Ranald's Gift

Gear

War Pick

• Swift Slaying
• + 5.0% Attack Speed
• + 30.0% Block Cost Reduction

Handgun

• Scrounger/Conservative Shooter
• + 5.0% Crit Chance
• + 10.0% Power vs Skaven

Equipment

• Barkskin | + 20.0% Health | + 30.0% Block Cost Reduction
• Proxy | + 10.0% Power vs Skaven | + 10.0% Power vs Chaos
• Shrapnel | + 30.0% Stamina Recovery Rate | + 5.0% Crit Chance

Talents

• (2) Carve
• (1) Ingenious Ordnance
• (3) Enhanced Power
• (3) Superior Gaskets
• (2) Combined Arms
• (2) Linked Compression Chamber

Hope someone will have as much fun with it as I do :)

1- "But it's not bad!" It's not good either. Both Kruber and Saltz have excellent crowd control options without suffering the crappy single target damage of the GS. I almost never see anyone use this thing on any career.

2 - Pretty much its current only use case is as a mixed horde clearer on Mercenary, where its lack of collision just makes it feel like a weird infinite-cleave lightsaber with still minimal damage. Its only decent anti-armor attack costs stamina and a push to use... almost every other Krub/Saltz melee can deal with elites/armor without wasting time and stamina.

3 - "Actually I use this all the time!" I have 2400 hours. I NEVER see any of you lying contrarians use this save for fresh installs, and maybe someone using it as designated Mercenary horde staggerer on Cata+. And even with that niche latter use case, it's still far from fun. Its optimal use is braindead spam of heavies and never engages the lights or push attack.

4 - "They're just touching stats. It needs a new moveset." I agree. There have been many great suggestions on changing the moveset like this or this, but I realize expecting FS to do work is unreasonable.
HOWEVER... Darktide has THREE greatswords with way better animation/attack sets already, that means the work is already done for them, beyond the copy and paste + adjusting numbers.

PLEASE... this weapon has sucked since day 1 of Vermintide 1. It's never had any proper use case, when its niche could easily be explored. It should be a jack-of-all-trades midpoint weapon between the Executioner Sword and Bret Longsword... not as good at single target decimation as the Ex, and slower than the Longsword without the parry mechanic... but still a good option of dealing with hordes and single targets alike... you know, like a REAL Greatsword.
It doesn't have to be S tier viable in a way that rivals the Rapier or Longsword, but for Sigmar's sake, at least give it some reasonable layer of interaction to make it interesting.

I have little experience with mods, but I didn't know they were so fun! 😂😂😂

Double bombs + bombs explode twice + Morgrim's + endless bombs pot = earthquake and no more rats

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.

It looks fierce and very sharp, so sharp it makes me feel as if I'm gonna poke Victor's good eye out with it.

I was browsing the V2 shop and noticed Kerillians Drakira's Grin, Mask of a Naggarothi. The gold plating along the mouth, nose, and rim looks awesome, especially with those big fangs. The shape language of this mask is sleek, curved, and sharp, and it feels intimidating. I could only imagine how intense it would be seeing an elven warrior mowing down the skaven wearing this stabby looking mask.

This skin is for Kerillian's Shade Class, (Video Turnaround) which is probably why the skin details say, "Not the most practical of garb, but you'll linger in folks' memories for a fair old while."

What do you think about this mask?

Turns out most of the Helmgart areas are included and mostly consistent. For example in the Righteous Stand map, a lot of the Halescourge, Screaming Bell and Skittergate areas are still there.

Quiet Drink being a later addition, doesn't fit the map that much, like how the platform you ride at the start of the Skittergate is visible near the Hungry Troll but the Hungry Troll (or what's left of it) isn't there in the Skittergate level.

Most of the Helmgart missions reuse the same map with some changes, like the Screaming Bell cutting out the entire side where Righteous Stand is. In Skittergate it also cuts out the screaming bell (either to save space or because you already broke it) but in Quiet Drink it's still there and even visible without mods.

What's funny is apparently the U5 could have gotten to Halescourge faster if they entered Helmgart the same way they did in their Righteous Stand start, so they didn't have to go through the lift, the canals, and the collapsing houses.

Also any lore or thoughts on this big ass tower that never gets used?

EDIT: 16th and 17th image got duped

this is suppose to be the other one https://imgur.com/a/7AF6qdA

(The instant zoom in patch is great, as if I needed any other reason to play HM.)

Here is the temporary version of the new BP calculator I made for this balance patch. It doesn’t cover everything, only most of the important changes to help with single target breakpoint calculation. See the Read me part to see what changes I didn’t include (only very little). I will try to provide the full version once source code is unbundled and/or Verno doesn't update his original post. If you haven’t tried the breakpoint calculator before, I highly recommend try it out. It is one of the best tool the community had. It might seem to be intimidating at first, but I promise it’s easier than it looked like and is extremely useful for build crafting or just has a better understanding of the weapons. Here are two video tutorials that made by other community members to help you get started:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svMBn_EBJkk

https://youtu.be/yExHuOkDJ-A?si=QwK0zGUWrkvoy9H1

If you want to know other basic numbers like cleave/dodge changes, go use the Armoury mod. It uses numbers directly from the game, so is always updated. Though it won’t have new attacks like the War Pick H3, which I included in the melee post.

Below are my personal notes and thoughts on weapons that I think received enough interesting changes/I want to talk about, and some builds to go with. They aren’t perfectly optimal, but does cover all the basic with important breakpoints mentioned if it has any. All builds are based on Cata.

Human 1h sword

Mobility buff is decent. Heavy monster damage buff is kinda whatever since you still want to chain light against monster even after the buff. The L3 buff is pretty noticeable for single target damage boost if you can land HS/playing high crit chance boost. The PA -> L3 new combo is good for burst down low HP elite, but not DPS efficient in a long, drawn out fight. Overall just some nice buff without changing weapon identity/play loop too much. I recommend trying out these new changes on a build that uses 1h sword as a primary weapon, not secondary, since its functionality as a secondary weapon doesn’t change much with this path.

Merc: Repeater 1SBS assassin, 2SBS gas/blight/leech, 3SBS hook

Pyro: Bolt full charge 1SBS all specials except banner

UC: Bolt full charge 1SBS all specials except banner

Elf 1h sword

Beside some welcoming number buff, the most important change is giving H2 a different profile. Losing H2 as a single target attack doesn’t really hurt its single target DPS, since you still have the H1 -> L3 combo. The new H2 instead provide a very good high CC attack. Although it can’t cleave through armour, it has same stagger cleave as two-handed hammer heavy attack, and able to stagger normal elites when they are doing lighter attacks. Just like Sword & Dagger, Elf 1h sword is a well-rounded weapon, so technically fits in any kind of build for melee Elf. Here I paired them with the good ole longbow on HM/SOTT.

HM: Longbow 1 SBS assassin, 2 SBS all specials, 1 SHS all specials/SV

SOTT: BP is the same as HM build.

Elf 2h sword

So, first thing first, in case you’ve never used/tried the elf 2h sword H2 attack, you initiate it by input a Light Attack command (click your mouse, not hold) after doing an H1 attack, similar to how you initiate Elf glaive H2(the overhead). If you just chain heavy attack, you're going to spam H1 instead. The new buffed H2 gives you a very powerful combo against mixed horde. If there are things like SV/Mauler mixed in the horde, you can now just spam the H1 -> H2 combo. Aim the H1 on the tougher units, and use H2 to cleave through them all. Build wise, this weapon is again mostly used on HM and SOTT. HM has a lot of speed buff to make this weapon feels better, and SOTT bleed apply talent is very good with the newly buffed high cleave attack.

HM: Longbow 1 SBS assassin, 2 SBS all specials, 1 SHS all specials/SV

SOTT: BP is the same as HM build.

1h Axe

Some well deserved changes, and shakes up the old boring chain light attack spam too. The cleave buff is the most significant one. Though by no means it becomes a horde clear weapon after this patch, cleaving at least 2 horde units combined with the half stamina push make fighting horde much more manageable. I especially like the buff on l3, previously it’s a painfully slow attack to do, and you would want to block/qq cancel out of it if possible. But now, it received the biggest cleave buff among all attacks, and can actually cleave marauder/gor on cataclysm without any other cleave buff, very useful. Combo wise, you would want to spam light on horde and most elites, and spam heavy on armoured target. WHC can even get consistent 1SHS SV with heavy, which is really cool IMO. The buffed PA(push attack) into lights combo is not higher DPS unless you can consistently land HS, though even if you don’t, it is still very useful to finish off elites or kill 1 or 2 higher HP trash mob(marauder/gor). Build wise, it should be very useable on all available careers now with certain builds, but I still recommend start trying it out on melee focus careers because they usually have talents that help you get the hang of the weapon at first. I didn’t include slayer because how you build and play 1h axe slayer still mostly stay the same. For range careers, try it on builds with good horde clear range weapon(e.g shotguns on RV and BH). Keep in mind even after the cleave buff, 1h axe and its relatives are still very much single target focus weapons.

IB: 1h axe:1SHS low HP trash and 2SHS high HP trash, heavy 2SHS or 3SBS SV. Handgun 1 SBS all specials except wargor.

WHC: 1h axe 1SHS low HP trash and 2SHS high HP trash, heavy 1SHS SV with Tag. BoP 1 SBS assassin with Tag, 2SBS rest of specials with Tag except wargor.

Zealot: All BPs are with 6 passive stacks. 1h axe 1SBS slave rat/fanatic, 1SHS clan rat, 2SHS high HP trash, heavy 2SHS or 3SBS SV. BoP 1 SBS assassin, 2SBS rest of specials except wargor.

Axe & Shield

The cleave buff is welcome, but more importantly IMO is the l3/h3 damage boost and the movement slowdown reduce. It now has a more noticeable advantage in terms of single target DPS compared to Hammer & Shield, and actually has less slowdown when attacking than the other, though the Hammer & Shield PA -> Light combo is still faster. Overall just feels so much better to play. Build wise, honestly just replace any 1h axe or Hammer & Shield builds and try it out see if you like it.

Elf axe

Just like the dwarf/salt axe, elf axe now has multiple useful combos. PA -> l1 -> l2 for horde, chain light for most single target situations, and chain heavy for super armour. Kinda similar to the other 1h axe, but IMO has a bigger impact, since elf axe used to be directly competing with Dual Daggers, but after the combo change/cleave buff, I think it now sits somewhere between Dual Daggers and Sword Daggers. Build wise, beside the classic HM/SOTT, elf axe also goes pretty well with WS builds with a horde clear focus weapon. Clear high density horde with your range, and deal with enemies that go too close/single target with your axe. Here I used the newly buffed Swift Bow, you can read more about it in the range weapon post.

WS: Swiftbow need to land constant shot to stack bleed/reach breakpoints; 1 SBS slaverat/fanatic with quick arrow, 3 SBS Gas/Leech/Storm with quick arrow, 3 SBS firerat/ratling/hook rat with charge arrow

HM: Longbow 1 SBS assassin, 2 SBS all specials, 1 SHS all specials/SV

SOTT: BP is the same as HM build.

War Pick

War Pick received a lot of changes, and it wasn’t a very popular/common weapon before, so I think it deserves some long discussion here.

Before this balance patch, War Pick is basically a worse Cog Hammer with a unique 2-step charging heavy attack. Both weapons use sweeping light attacks to clear horde, and both use strike down heavy attack to kill single target. However, cog hammer light is just literally better than War Pick, dealing same damage/stagger while being much faster. And for heavy attack, while War Pick can theoretically deal more damage if you fully charge the heavy, it is just way too slow to pull it off in most situations, and doesn’t provide very meaningful breakpoints advantage on most builds.

After the buff, the War Pick still kept all the old identities, and gained a new one. It is still overall a very slow weapon with strong heavy hitting single target attacks, but a lot more manageable now. On top of that, it has become the best anti shield melee for Bardin, and one of the best anti shield melee in the game.

Now here comes the long discussion on how and when to use each attacks:

The light attacks are still just mostly horde clear/crowd control tool, even after the armour damage buff. The attack speed did not receive direct change, but buff on the crit chance helps a lot by procing Swift Slaying faster, and crit attacks can also stagger units easier or break wood shield. Combine with the move speed curve change, they perform much better now during horde.

The push attack has always been a single target focus attack that deals decent damage, very useful to finish off elite if they survived a full charged heavy attack. But its attack angle and sweeping animation very often mislead ppl into using it as a crowd control tool like other sweeping push follow-up attacks. Even after the cleave buff, it should still mostly be used as single target attack to finish off elites, as its cleave is still very low. If you want crowd control combo, just do regular light attacks after push.

The uncharged h1/h2 used to be basically pointless, since PA pretty much does the same thing but faster. After the buff, it is a bit better, but still a bit undesirable under most situations since it is now easier to full charge your heavy attack.

The full charged heavy has always been your bread and butter against single target, and now it’s much easier to use. The buffed damage makes the most important BP - 1SBS SV on Cata - much easier to obtain on none-Slayer Bardin, and the uninterruptible windup + longer sprint duration make it much easier to actually land the attack(though keep in mind uninterruptible is only from enemies’ regular attacks, disabler/elite push can still stop you). But the most fun part is definitely the newly added shield piercing ability. Previously, when fighting a shield SV, you need to first double push open the shield, then fully charge the heavy while hoping no other enemies will hit you, and then land a headshot if you didn’t properly make your build. But now all you need to do is to just hold your mouse left click a bit. On top of that, this makes War Pick by far the most satisfying weapon to use against Shielded Chaos Warrior.

The newly added h3 is now shown in the armour so here are some basic numbers: it has 10.444 cleave + armour cleave + Tank + 10% crit chance, damage wise it’s pretty much the same as l1/l2. It is pretty much useless for DPS purpose, but has amazing utility. It can only be initiated by chaining after l2, making l1 -> l2 -> h3 a very natural combo. This combo, though worse than l1 -> l2 loop for horde killing speed, has much better mixed horde control ability, thanks to the h3 being able to cleave and stagger multiple elites and break all the wood shields it touches. When fighting mixed horde, if you find charging up and hit trade with fully charged heavy is too risky, it is perfectly viable to use the l1-l2-h3 combo to generate more THP and/or control the crowd enough until you can dunk one of the elite.

Now for builds. In the end War Pick is still a slow heavy 2h weapon that is not very safe to play, so IB and Slayer are naturally the better choice by default. But RV also has enough juice to get it going if you invest enough talent points into melee/speed. IMO only Engi needs to avoid using this, even if you are going for a melee build. And for Slayer, I will provide 2 builds just for him. The Hack & Slash build will use a fast 1h weapon to allow you dodge a bit better, and the Skull Splitter build just max out your oneshot/one combo kill potential.

RV: War Pick full charge heavy 1SBS SV. Handgun 1 SBS all specials and SV/Beastigor, 1 SHS wargor

IB: War Pick full charge heavy 1SBS SV, full charge heavy + PA one shot Bestigor/Monk. Handgun 1 SBS all specials except wargor

H&S Slayer: War Pick full charge heavy 1SBS SV, full charge heavy + PA one shot Bestigor/Monk/Berserker.

Splitter Slayer: War Pick full charge heavy 1SBS SV/Bestigor/Berserker, full charge heavy + PA one shot Monk/Mauler

Crowbill

Crowbill’s changes are quite different from 1h axes. In comparison, crowbill actually lost some single target damage, but the horde clear boost is much bigger. Your new horde clear combo(h1 -> h2 -> l4) actually has decent cleave, but still use mostly the old single target combos(chain light for most elites, chain heavy for super armour). The buffed cleave on lights and PA is not enough to make them compete with h1/h2 for horde clear, though still helps your crowd control ability a bit when you don’t have time to charge up a heavy attack.

Keep in mind, although IMO crowbill is the best horde clear ‘1h axe-ish’ weapons from this update, it is still very much a single target focus weapon. On top of that, this weapon has one of the weakest DoT apply ability among all the Sienna melees, so I only really recommend pairing it with a horde clear focus staff on Pyro/UC. Necro could also make crowbill work with Malediction of Nagash by using Coru and/or Barrow Blades, but it just doesn’t have the fun factor with Reaping any more for me, so I don’t bother provide a build here, still you can absolutely try to use it with any Necro build, as long as you pick Barrow Blades for your lvl30 talent.

Pyro: Beam staff 2 SBS clan rat/fanatic with Blast; 3 SBS gor with Blast; 2 SBS assassin with Instant Snipe; 3 SBS/2 SHS rest of specials with Instant Snipe

UC: Coru shotgun 1 SBS berserker/infantry elites/specials at close range

Sienna Mace

If I have to guess which melee weapon will retain most amount of players after the hype dies down, I will vote for Sienna Mace. Although its move set is not changed at all, the buff made it into a very strong generalist weapon that can be used for literally any Sienna build.

The L1/L2 traded some direct damage for some DoT, and H1 traded some direct damage for stagger to fit with the new mace identity better. These are overall small nerfs to Mace’s single target damage potential (except for Famished Flame build). However, Mace actually had quite decent elite damage before these changes, so even after the nerf its single target damage is more than serviceable, especially when comparing to other similar CC focus Sienna melees.

The push/block/stamina buffs are very useful for defensive purpose.

And the most important changes are the H2/H3 buff. 20.88 cleave + Tank + Armour Cleave + high stagger + fire DoT application is very much unbeatable when it comes to crowd control attacks. Compare to another classic DoT apply CC attack - Fire Sword H1, the Fire Sword attack has infinite cleave + stackable DoT, but pretty much no direct damage, and in reality due to enemy density and attack speed limit, Mace has similar or in some cases better CC ability with only slightly worse DoT damage, while Mace still has actual direct damage and work with both Carve and Second Wind. You can now just spam your H2 -> H3 loop into any horde/mixed horde and see great result, or even SV patrol if you dodge those overheads here and there. This doesn’t mean Fire Sword is useless now. Its H1 attack is still faster so can pair with Opportunist easier. And due to the limitation of using actual cleave mechanic + Tank, Fire Sword H1 still have advantage when dealing with shielded enemies/Monk/CW.

The nerf of on the Mace dodge ability is also a thing to pay attention to when choosing between it and other melee options, but it really fits Mace’s new heavy CC weapon identity well, and very much make up for it with other buffs.

Combo wise, the newly buffed Sienna Mace still uses all the old combo. Use l1 -> l2 -> BC for most single target situations, and H1 -> l2 -> BC for super armour. PA and then loop H2 -> H3 is your best CC tool and horde killing tool. PA -> l3 -> l4 is useless damage wise, but you should still consider doing it to help you start H2 -> H3 loop safer since they are faster attacks.

Build wise, I have nothing to offer here, since I really think you can just slap it on any Sienna careers’ any builds, so just go try it out!

Scythe

More synergy. I still don’t think it’s a good weapon on BW, but a more melee focused Necro can pick scythe up more often now since you can get that juice extra damage by use special attack once here and there. Also just fyi, special attack works the best with Second Wind, but more than fine with Carve too.

Dagger

Added a bit more single target damage and tiny bit of horde clear on couple very specific build. Single target damage wise, you can now h1 -> h2 -> l3 for armoured target, and chain light for everything else. Because of the l3 change both combos received a good amount of boost. Cleave boost wise, this allows Sienna to cleave Marauder with 650 power and no other cleave buff, so basically just for a hybrid/melee Pyro or Necro build that uses Smiter.