Hotfix 5.2.2 - December 20

This one is tiny, I promise!

Fixes

• Fixed Bestigors and Minotaurs ending their charge early if they have to run around an obstacle.
  
• Fixed an exploit where an Outcast Engineer with the "Bombadier" talent gained 3 new grenades when leaving and rejoining a game. Cheeky!
  
• Fixed a bug where Outcast Engineer's "Superior Gaskets" talent did not provide power on clients.

Hotfix 5.2.1 - December 19

Fixes

• Fixed crash when bots use true flight attacks like Waywatcher ability or Necromancer "Lost Souls" which target enemies that get removed from the game.
  
• Fixed a bug where a Sienna premium cosmetic item was missing its store icon.
  
• Fixed a bug where "Lingering Flames" DoT stacked. Sorry, Battle Wizard mains!
  
• Fixed a bug where Engineer's "Bombardier" talent did not give Bardin three bombs on first spawn. Engineer mains can now once again aim for the back of the elf's head!
  
• Fixed rare crash where Mercenary's talent "Strike Together" could crash the game when the target ally was removed on the same frame as when buff was applied.
  
• Fixed a bug where Warrior Priest's talent "Blazing Bright" granted him Fury when he was knocked down. You're not a Necromancer, Saltzpyre!

As a side note, we know the patches have been abnormally large in size as of late. This is because we've changed our patching structure to one that doesn't bloat the game over time, but we've found that it leads to patches turning into extremely large downloads.

We're currently looking into improving our building and patching process to avoid this issue, but it may take some time. In the meantime, we apologize for the inconvenience of these large patches!

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We are aware of an issue where the Eternos-Ichor Glaia Weapon Illusion appears to be locked for some players, despite redeeming it successfully via Gifts of the Wolf Father.

Please rest assured we are looking in to this, but due to the holiday period, there will be a delay in resolving the issue. We also want to assure you that the illusion is still in your inventory, even though it is inaccessible.

Thank you for your patience and apologies for the inconvenience.
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A Merry Mondstille to all of you! The Wolf Father is coming around again this year and shall be handing out some lovely gifts for all of you! We wanna take this moment to thank you guys for being with us throughout the years, and to express our hope that you continue accompanying us into the content that awaits us in the future!

This patch includes the activation of the Gifts of the Wolf Father calendar and a balance pass on careers and weapons to address some of the bigger pain points regarding balance!


Starting from today December 13 all the way to January 7, log into Vermintide 2 each day to receive a gift from us! Most of these gifts are Premium Cosmetics, but there’s some other, equally attractive goodies in there that we hope you’ll like!

All players have a 2 day grace period to claim each of the items from each calendar day as they unlock (plus the day of release itself, for a total of 3 days), so even if you miss a day or two you won’t miss any rewards if you log in regularly!


We heard your feedback regarding certain overperforming and underperforming careers and weapons, and so we’ve done a balance pass on some of the biggest offenders (Looking at you, Battle Wizard and Javelin!). In case you missed it, we released a dev blog going into the changes and the thought process behind them, check it out here.

And, if you’re interested in the detailed changes themselves, check out the patch notes below!

Perfect for this cold Festag, a lovely new collection of cosmetics has arrived for our heroes, with a new hat and skin available for the following careers:

• Pyromancer
  
• Slayer
  
• Mercenary
  
• Waystalker
  
• Witch Hunter Captain

You can learn more by visiting this post on the Vermintide website!

We’ve heard you guys loud and clear that you’re dissatisfied with the performance of Bots as of late, particularly as the previously sanctioned Bot Improvements mod became unsanctioned with the launch of Necromancer.

While most of the features in said mod had already been integrated into the base game in previous updates (alongside the features of other sanctioned mods that were integrated as QoL features), there’s some features that are still missing and that we’ll be looking into adding in the near future, such as making bots not heal Zealot players unless they’re on their last wound, or making bots follow the Host more consistently (instead of splitting up among all the players or acting indecisive).

That said, a lot of the complaints related to Bot AI are not related to these missing features, but rather to bot performance being lacking in other areas. We are investigating these issues to hopefully also address them in the future.

We’ve also added native support for Dual Sense and Dual Shock 4 controllers, showing the correct prompts and letting you use the controller without needing to use interpreter software!

Monday the 18th: Developer Stream - News about upcoming content!

This Monday, we’ll be having a stream on Twitch! Hosted by the fantastic Ishka alongside our developers: Game Designer, Karl; Design Director, Joakim; Product Owner, Erik! Tune in at 5 PM CET today to chat with our developers, ask questions, and learn about what we’re working on next!

For everyone who missed today’s stream, surprise! We’re SO excited to re-reveal that we’re working on Versus! We still can’t say much other than “It’s coming!”, but if you have any questions, we’ll be compiling a list and hopefully answering them later on in the future, once we’re ready to reveal more. We've started up a thread where you can let us know your thoughts and questions, tell us everything, ask us everything!


Without further ado...


Class Changes
Outcast Engineer

• Increased base health to 125. All that metal he's lugging around has gotta count for something!
  
• Bardin no longer loses stacks of pressure while firing or when the bar is filled. Bardin can also build stacks of pressure while the bar is full.
  
• Reduced base Crank Gun starting fire rate by ~33%.
  
• Reduced base Crank Gun fire rate gain per shot by ~33%.
  
• Talent 2-1: 'Leading Shots' replaced by new talent 'Ingenious Ordnance' - Bardin creates a bomb every 80 seconds and explosives no longer deal friendly fire damage.
  
• Talent 4-1: 'Head Full of Steam' - Changed to: Bardin now gains 15% attack speed on max stacks of Pressure.
  
• Talent 4-2: 'Experimental Steam Capacitors' replaced by new talent 'Perilous Overclock' - Building Pressure at Max stacks restores 25% charge and grants 5% crit but damages Bardin. Each Overclock increases damage suffered. (Currently bugged and giving more Crit than it should!)
  
• Talent 4-3: 'Superiour Gaskets' - Changed to: Pressure is now lost when firing instead of over time. Each stack of Pressure grants 4% power.
  
• Talent 5-2: 'Bombardier' - Bardin now also begins missions with 3 bombs in his pocket, on top of the original effect. It pays to be prepared, eh?
  
• Talent 5-3: 'Piston Power' - Changed to: Every 15 seconds Bardin's next Charged Attack gains massive stagger and restores all stamina.
  
• Talent 6-1: 'Gromril Plated Shot' - increased damage by 100%.
  
• Talent 6-2: 'Linked Compression Chambers' - increased fire rate by 20%.

Slayer

• Talent 2-3: 'Hack and Slash' - Increased crit chance to +10%.

Battle Wizard

• Increased the cooldown of the career skill 'Fire Walk' to 50 seconds.
  
• Talent 2-2: 'Famished Flames' - Reduced bonus DoT damage to +100%, reduced the base damage reduction to -15%.
  
• Talent 2-3: 'Lingering Flames' - Increased the tick rate of DoT damage by 100%.
  
• Talent 5-1: 'Soot Shield' - Reduced the damage reduction per burning enemy to 8%.
  
• Talent 6-1: 'Volans' Quickening' - Increased Cooldown Reduction to 40%.

Pyromancer

• Talent 5-2: 'Volans Doctrine' has been turned into a passive ability.
  
• Reduced the cooldown of the career skill 'The Burning Head' to 50 seconds.
  
• Added new Perk: 'One with Aqshy' - 50% increased max Overcharge.
  
  • Dev Note: (The bar is visually bigger to fit increased max overcharge, too :^) ~Karl).
• Talent 2-1: 'Ride the Fire Wind' - Increased max power bonus to 25%.
  
• Talent 4-1: 'Deathly Dissipation' - Increased duration of effect to 12 seconds.
  
• Talent 4-2: 'On the Precipice' - Increased power bonus to 20%
  
• Talent 5-2: 'The Volans Doctrine' replaced by new talent 'Flamestrike's Tutelage' - Sienna gains 80% reduction on Venting damage. Each nearby enemy decreases the damage reduction by 20%.
  
• Talent 6-1: 'Exhaust' replaced by new talent 'Dissipating Rictus' - The Burning Head grants 50% charge speed and Overcharge explosion immunity for 12 seconds.

Necromancer

• Talent 5-3: 'Lost Souls' - Reduced amount of overcharge needed to trigger to 12%, increased stagger, increased base damage, increased damage vs armour, increased damage vs monsters. (Whew, that was a lot of buffs, eh?)
  
• Talent 6-1: 'Army of the Dead' - Changed so that Raise Dead now reanimates 12 Skeletons, 6 of which decay after 20 seconds. Spooky!

Bounty Hunter

• Talent 6-2: 'Double Shotted' - Fixed a bug where it could trigger multiple times in one shot. To compensate, increased the Cooldown Reduction reward on headshot to 60%.

Warrior Priest

• The base version of Shield of Faith now renders the hero immune to ranged knockback and allows them to trample through lesser enemies.
  
• Talent 4-1: 'Divine Excoriation' replaced with new talent 'Blazing Bright' - Taking damage grants Victor Fury. Entering Righteous Fury grants Victor Shield of Faith.
  
• Talent 4-2: 'Empowered Smite' replaced with new talent 'See My Wrath' - Shield of Faith grants Victor 50% Fury. Smite now deals 40% of the attack's damage.
  
• Talent 4-3: 'From Fury, Fortitude' - Changed it to 'Each Kill now grants Fury and during Righteous Fury restores Health to the party.'
  
• Talent 5-1: 'Prayer of Vengeance' - Changed it to bless the party with 25% power versus Monsters instead.
  
• Talent 6-1: 'Unyielding Blessing' - Changed it to 'Shield of Faith now lasts 10 seconds. The shielded hero's attacks cause the shield to pulse staggering nearby enemies.'

Grail Knight

• Increased the cooldown of the career skill 'Blessed Blade' to 60 seconds.
  
• Talent 2-1: 'Virtue of the Ideal' - Reduced Power per stack to 8%.
  
• Talent 2-3: 'Virtue of Heroism' - Increased Heavy attack power bonus to 30%.

Weapon Changes
Sienna's Coruscation Staff

• Reduced the amount of pellets in the primary attack to 9 (down from 12)
  
• Reduced the overcharge cost of the primary attack (to 6).
  
• Reduced the duration of the fire patches from the secondary attack to 6 seconds.
  
• Reduced duration of the Damage over Time from the fire patches to 2 seconds.
  
• Increased the overcharge cost of the secondary attack (to 9).
  
• Reduced max stacks of Damage over Time from the fire patches to 5.

Kerillian's Dual Daggers

• Reduced damage vs monsters by ~20%.

One-handed Sword (Kruber & Sienna)

• Reduced the cost of pushing to 1 stamina (Half a shield).
• Increased damage and cleave damage on light attacks 1 and 2.
• Increased damage vs hit index 1 for light chained attack 1 and 2 by 20%.
• Increased damage vs hit index 2 for light chained attack 1 and 2 by 48%.
• Increased overall damage and cleave damage of heavy attacks.
• Increased overall damage on hit index 1 for heavy attacks by ~7%.
• Increased overall damage on hit index 2 for heavy attacks by 80%.
• Increased overall stagger on hit index 2 for heavy attacks by 20%.
• Increased overall damage on hit index 3 for heavy attacks by 100%.
• Increased heavy attacks' damage vs armor for the first target by 20%.
• Increased cleave stagger of heavy attacks.
• Increased overall stagger on hit index 3 for heavy attacks by 50%.

Two-handed Sword (Kruber & Saltzpyre)

• Increased damage and cleave damage on Light Attacks.
• Increased damage vs hit index 1 for light attacks by 11%.
• Increased damage vs hit index 2 for light attacks by 76%.
• Increased damage vs hit index 3 for light attacks by 80%.
• Increased damage and cleave damage on Heavy Attacks.
• Increased damage vs hit index 1 for heavy attacks by 11%.
• Increased damage vs hit index 2 for heavy attacks by 40%.
• Increased damage vs hit index 3 for heavy attacks by 66%.
• Increased damage vs hit index 4 for heavy attacks by 44%.
• Replaced the damage profile of the push attack with the damage profile from the Bretonnian Sword's 3rd heavy attack.

One-handed axe (Bardin & Saltzpyre)

• Reduced the cost of pushing to 1 stamina (Half a shield).

One-handed hammer (Kruber, Bardin & Saltzpyre)

• Reduced the cost of pushing to 1 stamina (Half a shield)

Kerillian's Javelin

• Added damage drop off range similar to Bardin's Throwing Axes.
  
• Reduced thrown javelin damage & stagger at dropoff range.
  
• Reduced thrown Javelin overall damage by 5%.
  
• Reduced thrown Javelin headshot damage modifier by 7%.
  
• Reduced thrown Javelin cleave by ~80%.
  
• Reduced thrown Javelin damage modifier vs Super Armor by ~20%.
  
• Reduced thrown Javelin damage modifier vs armor by 8%.
  
• Reduced Javelin melee headshot damage modifier by 12%.
  
• Reduced Javelin melee non-crit damage modifier vs monsters by 12%.
  
• Reduced Javelin melee crit damage modifier vs monsters by 5%.
  
• Reduced Javelin melee's damage boost when using Shade's career skill to 2.8.

Kerillian's One-handed Axe

• Changed the order of the light attack moveset.
  
• Added new damage profiles for light attacks 3 and 4.

Kruber's Sword & Shield

• Replaced the damage profile of the 3rd heavy attack with the damage profile of his one-handed sword's first heavy attack.

• The souls from the Necromancer talent 'Lost Souls' now ignore unalerted patrols. Hehe, whoops.
  
• Equipped portrait frames now also show up in the Main Menu / Hero Selection screen.
  
• Fixed an issue with scrollbars when using smaller screen resolutions.

• Fixed issue where effects that would let you throw a grenade without consuming it would re-equip the grenade (Except for the Potion of Endless Bombs, he he he).
  
• Fixed UI bug with the Emporium where an icon could get stuck on the screen.
  
• Fixed a bug where disconnecting while in a chaos sorcerer vortex would make the game silent.
  
• Fixed a bug where teammates’ attack voices could interrupt themselves.
  
• Fixed lots of issues with Outcast Engineer’s sounds.

Hello again, my name is Karl and I'm back to provide some commentary about our upcoming balance changes that were hinted at in the last dev blog.

These changes intend to target clear outliers in both strength and weakness and attempt to bring them in line with the rest of the game while keeping their intended design.



First up was Pyromancer, as she was constantly brought up during discussions during the development of the Necromancer. Community perception was that she was lacking in identity which we agreed with. The fire wizard careers were always close to each other in how they played, even in the initial development of Vermintide 2. Part of the issue is that we allow each career to wield every staff available to Sienna. The spells that the staff brings dictates what ranged role Sienna will play and we then empower the roles through the use of talents. Currently, it’s not enough to get the feeling of uniqueness.



The new changes to Pyromancer aim to set the careers further apart through how they interact with her overcharge and melee mechanics.

• Battle Wizard aims at bringing a balanced playstyle. Moving between casting spells and melee while venting overcharge through the passive.
  
• Pyromancer leans more into the ranged side of Sienna, unleashing a lot more spells through improved overcharge capacity and spells scaling with that overcharge, but having a harder time getting rid of accumulated overcharge mid-fight.
  
• Unchained leans into the melee side of Sienna, choosing between risk and reward with high overcharge gains with the tools to completely dump overcharge when needed.

We made these changes to Pyromancer help achieve this goal:

• Moved 'Volans Doctrine' to Passive
  
• Reduced 'The Burning Head' cooldown
  
• New Perk 'One with Aqshy' - 50% increased max Overcharge. Added support for increasing Overcharge bar size to fit increased max overcharge :^)
  
• Replaced ‘Volans Doctrine’ with 'Flamestrike's Tutelage' - Sienna gains 80% reduction on Venting damage. Each nearby enemy decreases the damage reduction by 20%.
  
• ‘Exhaust’ replaced with ‘Dissipating Rictus' - The Burning Head grants 50% charge speed and Overcharge explosion immunity for 12 seconds.
  
• Increased the duration of ‘Deathly DIssipation’
  
• Increased the power bonus from ‘On the Precipice’
  
• Increased the max power bonus from ‘Ride the Fire Wind’

Next up was Engineer. Perceived not only as weak, but also clunky to use. The clunkiness of the crank gun was clear and we have some changes lined up to alleviate that. The perceived weakness was a bit more tricky. We didn’t see this as an issue of damage output—frankly if the Engineer is allowed to concentrate fire he can put out some ridiculous numbers. But that's not when the true mettle of a career is tested. 

Vermintide 2 is quite easy when you are on cruise control running through levels and killing anything before it is a threat. The true test is when the unexpected happens. When a mauler teleports behind you mid overhead while the elf pulls the chaos patrol just as two assassins spawn. This is what creates those intense stories of heroic clutches that you want to tell your friends, but also where we felt the Engineer fell flat. With no panic button, clunky weaponry, and low health; the chances of his survival were quite slim.

It is a part of the Engineer’s design to be a ranged powerhouse that has to be protected. We want to keep the same spirit of the Engineer, but right now the ranged power to clutch potential ratio is a bit weak.



The following changes aim to bump the Engineers ranged prowess as well as offering the players some form of a panic button through the use of bombs:

• Increased Engineer Health to 125
  
• Increased 'Gromril-Plated Shot' damage
  
• Increased base fire rate of 'linked compression chambers'
  
• Reduced base Crank Gun starting fire rate
  
• Reduced base Crank Gun fire rate gain per shot
  
• ‘Build Pressure’ no longer loses stacks while firing.
  
• Can ‘Build Pressure’ while on max ability bar
  
• ‘Build Pressure’ stacks no longer lost on full bar.
  
• ‘Leading Shots’ replaced with ‘Ingenious Ordnance' - Bardin creates a bomb every 80 seconds and explosives no longer deal friendly fire damage.
  
• ‘Head full of Steam’ now grants Attack Speed instead of Power.
  
• ‘Superior Gaskets’ now causes pressure to be lost upon firing instead of over time and each stack of pressure grants 4% power.
  
• ‘Experimental Steam Capacitors’ replaced with ‘'Perilous Overclock' - Building Pressure at Max stacks restores 25% charge and grants 15% crit but damages Bardin. Each Overclock increases damage suffered.
  
• ‘Bombardier’ now also causes Bardin to start missions with 3 bombs.
  
• ‘Piston Power’ now also restores all stamina when triggered.

Warrior Priest was the third career to receive some functionality changes to his talents. The main grievance we wanted to tackle was Righteous Fury and when players receive it. We wanted to try to move away from the ‘feels bad’ moment of having your hammers start to glow just as the final enemy of the wave is slain.



These new passive talents and changes aim to alleviate that while providing interesting ways of playing the warrior priest:

• Base Shield of Faith now renders the hero immune to ranged knockback and allows them to trample through lesser enemies.
  
• Replaced ‘Divine Excoriation’ with 'Blazing Bright' - Taking damage grants Victor Fury. Entering Righteous Fury grants Victor Shield of Faith.
  
• ‘Empowered Smite’ replaced with 'See My Wrath' - Shield of Faith grants Victor 60% Fury. Smite now deals 40% of the attacks damage.
  
• ‘From Fury, Fortitude’ now also grants Fury when Victor kills enemies.
  
• ‘Prayer of Vengeance’ now grants the party power versus Monsters
  
• ‘Unyielding Blessing’ now increases the duration of the Shield to 10 seconds and causes the shield to pulse when attacking.

Battle Wizard has been overperforming especially when combined with the very strong coruscation staff. We are bringing down the strength of the overperforming talents such as Famished Flames as well as adding a couple of seconds to the career skill cooldown to reign in the Battle Wizards running rampant:

• Increased the cooldown of 'Fire Walk'
  
• Reduced the damage reduction per burning enemy from ‘Soot Shield’
  
• Reduced the bonus damage to damage over time effects from ‘Famished Flames’ to 100%.
  
• Reduced the reduction to normal damage from ‘Famished Flames’ to 15%.
  
• Increased Cooldown Reduction from 'Volans Quickening' to 40%.
  
• Increased the damage of 'Lingering Flames'

The Necromancer hit the ground somewhat smoothly balance wise, but there are some talents we would like to bring up to par. We had hoped the potential of Army of the Dead would carry her over the line, but actively using her skeletons leaves her rarely getting full value out of the talent.

We are tweaking the behavior of the talent to keep that same potential, just easier to use:

• ‘Army of the Dead’ now reanimates 6 additional Skeletons that decay after 20 seconds. (these can still stack)
  
• Reduced the amount of Overcharge vent needed to trigger ‘Lost Souls’ and increased their damage.

It has been brought up that our boss killer careers are a bit too good at their job to the point of trivializing monsters. This patch we are nudging down their strength through the following tweaks:

• Grail Knight will see a reduction in their very easy to use power level talents as well as an increase to the cooldown of Blessed Blade
  
• Not Shade specific but Dual Daggers, Shade's main tool to annihilate bosses will see a reduction to the monster damage modifier
  
• Bounty Hunter will after an age see Double Shotted getting bug fixed. No longer triggering twice and reducing cooldown by 40% twice. We are increasing the cooldown refund to 60% to compensate.

Javelin and Coruscation staff have been running rampant for a good while. We are bringing down the strength of these weapons to let the rest of the heroes join in on the fun:

• Javelin will see a nerf to armor damage as well as a significant reduction in cleave in an attempt to reduce the extreme versatility of the weapon.
  
• Coruscation will see a reduction in overall damage as well as a decrease in the duration of the damage over time effect of the flame patch coupled with an increase to the tick rate in an attempt to reward keeping enemies inside the actual flame patch.

Most of our one-handed weaponry is underrepresented and or is underperforming. The fantasy of our one handed weapons is that of increased finesse and mobility that comes from having to wield and swing less weight. As such buffs to one-handed weapons should target, headshot damage, dodging, crit chance and stamina to name a few. As a first stab at giving the one handed weapons buffs that are accurate with their fantasy we have reduced the cost of pushing to 1 stamina for most one-handed weapons. More one-handed weapon buffs to come.

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Direction for these changes are inspired by various discussions on our community platforms and cross-referencing some of the more popular balance mods available. So if something is not sitting right and you feel like you got a solution make sure to let us know on Reddit, Steam, or the Fatshark Forums. This is us working together to shape the game into what we want it to be.

This announcement will catalogue all the hotfixes we have released for patch 5.1.0 that came in with the Necromancer career, and will be kept current with the latest hotfix release added to the top of the patch notes.

Hotfix 5.1.5 - November 3rd

Fixes

• Fixed bug where hordes occasionally stop appearing.
  
• Fixed bug where terror events sometimes got stuck.

Hotfix 5.1.4 - November 1st

Tweaks

• Changed it so that instead of being hidden, the FSR 2.2 and DLSS settings are shown but greyed out when playing on an incompatible system.
  Dev note: Currently, a generic "Unsupported version" error message is shown. This will be replaced in a future version to show more information.
  
• The Sharpness Filter setting is now compatible with upscaling technology and is no longer greyed-out when upscaling is enabled.
  
• The Necromancer bot is now more restrictive with her ability use. She will not use her ability unless she's down to 4 or less skeletons, or she's being overwhelmed by enemies.
  
• (Chaos Wastes) As Necromancer, having both the 'Dread Seneschal' and 'Barrow Blades' talents will now make Sienna have the army composition of Dread Seneschal, with the added benefits of AoE DoT and DoT on attack from Barrow Blades (as opposed to the Barrow Blades talent overriding the Dread Seneschal talent). The ULTIMATE army of the dead...
  
• Attack commands can now be cancelled by using the Icon of Death's weapon special. This also makes it possible to cancel the attack command when using the 'Dread Seneschal' talent.
  

Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Necromancer skeletons made the game easier by making the AI systems think there were more enemies than there actually were. They are friends, dammit.
  
• Fixed a bug where using a career weapon ability while drinking a potion allowed an infinite career ability exploit.
  
• Patched up breaking changes in damage calculation that made the sanctioned mod Armory no longer work.
  
• Picking up potions & grimoires is no longer possible when carrying the Skull of Blosphoros.
  
• Fixed a rare network related crash when someone leaves the game.
  
• Fix client crash if the player who revives them leaves the game at the same time as they are revived.
  
• (Chaos Wastes) Fixed bug where "Asuryan's Wrath" and "Manann's Tempest" traits dealt friendly fire damage to Necromancer skeletons.
  
• Fixed rare crash when Nurglings get scared. You meanies :(
  
• Fixed unintended change where all free bomb effects causes player to equip the extra bomb. Now the previously wielded weapon is properly equipped after throwing a bomb (except for when under the endles bomb potion effect in Chaos Wastes)
  
• Necromancer is now immune to Blosphoros' shenanigans as intended.
  
• Added more checks at startup to avoid the game booting with invalid graphics settings that could result in getting a black screen.
  
• Added a failsafe so the settings menu does not crash when settings are set to invalid values eg. due to external editing.
  Dev note: Please do keep in mind that externally editing settings is not officially supported, but you may do them at your own risk.
  
• The Soulstealer Staff will no longer hit players that are very close to Sienna. You may still choose to hit them, though, if you're evil.
  
• Fixed the Ensorcelled Reaper's weapon special attack not granting THP.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Foot Knight's charge didn't knock down enemies when immediately cancelled.
  
• Fixed a bug where shield skellies could not be commanded to attack if there were no hammer skellies alive.
  
• Fixed an issue where Necromancer could get incompatible boons, such as Ualapt's Cunning, stagger talents, etc.
  
• Fixed a bug where Waystalker's Serrated Arrows was overriding Hagbane's DoT.
  
• Fixed a bug where Waystalker's Serrated Arrows was overriding Moonfire Bow's DoT if the player plays as client.
  
• Fixed FSR2 quality settings not being persisted across sessions under specific conditions, resulting in getting less performance gains than expected.
  
• Fixed a shader issue that made the lava found in some Chaos Wastes and Karak maps flicker.
  
• Temporary health degeneration is no longer affected by damage reduction buffs.
  
• Fixed occasional crash when completing a map or the host leaves while Ranger Veteran's smoke bomb is active.

Fixes

Hotfix 5.1.3

• Berserkers and Plague Monks no longer track players when they’re invisible.
  
• Specials no longer track players when they’re invisible.
  
• Fixed a bug that made certain enemies deal less damage than they’re supposed to (Notably, Plague Monks/Berserkers and Infantry).
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when hotjoining a mission that had a javelin or throwing axe with an illusion applied, but the player’s inventory had not fully synced.
  
• Fixed a crash when hotjoining into the end event of Tower of Treachery.
  
• Fixed a crash on Wizard’s Tower due to scripted projectiles. Olesya is up to her old tricks again!
  
• Fixed rare server crash when leaving a mission when Necromancer is in the game.
  
• Fixed a crash when grabbing the Necromancer’s ability information scrollbar on the hero selection screen with your mouse.
  
• Fixed a re-introduced frame-perfect host crash. The game would crash when skeletons ran out of valid enemy targets the frame before they finish an attack.

Tweaks

• The Necromancer’s Icon of Death is no longer shown in the ally frame UI thingie, it’s now back to only showing whether the ally has a potion or not.

Fixes

• Fixed the dummies in the Keep being too fat and having big collisions.
  
• Fixed hot join crash if a Ranger Veteran with the ‘Exhilirating Vapours’ used their ability that session.
  
• Fixed Bardin being able to stealth infinitely with the ‘Surprise Guest’ talent by re-entering the ability.
  
• Fixed Ranger Veteran with ‘Exhilirating Vapours’ talent showing the wrong amount of ability stacks.
  
• Fixed small enemies swallowing bombs when thrown at them.
  
• Fixed occasional frame perfect host crash when a defend command is issued the frame before an attack command swing finishes.
  
• Fixed bug where Necromancer lost Icon of Death upon drinking a Potion of Endless Bombs. You can all play Chaos Wastes again!
  
• Fixed Necromancer not losing Grimoire on death.
  
• Fixed Engineer not losing additional bombs on death.
  
• Fixed Handmaiden bleed dash talent damaging Necromancer skeletons. She’s now fully accepted that they are friends. :)
  
• Fixed a crash in Fort Shakalaka related to the end event cannonballs.
  
• Fixed a bug where Necromancer would keep her potion when giving it away.
  
• Fixed that bug where the challenge “Unrestful Bonefire” could only progress one point per level.
  
• Fixed a crash when hotjoining into the end event of Tower of Treachery.

Fixes

Hotfix 5.1.1

• Added more failsafes for Twitch mode not working.
  
• Fixed occasional host crash from skeleton targets dying
  
• Fixed Soulstealer Staff not benefiting from the “Heat Sink” trait
  
• Fixed a crash when hotjoining into game with a Sienna that has the ‘Lost Souls’ talent.
  
• Fixed crashes related to French localization.
  
• Fixed crash when Necromancer bot used the Soulstealer Staff’s ‘Soul Rip’ attack.
  
• Fixed a crash from throwing Morgrim’s Bomb on enemies.
  
• Fixed a crash when the Necromancer commanded her skeletons to defend in the exact moment they died.
  
• Fixed frames from Chaos Wastes challenges being hidden unless you own the Forgotten Relics
  
• Fixed a crash that happened when hotjoining while a resumeable interaction is in progress.
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen while starting a resumable interaction as a client related to latency and prediction.
  
• Fixed a crash with the souls from the Necromancer’s ‘Lost Souls’ talent when targeting Wizards Tower skulls.
  
• Fixed the souls from the Necromancer’s ‘Lost Souls’ talent having issues hitting targets.
  
• Chaos Wastes: Fixed Rhya’s Thorns boon crashing upon breaking shields.
  
• Fixed crash for when a Necromancer left the game while a projectile from the Soulstealer Staff was chasing enemies.
  
• Fixed rare crash occurring when a player hot-joined into a moving elevator, while a Globadier made a charge run towards the player.
  
• Fixed some crashes related to Sister of the Thorns’ walls.
  
• Fixed a crash when Morgrim’s Bomb stuck to an enemy.

Geheimnisnacht is the most ill-omened night of the year and with both Mannslieb and Morrslieb full in the sky only the strong and brave dare venture into the dark. During Gehimnisnacht it's said that the veil between the living and the dead is thinner, and it's the perfect time to visit the Gardens of Morr to pay homage to the ancestors.

The most ill-omened time of the year has returned to Vermintide 2, and this year it is more menacing than ever before, with old favorites and new challenges to conquer. Geheimnisnacht is live on all platforms between October 26 - November 5.




Challenge yourself and your fellow heroes during Geheimnisnacht. Visit a ritual site, collect the Skull of Blosphoros, and survive the remainder of the mission(s) in order to earn time-limited rewards. Good luck!

• Disrupt the Disruptors: The word from Lohner's scouts is that the pactsworn are conducting rituals centered on a particularly animated skull. Lost in whatever it is they were up to, they didn't pay the scouts any heed at first. Then one lass chucked a rock at a celebrant and the rest flung themselves at her, eyes aglow and murder in their vicious hearts. It all went downhill from there. According to the survivors, the pactsworn were stronger than normal, like the skull was empowering them ... There was some mention of a mocking voice as well, though that is probably the least of anyone's worries.
  
  The ritual sites can be located in; Festering Ground, War Camp, Blood in the Darkness, Wizard's Tower, and Khazukan Kazakit-ha! It’s on you if you want to get involved or just … leave it all the hell alone.
  
• The Skull of Blosphoros: Disrupt the ritual and secure the Skull of Blosphoros for an extra challenge. Select your courier with caution as there is no second chance of picking up the Skull during that mission once it has been lost.
  
• Defeat the Ritual Guardian: Be careful when you interact with the ritual sites, as not all Pactsworn take kindly to it. Disturbing the ritual might find you on the receiving end of blade of 'eavy Metal with a grudge to bear.

During Geheimnisnacht you can earn five new unique time-limited rewards by completing the themed quests. New weapon illusions and portrait frames are awaiting those brave enough to complete the challenge. Curious what these weapon illusions might be? Take a look at the preview below from Jellynx.





Watch your step! While traversing the Reikland, you might encounter Nurglings. They're known to cause mischief, giggle, and rarely come in small numbers. Hopefully, they scatter quickly!

• Berserkers and Plague Monks no longer track players when they’re invisible.
  
• Specials no longer track players when they’re invisible.
  
• Fixed a bug that made certain enemies deal less damage than they’re supposed to (Notably, Plague Monks/Berserkers and Infantry).
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when hotjoining a mission that had a javelin or throwing axe with an illusion applied, but the player's inventory had not fully synced.
  
• Fixed a crash when hotjoining into the end event of Tower of Treachery.
  
• Fixed a crash on Wizard’s Tower due to scripted projectiles. Olesya is up to her old tricks again!
  
• Fixed rare server crash when leaving a mission when Necromancer is in the game.
  
• Fixed a crash when grabbing the Necromancer’s ability information scrollbar on the hero selection screen with your mouse.

We are incredibly excited to announce the launch of Patch 5.1.0 and with it, the release of Sienna's new Career: the Necromancer! Just in time for Geheimnisnacht...

On top of the Necromancer, this patch introduces some bugfixes, feature tweaks, and optimization improvements, including a massive shrink to the install size of the game!



The Necromancer is a new Career for Sienna Fuegonasus. This DLC contains the new playable career with its own talent tree and abilities, two new weapons, cosmetics, and more!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2585630/Warhammer_Vermintide_2__Necromancer_Career/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2585640/Warhammer_Vermintide_2__Necromancer_Cosmetic_Upgrade/

Necromancers raise the dead to fulfill their every command. Drawn to the Dark Magic following a battle with her twin sister Sofia, Sienna now strides into battle at the head of a company of skeletons, wielding a Soulstealer Staff and Ensorcelled Reaper to bestow the gift of death upon her foes.

As a Necromancer, Sienna will be able to slay her foes with most of her existing arsenal, as well as the two new, unique weapons!

The Ensorcelled Reaper is a threatening two-handed weapon with fantastic cleave and powerful impact. Its special attack causes Sienna to slam the weapon into the ground, releasing a blast of energy around her. This weapon is useable by all of Sienna's careers.

The Soulstealer Staff is a vile conduit of Necromantic magic. The primary attack fires a cursed bolt that bounces between enemies, staggering and applying a damage over time effect. The secondary attack earns the staff its namesake, by letting you target an enemy and ripping at its soul, dealing massive damage. This weapon is only useable by Sienna's Necromancer career.




Sienna’s flames now burn with a cold, unearthly light that saps enemy vigour, causing them to suffer 20% additional damage from Sienna and her Servants.

• Mistress of Death: Sienna can command her servants to Attack or Defend. She can also Release them to ventilate Overcharge.
  
• Lifetaker: Killing an enemy grants 2% crit for 4 seconds. Max stacks 5.
  
• Cold Flames: Sienna’s damage over time effects last 100% longer.

Sienna calls the dead to do her bidding, raising a company of 6 Skeleton Warriors to fight at her side. They last until destroyed, or until Sienna casts Raise Dead again.


Wielding this Icon, Sienna can issue commands to her skeletal minions! This Icon is stored in Sienna's potion slot when playing as a Necromancer. Don't worry, she still has room for a potion, as well!

• Attack Command: Orders your skeletons to attack target enemy and increases their damage by 60% for 8 seconds.
  
• Defend Command: Orders your skeletons to defend target area and reduces the damage they take by 80%.
  
• Death's Release: Release a Skeleton from its servitude, instantly Ventilating 70% Overcharge.

• Corpsemaker: Damaging multiple enemies in one swing with a melee weapon grants temporary health. Max 5 enemies.
  
• Deathdealer: Melee killing blows restore temporary health based on the health of the slain enemy.
  
• Life Leeching: Healing yourself with a First Aid Kit or a Healing Draught also heals your nearby allies for 20.0% of their maximum health. Clears any wounds.

• Vanhel's Danse Macabre: +12% attack speed when 4 skeletons are alive.
  
• Death Ascendent: Casting spells grants 5% ranged power for 6 seconds. Max stacks 5.
  
• Reaping: Critical attacks have +25% power and unlimited cleave.

• Mainstay: Deal 40% more damage to staggered enemies. Each hit against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger. Bonus damage is increased to 60% against enemies afflicted by more than one stagger effect.
  
• Smiter: The first enemy hit always counts as staggered. Deal 20% more damage to staggered enemies. Each hit against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger. Bonus damage is increased to 40% against enemies afflicted by more than one stagger effect.
  
• Enhanced Power: Increases total Power Level by 7.5%. This is calculated before other buffs are applied.

• Cursed Blood: Critical attacks against enemies afflicted by the Malediction of Nagash cause them to burst, damaging nearby enemies based on the damage of the attack.
  
• Soul Harvest: The Malediction of Nagash rips the soul from targets that die. Harvesting 8 souls causes the next attack to be a guaranteed Critical Hit.
  
• Withering Touch: On releasing a Skeleton, all Sienna's attacks for the next 15 seconds ignite enemies, causing damage over time.

• Spirit Leech: Killing an elite enemy restores 15% cooldown.
  
• Curse of the Undeath: Casting Raise Dead reduces damage inflicted on Sienna by 80% for the next 3 hits.
  
• Lost Souls: Venting 20% overcharge unleashes a soul that steals health from a nearby enemy restoring 2 temporary health.

• Army of the Dead: Raise Dead now causes Skeletons to remain for 20 seconds before decaying.
  
• Barrow Blades: Skeletons now carry two cursed blades. When raised, and when attacking, they ignite enemies, causing damage over time.
  
• Dread Seneschal: Increase Skeleton health and damage by 50%. Command Attack now orders a charge. Command Defend can be issued simultaneously.

With this patch, we are reworking how we store assets in the game files. Previously, each level kept a copy of each asset it would use in its own file, so even if the same asset was used in different levels, each level would have its own copy. This was done to optimize loading times on HDDs, as storing assets this way would make loading into the map much faster.

However, as the game kept expanding, and specially after the addition of Chaos Wastes, the resulting install size was becoming a bit much. We've rebundled the game so that now we only store a single copy of a good chunk of our assets. The result is that we've managed to shrink the install size from 100.89 GB (pre-Necromancer install size) to 58.87 GB for this patch! Hell yes.


The above mentioned change should mean that while the install size got smaller, the load times for HDDs might've become worse (SSDs should be unaffected). However! With the same patch we're also introducing changes to our loading algorithm (particularly in the compression part of the loading process) to improve our loading times. We're expecting a slightly longer loading screen when booting up the game, but much faster loading screens when loading into levels, overall reducing loading times.

Overall, according to our tests, this should mean that HDDs should not see any changes to load time speed despite the rebundling change, while SSDs will load faster!


Some of you may already be familiar with this. Usually when we patch the game, we essentially add files on top of the existing files, which does mean that the game increases in size as we keep patching (even if it's just changes to existing features) and every now and then we need to re-base (we've sometimes called this a re-master). This means deleting all of the 'extra' files and updating the core files so that they contain all the changes, thus reducing the install size to the minimum possible.

Well, we've done that with this patch but ALSO, we're re-working our patching strategy so that we don't need to do the whole extra file thing again. This should mean that, moving forward, patches won't result in the game taking up more and more space.

Fair warning, though, because of this rebasing, the patch might take a while to download and install, as you're essentially downloading the entire game again.

We've updated some in-game systems to consume less RAM memory while in game. While these might seem somewhat minor for players who have plenty of it, systems such as consoles or PCs with lower RAM should have a more stable experience.



We've implemented both Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR 2.2 technologies into the game's options, allowing players with lower end hardware to enable them to greatly improve performance at minimal loss of graphical fidelity. We've seen several requests to add these in the past few months so we're glad to be able to deliver there! Please note that these options are only available in the DirectX 12 version of the game.

Unfortunately, we've realized that the introduction of DLSS will mean that the game will cease to be compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. As Steam is going to cease supporting these operating systems in January, we've decided to go ahead with the implementation and cease support of these operating systems ahead of time. We're sorry if there's any fans we're disappointing with this change.





It's probably no coincidence that Sienna's spooky new outlook on (un)life coincides with the return of Morrslieb and with it, Geheimnisnacht! Our Geheimnisnacht event will be live again for all platforms, running from October 26 to November 5.

We'll have more info to reveal about the event when it drops! There will be goodies, and it will be spooky!

-------



We've heard a lot of comments worried that Necromancer will be the last piece of content we release for Vermintide 2. We want to take the opportunity to put you guys at ease! While we can't mention any specifics, we can confirm that there is more content being developed for this game, and we can't wait to be able to announce it to you all! But for now, enjoy Necromancer, enjoy the upcoming Geheimnisnacht, and look forwards to our next announcement!

Without further ado...



With the addition of DLSS, the game will cease to be compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. As Steam is going to cease supporting these operating systems in January, we've decided to go ahead with the implementation and cease support of these operating systems ahead of time. We're sorry if there's any fans we're disappointing with this change.

• Added a system to dynamically load projectiles into memory, rather than always load them, to save memory.
  
• Various tweaks to the way player animations work that saves some memory and simplifies things internally.
  
• Implemented DLSS.
  
• Implemented FSR 2.2.
  
• Rebundled the game to take up much less space.
  
• Improved our level loading algorithm.
  
• Re-based our game files and changed our patching strategy to prevent file size bloat from future patches.

• Added visual effects for players who are on fire!
  
• Chaos Wastes: Outcast Engineer's 'Bombardier' talent now works with Morgrim's Bomb. Hehehehehe...
  
• Chaos Wastes: Potions of Endless Bombs no longer replaces a player's incendiary grenade with regular bombs.
  
• For Winds of Magic owners, Minotaurs are now an option for the Barn monster in Against the Grain. Surprise!
  
• Enemies set ablaze by a shot from the Moonfire bow now have an appropriately colored on-fire effect.
  
• Added a voice chat indicator that highlights which player is currently talking, when using ingame voice chat. This was added several updates ago, but it was missed in the patch notes so it's being mentioned here!

• Fixed a client crash when players join a lobby while Sister of the Thorn is moving. Damn elves can't stand still, can they?
  
• Fixed rare crash that causes joining client to occasionally crash if the team transitions to another level while client is joining.
  
• Fixed a visual bug which kept the Grauber's Arms illusion from displaying the proper glow.
  
• Fixed our heroes not always being chatty enough on the start of banter of Convocation of Decay, Skittergate & Blurblebla Haylesplurge
  
• Players won't get punked on by other Heroes for healing themselves when they have low permanent health, but a lot of temporary health.
  
• Chaos Wastes: Outcast Engineer no longer loses his stacks of bombs when drinking a Potion of Endless Bombs.
  
• Fixed the following weapon illusions having the wrong icon:
  
  • Kruber Spear and Shield:
    • Grauber's Arms
    • Weave-Forged Spear and Shield
    • Dantov's Guard
    
  • Trollhammer Torpedo:
    • Grobbok
    • Bugritbok
    
  • Coruscation Staff:
    • Elvarin's Rod of Destruction
    • Aqshy's Lament
    
  • Moonfire Bow:
    • The Voice of Lileath
    • Cadai-galand
    
  • Griffon-foot:
    • Meffler's Never-Fail Crowd Controller
    • Gunner's Judgement
  
  
• The elf-thing's ricochet projectiles now ricochet properly for clients.
  
• Fixed Huntsman Kruber not complaining about a lack of ammo when using his longbow.
  
• Fixed missing voicelines for clients when gaining Overcharge.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Trollhammer Torpedo illusion "Bugritbok" left particles in the air if swapping weapons quickly back and forth.
  
• Chaos Wastes: Fixed a bug where Morgrim's Bomb would ricochet when thrown by a Waystalker with the ricochet talent.
  
• Fixed Beastmen sometimes not playing their landing sound when jumping down from a height.
  
• Fixed a purple thingie in a level that shouldn't have been visible, but was visible. Blame Tzeentch.
  
• Fixed issues with occlusion culling in the Garrison section of Righteous Stand.
  
• Fixed bug where using Disengage as Bardin Ranger Veteran with "Exhilarating Vapours" before another smoke bomb disappears would not give stealth. Bardin can now have multiple smoke screens out without losing the effects of the older ones.
  
• UI: Fixed the Input Method Editor (IME) being opened when receiving a chat message, causing the game input to freeze. Now the IME only opens when typing a message. (Thank you Iskierka for the detailed report!).
  
• Fixed perk names in the old talent menu being the career name instead of the respective perk names

Hello there, my name is Karl and I'm one of the designers on the v2 team. My task is to follow up our glorious leader's post on general necromancer production with some insight into some of the challenges and decisions we made on the gameplay level.

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Creating a career starts with a fantasy plucked from the Warhammer universe that we want to translate into our game. Usually the fantasy gives you a hunch about what tools the career possesses, how it is going to play and what role it will fill. The Necromancer deviated slightly from this. We knew that she was going to summon skeletons and throw death magic around. How exactly she was going to play and what role she would fill was a bit more of a uncertainty as player minions as a concept was completely new.

Raised skeletons in Warhammer lore are not known to be the most kill-y unit. They serve as a vanguard to keep their master and their more important units safe. A replenishable undying frontline. We drew inspiration from this and decided that this is what Sienna's skeletons should achieve at a base level. A sorcerer summoning their own frontline.

To keep this post to a reasonable length I won't go into detail about every iteration that the skeletons and AI versus AI fighting went through. Every aspect about the skeletons saw intense iteration, aspects such as summoning, formation, combat, health and duration to mention a few. The skeletons bounced between being her career skill and passive multiple times but finally landed as the career skill at the center of the necromancer kit. 6 summonable Skeletons that engage enemies near Sienna.



Process of tweaking aggro and leash range of skeletons when Sienna is not actively fighting.

As the skeletons grew into proper minions assisting Sienna in combat we could start to consider questions that a lot of summoner classes in games have to answer to. How are the minions tied into the second to second gameplay? Summoner control has two extremes with each their own audiences. One side being the micro intensive extensive control over the available minions, high skill floor and satisfying skill ceiling with a lot of expression. The other side is the more passive way where the summoner does little to impact the actual behavior of the summons but rather supports them with things like debuffs and control, letting their servants do the work for them. We wanted to place the Necromancer somewhere in between, allowing for some level of control to gain more from your skeletons without making it a barrier of entry to the career.

Without any player input the skeletons will stay near Sienna, attack nearby enemies and soak up enemy threats. To give players control (and tying in the skeletons in the second to second gameplay), we created three commands: attack, defend and release, granting players the ability to issue targets, reposition and even sacrifice their skeletal servants.

The nature of being a spell caster with 6 extra bodies around to soak enemy attention gave way to her two main roles. A backline spell caster using her personal frontline as a buffer while dispensing death and a control focused summoner utilizing the great threat soaking potential of minions to grant the party breathing room. This we felt slotted into the Sienna career lineup.



To reduce vision blocking when controlling a lot of skeletons only 4 are forced to move in formation in front of Sienna.

Regarding her weapons, one side was already solved. The Scythe, a staple to necromancers in any rpg and Sienna's first proper two handed weapon. Great weapons with great cleaves are nothing new to Vermintide and Sienna was missing out on the fun.

The Soulstealer Staff required a bit more pondering. Here the challenge was to find gameplay in the form of spells that were different from her other staves but still befitted the Warhammer lore of necromancy. The staff saw many iterations and we decided on the flavorfully on point soul drain which is slow but tackles even the biggest of brutes. Building on the theme of control we also gave the staff a haunting curse allowing the necromancer to keep multiple elites under control as they are brought low by her Necromantic magics and servants.



Trying out the Soulstealer Staff with the “Cursed Blood” talent.

To go along with her weapons and calcium crew, Sienna's main passive Malediction of Nagash causes her Necromantic magics to increase the damage the enemy suffers from her. The intent behind this passive is to transform Sienna's damage over time effects into a way to enable other parts of her kit whilst also tying in the fantasy of necromantic magics draining enemy vigor.



Which brings us the Necromancer’s talent tree. The main purpose of the Vermintide talent trees is of course offering different ways to play the career within its allotted gameplay space, but also to extend the career into more specialized versions of the power fantasy. The challenge then is to provide the players relevant options for specialized playstyles that slots appropriately into the lore. The identities we selected that would serve as guidelines were summoner, caster and melee. 

• Vanhel’s Danse Macabre: Sienna gains 12% attack speed when 4 or more Skeletons are raised.
  
• Spirit Leech: Killing an elite enemy restores 15% cooldown.
  
• Army of the Dead: Raise Dead now causes Skeletons to remain for 20 seconds before decaying.

• Death Ascendent: Casting spells grants 5% increased Ranged Power for 6 seconds. Max Stacks 5.
  
• Lost Souls: Venting 20% Overcharge unleashes a soul that steals health from a nearby enemy, restoring 2 temporary health.
  
• Barrow Blades: Skeletons now carry two cursed blades. When raised, and when attacking, they ignite enemies, causing damage over time.

• Reaping: Critical strikes have Unlimited Cleave and 25% increased Power.
  
• Soul Harvest: The Malediction of Nagash rips the soul from targets that die. Harvesting 8 souls causes the next attack to be a guaranteed Critical Hit.
  
• The Curse of Undeath: Casting Raise Dead reduces damage inflicted on Sienna by 80% for the next 3 hits.

-----

While the goal is to create talents that enhance the tools and feeling of a specialized build, the aim is to create talents that don't pigeon-hole players too much and are useful on their own to allow for tinkering and mix-and-matching.

So whether it is halting the enemy advance with shambling walls of bone, shriveling the enemies life essence or swinging big scythes around we hope that you will enjoy bringing death to the enemy in one way or another and we look forward to your response on the necromancer. As we pick up on our efforts to balance and evolve the game, we will keep a close eye on the numbers as the necromancer and her bad to the bone crew of restless dead enter the fray.

My name is Joakim and I'm the design director on Warhammer: Vermintide 2. I've been a part of Fatshark even longer than Lohner and for 15 years I've been working mainly with level creation and design in pretty much all of our games. Earlier this spring I took on the role of leading the design vision and direction of Vermintide 2 - like being the resident mission giver.

---


Now that the long-awaited career for Sienna - the Necromancer - is just around the proverbial Ranaldstrasse corner, I want to look back at the journey leading up to this point and show you some behind the scenes production footage in this dev blog.

But first, if you haven’t read the narrative lore post then go here to get the story.
When the team started exploring what Siennas new career could be, they started with our three general career goals in mind:

• To create a career that was fun and cool, and that had its own gameplay space in the lineup.
  
• To explore something new that helped us innovate a technical aspect.
  
• To delight you with something unexpected yet plausible for the Hero.

The idea of a Necromancer has been kicking around for a long time - it was already in the back of our skulls when starting work on the Grail Knight. The team knew from the onset that we had to explore something that wasn’t a fire wizard simply because it would be challenging to carve out a gameplay role that didn’t cannibalize on her regular careers. From a tech perspective we also dreamt of something akin to a pet class with a summon & control type of gameplay. Together with the End Times storyline a Necromancer ticked all of those boxes.

We started out creating a concept for the Necromancer. We do similar concepts for all things that we create, highlighting details and material references so that our outsourcing partners have a clear idea of the direction we want.



Looking at the career designs it was clear that the Necromancer would be the most complex class of the bunch, and that it made most sense for it to go out last. That would give us confidence in figuring out good practices for careers in general and it gave us time to plan and lay the groundwork for the technical side of things. Most work was put into the career highlight: the skeleton minions.



We call them minions rather than bots because even though they feel similar they don’t share the same code or design space. Sienna’s skeletons are actually rather like a friendly faction of their own, sharing behavior and movement with Vermintide’s enemies. That meant a lot of work, both from a pure visual and combat behavior perspective but also balancing their presence and relative player positioning so that they didn’t end up being too noisy or obtrusive. It also meant a lot of bug fixing.







So having done the groundwork we now have a bit of tech in place for enemies fighting enemies. We’re pretty excited toying around with that for the future. :)

After a lot of prototyping the skeleton behavior was getting to a good spot, enabling us to focus on presentation and tweaking.

Career production started in earnest earlier this year with creating the Necromancer's basic building blocks - her weapons, the character model and the minions. The initial idea was of Sienna using ranged attacks to soften up enemies but having a heavy hitting toolkit to finish them off. In the beginning it might have been a bit too heavy hitting.



This combat style saw several iterations in both functionality and appearance, and the way she played was changed and tweaked over several months - a special shoutout to our alpha testers who provided invaluable feedback and insight on direction.

The team worked hard to ensure we fulfilled what players would expect from a Warhammer Fantasy Necromancer. The career not only had to play well, we also had to make sure she looked the part, and stayed in keeping with the miniatures and Warhammer Fantasy lore. Extra care was put into nailing down how she could summon skeletons, which saw us going back and forth with it being an active or passive ability (and trying out different alternatives for visual presentation).



Of course, having figured out a design doesn’t mean the work ends then and there - it’s all about finding that sweet spot between gameplay balance, performance targets and sheer fun. Some ideas didn’t make it, but the team sure had fun exploring them. :)



We’re super happy to soon release the Necromancer and the recently deceased upon Helmgart and surroundings, and we hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes blog. A big thank you to all our players and our fantastic community. And rest assured, we’ll be back soon enough with more cool things to reveal in the next dev blog showing you what actually made it into the career.

Come along Darlings, let's go save the world.

— Joakim, on behalf of the Vermintide 2 team.

The Ubersreik Five have been through some stuff haven’t they? Confounding the evil machinations of the Skaven at Ubersreik (even if they couldn’t quite save the city in the process). Then thwarting the Pactsworn alliance in the depths of Helmgart (again, a bit late to actually save the city, but who’s quibbling?). Little did they know that these weren’t isolated invasions of the kind the Empire has endured since its founding, but harbingers of a new and terrible age: the End Times, when the laughter of the dark gods finally swallows the world.

The Five have known for a while that something isn’t right, of course. Tzeentch, the Chaos God of Change, has been dabbling away with the causality of the mortal world, tangling fate and destiny into new designs for no other reason than because he can.

This isn’t to say that our bold Five have drawn the attention of the Chaos Gods … well, perhaps the odd curious eyeball from time to time. It’s more that they’re caught in the ripples as the dark brothers hurl stones into the pool of reality. They’re not alone in that. The wider world has problems of its own beyond marching armies and bloodthirsty warriors.

But nor have the Five been completely untouched. Other entities have manipulated our heroes for their own ends. The goddess Lileath - known to Bretonnians as the Lady of the Lake - anoints Kruber as one of her Grail Knights, even as Kerillian falls from her light and under the sway of the bleak Cytharai goddesses. Be’lakor, the Dark Master, deceives the puritanical Victor Saltzpyre into seeking the Citadel of Eternity - and then a Warrior Priest’s mantle - for reasons of his own. And it may yet be that Bardin’s embrace of the newfangled and oft-cursed engineer’s vocation is not so whimsical as it seems.

Now, as Geheimnisnacht draws near, it’s Sienna’s turn.

Since time immemorial, a network of elven waystones has channelled the eight Winds of Magic - the stuff of Chaos itself - into the Great Vortex at the heart of the high elven realm of Ulthuan. But as the End Times gather pace, this network is failing, and one being in particular seeks advantage in that calamity.

When Nagash, the Great Necromancer, conspires to yet another resurrection this fateful Geheimnisnacht, he has more in mind than a simple return. Reborn, he lays claim to the Wind of Death, becoming a veritable god … and in the process making his dark art of Necromancy more accessible than ever before.

As the End Times gather pace, countless wizards dabble in necromantic magic out of pride, desperation, greed or simple curiosity. Balthasar Gelt, Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic will become the most prominent of these, wielding the dead as a weapon to contain the northlander invasion.


The sorceries that empower Necromancy are hollowing and dangerous. But then all magic is corrosive to mortals, to greater or lesser degree. It’s why so much of even the simplest spellcraft is bound up in ritual and somatic conjuring - it gives a wizard a means to minimise their exposure and their risk. And of course, necromancy’s great power arises through the most selfish of means: the binding of other creatures (albeit dead) to one’s own will - and having absolute dominion over anything - much less (once) living creatures seldom ends well.

Given these physical, mental and spiritual pressures, it’s no wonder that Necromancers turn evil - or else go so mad as makes no difference. When the boundary of mortality becomes so blurred, death loses its meaning - especially the death of those who stand in one’s way. And death is … so much tidier than living. Skeletons don’t talk back. They don’t need food or encouragement. They simply await their next command. And is it really so evil to press the dead to service if it saves the living?

Such was certainly Balthasar Gelt’s logic during the End Times, and he was by no means the first. So many of the Necromancers who rose to bedevil the world first began as wizards driven by simple curiosity, only to be led astray, one misstep after another.

Perhaps Sienna’s reasoning is much the same? Of all the Ubersreik Five, she’s the first to be appalled at the carnage and cruelty they encounter. More than that, though Saltzpyre has struggled to give her the benefit of the doubt, her impetuousness and her addiction to magic have always threatened to lead her down darker roads. Perhaps Nagash’s unshackling of the Wind of Death simply presented an irresistible opportunity?

Maybe - just maybe - a third party fanned those flames during her recent periods of absence from Taal’s Horn Keep? The daemon Be’lakor has manipulated our heroes at least since they returned to Castle Drachenfels. Is Sienna his latest toy? Or perhaps Sienna found a secret mentor, just as Gelt fell under the sway of Vlad von Carstein? Stranger things have happened in the shadow of the Chaos Gods.

Or is Sienna’s twin sister Sofia to blame? She’s always served as Sienna’s dark mirror, a soul free to act however she wished - to embrace all that magic has to offer - while Sienna strove for discipline. Did the Five’s battle to reclaim Olesya’s tower gather old resentments to the surface?

It may even be the case that Sofia’s influence is of a more direct kind … there is little more dangerous - or desperate - than a Necromancer’s spirit.

Whatever the truth, we’re going to find out together in the weeks and months to come.

The End Times have barely begun, and the Ubersreik Five have battles yet to fight.

We’ve seen some questions regarding Sienna’s arsenal with the launch of Necromancer so we’ve gone ahead and prepared this graphic for you all to reference at a glance!




The new weapons coming with the Necromancer career are the Ensorcelled Reaper, a slow but powerful scythe weapon, and the Soulstealer Staff, which seeks out lives to snuff as it lives up to its name…

While these spooky weapons perfectly fit the withered hands of any Necromancer, this is still our Sienna! As a Necromancer, she will still have access to all of her existing staves and melee weapons, with the exception of the Flamestorm Staff.

Additionally, of her new weapons, the Ensorcelled Reaper will also be available to her previous careers, while the vile magicks of the Soulstealer Staff are exclusive to the Necromancer career.

We know you’re anxious for more news and information! In the coming weeks we’ll be releasing some dev blogs about Necromancer, starting with one focused on the lore and narrative of the career. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, in case you missed it, the people at Gamereactor interviewed us during Gamescom and they got to ask some questions and have a go at Necromancer Sienna, here’s the link to the article.