Vermintide Long Guide

# Welcome to the Vermintide Long Guide

Inspired by the Payday2 Long Guide, this document strives to capture every concept, fact, and tactic you could ever want to learn in your quest to become an expert Vermintide player. It is a work in progress, and will be mirrored as a Steam Guide for the benefit of players that don't tend to venture beyond Steam's walled garden. As an initiative of the /r/Vermintide subreddit, please post any feedback, questions or corrections there.

# How to Play Vermintide

## The Meta Game

### Recommended Keybindings and Game Settings (PC)

#### Keybindings

While keybindings are a matter of personal preference, here are some recommendations that can make a big difference in your ability to execute techniques (such as drinking a health potion) smoothly, efficiently and safely under pressure:

* By default, you can use the mousewheel to scroll through both your weapons and your items. This is an awful idea, because when you're facing down three stormvermin and an ogre you're almost guaranteed to over or under shoot the selection you want and then you're not much of a hero after all. Alternatives are to use the number keys above "WASD" to select weapons and items, or to bind specific keys to each weapon and item type.
	+ Sample scheme: "F" for health, "C" for potion, "G" for grenade, "Q" for melee, "Mouse Scroll UP" for ranged
* By default, "jump" and "dodge" are bound to the space bar. This is workable, but if you find yourself getting into the game, enabling "Manual Dodge" in the game settings (see below) and designating a dedicated dodge key will take your ability to execute precise dodges (especially when dodge-dancing) to another level.
	+ Sample scheme: "Left Shift" for dodge, "Space" for jump
* By default, "push to chat" is unassigned. If you plan to use the in-game VOIP for communication, you'll want to assign this to something handy.
	+ Sample scheme: "Left Ctrl" for push-to-talk.

#### Game Settings

* As with many FPS games, increasing the default field-of-view (FOV) can make keeping track of your surroundings much easier. Many players use values around 90, although some people go as high as 120. You ability to snipe will suffer at extreme FOV settings.
* Settings "Player Outlines" to "Always On" will help you pick out your teammates as quickly as possible while navigating the map. Highly recommended.

#### Making Friends

* The Vermintide community is \*mostly\* friendly. Your job as a new player is to add the people you gel with (especially ones that play with mic) and shrug off the ones that are jerks or uncommunicative. The best way to add friends is by hitting the "Tab" key in the inn or during the mission (elevator rides are good, quiet moments) and then hitting right-click to be able to mouse over a person's steam profile link. This is much more reliable than trying to search for a person later via Steam. You can also add friends by using the Steam Overlay and selecting "Recent Players", even if you are no longer in the game with them.

#### Playing Without a Mic

You can definitely get by without a mic, but if helps if you adapt your playstyle to being mute:

* Let someone else (preferably someone with a mic!) lead the team unless you're clearly the most experienced player. If you do want to lead, then type stuff out instead of assuming people will interpret your body language correctly (e.g. "wait until Dwarf catches up to drop down to next area please").
* Get really fast with your ping key. You can communicate a lot by pinging a speed potion, or a bomb, or a tome, but you also want to be able to say "DUDE PACKMASTER ON YOUR SIX!" within a split-second by pinging it while you fight rats.
* Don't make little trips on your own without typing anything. On a mic it's easy to say "hold up guys, need to hit that ammo crate again" but without a mic it's tempting to just nip off on your own because typing is work. But the odds of an ambush spawning in between you and your still-progressing party, or of you getting jumped by an assassin after your team has passed a point-of-no-return and can't save you, are basically 8/10.

## Individual Skills

1. Basic combat
	1. Mixing blocks, attacks, dodges and pushes
	2. Initiative
	3. Heat Management & Venting

### Ping-scanning

Easily overlooked by beginnings players, the "ping" key (bound to "T" by default) is a hugely useful part of the advanced player's toolkit. The main thing to know is that if you hover your crosshair over an item or enemy (special rat or ogre) and hit "ping", that item or enemy will be highlghted and your hero will make a call-out \*even if you can't actually currently see the item or enemy". One use of this is to "look inside" upcoming chests or out-of-the-way loot-spawn locations to determine if they're worth visiting. Even more crucial, however, is to develop the habit of "scanning" upcoming map terrain by hammering on the ping key while scanning the horizon. This will help you pick out stationary Stormvermin well before they're aware of your team's presence, and also be used to find the locations of incoming specials before you make visual contact. Similary, "ping-scanning" is very useful picking out the location of a gasrat from the other side of its green cloud so that it can be killed before it can lob more bombs. Lastly, "ping-scanning" does \*not\* work in magical darkness unless you are very close to the target. This means that pinging the Ogre during the Dungeons finale, for example, is even more useful for you team, since they'll be unable to do so themselves from range if the ogre moves into the darkness.

### Advanced Trueflight & Bolt staff aiming

Adapted from guides by u/dieaready and u/malacarr

Both the Waywatcher's Trueflight Longbow and the Bright Wizard's Bolt staff are sometimes called "aimbot" weapons. While their use is fairly intuitive at first glance, advanced players can wring even more effectiveness from them by artfully selecting the best shot available to them. An expert shot will hit targets that would otherwise be behind cover, hit additional targets for extra DPS, and ensure headshots are scored where a more obvious shot would hit an obstacle, only strike one target, or hit the body instead of the head.

* How it works:

When you aim at a rat with Trueflight Bow or Bolt Staff while holding RMB (right mouse button), the rat will gain a red outline which means that you've "locked on" to that target. If you shoot at this moment, your bolt/arrow will seek this target and try to hit it in the head by travelling in a curved arc from your bow or staff. You can lock on to a rat that is behind a wall as long as you target it accurately. If you release your arrow/bolt while aiming more-or-less directly at your target, the arc of fire will be quite straight. But if you lock on to a rat, then quickly jerk your cross-hair upwards or to the side, and \*then\* shoot, your arrow/bolt will describe a wide arc that starts in the direction you're facing and then it homes in on your locked target. Deliberately firing wide in the right direction for the circumstances is the key to top-notch play.

https://gfycat.com/FrigidForthrightAdamsstaghornedbeetle

* How to use it to greatly improve your damage against Ogres

You can also use this trick to consistently score headshots on rats that are facing away from you. If you shoot them normally, the projectile will sometimes hit them in the back or in the shoulder, but if you curve your shots so that it descends on them from above, it will always hit their head. This is most useful when fighting ogres — this trick will let you headshot the ogre when it's facing away from you. (Note that headshots do 4x more damage with Trueflight and 3.5x more damage with Bolt Staff.)

* How to use X-ray vision

You can also use the red outlines to scan for a "special" rat behind a wall (when you can guess its approximate location).

* Maximizing targets struck for wave clearing

To hit multiple targets with the trueflight/bolt staff in an arc, you have to aim counter intuitively. Say, we have 3 rats at a distance:

X000000

000X000

0000000

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000000X

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000P000

Where X is the rat, 0 is empty space and P is the player.
If you aim directly at the closest rat, the shot may not be able to arc enough after hitting the first rat to hit the other two rats behind. Instead, you have to aim slightly to the right of the rat to get a better chance of hitting the 2 remaining targets behind it.
This works the same way in a vertical manner, where if you are on an elevation and rats are coming towards you, aim down into the ground a fair bit in front of them before firing so that the arrow arcs upwards, allowing it to fly straight through the horde after hitting the first rat instead of having the arrow arc downwards and hit the ground after killing only 1 rat.

00000X0

0000000

X000000

0000000

0000000

0000X00

0000000

0000000

000P000

Similar situation again, but with some changes for the 2nd and 3rd rats. Again instead of aiming for centre of mass of either the first rat or of all the rats (ie. aim straight down the middle), you aim even further to the right again (it might not target the first rat because it may be out of the autoaim cone, but you could lock on to the first rat and then shoot to the right) to cause the arrow to fly to the right, arc left through the first rat, then arc right through the second rat then straight on to the third rat. Aiming straight at the first rat would usually cause the arrow to miss the 2nd rat and hit the 3rd instead.
Actually using this in combat takes some practice, and I find it best to aim away from the horde's centre of mass (eg. aim off to the side of the first rat in the horde but in the direction away from the centre of mass of the horde) to get multiple kills per charged shot.

Once you master this, get yourself a trueflight with the traits hail of doom and scavenger (last trait is up to you) which allows you to eat through hordes without worry about running out of ammo. With HoD, I get about 3 kills on average (on nightmare) each time I fire (maximum is 3.45 kills) meaning I got about a 60% chance of not using ammo each shot into the horde. That works out to roughly 60 shots from the max ammo of 24 shots. Not including shots against specials, SV or ogre, this averages out to 180 rat kills before I need to get ammo. When using it against specials and SV as well, I've gotten through games with about 100-150 ranged kills without picking up any ammo. Other people say to only use trueflight against specials and SV, but IMO the trueflight with HoD and scavenger is excellent against hordes. YMMV

https://gfycat.com/ForsakenHelplessCoelacanth

### Block revive

Block revive is technique that allows you to bring a teammate back from the "downed" or "captured" game state by holding down your block key before initiating the revive action with your interaction key. Without this technique, reviving a teammate can be impossible as when a teammate has been downed, they are typically still under attack from nearby rats and these rats will hit you during your (blockless) revive attempt, which will reset the revive action.

### Jousting

Jousting refers to alternating forwards and backwards movement so as to be charging (or recovering from) your attacks while you're out of range of the rats and then be releasing your attacks when you advance towards the rats so that you're back in range to do damage. This is absolutely key when using the slower weapons in the game (two-handed swords, two-handed hammers) because otherwise you will be hit in between your own attacks. The backwards motion can be accomplished with a back-dodge, which is often necessary when defending against many rats on your own, or simply by walking backwards. If you have room to retreat, you can accomplish the same "jousting" result by backpedaling while charging your attack, and then just standing still and allowing the rats to close the distance before releasing your attack. This will keep you right on the edge of the correct range for your weapon and maximize your damage-per-second (DPS)

### Dodge-Dancing

Dodge-dancing is a technique that allows one player to successfully fight and kill a much large force of rats by themselves, often taking little or no damage during the process. The key insight in dodge-dancing is that you cannot be hit while in the dodge state. To dodge-dance, you constantly move yourself so that the rats are to one side of you (to avoid being pinned by the rat horde) while continuously attacking the horde. Whenever you see that rats near your position are about to release an attack, you dodge sideways along the surface of the horde so that your attacks continue to fall on the rats but you avoid the hits the rats were about to land on you. Often, when defending a corner or wide opening for instance, you will dodge in alternating directions to keep yourself more-or-less in one location while slaying the rats.

Blocking and pushing can be used during dodge-dancing, but normally only to keep the rats under control (to allow for rats arriving from a new direction, for example) while you continue to attack. To successfully dodge across the surface of the horde, you'll want to turn your body so that you're looking at the center of the horde, and then dodge sideways. If, instead, you simply dodge sideways while looking along the edge of the horde, you will dodge yourself out of range to continue your attacks. Lastly, dodge-dancing relies on keeping part of the horde staggered by your attacks, so you'll normally want to use animation cancelling with any weapons that include single-target attacks in their attack sequences such as the 1h hammer, 1h mace, 1h swords, falchion, etc.

### Counter-Flanking a.k.a. Flanking the Flankers

Counter-flanking, or flanking-the-flankers, refers to a particular kind of dodge-dancing, in open terrain, where you will be dodging continuously in one direction along the surface a horde. The slave and clan rat AI is programmed to attempt to surround you. If you are confronted with a large number in an open space, this means that there will be a constant flow of rats attempting to flank you in either direction. To flank-the-flankers, you will dodge away from rats that were about to hit you and greet the rats that were trying to get around to your side with a sweeping attack to their face. By the time they have recovered from being hit, you will have already dodged again down the line of flankers. In order to do this successfully, you must dodge so that you remain in range to damage the horde with your attacks, and you must adjust your flanking trajectory so as to account for obstacles ahead, stray rats, etc. Because what you're doing is managing a constant flow of rats and trying to match that flow with attacks and movement of your own, a successful counter-flanking run can feel very much like a surfer "shooting the curl" of a wave.

### Kiting Enemies

Kiting enemies refers to focusing on re-positioning and avoiding being surrounded (as opposed to slaying rats) by using a variety of mobility techniques to stay ahead of a pack of pursuing rats. This is necessary very often during true-solo play and clutch play, as you must find places and moments to fight where the rats can only attack you from one side. It is also a solid alternative to killing all the rats during sequences where what you really need to be doing is meeting map objectives like moving barrels, breaking chains, or making your way to the cart during an escape.

The core technique of kiting is holding your block while running. Block-running reduces your top speed, but it also protects your from damage and the stun-lock that accompanies being hit. To reduce the movement penalty you incur by holding your block, you can chain together dodges (sideways or backwards) in the direction of travel. You'll also use pushes to both knock rats in your path out of your way and to avoid being "pulled under" by a mass of pursuing rats that would be able to hit your block enough to break it. Because most characters cannot dodge in this way indefinitely (typical efficient dodge counts are 2 or 3), you'll want to mix in jumps which will have the effect of resetting your dodge count.

### Ogre-Dancing

Ogre-dancing refers to the art of allowing the Rat Ogre to close distance to you, and then back- or side-dodging just out of range of his attacks before you get hit. Done right, the ogre will stay essentially in place, and you'll be able to chain together either melee or ranged attacks to his head in between dodges. This is a solid approach to killing an ogre by yourself, but it's also often used as a way for one player to "keep aggro" on the ogre so that the other players can focus on clearing the area of other threats before focusing on the ogre.

Note that because ogre-dancing relies on precisely timed dodges, it can be very hard or impossible to do if your latency is high. If you do find yourself facing off with the ogre while suffering from a high ping, it is best to focus on simply holding block and dodging the ogre's attacks as opposed to mixing in attacks in between your blocks and dodges.

1. Packmaster Dodging / Rescue
2. Assassin Dodging / Rescue
3. Clutch Healing
4. Clutch Revive

### Animation Cancelling

Animation cancelling refers to very briefly hitting the block key at intervals during your attacks so that your weapon "resets" its attack sequence. Many weapons' attack sequences begin with two sweeping swings that hit multiple targets and then are followed by one or more stabbing or overhead attacks that only hit one target. When fighting a horde or rats, you want to use only the sweeping swings so that you can stagger and wound as many rats as possible in order to keep yourself safe from being hit and to maximize your damage-per-second. Weapons that greatly benefit from this technique include:

* One-handed hammer and mace  ...
* One-handed swords and the falchion  ...
* Dual-daggers, dual-swords  ...

In addition, block-cancelling after a heavy charged attack can increase your attack rate dramatically. Examples here include:

* Two-handed axe
* Two-handed hammer  ...

1. Advanced Mobility
2. Barrel/Sack Carrying

## Assembling your Heroes

1. Heroes can fulfill multiple roles
2. Make sure your current team & equipment can cover
	1. Anti-Ogre Killing Power
	2. Long-range sniping
	3. Crowd control
3. Efficient trinket distribution

## Strategy

### Staying Alive

* Avoiding damage
* Eyes up! Ears open!
* Efficient health item use
* Healing weapon traits

### Managing Enemy Density

Rat density exists on a spectrum between spread out and extraordinarily dense. When highly compressed, multiple rats will in fact be standing and fighting in the same physical space. Unless your weapons can hit infinite targets in this scenario, you are guaranteed to be "trading hits" with the rats if you engage in melee. The key to success in these scenarios is to explicitly take steps to reduce rat density so that you can re-establish a level that your particular hero/weapon configuration can deal with.

#### Controlling Inputs to Enemy Density -- Being Smart About What You Pull

There's a stormvermin in the distance. Should you attempt to snipe it? If there's no imminent threat of the stormvermin becoming aggressive, then the answer is almost surely: "no". This is a game about surfing waves of rats, and pulling distant enemies should only be done when you're quite sure that you aren't about to be surprised by an ambush or horde.

#### Linearizing the Fight

To be surrounded in Vermintide is, with few exceptions, to die. Conversely, a skilled player can stay alive against nearly any number of enemies provided they have unlimited rat-free space in which to make a fighting retreat.

### Dealing with Hordes & Specials

Much of the challenge in Vermintide comes from figuring out how to respond to the randomly-generated rat attacks. Sometimes they'll come in a trickle, but at other times you'll get everything all at once. These moments are the true test of your team's ability to prioritize threats and respond accordingly.

#### The Lone Special

Often you will be progressing through a level and encountering only "pre-spawned" rats, or you will have just cleared a horde and are now making good time through the level. If you hear the audio cue or player callout of a special at this time, the temptation is often to just keep moving forwards. However, the special \*will\* be following you, and one extra assassin can be the difference between a close battle and a total party wipe if the next map event includes a big horde and a bunch of additional specials or an ogre! Instead of moving forwards, consider pausing to kill the special by finding a location with good lines of sight and waiting it out.

#### Getting the Jump on Specials

The difference between killing a gas rat before it can throw a globe and killing it after it has bombed your team's location is huge. Similarly, calling an incoming packmaster by the audio cue alone so that everyone is on high alert can mean the difference between an easy sniper shot and a frantic rescue mission. Here are the essential things to know:

#### Special Audio Cues

1. All specials make noise when they spawn. If you're close enough, you'll be able to hear the special approaching in the game audio. This is your earliest opportunity to call out the presence of a special for your team. When the special comes closer still, the hero closest to the special (regardless of whether there are walls in the way) will say a "call-out" voice line such as "Thagi! Kill the thing!". You can use this information to help you guess where the special is coming from.
2. The PACKMASTER is the exception to the rule. It will always be accompanied by its characteristic maniacal laughter and clanking, but a hero will only perform a call-out if they actually have a line-of-sight to the packmaster. This means that if you can hear a packmaster, it's an excellent idea to call it out yourself.
3. Once any hero has made a "special detected" call-out for a given special type, no other call-outs for this special type will occur for approximately 30 seconds. This avoids clogging up the game audio with call-outs, but can also conceal the presence of multiple specials of the same type.

##### Hero Callouts for Specials (Work in Progress)

* Ratling Gunner (HEARING)
	+ Hear... ratling-gun. - Kruber
	+ I can hear ratling guns close by. - Kruber
	+ Must be a ratling gun. - Kruber
	+ Listen, that's a gunnner. - Kruber
	+ The snapping sound? Skaven shotte! - Kruber
	+ Listen... hopefully it'll malfunction. - Kruber
	+ Skaven gunners - I can hear 'em! - Kruber
	+ "So many shots. Such poor aim" - Elf
	+ Did you hear that? Tortured cogwork.
	+ Ratling gun. It has to be. - Dwarf
	+ It's a Ratling gun. Naut else sounds like that. - Dwarf
	+ Do you want to die in a hail of warp-shot? - Dwarf
	+ There's a ratling nearby, or I'm an Elf. - Dwarf
	+ I hear a ratling gun. - Dwarf
	+ Eyes peeled. A hear 'raki cogwork. - Dwarf
	+ Is that a gun? - Elf
	+ Watch for gunners.
	+ They think we can't hear that clanking?
	+ Hear that? A Ratling gun is close.
	+ Stay quiet. Take the ratling gunners by surprise.
	+ We're walking into a Skryre ambush...
	+ The breeze is acrid with warp-powder.
	+ Listen, Ratling daemon... - Saltzpyre
	+ I hear Clan Skryre mischief!
	+ Is that the vermin reloading?
	+ Clanking again... Ratling gun.
	+ Sounds like a Ratling gun.
	+ There's a ratling gunner about.
	+ We're about the hear some shooting...
* Gunner (SEEING)
	+ Get out of its firing line. -Sienna
	+ We need to flank that thing!
	+ I want to melt those barrels to a puddle!
	+ Get down, Skaven-gun!
	+ Skaven gunner!
	+ Get out of the way - gun!
	+ Wyrdstone apparatus!
	+ Ratling Gun! - Kruber
	+ Gun-rat!
	+ Ratling gun, move!
	+ Filthy ratling gunners!
	+ Get out of the way, gun team!
	+ Stay out of its sights!
	+ We need to take that gun team out, fast!
* Gas Rat (HEARING)
	+ Hush, lumberfoots - gas-rat! - Elf
	+ It smells like Bretonnian wine gone sour. - Elf
	+ There's a Globadier nearby. - Elf
	+ There's poison on the wind. - Elf
	+ The rasp of rotting lungs. - Elf
	+ I hear a gas-rat. - Elf
	+ I can hear a Gas-rat! - Kruber
	+ Can you hear the Globadier? - Kruber
	+ Is that a Globe-rat? - Kruber
	+ Listen, that strange breathing... - Kruber
	+ I've heard that before, Gas-rat! - Kruber
	+ That is no ordinary stench. Watch for gas-rats. - Dwarf
	+ I'm going to hack that gas-rat's arms off! - Dwarf
	+ Get ready to hold your breath. There's a globadier about. - Dwarf
	+ A globadier is nearby. - Dwarf
	+ A gas-rat. Watch for poison. - Dwarf
	+ Stay alert. There's a gas-rat. - Dwarf
	+ The rotting lungs of a Globadier... - Saltzpyre
	+ Be careful! Gas-rat!
	+ Prepare for poison gas!
	+ Can you hear it?
	+ There's a Globadier close by.
	+ Listen! Globadier...
* Gas Rat (SEEING)
	+ Gas-rat! -Sienna
	+ Poison-rat!
	+ Fire burns gas!
	+ That's a Gas-rat!
	+ Over there, Globadier!
	+ Keep back, Gas-rat!
* Gas Rat (Globe Throw)
	+ Look out, gas! - Sienna
	+ Gas-rats, throwing!
	+ They're throwing poison!
	+ By Volans, get back!
	+ Gods know what foul stuff is in there.
	+ Globes - incoming!
* Assassin (HEARING)
	+ Those footfalls are coming fast. - Kruber
	+ Hear that? Assassin rat. - Kruber
	+ Listen - Gutter Runner! - Kruber
	+ That chittering noise... Back-stabber. - Kruber
	+ I hear a Gutter Runner. - Kruber
	+ Assassins closing in. - Kruber
	+ Tread carefully. I hear a runner. - Dwarf
	+ I hear the tread of assassin paws. - Dwarf
	+ A gutter runner lurks nearby. - Dwarf
	+ There's an assassin out there. Ha! - Dwarf
	+ Watch your backs. A sneaker is close. - Dwarf
	+ Show yourself, assassin-'raki! - Dwarf
	+ It thinks it's being sneaky... -Elf
	+ The Eshin are near. -Elf
	+ Hiding in the shadows, runner? -Elf
	+ A runner approaches. -Elf
	+ A Gutter Runner draws near. -Elf
	+ Its scurrying would wake the deaf... and the dead. -Elf
	+ Gutter Runner! -Saltzpyre
	+ Sigmar's chosen! I hear it!
	+ Listen...
	+ That's a Gutter Runner.
	+ Listen! Back-stabbers!
	+ There's something scampering about?!
* Assassin SEEING
	+ Back-stabber! - Sienna
	+ Assassin!
	+ Over there, Back-stabber!
	+ Assassin-rat!
	+ Look out, Assassin!
	+ Ulgu-cursed Assassins!
* Packmaster (SEEING)
	+ Hook-rat! -Sienna
	+ Look out, a Strangler!
	+ There! One of their Stranglers!
	+ Hook-rats are about again.
	+ Over there! Strangler!
	+ I'm going to char that Hook-rat!
	+ By the Eight Winds, Strangler!
	+ See, there's a Hook-Rat.
	+ Hook-rat! -Kruber
	+ Strangler!
	+ Another Hook-rat!
	+ Look out, Strangler!
	+ Strangler rat!
	+ Keep close, Hook-rat!
	+ Skaven slaver!
	+ Mind that reachy grabby one!
* Stormvermin Patrol HEARING
	+ Shhh... I hear a patrol. - Kruber
	+ Sounds like a lot of Blackrats... - Kruber
	+ I can hear Stormvermin marching. - Kruber
	+ Listen - do you hear them? - Kruber
	+ That's Stormvermin, coming close. - Kruber
	+ So you hear 'em? So do I! - Kruber
	+ Blackrat unit, coming close. - Kruber
	+ Hush, lumberfoots. If I can hear you, so can that patrol. -Elf
	+ Not a whisper, mayflies. Blackrat ears are sharp.
	+ Don't draw those Stormvermin on us, mayflies.
	+ A blackrat patrol. Evasion will serve us.
	+ These blackrats are bold - let's not find out why.
	+ Does the sound of these blackrats unman you?
	+ Stormvermin! Still your tongues. Stay out of sight.
	+ They scamper in step. Avoid. - Saltzpyre
	+ Blackrats - lots of them by the sound of it.
	+ We don't want this brood to hear us.
	+ Keep quiet - Stormvermin patrol!
	+ Quiet, for Verena's sake!
	+ I'll kill you myself if you make a sound.
	+ Stormvermin Patrol.
* Stormvermin Patrol (SEEING)
	+ Blackrats! - Sienna
	+ That's a Blackrat patrol.
	+ We'd best avoid the patrol!
	+ Stormvermin patrol!
	+ Look, a pack of Blackrats...
	+ Keep out of sight, Blackrats!
	+ By Volans - Stormvermin patrol.
	+ Blackrat patrol! - Kruber
	+ Don't let them see us!
	+ Stormvermin formation.
	+ Be wary of these bastards.
	+ Let's avoid the patrol.
	+ Only fight these gits if we 'ave to.
	+ Engage only if you must.
	+ A blackrat patrol! - Elf
	+ Beware blackrats!
	+ These blackrats fight as strong as they smell.
	+ Each new breed seems fouler than the last.
	+ There are so many of them...
	+ Their black fur doesn't scare me.
	+ They march like warriors, but they're still vermin.
* Rat Ogre
	+ That beast sounds hungry. Let it taste steel! - Dwarf
	+ Come, rakogri, I've a present for you. - Dwarf
	+ Rat Ogre. Don't get caught in its path. - Dwarf
	+ That can only be a rat ogre... - Dwarf
	+ There's a rakogri near, or I'm an Elf. - Dwarf
	+ Gird yourselves, dawri! I hear a rat ogre. - Dwarf

### The Art of the Clutch

Vermintide is a cooperative four-player team game, but there's something magical that happens when you're the last player standing and your whole team is looking to you to save the day: CLUTCH TIME.

You may only need to stay alive long enough to revive an ally dangling from the packmaster's pole, or perhaps you've got an entire section of the map to deal with on your own, but either way you're suddenly responsible for every aspect of survival in the end times: horde clearing, special & ogre killing, and working the map objectives. Unlike true-soloing, however , you're probably aiming to revive your teammates as soon as possible. Here are some tips to help develop your clutch game so that you can reap the satisfaction and gratitude of being "that guy/gal" sooner rather than later.

* Listen very, very carefully to your headphones, especially for the tell-tale laughter of the packmaster. Getting knocked down or caught is game over, so you'll need to make locating and killing packmasters and assassins your number one priority when they show up. If you can spare a moment, ask one of your dead teammates to "watch your six" for specials while you play.
* Your dead teammates can often be an excellent resource. Loot their mute and helpless corpses for the health, potions and bombs that could help you pull out a win. Again, if possible, you can ask your dead teammates to help you locate the spot they died.
* If you're the last person standing during an ogre fight, you will need to be crafty if you hope to revive any teammates that are only downed because if the ogre is close to you he will interrupt any revive attempts. If you have (or can loot from a dead teammate) an explosive bomb, the stun effect on the Ogre will last long enough to revive a teammate. Otherwise, you'll need to exploit ledges, ladders and other vertical terrain features in order to create distance between yourself and the ogre. Now might be a good time to consider bringing the Bone Saw along if you find yourself in this situation fairly often.
* Your ability to stay alive on your own will depend heavily on your ability to kill rats without taking excessive damage. Whether this involves "holding out" in a corner or nook and using crowd-control style weapons or moving quickly around the map while killing trailing enemies (kiting) will depend on the weapons you've brought to the fight. Choose your strategy accordingly.
* Your CLUTCH game has to be your A-game. That means you need to become comfortable being under pressure without backup. The best way to simulate clutch gameplay is to play in true-solo mode. Having "been there and done that" will give you the confidence to play as calmly and methodically as possible. If true-soloing is too far out of your comfort zone, you can try playing with just one teammate. Your margin for error will be much slimmer as a duo than during four-person play, but you won't be as vulnerable to insta-failing via assassin, packmaster, or accidentally walking off a ledge.
* If the situation is truly hopeless (e.g. when you're on your own trying to keep the generators cool on Summoner's Peak), it is considered polite to leap to your death or otherwise end things quickly so that the team can restart the map or head back to the Inn. If you're just looking for clutch practice, do it in solo or duo mode where you can fight against hopeless odds to your heart's content.

#### Related Links

* Grimalackt clutch solos some ogres and a few dozen stormvermin to rescue his duo teammate (Nightmare Stormvermin Mutation)

## Being a Hero

The heroes are well-balanced, and each can fulfill a variety of roles depending on both their equipment loadout and how they're played. Here are some tips for tailoring each hero to specific roles:

* Victor
* Sienna
* Bardin
* Kerillian
* Kruber

## True Soloing for Scrubs

This is a co-op game, but there is no truer test of your Vermintide skills than attempting to finish a map all by yourself. Even on Easy, your runs can and will fail precipitously if you miss an assassin or packmaster spawn. Most people only succeed, if they ever succeed, after many, many failures. So. Why put yourself through such a harrowing experience? With true-soloing, the journey is the destination. Every foiled special attacker, every defeated horde, and every dead ogre is a true victory. If you've been relying on your teammates to watch your back up until now, you'll discover the holes in your game very quickly indeed! And then you'll fix them, one frustrating-but-worthwhile lonely run at a time.

* Suggested trinkets
* Make gunners and gas rats work for you
* Managing density
* When to use potions and bombs
* The terrain is the thing
* Is it still paranoia if everyone really is out to get you?

# Appendix 1: Detailed Explanations of Game Mechanics

## Dodging

Several aspects of dodging aren't immediately obvious. The first is that each weapon for a given character has an "efficient dodge count". Once you've hit this number of consecutive dodges, your character dodges once at about 3/4 the distance of a normal dodge, and then subsequent chained dodges are tiny. Secondly, when the game is determining whether you've been hit or not by a rat, it explicitly checks whether you're in the "dodging" state. If you are, you won't be hit. This means that dodging isn't merely about gaining distance from an attacker to avoid damage -- you can actually dodge straight into an opponent and still avoid a strike.

## Advanced Weapon Attributes

### Efficient Dodge Counts & Distance

Every weapon in the game has what is called an "efficient dodge count." This means that when you spam dodge with a weapon, eventually your character will become fatigued and the dodges get shorter and shorter. Some weapons (elf 1 handed or dual wield melee, saltzpyre rapier) have unlimited dodging out of the box, so it's a bit easier to dodge dance with those weapons. \*Special Note:\* the movespeed trinkets now \*allow unlimited efficient dodges on any weapon!\*

Each weapon also has its own dodge distance, with long dodges being on light melee weapons, and shorter ones on heavy weapons and most ranged weapons. \*Special Note:\* Dwarf 1 handed hammer has the shortest dodge cooldown in the game.

Final Note: Dodge fatigue can be reset simply by jumping.

### Rush Intervention

The game keeps constant track of every player's "Loneliness" value, which is a function of the distance from themselves to the other players. Not only will a rushing, lonely player trigger a rush intervention, but assassins and packmasters are programmed to prefer the loneliest of available player targets when they spawn. It's dangerous to go alone!

### Weapon Switching for More Healing

by u/GospodinSneg

A lot of you probably know about using weapon switch to overproc healing traits, but for newer players this can be a game changer.

Essentially, it has to do with trait coding. The first thing to understand is that traits work differently than it seems in the description. Bloodlust, for example, procs when enemies you are damaging die to your damage whenever you have that weapon out. So, you can, for example, put bloodlust on your melee weapon, throw a firebomb, wade into the flames and start cutting away, and all enemies that are not being hit by your allies that die will have a chance at proccing bloodlust. That's the basics.

Now, AoE and DoT damage. These can be done with hagbane (preferably charged shots into dense clumps of rats), wiz staves (conflag OP for this), and dwarf drakefires. If you have regrowth on that weapon, all enemies hit by the strike and/or AoE have a chance to proc regrowth, so healing is plentiful when you hit a horde of rats.

Back to melee. You can see where I'm going. Put regrowth on an AoE/DoT weapon like hagbane, conflag, or drakefires, hit enemies, and switch immediately after hit to melee. You can proc regrowth and bloodlust from that AoE damage simply by switching weapons before the rats die.

A good example of this is in the Heroic Last Stand video recorded by u/SneakyPanda\_ as he fire patches with conflag and switches to melee to proc both regrowth and bloodlust for nearly 40% of his health several times.
This also means if you're an elf, you're not locked into the same old same old of kb/regrowth. Switch it up, throw some bloodlust/swift slaying on your melee, rock a hagbane, and have some unsanctioned-by-the-meta fun. Throw a poison flask trinket on a 2H hammer with the dwarf (the u/Duke\_Eligos-\_- special) with drakefires and never worry about the elf stealing all your healing items again.