Warhammer: Vermintide II is a first-person action game developed by FatShark. First released in 2018, FatShark has enhanced the experience significantly, adding essential quality-of-life upgrades, additional character classes, and new levels, making Vermintide II the most accessible it’s ever been for new players. While the new player experience was streamlined last December, the tutorials don’t tell you everything.

Experiment with other characters and classes: Don’t be afraid to try out each of the characters and classes to find what works best for you. I initially started with Kerillian and got her to max level before trying out Sienna. While I enjoyed playing as Kerillian quite a bit, I found out that I preferred Sienna’s playstyle more. Now, she is my main for co-op going forward. Character levels apply to all of their classes, so there is no downside to rotating between classes and trying new builds out as you get a hang of the mechanics.

Take advantage of experience point bonuses to level up characters: You can gain numerous boosts to experience points. For example, playing through each level with each character at least once will grant you a bonus. On top of that, all levels in Vermintide II multiply your experience based on the difficulty, and you can replay levels as many times as you want. Take advantage of these boosts to level up the party.

Equip Weapons, Charms, and Trinkets with Properties: Weapons, Charms, and Trinkets can come with a variety of Properties that can increase your stats by percentages denoted in blue text. These Properties can include enhancements such as:

• Increasing character HP
• Improving character block rates
• Increasing critical hit rates
• Increasing character Skill cooldowns

While the raw power of these items is important and worth pursuing, assessing the Properties and stacking critical hit rates or Skill cooldowns can make a huge difference in your efficacy in battle. At higher levels, these items come with special abilities that can reduce the damage you take or significantly increase the power of potions found in levels.

Equip all of your party members: If you’re not playing co-op, your AI-controlled party members still benefit from having weapons and items equipped. All bots use the weapons and equipment given to them by the host, making it essential to level your whole team and outfit them if you’re playing solo. Be sure to level up and equip everyone, as this will strengthen your team.

Always keep moving: Enemies will come at you from all directions. It’s rare that you can stay in one place at a time, so it’s important to always keep moving and be aware of your surroundings.

Clear out enemy swarms as they come: You can’t always control where you will be when a swarm of enemies come. But if you position yourself to block and strike their entrance as they fall from above or climb up from below, this will prevent them from getting a hit on you and help clear them out. Try to funnel swarms into choke points.

Open Spoils of War chests: As you complete levels, you receive chests that unlock new Weapons, Charms, and Trinkets that you can equip your characters with. Be sure to open the chests as you gain them, as they will increase the rarity and levels of items you can acquire. Every chest you open has a chance to raise your power level a certain number of points. Power affects the amount of damage dealt, the amount you stagger an enemy with a hit, and the number of enemies you can attack at once. Higher power levels also open up higher difficulties, and with those higher difficulties, better loot and more experience. Power level maxes out at 300 for items.

Use heavy charged attacks: Mashing the attack button is an effective strategy, but if you press and hold it, your character will charge up a heavy attack. This is handy not just for staggering enemies and breaking through armor (and dealing more damage), but also for completing certain mission objectives faster. For example, some missions require you to destroy chains or barriers with melee attacks. Using heavy charged attacks for these objectives will enable you to complete the mission that much faster and deal with swarms efficiently. Keep in mind that every weapon has a different combo. Some weapons work better for taking out groups of foes, while others will quickly wear down a single target. In your inventory, check the weapon’s properties to see three tags that hint at what a weapon is best for.

Salvage and Craft Items: Salvaging low-level equipment and charms gives you resources for crafting. While you can start crafting right away, it’s encouraged that you save your resources until you’re at a higher level. Being at a higher level increases the quality of weapons and equipment you can craft. Until your character is at power level 300, only craft the weapons and gear you need at any given time.

Collect Tomes and Grimoires: Each level has three Tomes and two Grimoires that you can find. Doing so increases the rarity of Spoils of War chests and grant experience points bonuses. They will not count as collected unless you successfully complete a level. All Tomes or all Grimoires in a level must be collected during one run for the level selection to check it off your list. It’s worth finding them, but there are a couple of key things to note:

1. Tomes will take up an inventory slot, meaning that you can’t carry healing items. You can always swap out the Tome for medical supplies in an emergency and then pick it up again, though.
2. Grimoires also take up an inventory slot and cannot be put down. On top of that, they apply a curse that reduces the entire party’s overall HP by ⅓. This can make the levels more challenging as you have less room for error, so it may be worth saving the Grimoire collection for another, separate run. Lastly, while there are some Trinkets that reduce the effects of the Grimoire’s HP reduction, there are better, more useful effects to prioritize for Trinkets.

With these tips and tricks, you can overcome the swarms of enemies in Warhammer: Vermintide II.

Featured Image: FatShark (via Steam)

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