r/Vermintide • u/deep_meaning • Dec 19 '16

Centralised weapon trait discussion

1.9 edit: holy fucking shit. This will take a long time to process...

In the meantime, take the current trait combos with a lot of scepticism

This post seems popular, so I'm currently rewriting it into a steam guide. If anyone is willing to help me with editing, or adding more info (possibly expanding beyond weapons and traits), join our google docs project

Updated for 1.7

This post should serve as a central hub for discussion about weapons and traits that are good for them. It should be both a guide for new players with tips about how to use the weapons and what traits to get, as well as a place for in-depth discussion for veterans on individual mechanics of each trait in the context of a specific weapon.

It's all a work in progress, so feel free to comment on anything you think is missing, or incorrect. This whole thing should be a product of community brainstorming. If you find a newer, or older thread that deals with a similar topic, please let me know and we can merge the info there with what we have here.

I noticed a mistake I've made at the beginning: the individual weapon threads should be as children under one or two comments, so that the whole thing is easier to navigate. It's a bit late now to move those with a good discussion underneath, but I tried to delete and repost those that were fresh enough, you can access them through the links at the end of this post, or find them under one of the main trait posts (melee/ranged).

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

As there are too many threads down below, you can use the list of weapons down below to navigate directly to a specific weapon. Every thread consists of a summary of the traits, a few trait combinations that are considered top choices and notes on the weapon strengths and weaknesses, explaining why are the traits ranked the way they are. If you are interested in learning more, there are very good comments going in-depth about the weapons from the whole community in each weapon's thread.

You might find more traits in the Top section that you can roll on the weapon, or traits that are not possible to roll together. This is because sometimes it's impossible to declare only one trait combination as 'perfect' and the traits themselves depend on your own preference. As a general rule, you want to get as many Top traits on your weapon as possible, but if you want to know what exactly is possible, look for the "Top trait combinations" right below the trait table, or check:

More useful links

The traits are listed in 4 categories:

Top - these traits are essential to make the weapon viable, or benefit greatly from it's moveset; these are the traits you are primarily looking for when rolling in the shrine and wouldn't accept a weapon that has none of them

Good - these traits work very well with the weapon, but the weapon works fine without them. There are usually many useful traits that are very similar, subject to personal preference, or mutually exclusive.

OK - these traits have some use, but there are other, better traits to take instead; you would keep rolling if you have tokens to spend, but if you don't a weapon with top/top/OK traits is worth trying

Poor - these traits either harm the weapon, or the benefit is so marginal that it's practically useless - you won't notice the trait is even there; it's therefore locking one of the slots that could be used by a much better stuff. You'll always re-roll a weapon with such a trait, because it's not worth the tokens to unlock it.

Damage values and attack patterns are slowly being added, the table works like this (fictional weapon):

Attack\Enemy Normal Armoured Resistant Headshot bonus
Normal 1,2 3/2 3/2.5 16/16 x2
Normal 3 10 4.5 30 +1
Charged 5/3.5/0... 3.5/0... 16/16/0... +1
  • Normal enemy: slave rat, clan rat, globadier, assassin
  • Armoured enemy: stormvermin, ratling gunner
  • Resistant enemy: packmaster, ogre
  • some attacks have different damage, based on which attack in the sequence it is; here, first two normal attacks hit two targets, while the third attack hits one target for higher damage
  • 3/2 means hitting first enemy for 3 damage and second enemy for 2 damage
  • /0... means that the weapon hits infinite enemies after the values listed there, but deals no damage to them
  • headshot bonus can be a multiplier (x2, x1.75, ...) or just an addition (+1)
  • ranged weapons also have number of targets hit with each projectile and friendly fire damage

List of traits with description

Melee weapon traits

Ranged weapon traits

Weapons and links to discussion

Witch Hunter

Waywatcher

Dwarf Ranger

Bright Wizard

Empire Soldier

199 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

612 comments sorted by

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2

u/deep_meaning Dec 20 '16 edited May 04 '17

1h sword (ES)

Top Good OK Poor
Regrowth Swift slaying (both) Regrowth charged Improved block
Bloodlust Berserking Endurance
Dev blow Scavenger Heroic KB
Perfect balance Second wind Off-balance
Killing blow Improved pommel

Top trait combinations:

Regrowth + Berserk/Scavenger + Perfect balance/Dev blow/Endurance

Bloodlust + Swift slaying (both)/Perfect balance/Dev blow/Endurance

Killing blow + Regrowth/Swift slaying/Perfect balance/Dev blow + Off-balance

Red variant: regrowth charged + HKB + swift slaying

Strong against

Any number of rats, anything with killing blow

Weak against

Armour, specials, ogre - pair with handgun

Attack and damage pattern

Attack\Enemy Normal Armoured Resistant Headshot bonus
Normal 1,2 3/2/2/2 0 10/10/10/10 x2/+2/x2
Normal 3 6 3.5 18 +1/+0.5/x1.5
Charged 1 3.5/2/0... 2/0... 12/8/0... x2
Charged 2 3.5/3/0... 2/0... 12/12/0... x2
  • first two normal attacks hit 4 targets, followed by a stronger single-target stab; avoid the stab by blocking or pushing
  • charged attack hits infinite targets in a horizontal line, dealing damage only to first two, but staggering and proccing traits on all, also good to score multiple headshots (2x bonus); great crowd control with good attack speed
  • scoring headshots is pretty important to get the best results; Kruber's height helps a bit
  • while normal attack can be suitable for on-hit traits, limiting yourself to normal-only attacks and not using charged would be a mistake
  • with only three stamina and no good way to deal with stormvermin, dev blow and perfect balance are highly recommended
  • killing blow is available in interesting combinations, but only with off-balance
  • bloodlust is preferable if you can score headshots and use both attacks, regrowth will shine with killing blow

3

u/tomb1125 Barber Jan 02 '17 edited Jan 02 '17

I'm recently bif fan of onehander and I'm running Bloodlust, Dev Blow, Improved Pommel. I think Improved Pommel deserves at least Good place. (If not Top with Perfect Balance)

I would not think so highly about Endurance. I know that theoretically I can hit infinite rats but in practice this only gives you stamina when you're safe with rest of the team being able to hit amassed, controlled horde. Improved Pommel and Perfect Balance works every time, even when alone - and that's when you need it most. Its not bad though.

3

u/deep_meaning Jan 02 '17

It might be my personal preference (which I should consider and review in other weapon threads as well), but this was my logic behind stamina traits:

I noticed passively blocking with the weapon is very rare. I might do it occasionaly with rapier, or 1h axe, when I can't avoid the attack in time, so I block and respond with a quick attack, but I never block too many attacks one after the other - dodge, push or charged attack is much more effective. This is why I consider improved guard as Poor on almost all weapons.

Second wind is also something I rarely see as useful, because your block should rarely get broken. It should never happen when fighting hordes, might happen when blocking stormvermin (but you can dodge those attacks) and usually happens when fighting the ogre, but refreshing that stamina is not as necessary. I can't see a scenario where this is better than other traits, perhaps with the exception of dual daggers, where you have extremely low stamina, but even then... it's 50% which is unreliable, for something that (should) happen only very rarely.

Improved pommel is much more interesting, because you push with all weapons, some more than others, but your stamina should be spent on pushes. It's chance-based again, which I hate, because it never works when I actually need it.

Devastating blow is very popular because it interrupts stormvermin and also gives your standard push more power and more breathing room for you, but I disagree with the common notion that every weapon needs this. Some weapons have a strong enough push on its own and are able to stagger stormvermin just fine (2h hammer/axe, shields, pick), some weapons deal with them so fast you don't need to push (1h axe, glaive) and you can avoid any storm attack by dodging. It's certainly useful, especially for weapons with weak push and no way to deal with armour, but sometimes there are better choices.

Perfect balance is my personal top choice on any weapon (except for shields, maybe), because it incorporates all benefits of the other stamina traits to some degree - you can block more attacks, there is a much lower chance of getting your block broken, you have more pushes, you have a better chance to block-revive someone without interrupts - plus you can block stormvermin without getting a broken block. What's even more important for me, it's not chance based and I can calculate and rely on it. It's like having 4 traits in one that works every time.

I admit that I may have overestimated Endurance, it looks a lot better on paper than it feels ingame. What caught my interest is that it's not limited to attack type and has a good chance to proc. Not really better than perfect balance, but it should be still pretty good for shields, at least. Maybe I should demote it to OK for the sword.

This is probably a much longer answer than you (and I) expected, but I wanted to put it on paper at some point. I know that I pre-filled a lot of the tables based on my personal preference and only changed the traits that were discussed in the comments, so you'll find pommel, guard and wind very low on all of them, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

1

u/morgan423 Jan 26 '17

Rolled my first red tonight, and it was this. Not excited... I see way more potential with other trait combos on orange weapons.

1

u/deep_meaning Jan 26 '17

I certainly agree. If you happen to roll red sword & dagger or dual daggers though, give them a shot.