A Few Tips Before You Start Playing Warhammer: Vermintide 2

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is one of the best 4 player co-op games out there today, but things can go bad for your team thanks to small instances during a mission. There's a lot to know about the game and as you play you'll slowly get accustomed to the game's systems, but here are a few Warhammer: Verminetide 2 tips to know before you start hacking at hordes of Skaven and Rotblood.

Know the Difference Between Healing Potions and Medical Supplies

During each mission, you'll notice two types of healing items scattered across the stage. Managing these items among your team and knowing when to use these items are essential throughout your time with Vermintide 2. As much as possible, you should refrain from overhealing. Potions are almost an instant heal compared to Med Kits and they heal 50% of your total health. With medical supplies, you have to go through the full animation before you get healedfor 75% of your total health..

In the game's Recruit difficulty, a character can go down a total of three times, after that your character will instantly die. So, as long as you are with a capable team that can revive you when you go down, you can abuse the mechanic by moving forward a little bit before healing. Using either a Potion or Med Kit resets the number of times a character can go down. Take note that the number of times you can go down is reduced by one as you go up in difficulty.

Understand the Effects of Tomes and Grimoires

After each mission, you are given experience and a chest that contains random loot for your characters. The quality of items can be improved if your team was able to finish the mission while holding Tomes and Grimoires. There are three Tomes in every mission and is hidden in a fixed place in the map. If your team does find a Tome one player will have to carry it, taking up that character's healing item slot. It's a minor handicap since you can drop your Tome in order to use any healing item you find, then pick it up again. 

Grimoires is a bit more tricky. There are two in every map and holding one will use the character's potion slot. But that's not the only handicap, having one equipped will lower each character's total life by 33%. Getting the second Grimoire doubles the penalty. Nothing happens to your Grimoire if the player holding it goes down, but if he dies, it's gone, so be extra careful when picking one up. 

It can be tough, but the rewards do come out better. 

Always Block and Push Incoming Enemies

Blocking in this game is essential to lessen the stress for your team, especially on higher difficulties. Your character will be able to block a certain amount of attacks based on your stamina (determined by weapon, items, and character traits). Blocking an attack takes up one stamina and pushing enemies back will consume just as much. (shield icons on the screen while blocking represents your stamina). Stamina slowly recovers when you are not blocking, so if you got no more stamina to give you either keep your distance or swing away. 

Once you get used to how blocking and pushing enemies away you'll find it easier to deal with sudden hordes of Skaven or Rotbloods. 

Power Attacks Go Through Armor

When you attack a special enemy and notice a red shield popping up after each swing, your damage is being reduced thanks to the enemy's armor. Some weapons can go through armor with light attacks thanks to the piercing stat (check the stats if your weapon has it) but all weapons can go through armor by using power attacks. Hold down left click and release to do a power attack Don't expect more damage if you do the whole wind up animation of a power attack. There's a sweet spot when holding down the left click that makes the swing into a power attack. You'll see what I'm talking about after a few power swings at some dummies in the game's town hub. 

Press 'T' (default key) to highlight special enemies

This is probably the best tool in the game aside from using the mic to coordinate with your team. Ratling Gunners, Assassins, they come out randomly and has a distinct sound to hint players that they are nearby, but sometimes not all of you will notice it from all the killing. If you happen to be the first one to spot a special enemy, pressing 'T' will highlight them to inform your whole team. This can also be done with consumable items such as healing pots or bombs. If you don't have space to carry, highlight it so another player can pick it up. 

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