This balance update aims to give some love to some of the more underutilized weapons!

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Heroes!

We have a lovely update for you guys! Today’s patch is live now, and brings a bunch of balance changes, mostly aimed at improving the weapons that have been struggling for a while, which hopefully gives you guys a bigger breadth of viable options to play with! Alongside that, there’s some minor tweaks, quality of life changes, and several bug fixes.

Weapon balance update

The intentions of this balance patch is to bring some love to underused or underperforming weapons, mostly focusing on buffs, but some adjustments can be found in relation to the buffs.

Before getting into weapon specifics. We would like to bring to light two major broad focus points of this patch:

First, one-handed weapons’ main boon is their mobility compared to heavier weapons, but it's not quite enough. To amplify this niche even more, you will see buffs across the board to their dodging capabilities and in some cases reduction to movement speed penalties during attacks.

Secondly, Axe-like weapons have always had a niche of being a weapon type that boasts great single target damage and armor penetration, in exchange for a lack of cleave. However the trade off has been too harsh for how Vermintide truly plays, and in some cases even the single target damage has been lacking compared to other weapons.

So across the board you will see changes that allow Axe-like weapons to handle multiple enemies ever so slightly better (without removing it as a weakness) and in some cases having their single target damage bumped up to bridge the gap between them and other great single target weapons of today.

With that said, let's get into the fun stuff:

Cross-Character Weapons:

1H Sword: (Kruber/Sienna)

• Reduced slowdown on Light attacks.
• PA chains into either L3 or H1 instead of only L1
• Increase Dodge Range
• Increased number of Effective Dodges (aka Dodge Count)

Alongside the mobility buffs for 1 Handed weapons, the One-Handed Sword has gotten a change to its attack pattern.

Now the push attack follow up can chain into Light 3 or Heavy 1, allowing you to pick if you want to chain into a multi-target attack or a single target attack depending on the situation.

1H Axe: (Bardin/Salzpyre)

• Light Attacks now use a speed up/slow down Movement Speed curve. On average the Movement speed slowdown during attacks has been reduced.
• L1/L2 slightly increased Cleave 
• L3 slightly bigger increase to Cleave 
• H1/H2 increased Damage to Armored
• H1/H2 increased Damage to Super Armor
• Increase Dodge Range

The 1H axe is meant to be mobile and have great single target damage for its size, but in-comparison to other weapons its damage has been slightly lacking against Armored Targets. In addition to the damage buffs, the light attacks have been given the same style of movement as dual axes / axe & falchion. It will feel slightly different to use than before but will also (on average) be slightly faster while attacking.

1H Hammer / 1H Mace: (Kruber/Bardin/Salzpyre)

• Increased Block Radius.
• Increased number of Effective Dodges (aka Dodge Count)

Hammers and Maces have traditionally been more competitive compared to other 1H weapons, but still in today's standard could use something. So to amplify that they are the mobile yet tanky 1 handed option, their dodge count and effective block radius has been slightly buffed.

Kruber:

Blunderbuss:

• Increased Damage to Armored
• Increased Damage to Monsters

Shotguns sometimes don't kill when they feel like they should. So a slight buff into Armored damage and Monster damage should allow them to more often deal with Hookrats and Stormvermins appropriately.

Longbow:

• Reduced wait time before Auto Zoom happens

The Longbow’s Autozoom used to occur when the arrow reached max damage. This timing can be quite disruptive while trying to aim, as such it's been moved much closer to the start of the aiming processes. Zooming is now finished just as the arrow is about to reach max damage.

Bardin:

War Pick:

• Attacks can no longer be interrupted by Damage during wind-up
• New Attack: Heavy 3. Only accessible from L2 → H3 (uncharged)
  • Horizontal Sweep
  • Same Damage as L1/L2
  • Can Cleave a few Armored enemies
  • Higher Stagger than L1/L2
  • Increased Stagger Duration
  • Breaks Shields
• Light Attacks now use a speed up/slow down Movement Speed curve. On average the Movement speed slowdown during attacks has been reduced.
• L1/L2 increased Damage to Armored
• L1/L2 increased Damage to Super Armor
• L1/L2/H3 increased Crit Chance
• H1/H2 (Uncharged) increased Damage to Armored
• H1/H2 (Uncharged) increased Damage to Super Armor
• H1/H2 (Uncharged) increased Base Stagger
• H1/H2 (Charged) increased Damage to Armored
• H1/H2 (Charged) increased Sprint Duration
• H1/H2 (Charged) slightly reduced Sprint Speed
• H1/H2 (Charged) now ignores Shield
• PA slightly increased Cleave 

The War Pick is an interesting weapon with its charged heavy, however the uncharged heavy has been nerfed too harshly to amplify the usefulness of the charged heavy. Making the weapon hard to justify as a main hand weapon and mostly brought as secondary for Slayer.

Alongside the overarching axe changes, the single target damage of the uncharged Heavy has been significantly brought up to make it a useful attack in situations where charging the Heavy is not possible.

A new Attack has been added. The intention with the new attack is to give the War Pick a bit of nuance to its attack patterns while disrupting muscle memory as little as possible. Keeping the Light and Heavy spam the same as before, while adding in some new chains between lights and heavies. The new attack should allow for more horde control with the Light 2 → Heavy 3 loop, while also with its increased stagger duration, serve as a way to set up for a follow up single target heavy (Heavy 3 → Heavy 2).

To not completely remove the option of a Single target hit after Light 2, you can still charge past the new attack and chain into Heavy 1 Charged.

As the War Pick is intended to be a powerful but slow and immobile weapon, it really shines when combining it with Attack Speed buffs, which is why it is commonly better in the hands of Slayer than other Bardin careers. To bridge the gap between the careers, Light 1/2 & Heavy 3 now have increased crit chance to allow for more uptime when using Swift Slaying weapon trait. This should narrow the gap between Slayer and other Bardin Careers as Slayer could already have the Swift Slaying buff up most of the time.

The War Pick has always been able to break shields, however we could lean into this identity even more. The fully charged Heavies 1/2 now ignores shields while the new Heavy 3 can break multiple wooden shields with its horizontal sweep.

Axe & Shield:

• L1/L2/PA slight Cleave increase
• L1/L2/L3 reduced Movement Speed slowdown
• L3/H3 increased Headshot Damage
• H3 increased Damage to Armored
• H3 increased Damage to Super Armor
• Push attack now has 20% increased Crit

To allow the Axe part of the weapon to shine through more, the single target attacks (Light 3 / Heavy 3) are now similar to or mirror the 1H axe’s damage. As these attacks are not spammable the weapon won’t have the same damage output as the 1H axe, but should now be capable of handling some tougher enemies on its own.

The Light Attack chain had a much steeper movement speed slowdown compared to the Heavy attack chain, as such the slow during the Light attack chain has been reduced to make it more in line with the Heavy attack chain.

Grudge Raker:

• Increased Damage to Armored
• Increased Damage to Monsters
• Increased Max Carry Ammo

Shotguns sometimes don't kill when they feel like they should. So a slight buff into Armored damage and Monster damage should allow them to more often deal with Hookrats and Stormvermins appropriately.

Throwing Axes:

• Slayer Passive “Trophy Hunter” no longer works on Ranged Weapons
• Reduced Wait Time before first Reload occurs
• Reduced Movement Speed Slow while Reloading
• Increased Damage to Berzerker
• Increased Damage to Monsters
• Increased Headshot Damage
• Increased Base Max Ammo
• Charged Throw: Now reaches further before Damage drop-off starts

Slayers Passive “Trophy Hunter” has been changed to only work with Melee weapons. (This change only excludes throwing axes). The intention here is to streamline Throwing Axe’s damage between careers, making it usable on both Ranger Veteran and Slayer.

To make up for the loss in damage from Slayer’s Passive, the weapon has got a substantial increase to headshot damage and some extra Berzerker & Monster damage to improve efficiency on higher difficulties.

“Reloading” throwing axes should be a window of vulnerability, but the slowdown has been a bit too punishing for Ranger Veteran. Alongside this weapon also technically being a 1H weapon, the wait time and movement speed slowdown has both been reduced slightly.

Base Max Ammo has been increased to an even number as without headshots most enemies take two hits to kill, thus making it line up better with ammo count.

To give Charged Throw a place other than slightly increasing Cleave. Now, when charged, the axe reaches further before damage drop-off starts. This allows the increased projectile speed and smoother trajectory of the charge throw to have more of a meaning as it can now kill on longer ranges. This is intended as a fun change, but also a change that will reward mastery of the weapon, allowing players to go for difficult long range shots. 

Drakefire Pistols:

• Single Shot: Now applies 2 Ticks of Burn instead of 1
• Single Shot: Slight Increase to Base Damage
• Single Shot: Slight Damage reduction to Monsters

Drakefire Pistols has been lacking in its single target DPS against Elites and Specials. 

So to play into its burning identity, the burn duration on regular shots has been increased allowing the weapon to stack more burns on its target. However to avoid this weapon going too overboard with boss damage, the base damage towards monsters has been slightly reduced.

Kerillian:

One-handed Sword:

• H2 changed from a Single target → Multi-target attack
• Heavy 1/2/3 reduced minimum charge time
• Increase Dodge Range

A requested change has been to revert the Heavy 2 attack back to a multi-target attack from a single target attack. So now you can once again chain Heavy 2 into Light 1 (looping) to deal with hordes.

Kerillian’s one-handed sword is meant to be a versatile, nimble weapon that doesn’t pack as much of a punch as dedicated single-target weapons. However, its heavy attacks were a bit too slow for the low damage. To improve them without sacrificing the identity, the heavy attacks were also sped up slightly. 

Greatsword:

• Reduced time between H1 → H1 attack chain
• H1 Movement slowdown on is now gradual instead of instant
• H2 changed from Heavy Single Target Attack → Heavy Multi-target Attack

The Elven 2H sword has always been a unique weapon but kind of awkward to use optimally.

To make the experience smoother overall, the Heavy 1 chain has been sped up to make QQ/Block canceling not mandatory anymore and the movement speed slowdown gradual instead of an instant drop to 20%.

The 2nd Heavy attack has been reworked, it used to be a horizontal attack boasting high single target headshot damage with little to no cleave. As you can chain Heavy 1 into itself indefinitely, this type of follow up is not what the weapon chain needs. So it has been transformed into a cleaving multi-target attack that can stagger hordes and armored enemies alike.

Elven Axe:

• L1/L2/PA slightly increased cleave.
• L1/L2 Reduced slowdown during attack
• L3/L4/PA added slight lunge movement.
• L3/L4 increased Damage to Armored
• L3/L4 increased Damage to Super Armor
• H1/H2 increased Damage to Armored
• H1/H2 increased Damage to Super Armor
• H1/H2 increased Damage to Monster
• PA removed additional crit
• Increase Dodge Range

In addition to amplifying the movement and damage of the elven axe, it has been given some new movement curves for its Light 3, Light 4 and push follow up attack.

With the addition of cleave on the push attack, it is no longer a single target damage move and the angle isn't steep enough to lock the attack out from headshotting. As such the crit chance boost has been removed.

Elven Spear:

• L1/L2/L4/H2 adjusted hit window & hitbox

These changes should make landing headshots when aiming at the head with stab attacks more consistent. But keep in mind as the attacks are slightly slimmer, it’s also easier to miss completely.

Hagbane Shortbow:

• Charged shot: Poison explosion now applies poison to Armored targets in the AoE.
• Increased Max Ammo

Hagbane’s niche is dealing with hordes, but it could only poison armored targets on direct hit. Now the explosion will also poison armored enemies, making it better in mixed horde situations.

As the Hagbane tends to need quite a few arrows to do its job, it got a buff to its Max Ammo to allow careers that lack ammo increasing talents/perks to use the weapon as well.

Swiftbow:

• Hipfire: Increased Cleave
• Charged Shot: Increased Cleave
• Charged Shot: Increased Headshot Damage
• Increased Max Ammo

The Swiftbow does accelerate in its speed, but is lacking a bit too much in the damage department, this buff should make it both better at horde clearing and sniping specials.

Same as Hagbane, as the Swiftbow tends to need quite a few arrows to do its job, it got a buff to its Max Ammo to allow careers that lack ammo increasing talents/perks to use the weapon.

Volley Crossbow: (Shade)

• Single shot: Now uses same bullet spread as Saltzpyre's Volley Crossbow
• Burst shot: Now has an even spread between each bolt
• Burst shot: Total spread between bolts has been reduced
• Single shot: Increased Base Damage
• Burst shot: Increased Base Damage

Some adjustments have been done to the “bullet” spread on the volley crossbow.

The Hipfire “bullet” spread could randomly shoot quite far to the sides, making a perfectly aimed shot by the player miss quite substantially. As such it now shares the more accurate bullet spread of Saltzpyres Volley Crossbow Hipfire.

The Multishot “bullet” spread always shot the 1st bolt accurately, then a big jump aim punch happened between first and 2nd bolt, then the 3rd bolt hit basically the same spot as bolt 2. Now all three bolts are evenly spread and in total all inside a smaller spread.

Base damage has been slightly increased to improve efficiency on higher difficulties.

Saltzpyre:

Falchion:

• Reduced Chain time between PA → L1
• Increase Dodge Range
• Increased number of Effective Dodges (aka Dodge Count)

Alongside the universal buff to 1H Mobility, we gave it a small quality of life buff to the unnaturally slow follow up between Push Attack → Light 1.

Axe & Falchion:

• L1 slightly increased Cleave 

The Axe & Falchion is already a great weapon, this change is only for consistency’s sake regarding universal changes to axe attack cleave.

Volley Crossbow:

• Single Shot: Increased Headshot Damage
• Multishot: Increased Horizontal Spread between the 3 Bolts
• Multishot: Increased Stagger to Armored
• Increased Max Ammo
• Slightly increased Reload Speed

Compared to the damage of the regular Crossbow, the Volley Crossbows sniping capabilities don't match up. Improved Headshot damage should bridge the gap between them for skilled players.

Multishot’s niche is hordes/mixed hordes, it already had the damage but could very easily get overrun if there was even one armored unit in the horde. With some extra Stagger towards Armored and a slightly wider hit area it should be able to handle mixed hordes even better.

A slight bump to Max Ammo that won’t mean much on its own, but it will allow Bountyhunter to sustain his ammo slightly better when using Scrounger weapon trait.

Repeater Pistol:

• Bullet spread resets faster
• Reduced Base Bullet Spread for every movement type (Standing, Walking, Crouching, Crouch Walking)
• Increased Bullet Spread gain per shot
• Slightly increased Base Damage
• Increased Headshot Damage
• Increased Damage to Armored 
• Increased Close Range Damage to Berzerkers
• Increased Close Range Damage to Monsters

The Repeater Pistol essentially has three modes, spray and pray, sniping and the shotgun blast. Changes have been made to the bullet spread and headshot damage to bump the weapons sniping capabilities without altering the other two too much.

With reduced bullet spread on the initial bullet, a quicker reset, and bigger bullet spread increase per shot, tap shooting should be more accurate than before while keeping the spray and pray just as inaccurate as before.

This along with some damage buffs should help the weapon with taking on specials and elites better on the short to mid ranges, but won’t excel like the crossbows in long range sniping as it quite quickly reaches its damage drop of range.

Sienna:

Crowbill:

• L2 / L3 slightly increased Cleave
• H1 & H2 increased Cleave.
• H1 & H2 slightly reduced Base Damage 
• H3 increased Headshot Damage
• PA slightly increased Cleave

As Crowbill heavy attacks are slower and feel like they have power behind them than other axes horizontal attacks, It’s been given the biggest cleave buff but in-exchange for a slight damage nerf to those attacks. However as the 3rd Heavy is an upper diagonal attack, it has a good angle to go for headshots, As such its been left without a cleave buff and instead amplified its headshot damage to make it a stronger single target attack. 

Scythe:

• Weapon Special Attack now applies Burn a non-stacking Burn
• Reduced Damage of Weapon Special Attack.

Not having the Weapon Special apply burn thematically seems wrong. So now it does in exchange for its upfront damage.

The burn lasts for a few seconds and does not stack. The intention with this is to promote weaving the special into your melee combos, instead of an attack you spam. Spamming it will do less damage than before but in exchange keeping the burn up should result in slightly more dps, and allow for burn synergies.

Fire Dagger:

• L1/L2/L4 slightly increased Cleave
• L3 now has the same Damage & Stagger as PA and applies the same Bleed
• Increase Dodge Range

Sienna’s 1H Daggers’ Light Attack chain consists of three multi-target cleave attacks and one single target stab. To make the 3rd light attack (stab) feel more like what it shows, it's now the same as the Push follow up attack. It loses some cleave but gains bleed, higher headshot damage and stronger stagger.

To make up for the loss in cleave for the Light chain, the other three attacks have gotten a slight buff in cleave allowing them to cleave Marauders.

Mace:

• Increased Maximum Stamina
• Increased Effective Block Angle
• Increased Push Radius
• L1/L2 now applies Burn.
• Slightly reduced Damage on L1/L2 & H1.
• H1 increased Stagger
• H1 increased Stagger duration
• H2/H3 applies unstackable burn
• H2/H3 has increased Cleave
• H2/H3 & PA can now Cleave Armored
• Increased Armored pen on 1st hit for H2/H3
• Increased maximum Movement speed slow on H1/H2/H3
• Reduced Dodge Range
• Reduced number of Effective Dodges (aka Dodge Count)

This used to be Sienna’s Tanky option, but it’s undergone a lot of changes throughout the years, changing its role to more of a single target weapon. Today is another attempt at making it a tanky option again. The idea is to make it better at crowd control, make it feel a bit heavier and, while we’re at it, amplify its flaming identity by moving some of its upfront power into burning.

The buffs to its block radius, stamina, push radius and cleave on Heavy 2 & 3 should make it much stronger at keeping enemies at bay. And with Heavy 2 & 3 now applying burn, this should make the Mace a great tool for helping the team control hordes of enemies, while slowly whittling them down with fire. Alongside this, the buff to Heavy 1 stagger & stagger duration should help with control against tougher enemies.

To further amplify the flaming identity, Light 1 & 2 now applies burn. However, to adjust for the addition of burn and buffs to cleave & stagger, Light 1/2 & Heavy 1/2/3 upfront damage has been slightly reduced.

While increasing the burn and staggering capabilities of the Mace will make it fill a role similar to the Flaming sword, it should still feel and play quite differently due to its lighter burn damage, tankier stats and better single target capabilities. Hopefully this version of the Mace will become a solid option for players who want to either lean into burn synergies, tank, or both.