It’s been six years! You’ve been slaying rats, northlanders, goats, and sometimes each other (More on that later, eh?) and we couldn’t be more grateful that you’re still around, having fun with our game. At the end of the day, this game wouldn’t be worth making if it wasn’t for you guys, so from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being part of this great community!

The 6-year anniversary event will start on all platforms on March 7 and finish on March 17. As always, our heroes will be able to celebrate by having a proper night out in the ‘A Quiet Drink’ map, which will be enabled alongside the event. There’s also a brand-new portrait frame to go along with it, as well as double XP!

But that’s not all! We’re doing something special to go along with this particular celebration…!

You probably know this if you saw last week’s dev blog, but we’re holding another Alpha Test for the Versus Game Mode, this time open to all who own Warhammer: Vermintide 2 on PC! The test will run on the main game client and last for as long as the anniversary lasts! That means it starts March 7th and ends March 17th.

Tell your friends! Tell everyone! It’s gonna be fun! We’re really looking forward to seeing you all play, share your thoughts and most fun moments, and tell us all your feedback!

See you all during the anniversary! Thank you for sticking with us, and we hope to keep you guys entertained for more years to come!

My name is Joakim and I’m the Design Director for Vermintide 2. In this dev blog, I want to look at some findings from the Versus Closed Alpha Test and give you an update on the state of Versus.

To kick this off I want to extend our deepest gratitude to all of you who participated in the Closed Alpha Test. From a developer standpoint, it is always a scary feeling putting things out to you players for initial impressions, but we came out of this with the feeling of overwhelming success. You seemed to have a good time, we got a ton of good feedback, the servers were fairly stable and we did not see any overly alarming crashes or issues preventing play. In short, we couldn’t have hoped for anything more.

Now, on to some stats!

The Closed Alpha Test saw slightly over 3600 players on PC participating in a total of 6056 rounds across 2093 games. The overall majority of those ended up with a clear winner, with 7% ending in draws, and with matches concluding in general within 20-30 minutes on the Screaming Bell Versus mission.

For the Heroes, the top career picks were Mercenary, Battle Wizard, Ranger Veteran, Waystalker, and Witch Hunter Captain, with an overall meta solidifying around handguns and the longbow. For the Pactsworn the spread was fairly even across all specials but (not surprisingly) with a higher pick rate, playtime, and damage rate for the Globadier.

More than a thousand of you also answered our survey, which together with the forum and Discord posts made for some (long and) great reading. Again, a big thank you to everyone who took the time to provide us with thoughts and feedback for the good and the bad.

94% of the survey respondents have played Vermintide for more than 60 hours, and 85% of those usually play on Legend or Cataclysm difficulty (with an additional 13% players on Champion). Naturally, this showed in the test as well: high-performing Hero teams were outplaying the Pactsworn early on, although we did see a shift toward the end of the test as players were getting more familiar with kill-slaying as Skaven.

In terms of feature requests the majority of the feedback touched on the following:

• Balancing being too much in favor of the Hero side, with a low amount of AI-controlled enemies and an abundance of healing items and THP.
  
• Requests for playable bosses or elites.
  
• Requests for a training area for the Pactsworn specials.
  
• Requests for abilities or talents to deepen the Pactsworn gameplay.

All of this feedback aligns with our current goals and we aim to bring you more news soon on our plans going forward. As for balancing, we're continuously tuning it and further tests will help us figure out a sweet spot where a majority of players can enjoy Versus. Given that the Closed Alpha Test feedback is skewed towards more experienced players though, we are hoping to get more Recruit and Veteran players into the next tests to get their input.

Rest assured, we are tuning things for the next test to mitigate some of your frustrations. Matches were often too close in terms of scoring, and the Hero team reached the safe zone far more often than we liked. As a starting point we have upped some of the Pactsworn specials’ damage output, tweaked the amount and type of pickups in missions, as well as having adjusted some of the Versus Hero talents and abilities.

For the next test, you will play on a new map, see the addition of premium careers, get kick and mute options, see a match score screen, and Versus specific menu settings. We’re also aiming to do the next test directly in the Vermintide game and not on a testing app, and for this reason, we’re adding a title screen, just like for consoles, with shortcuts to Adventure, Chaos Wastes, and Versus.

Speaking of consoles, you are due a clarification here. Unfortunately, the outlook is not great for seeing the game mode on Xbox or PlayStation. There are a number of reasons for this, but primarily it's due to technical limitations on the memory and network side. Vermintide 2 was not built with Versus in mind, and as we are bending the game and engine even for PC there are no good alternatives available for console at this point. We could of course have decided not to pursue the game mode at all, but from what we’re seeing we strongly believe that PvP+E is a great addition to Vermintide and an innovation worth pursuing. In the end, we’re making the call that it is better to release it to some than not at all.

Deciding to separate the platforms and player base is not an easy one, and we understand that we are letting our console players down in that regard. To some comfort for you, as well as for the ones uninterested in Versus, know that we have exciting things in the works this year.

As for the next Versus test, we’re delighted to announce our next alpha will launch very soon, and will be open to all owners of Vermintide 2! We hope that you are as excited as we are and that you watch this space for any updates! On behalf of the team, thank you so much for your continued support. Together we can make Versus a great addition to our beloved Vermintide.

See you in a poison wind gas cloud soon,

Joakim, and the Vermintide team

This announcement will catalogue all the hotfixes we have released for patch 5.2.0 that came in with the 2023 Rebalance patch, and will be kept current with the latest hotfix release added to the top of the patch notes.

Hotfix 5.2.3 - February 6th

Balance changes

• Reverted the monster damage nerf to Dual Daggers and instead applied a 15% damage nerf to Shade's career skill, to follow along with the general nerf to monster killers in patch 5.2.0
  
• Increased the base crit chance of Dual Dagger heavy attacks by 10%
  
• Reduced the base crit chance of Sword & Dagger's second heavy attack by 10%.
  
• Outcast Engineer: Increased "Ingenious Ordnance" bomb craft time to 120 seconds.
  
• Outcast Engineer: reduced the bonus crit chance from "Perilous Overclock" to 8%
  
• Falchion, Crowbill, One-handed Flail: Reduced stamina cost for pushing to 1 (half a shield)
  
• Reduced the Masterwork Pistol's damage modifier vs monsters by 22%
  
• Chaos Wastes: Reduced Grudge Mark bonus health modifier by 16%

Fixes

• Fixed issue where some Gifts of the Wolf Father illusions were not showing up in the crafting menu for certain players.
  
• Fixed the issue that caused Frame generation technology to not work.

The Shade nerfs are meant to bring her in line with the nerfs to other monster killer careers without targeting the Dual Daggers and instead nerfing her directly. Since we've also received feedback that the dual daggers could use some love and that the Sword & Dagger are a bit too good, we've done a tune up there.

The Masterwork Pistol nerf is also part of the overall effort to reel in all monster killers.

Outcast Engineer is a tad overtuned which is why we're applying these nerfs to these two talents. We'll be monitoring the community response to these to see if these changes are enough or if more needs to be done to reel him back a bit.

The Falchion, Crowbill and One-handed Flail have been changed to go along with the general buff to one-handed weapons that was done in the initial balance pass.

Hotfix 5.2.2 - December 20th

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 19th

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!

Ready for some mayhem? We're once again ready to go ahead with the previously announced Closed Alpha Test this week! We apologize once again for the previous delay but now we're extra ready!

To reiterate! On February 8th, we will send invites to over 10,000 of you to participate in this alpha; so keep your eyes peeled on your emails (and that pesky pesky spam folder)!

If you weren't selected as part of our alpha test this time, please don't fret; we'll have more opportunities for you all to test in the future!


Stay tuned for more details coming this very week, including a stream with Joakim our Design Director, and Erik our Product Owner on February 7th, 5:15pm CET/11:15am EST/8:15am PST! We'll hold a Q&A where we'll be answering many of the questions you've asked throughout these past weeks, alongside questions from the stream and talking about the test itself and the design philosophy of Versus.

You all will also see additional announcements and a further FAQ recap as we draw closer to our closed alpha launch.

It's been a long while but we're so excited to finally see Versus in the hands of players at last!

Today, we sit down with Vermintide 2 developers—Joakim, our Design Director, and Erik, our Product Owner—about our goals and design philosophy for the closed alpha test for Versus happening in the near future.

Editor’s Note: As of this dev blog, the test has been delayed; but it is still sure to happen, and quite soon. We’ll keep everyone posted on new dates once we iron out this last wrinkle!

We see Versus as a casual asymmetric 4v4 PvP+E game mode that pits the Ubersreik Five against our AI enemies and up to 4 player-controlled Skaven specials (known as the Pactsworn). The gameplay is based off of our adventure mode maps, but split into multiple sections. Heroes progress through a map section, completing objectives as they go. For each objective they get a certain amount of points.

The Pactsworn goal is to stop the Heroes from getting points by killing or disabling them. When the Hero team has either reached the end of the map section or have been fully disabled, the teams switch sides, competing for points over multiple sections and rounds.

The team with the most points after a match wins.

The Versus game mode is definitely something that players familiar with the genre will recognize. We want to honor our predecessor in this space while adding our own unique melee-oriented flair to it that most of our players recognize us for.

Ideally, we want to create a player versus player plus enemy (PvP+E) game mode that can be played alongside our co-op modes to hit that sweet spot for players of all types. We want to provide a fun, casual team experience but still scratch that competitive itch.

This isn’t the first time we’ve announced Versus; and our first reveal happened way back in 2019. We had run some small external tests with a select group of players during that time and weren’t completely happy with how things were running, so we put it on the shelf to marinate for a bit while we focused on other content like new careers and co-op game modes. We had worked on it a bit here and there with some tweaks to tighten up the foundational PvP+E gameplay, but it wasn’t until last spring did we decide, “Let’s actually do this thing” with fresh eyes.

First and foremost, we want Versus to be fun for our players, both for those who are new to Vermintide as well as for our veterans. We tried to have a good mixture of both when selecting those for this test. We want players to go in, play, and tell us their unvarnished thoughts.

One of things we’ve learned through our years of development is that our players deeply love and care for this game, and we want to learn from them and their feedback during this testing period. We’re aiming to take a co-creation approach with our players by opening up a closed test for a large majority of those who signed up, observe them play, analyze their feedback, and take that into our development process as lessons learned.

But we also want players to know this is our first time testing Versus with a larger number of players, so things aren’t completely final, and some things may be a bit unstable. We want feedback on this, too! The good, the bad, the ugly; we want to look at all of it and come back with takeaways to discuss and iterate upon to create something our players will be happy with.

Absolutely. We don’t expect this test to be a one and done type of deal, so we’ll be testing more in the future and soliciting feedback during those periods too! The closed alpha test is just one step in a multi-stage process to get both the team and our players feeling good about the game mode and how it plays!

Hello heroes,

Unfortunately due to a few technical issues we are going to have to delay the Versus Closed Alpha Test, and thus also delay the Stream that was scheduled for today.

We are sure to still hold a test and will update you all with the new dates as soon as possible!

Versus is a new a player vs player plus enemy game mode for Warhammer: Vermintide 2. Featuring 4 vs 4 gameplay where players can fight as the Ubersreik Five and also join the dark pact as Skaven specials.

We’re super excited to announce our closed alpha will run from January 18-January 21. TBD!

We’re blown away by your support during our closed alpha signup period. In the coming days, we will send invites to over 10,000 of you to participate in this alpha; so keep your eyes peeled on your emails (and that pesky pesky spam folder)!

If you weren't selected as part of our alpha test this time, please don't fret; we'll have more opportunities for you all to test in the future!

Join the stream January 17, 4:30pm CET/10:30am EST/7:30am PST to learn more!

Stay tuned for more information on the alpha and what it will contain, including a stream with Joakim our Design Director, and Erik our Product Owner on Wednesday, January 17 at 4:30pm CET/10:30am EST/7:30am PST. This stream will feature a number of frequently asked questions that the community team has collected to prepare you for the alpha, what it will contain, and our design philosophy around Versus.

You all will also see additional announcements and a further FAQ recap as we draw closer to our closed alpha launch.

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!

------------------------
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.
------------------------


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.

----------

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.