fun, but you're trading away your ranged and single target capabilities to be even better at killing trash enemies (and if you really wanna throw flames, Ironbreaker can do it while being super tanky). Bolt staves are the closet competitive weapons, but personally I find them to generate heat a little too fast for my liking and I find their sniping capabilities more inconsistent than in the first game. The beam staff gives you sniping capabilities, good AoE, and crowd control capabilities and isn't too bad on heat generation.
The flamethrower currently does it per tick. I'm sure they'll just switch it to be more like that.
Between bloodlust, hail of doom (chance to proc an extra projectile so two level one fireballs), aid or whatever it was called (on her red staff where if you attacked enemies hitting downed opponents their downed health increased), chance to vent on damage, and one or two other useful staff traits you could solo cataclysm on Sienna easily.
pretty good now
Stormfiends and Rat Ogres are both the easiest ones. The flamethrower's damage was neutered after the beta, so hes tanky but not really a threat. Rat Ogre can still take people out if they dont know what they're doing, but hes also much easier than bile troll or chaos spawn.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
I'd put chaos spawn down as the most difficult boss, because the entire run can fall apart instantly if he grabs one person (and it's not hard for him to land the grab, especially in the middle of a swarm). He's just too tanky in my opinion, given how much damage he can deal and also his huge attacks.
Bile Trolls and Chaos Spawn are worse by several magnitudes, mainly due to their control/stun powers and regen abilities.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
But the lack of a grab is what really sets it apart to me. If the blight spawn grabs you in the middle of a swarm, which happens very easily, you're fucked. Just about an instant down, no matter your health. Somebody might not even be able to reach the spawn with a special or bomb to interrupt the grab, either, and so the spawn ends up not only downing somebody easily but getting a chunk of HP as well. A bile troll might actually knock you out of a swarm if you pay attention on the block, in comparison.
Ah, I never made it that far in Vermintide 1. I just recall never finding one of any value when I played, but I mostly played lower difficulties and had trash for loot.
Yeah, the only answer to the Chaos Spawn grabbing someone is to stagger it and you may simply not have anything capable of doing so. Especially if you get one early so you don't have bombs, you kind of just have to hope someone has an ability to do it. I was very pissed to find that Living Bomb does not interrupt it.
On the topic of Saltzpyre though, Blessed Shots with ammo return on crit and a volley crossbow is some pretty toasty memes. It's pretty great/hilarious to snipe a special and get 2 ammo for it, or getting half my maximum ammo back every melee kill and firing a spread shot into a pack.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/84tmn1/drop_values_from_datamined_loot_table_for_red_gear/
<=Champ Soldier's: 0%
Champ General's: 1.5%
Champ Emperor's: 4.8%
Legend Peasant's: 3.4%
Legend Commoner's: 4.3%
Legend Merchant's: 7.7%
Legend Soldier's: 9.1%
Legend General's: 10.1%
Legend Emperor's: 16.7%
Even ironbreaker isn't a guaranteed decent run, I just had a champion pug where our fucking firebug ironbreaker light the entire group on fire every single encounter. He had the most damage dealt because he was burning the horde and his entire team every single time.
In other words, Rock that slayer, get better, faster, stronger, but be terrified when a slayer joins your quickmatch.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
I have no idea why people who pick the tanky classes are so resistant to tanking with them. The ones that are knocking down hordes and making a shield wall are the ones that make games go smoothly, not the ones blindly chopping away and trading hits with swarms off by themselves.
I also had a rather hilarious experience in Righteous Stand. At the very end, I was by the Health packs down the stairs from the cathedral doors and was trying for a short leap at the approaching Chaos Warrior. Somehow I bounced off the scenery, rammed through all the enemies on the stairs and ended up in front of the Cathedral doors. Way outside normal leap range.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
example
I'm sorry, but that is fuckin' hilarious.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Very practical.
I seem to suck with him after Kruber
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
Let me know what my crit rate is
I found myself very underwhelmed by the backup pistol on the Rapier. I recently picked up a 170ish power Rapier and its pistol can't even bodyshot a horde zombie on Veteran. At that point I'd rather just ignore that the feature exists in the first place.
I seem to suck with him after Kruber
Blessed Shots is an automatic critical hit on the next ranged attack, every 10 seconds or on a melee kill.
Level 15 has a talent that makes that attack consume no ammo
Ranged weapons can roll with a trait that makes critical hits return 2 ammo
Use a piercing, multi-attack weapon(volley crossbow)
????
Profit
This basically. I run with a volly bow that give ult charge on crit instead. Firing into hordes is tons of free charge. Never find myself running out of ammo as I mix a lot of melee in. Really both ways work depending on if you prefer more ranged or melee.
Witch Hunter Salty makes good use of the off hand pistol given his headshot crits kill man sized enemies outright.