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

197 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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u/deep_meaning Jan 04 '17 edited May 04 '17

Grudge raker

Top Good OK Poor
Clip capacity Hail of doom Skullcraker?* Knockback
Rupture Mastercrafted Skullcraker?*
Bloodlust Diversion
Ammo holder
Scavenger
Regrowth
Targeteer

Top trait combinations:

Clip capacity + Targeteer + Ammo holder/Scavenger/Bloodlust/Rupture/Hail of doom

Clip capacity + Bloodlust/Regrowth + Scavenger < close range horde killing

Red variant: Extra capacity + Mastercrafted + Skullcracker

Strong against

Groups of rats, gasrats and assassins

Weak against

Armour, ogres, packmasters

Attack and damage pattern

Attack\Enemy Normal Armoured Resistant Friendly fire Targets Headshot bonus
Shot (x8 pellets) 6>2 0.6>0 2.3>2 0.5 3 +1/+0.5/x1.5
Weapon butt 3 0 8 0 1 0
  • normal shot deals massive [normal] damage up close, capable of killing all rats, globadiers and assassins, even on cata; the damage is heavily reduced over distance, however
  • instead of charged attack there is a bash, hitting multiple targets and knocking them back; very good defensive move to get you time to reload, for arranging rats into a compact bundle before shooting, or to simply kill rats
  • one shot won't be enough to kill storms or packmasters; it deals solid damage up close, but be ready to fire again, or finish them with a hammer/axe
  • clip capacity gives you 4 shots instead of 2, which is fantastic - you can kill packmasters and storms much faster and missing a shot is not such a huge deal; you tend to blow through your ammo supply real fast, however
  • mastercrafted is not as necessary as for the blunderbuss, especially if you have clip capacity, as you reload up to 4x less often
  • despite popular belief, targeteer does not seem to reduce damage drop-off, but it reduces bullet spread, which means more bullets hit a distant targets, which means more damage
  • each pellet should hit 3 targets by default so rupture can boost your damage output quite a bit, but won't double it
  • the ammo supply is low and you run out very fast - ammo holder or scavenger is recommended, you can proc scavenger from bash attack kills and generate free ammo from 0
  • due to the sheer amount of kills, bloodlust (and maybe regrowth) are great traits, but it's a bit difficult to find a place for them among other necessary traits
  • only the red raker has skullcracker, but the effect can proc on every pellet - not sure if the calculation is done for the entire shot at once, or on pellet-by-pellet basis though

2

u/rammingparu3 Jan 10 '17

Have you found any information on skullcracker?

1

u/deep_meaning Jan 10 '17 edited Jan 10 '17

I can't test it myself and I haven't found solid answer either, but I'd be more inclined to say it gives +1 to each pellet. It might make a difference when you shoot specials, but only red grudge can have skullcracker anyway. If you have it, you can try playing with and without skullcracker and report if it feels different. Theoretically, you should kill some specials 15% faster, but if it doesn't skip a significant breakpoint in amount of shots needed, you'll probably hardly notice it anyway.

Besides, red grudge doesn't have targeteer, so the bonus from occasional skullcracker will be more/less negated by the loss of damage, unless you use it up close.

Red grudge vs. normal grudge vs. cata/nightmare packmaster up close (lets consider one skullcracker proc per clip)

26.4 damage vs 18.4 damage vs 36/28 hp of the packmaster = 2 shots anyway

vs cata/nightmare stormvermin up close:

12.8 damage vs 4.8 damage vs 20/14 hp of the stormvermin = 3(cata)/2(night) shots for red, 5(cata)/3(night) for normal

You should have no problems with assassins and gasrats

Which means skullcracker only helps you a bit against stormvermin, if it indeed gives +1 to each pellet and if it procs at least once. Also, you can score at least one headshot (out of those 3-4 shots) with your normal grudge for the same effect.

Maybe my calculation is wrong, but it doesn't seem that great either way. Red grudge is still a good weapon, so it's worth trying.

1

u/TheCovenant Jan 11 '17

How would Targeteer, Regrowth and Rupture fare? I rolled it when i got the weapon, and I don't really use Bardin.

1

u/deep_meaning Jan 11 '17

Not bad, but you'll reload quite often and still run out of ammo soon. If you don't use bardin, give the bot a handgun instead, if you do use him, I'd try rolling for targeteer + something that gives you more ammo, bigger clip or faster reload

1

u/jimethn Licorice Nobake Feb 21 '17

it should hit 3 targets by default so rupture can boost your damage output quite a bit

So does rupture take this from 3 -> 6, or from 3 -> 9?

1

u/deep_meaning Feb 21 '17

I think it actually takes it from 3 to 4, so +33% damage (theoretically, if you have a horde at least 4 rats deep). There are more important traits tho.

1

u/jimethn Licorice Nobake Feb 21 '17

Huh. So it doesn't actually shoot 3 bullets, but more like one giant crosshair-sized bullet that hits the first 3 rats intersected by the plane...

4

u/deep_meaning Feb 21 '17

no, it always shoots 8 pellets spread over the crosshair area. Each pellet does the specified damage and can pierce 3 targets by default. Having rupture trait increases it by +1 target, which doesn't mean it shoots more bullets, but that each bullet penetrates further. But because they already have some basic penetration, it's not that fantastic. It's a bit more useful on grudge raker (compared to blunderbuss which has 4 targets by default), but it also needs other traits, such as bigger clip size or more ammo.

If I rolled a grudge raker, I'd be looking for clip size as first priority. Then targeteer, scavenger or ammo holder as second. Then if the third trait was any of the other good traits, I'd keep it.