Coming back to the game after a long absence. Any tips on getting back into the meta?
Haven't played since about three months after launch so obviously a lot has changed. When I was playing before I was playing the dwarf mostly with axe and shield since that seemed to be working for me.
So with that being said are there any tips or things I should be aware of? Crafting had just been introduced though I haven't really tried anything with it.
Posted Dec 16, 2016, 1:31 AM UTC
47
The massive weapon balance patch just hit two days ago. There is no meta yet.
Things to be aware of- Block while reviving by holding it before and throughout, blocks and pushes are 360. Stormvermin are much more common now. All weapons are now viable at least up to nightmare- 1h weapons like 1h axe are good at dodging and are very fast and have buffed damage compared to release.
Daily Quest system exists to incentivise doing different maps. Beat all 13 non-DLC maps on any difficulty to unlock. It lets you work slowly towards guaranteed item drops (different random items on offer each day, but you can only get a small fraction of them and need to focus) and also gives you copious crafting tokens.
DLC exists- each provides 3 new maps and 2 new weapons. The weapons only can drop on the DLC levels and can't be prayed for (see later). If you're in a premade group of friends, only the host needs to own the DLC. You must own the DLC to do daily quests on the map.
Loot Trinkets were added in 1.1. I don't know if 1.1 and the Shrine of Sigmar were around when you played. You can wear these free trinkets (check your inventory) to about double the chances of getting weapons for that character. Reduces hat and trinket drop chances since some of those will be overwritten by weapons. Great for new players.
Loot Tables were buffed massively- nightmare almost always rewards a blue (maybe a 2% chance of a green on short levels) and often oranges. Even easy rewards greens half the time, and hard is a good place to get blues now. Very good for new players.
Red Weapons were added to Nightmare and Cataclysm modes- they are rarer than orange, only available on a roll of 7 (or 6 on some cataclysm loot tables). They have a guaranteed 3 traits, some of which are otherwise unobtainable combinations. Otherwise they are the same as oranges- same base damage. Most of them are just gimmick weapons with a unique and fancy skin. They are usually less good than a perfect orange, but one or two like the Drakefires or the Sword and Dagger are equal or better. S&D is the only one that is superior to a perfect orange. Red Hats also exist. Each Red can only drop if you don't have it in your inventory, so you can steadily collect them all guaranteed (if you can roll enough 7s). Consequently, never salvage a Red, even if you don't like it, so it's out of the drop tables.
Things you can do with crafting tokens:
Unlock items' traits. Costs 1 tier less (blue for orange, green for blue, white for green). Costs more for each trait. 60 Blue (10 then 20 then 30) for an orange weapon's traits is quite a drain on your blue stocks.
Fuse less than 5 items at the forge- fee depends on how few you put in. Fusion always picks from among the items put in, so you can control what you get out that way without having to grind up 5 identical weapons. Sometimes it's worth it to fuse a single blue item with 300 blue tokens to get a guaranteed orange of that type (if it's a rare DLC-map weapon, say). It'll also let you fuse, say, 3 blues of the same type and 90 blue tokens to get a guaranteed orange of that type.
Pray at the shrine for random weapons for a character. Pay tokens of the same colour as the weapon. Costs quite a bit more if you want it to be melee or ranged guaranteed. Inefficient if you're seeking out a specific item except at the lowest colours. Good to build weapon diversity.
Offer at the shrine: Pay same-type tokens to reforge an item's traits. Most efficient on oranges. You can keep your old traits (including that they stay unlocked) or you can pick the new set. So pay 60 orange for 10 rerolls, pick between your current traits and 10 new sets (one after the other).
Invocate at the shrine: Pay same-type tokens to reroll an item's unlocked trait percentage. Best to do on oranges. You keep the higher. So say, pick your bloodlust trait, pay 40 orange for 10 rerolls, pick the highest of 11 rolls (including your initial roll).
These make getting good items (2 good traits, 1 acceptable, with okay to good percents) much easier, and getting perfect items (exact 3 traits, high percentage rolls on them) possible.
Thanks a ton, sounds like they've balanced everything so I assume group comp isn't that big a deal?
Any character is viable up to cataclysm, even solo w/ 3 bots cataclysm, or true solo nightmare. So it's definitely not a big deal which character you like.
However, weapons serve definite roles- the volley crossbow is an ogre vaporiser, the bolt staff snipes specials, conflagration destroys groups of enemies, etc. While weapons can do eachother's roles, they aren't as good at it. Many weapons straddle roles, too (repeater pistol is an ogre killer that also kills specials at close range, hagbane is an ogre killer that can deal with specials and clumped-up slaves well, etc.)
A well balanced team wants at least 1, ideally 2 special killers. 1 ogre killer is nice to have if your team is bad at kiting him. 1 (no mroe than 2) horde-thinners like blunderbuss, conflag, or fireball is best.
You can beat a level with 2 shotguns, a conflagration and a swiftbow (all weapons focused on killing little rats), but it's much better if you have, say, 2 Handguns, 1 Fireball and 1 Hagbane.
If you're hotjoining a group and don't know what they have, it's usually best to take a special killer, as specials and stormvermin are the most dangerous enemy type. Better to have more special killing weapon than necessary than none. But you can probably bring whatever you like as long as you're good with it.
Melee weapons are less specialised, but it's usually good if at least one person has a 2h hammer or weapon+shield to help keep hordes in check. You don't really need two, though, and otherwise everyone can take what they like.
On the other hand, your skill with using a weapon matters, too. These are only rules of thumb- a bad 2h hammer user who sucks with the handgun is worse even if he fills the 'roles' a team needs, and he should use what he's good at (say, 2h Sword and Blunderbuss).
Thanks again! Your answers were exactly what I was looking for. I'll just dive in and start working my way through the missions on the regular difficulty and climb the gear ladder as I go but this will help me hit the ground running.
Cheers! If you have any questions or whatnot, feel free to ask, either in a personal message or via posting a thread.
Also, in your keybinds menu (assuming you play PC), bind "Manual Dodge" (by default it is unbound but necessary for good play IMO) and consider what your Ping (highlight item or special enemy in blue and your character mentions it) button is (default T). You should also consider setting in the game options Outlines from On (show only when friends are occluded) to Always On (friends are always outlined in green) to make them easier to track.
One important fact about the game is that it has a lot of room for skill. You can have the best gear in the game and not be able to complete nightmare if you're bad, and you can have white gear and complete cataclysm mode sometimes if you're the best players in the world. I myself did nightmare in greens back in the old days when relevant gear was super hard to get. While gear helps due to increasing base damage and having good traits (especially healing traits), skill and experience is much more important in the end.
Always work on your dodging, blocking, and situational awareness. Listen for special enemies before characters announce them, because sometimes they don't. Try to fight enemies in good defensive terrain like corners or chokepoints, but never on slopes or stairs as their animations have less telegraphing then. It's possible to complete levels with under 50 damage taken if you're careful and skilled as absent a bug no hits are unavoidable.
If you want more tips, consult this newbie tip set I made earlier- https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/5i38ve/as_a_new_player_on_console/db5vwox/?context=3
I'm a returning player from launch and do not have these trinkets in my inventory, is there any way to get them?
They should have been installed automatically. Do you have listen in steam the Shrine of Sigmar DLC as installed? It's free. If not, author a post about it. Perhaps you can ping fatshark for aid,