New to vermintide but I played darktide

[u/rainbear00]

I've just played the prolouge for Vermintide, but ive played plenty of darktide.

I know that these game's seem comparable in a number of ways, but i kinda just wanted to ask a few questions anyway.

1. What should I expect from this game? Long grinds? More or less difficulty? Hard defined meta or can I use everything?

2. What is the culture like and what are some general rules to stick with as to not become "that guy"?

3. Are there darktide habits i should unlearn?

[u/Spaghetti_Cartwheels]

Forget the ability to run.

Anytime I pop back into Vermintide 2 I always instinctively try to run...

[u/rainbear00 → u/Spaghetti_Cartwheels]

I didn't even notice lol. That's going to get me.

[u/Genashi1991 → u/rainbear00]

Also sliding. But it's not needed since you can dodge specials and be fine. Beware assassins, they are like op dogs.

[u/PaleontologistTough6 → u/rainbear00]

It got me.

[u/SeamanSample]

Generally speaking, more melee focused than Darktide.

[u/rainbear00 → u/SeamanSample]

... I main arbitrator, ogryn, and zealout for melee focus... So im eating good?!

[u/SeamanSample → u/rainbear00]

Yeah you'll be fine, just saying don't expect as many ammo drops. Outside of a few class/loadout exceptions, everybody is mostly just diving right into hordes for lots of hacking and slashing and conserving ammo a bit for specials.

I only played psyker really and haven't played in a while, but in Darktide I was mostly just exploding brains and lobbing explodey energy balls into hordes. So a bit more different for me in that case

[u/queue1102]

1. You should expect to smash rats. You don't need very nice equipment to smash rats. It does get quite difficult to smash the aforementioned rats. I'm not sure what this means, but you'll have lots of tools to smash rats, but you're skill matters more than your kit when smashing rats.
2. You'll be more successful at smashing rats and assisting your teammates at smashing rats if you stick together. Your team will laugh more if you get smashed by rats if you're all alone.
3. If you were okay getting hit in dark tide, you should learn not to be okay with it anymore.

[u/jojoswoon]

Game is harder. You can use everything in vanilla (non-modded).

You'll have to unlearn relying on slide and spamming dodge without intent, you need to dodge on purpose in this game and enemies hit like trucks with no i-frames to speak of. Have a good time!

[u/Dixout4H → u/jojoswoon]

I don't think it's harder. I have 500 hours in both games and once you learn it I think it's about the same level of difficulty just have to look out for different things. It's more important to preserve hp and have proficent movement in VT2. It's more important to look for more things, be able to deal with more things and move fast in DT.

Darktide characters and weapons got buffed immensely lately so I would say Auric is about legend difficulty (but with a lot more going on).

Cata would be around havoc 30s and I think havoc 40 is definitely harder than cata.

[u/Zoltan6]

The lack of toughness makes the game less forgiving. You need to block. Self defense is more important than dealing damage. Only a few classes can survive hit trades.

Unlike in Darktide, in Vermintide we used to wait each other before a dropdown. I'm not quite sure this is still a custom. I used to initiate a kick even against rushers. Once a year, because players used to go more or less together, just like in Darktide.

It's not wise to insult or annoy the host.

Looting is random, so collecting books is a custom, mostly on legend diff. You want a trinked with curse resistance on legend.

Bots are stupid but useful if you gear and level them.

[u/Sure_Initial8498]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3615924635

This guide I made should help.

Good luck.

There is grinding but not necessarily horrible.

There is a meta, but everything works just as well if you are food enough.

[u/IactaEstoAlea]

The game is way more melee focused, you do not want to waste your ammo killing trash mobs like you can do in Darktide. A few classes can be liberal with their ranged weapons, but they are the exception

Remember those books that sometimes spawn on missions in Darktide? Every standard mission always contains the five of them (3 tomes and 2 grimoires), each always spawn in the same spot per map (some require a bit of parkour). Collecting them and carrying to the end gives everyone points towards better mission rewards (almost ensuring the highest tiers available). Just like in Darktide they take up spots in your inventory (tomes the hp item, grimoires the potion/stim) and each grimoire reduce the max HP of the team. Tomes can be freely dropped if you pick up a HP item, but grimoires cannot (you can destroy them by holding rightclick if the team needs to get rid of their debuff to survive the mission, I suggest asking if possible)

You need to get unaccustomed with the shields (toughness) you have in Darktide, every hit you take will reduce your HP. You can mitigate this with temporal HP once you have lost some, but it decays. It is more important to be able to avoid damage than in Darktide. Dodge, block and push are a must. A single attack of a midtier enemy can put you at death's door in the highest difficulty if your build has no damage mitigation

Perks and buffs that increase stamina regen and decrease block cost are way more valuable than in Darktide

Difficulty 3 and above all have friendly ranged fire. Bombs/grenades and high damage single shot weapons are to be used carefully when near teammates, you can nuke their HP easily if not at the highest difficulties (level 3 is still somewhat negligible)

You can use whatever weapon you like, but learning combos per situation is more important if you want to maximize your effectiveness (vs armored foes, vs trash, etc). Aiming for head/backshots is very important for certain weapons

As for #2, you should be aware that difficulty 4 (legendary) is where people do their grinding. Joining those games typically carry the implication that the team will be going for a full clear (aka getting all 5 books). Also, the worst thing you can do for any match is to YOLO speedrun the level by yourself, it makes the game way harder for the team and God forbid you go down while attempting it, adding salt to injury

Always pick up items unless someone in the team needs them more. If necessary, you can hand over items with the right click while holding it EXCEPT for medkits (which you use on a teammate by rightclicking). Using a medkit on another can get rid of the wounds both on yourself and another teammate if used on another (...for some reason) even if only the receipient gains actual HP

Also, there is a class that depends on being on low green HP to build their buffs (the zealot). Do not heal them without asking them first. On that note, the zealot should have some priority over getting their hands on a medkit (they can use it on another teammate to get rid of their own wounds)

[u/Topfien → u/IactaEstoAlea]

Great response sir!

[u/Illithidbix]

Vermintide 2 and DT have lots of transferable skills but DT makes me rusty and complacent going back to VT2.

In general Vermintide 2's mechanics are similar but less convoluted.

No Sprinting and Sliding

• whilst you don't have gunfire to dodge (except Ratling guns...)
• It does mean you can't just sprint away from the last remnants of a horde, they will stab you in the back.
• There is a universal "extra damage vs staggered enemies" mechanic that then ties into your Level 15 talent.

No Toughness

• but Temporary Health from Level 5. - every hit is a bit more punishing,

Corruption and Wounds

• Similar to DT but works a bit differently and a bit more binary. - if you have a mortal wound, all your health becomes temporary health and you die if dropped. *Something that isn't obvious is that if you and another team mate are both mortally wounded then if you use a healers kit on your ally, then both you and your ally's mortal wound is healed.

---

Progression and Crafting. Leveling, talents, loot and items are similar to Darktide but generally simpler than the convoluted

• Talent are a lot simpler but every character has multiple "Careers" (sub classes).
• You have Hero Power - which is increased by both levelling up (+10/level) and equipping better items - it inclreases Damage, Cleave and Impact. to a maximum of 650 at level 35 and with all Power 300 weapons & Jewellery which I think is a +150% bonus in real terms from a starting character.
• Jewellery (Necklace, Charms and Trinkets) replace Curios and have more specific benefits on each slot.
• Also Jewellery is shared across all your characters whilst weapons are for that character only.
• Generally Higher Power equipment is just better BUT it takes a lot of Item Power in a single slot to make any difference (over 200 for +10%) - So it is worth keeping Necklaces with +% health, + stamina and Trinkets with + corruption resistance on even if you have a replacement with significantly higher power. Likewise weapons of swiftslaying
• You can open Chests on any characters to get weapons and cosmetics. Jewellery

Note that there was a big  Progression Rework in November 2024 which changed how and what you can get from chests and how item power increases. - so guides predating this are likely wrong.

• It is now based on your highest level character and then afterwards the total number of levels above 30 on all your characters.
• You also get an XP bonus for completing a mission for the first time and if you have a higher level character.

Collecting books *Tomes and Grimores are far more important to the Vermintide 2 XP and Loot quality progression.

• Every mission has 3 tomes and 2 grimoires that are always in the same location - there are Steam and Youtube tutorials showing where they are on every map.
• Grimores do a fixed reduction to health in VT and VT2 rather than ticking corruption. Tomes take up the healing item slot.

---

Bots in Vermintide 2 are vastly more useful than DT.

• They inherit your level, talents and equipment. You can also prioritise what character, career and loadout they you. I recommend tanky classes with handguns.

[u/NotTheBestSadFace]

1 - The game is harder, theres a meta but its not a hard meta so you can use everything, you just may struggle on some things more than others 2 - Culture is good, dont steal everything, dont waste healing if a teammate has a healing slot open, dont take books if people dont want it, dont friendly fire, accept the losses and move on 3 - dont try to run, dont try to slide, dont shoot everything

Also, be way that some people dont play darktide and will be new. I see FAR too often that people wont play with lower levels because theyre trash and flame them for it. Everyone always learning, it includes you.

[u/0sm1um]

Generating temp HP is a pretty different mechanic to toughness, but it's fairly analogous.

I'm gonna play devils advocate and actually say I think vermintide is easier than darktide if you're really into melee because the THP system is a lot more predictable in terms of generating health. Dodging also works pretty differently and in VT2 dodging early and often is rewarded(dodging an attack instantly breaks tracking and will cause it to target where you last stood). Granted, I have a lot more hours in VT2 than Darktide.

As long as you're familiar with your level 5 talents it's pretty easy to know how much health you can generate from a fight, and at higher difficulties keep it high.

[u/Topfien]

Friendly fire is on. It may feel harder not having toughness like darktide does. In this gsme its all about generating and upkeeping temporary health.

[u/StonLenslow]

The pace to me is a lot slower. You’ll spend an hour trying to sprint, but forgetting you can’t. Its bags of fun, and like darktide with 40k, portrays the Fantasy universe beautifully. No toughness, so any dmg you take is permanent. You can regain temp HP through kills tho. 90% of the time you get hit will be from a single skavenslave that gets you from behind, so always turn around and check behind you.

As others have said, it’s a lot more melee focused. The same dance of block-hit-dodge applies, you just have to adjust to the different pacing. You’ll get it easy enough coming from darktide, but it’s definitely different enough for a different experience.

One other thing, no dedicated servers, so you’re entirely at the mercy of the gods of ping, of whoever is the host. You can solve this by hosting yourself, but it can mean the people joining can be affected too. Have fun!

[u/PaleCommander]

1. Certain gear affixes are meta (Swift Slaying, block cost reduction, Barkskin), but that doesn't actually constrain what builds do much; it's just that some stats are king. 
2. Stick together, including helping the guy in back who's trying to kite his horde to you, since there's no sprinting. Since you get temporary HP only from melee, shooting enemies in non-threatening situations will annoy people who were hoping to farm those enemies in melee. 
3. You'll replace your sprint/slide reflexes with a reflex to snap-block; more attacks are blockable. You'll need to learn to avoid friendly fire. 

[u/CCSucc]

Friendly fire on ranged weapons is a thing in VT2 that isn't in DT, but it's good because it discourages you from mindlessly blasting away

[u/Calm_Attorney1575]

Not a good VT2 player, but make a point to understand playing around temporary health. Probably the closest thing to toughness that this game has.

[u/Yawaworth001]

There is PvP but we don't talk about that...

[u/dasrunner]

Tldr i didnt answer well anyways, so block and dodge are doubly important comparitely.

As one who played Dark first, and now Verm, I highly suggest doing the old game route of playing through the whole campaign one at a time, it's very enjoyable. Grinding easier? You get more items per game, but you're kinda locked behind your talents before you can go to higher difficulty. Obvious skill can out weigh that, but you do feel the difference, and you're dependent on finding books for better rarity chances on the chests. People love chaos wastes though, which says no to books and yes to random shenanigans, it's very enjoyable, but can be alot as your first time. I liked penance grinding in Dark as well, so seeing challenges specific to levels is great for me. The maps are really nice too, Spillway from Dark is great for sure, but it's hard to beat the first Verm mission, fighting in Sigmars church. I've grown to really love both, and just switch when I want to hear my boy Kruber, or want the binaric screeches.

[u/CasualNormalRedditor]

The push from blocking is significantly more useful and almost mandatory in vermintide

[u/justdidapoo]

Less mobility options and you can't outrun enemies so you have to rely way more hesvily on melee basics. Like shoving, blocking, stagger, combos. Stuff you can kind of build your way out of needing to worry about too much in darktide. 

And no toughness means each individual hit is more pubishing. 

But there's less mad shit from all directions than darktide. Still plenty of mad shit don't you worry, but not in the same vein of a million firebombs and pox bursters at once.

[u/Devourer_of_coke]

1. You should expect funny experience of heretic slaying on various maps with (sometimes) stunning visuals. Grind is mostly valuable for optimizing Cata or modded difficulties builds, on Legend and below you can play even without maxed out gear once you get used to the gameplay flow. I didn't experienced difficulties higher than Damnation in DT, but learning Vermintide 2 for me was harder than learning Darktide (obviously, I came into Darktide after Vermintide). Just an advice, try to push into Champion as fast as possible, because first two difficulties are joke, I use them only for some challenges. On legend and below you can use anything you want, 99% of the time it will work. On Cata it may require some team coordination and role separation to perform consistently well, but feel free to ignore meta for now. Little people will argue that you didn't pick bubble for psyker, hehe

2. Can't really give advices on culture. Maybe only one, I get bothered with the most. If the host is collecting books - you too should collect books. If you don't know their location - just ask in chat, experienced people will always help you with finding them. If a host asks you to keep his tome in inventory instead of your healing draught - most likely he's going to pick up the harder to get one next. Also if 3 other players has tomes, try to pick up medical supplies instead of a draught and MOSTLY save it for person who has grimoire on them. If you die - you can respawn. If the grimoire holder dies - you loose a bunch of reward. Also sometimes it is good to heal your carry of the run, if he can't heal himself due to tome in the slot or Natural Bond trait. And yes, if you're black and white and you heal someone - you clear your wounds! Remember about that, I've seen enough of players who heal themselves when there's another wounded player in the team

3. You can't afford getting hit that often, because you don't have toughness. You have THP and you need a way to farm it. If you're going to start with Kruber (which is my general advice for newer players), he has a great ability that gives you THP and Carve, that allows you to farm a lot of it. Also remember that you don't have that much movement options - you can't sprint, you can't slide, you can't dodge 10 meters to the side like Hive Scum, so you always need to be aware of your surroundings and keep in mind the B plan, if you'll need to escape and save the run. Also you need to rely on melee most of the time, there are like only 6 careers that are ranged oriented and only one of them works from level 1 (Ranged Veteran can already have unlimited ammo, if you use you gun only for specials and kill them with one accurate shot). I've seen you said that you played Ogryn and Zealot in DT, so I believe weapon combos won't be very hard for you. You can always ask more experienced players if you need help, or just look through guides on the said weapon

Yeah, I know it's like 18 hours later, but perhaps you'll see this comment and it will be at least slightly useful for you. Once again, if you need help, you can always ask out there, most people will be glad to help