Helpful Tips for New Players

by u/Ralatharr44

This is just a random hodgepodge of tips for new players to help them with the game. I am not super special expert, just someone who's played a good bit :)

### Teamwork

* Teamwork is the single most important thing. Stay with your team. This is rule number 1 and rule number always.
* Save enough ammo to kill at least 2 specials, do not spend it all on normal hordes.
* If you have a potion and your ally does not you can give it to them by equipping it and then right clicking while targeting them. Similarly you can heal them with med kits this way.
* If you see a dual weapon rat or dual axe guy on a teamate nearby, attack that @#$\*er from behind. Your ally will love you for it.
* Hit T when looking at items or special enemies (including dual weapon guys/rats). This highlights them blue for everyone and Witchunter even gets a damage bonus from it. These are the "tagable" enemies your talents mention. I cannot stress enough how much good tagging helps the entire team.
* You can hold block while reviving players, try it out :D.
* Go into your gameplay settings and turn player outlines to "always on". It helps.

### Dodge and Block

* You can hit space to dodge a short distance when moving sideways or backwards. This does not interrupt your attacks. This helps you avoid alot of damage. Experiment :).
* Holding right mouse button blocks. The shields you see = how much you can block. Stamina = block shields. Horde enemy attacks take 1/2 shield to block. Other attacks can take 2 or all.
* Almost all physical attacks can be fully blocked, sometimes even with less shields than needed normally.
* You can block bosses and armored guys. You can dodge while blocking. This is very VERY useful, especially vs Rat Ogre and Chaos Spawn as you can block/dodge their multi-slam volleys.
* While holding block left clicking will push. This is VERY important for some weapons as the pushes will put alot of rats/chaos off balance and usually happens very fast. Slower weapons or weapons with poor cleave will want to throw in a block push after every 2 attacks or so. That's a general rule to start you off. Experiment with your weapon + attack speed :).
* If you hold down the left click when block pushing you will perform a very VERY fast counter attack. This is useful in general but especially vs shield rats. Again, experiment to learn your weapon's behavior with this.
* Dual weapon rats and dual axe guys will laugh at your puny blocks and while you will stay safe they will keep swinging at you even if you block the swings. Countering while they do this is very very difficult with their relentless attacks. Dodge their attacks instead if possible since they are stuck in their animation in the direction they started. Otherwise use your dodges to hit them from safely out of range OR between their flurries and power attacks.
* All special "grab" attacks can be dodged best I know. You can dodge a hook, dodge a jump pounce (or push at the exact right time), dodge a leech grab, and you can also dodge the Chaos Spawn's grab. Sometimes it's hard, but it can be done.

### Mechanics and items

* Hero Power = a general increase in your damage, how much you stagger enemies, and can even increase how many enemies your weapon can hit at once.
* Unless there is a 25+ power difference then an item with superior traits are usually much better.
* Crit power increases how much damage your critical hits do.
* The little red books "tomes" you find in a match replace your healing slot, but increase exp and loot quality at the end of the match.
* The other books "grimoires" do the same thing, but they reduce your max health significantly. If you are confident you can handle a level, these are great. If you are doing poorly consider passing them up. Remember that death = no loot. Worse loot = much better than no loot.
* Round bombs are great for damaging bosses and instantly killing hard enemies + a small cluster of enemies in a horde.
* Incendiary bombs are general for hordes only. They do low damage to bosses.
* Big "sweep" charge attacks work best if you move back and forth in a sort of dance . Example: Charge attack to minimum power as you walk closer to enemies > as you swing start backing up > repeat. This can be done side to side or in diagonals as well and also in combination with dodges. What this does is keep you out of attack range of as many things as possible when you are not swinging while putting you back in range at the moment of the swing. Weapons like 2h hammer for Kruger absolutely survive on this. This is less useful for very fast charge attacks.
* Heavy attack damage does not scale with how long you hold down the button!! Learn the minimum charge level of your weapon and get used to it's rythm. Holding it longer is just to get in range.
* If an enemy has armor and you notice a clang and blue sparks when you hit it, you are not penetrating the armor and are doing massively reduced damage. You'll need to hit that enemy with charged attacks or a ranged weapon that penetrates armor. If you've got none of that consider staying very close to them and concentrate on blocking and dodging while your team kills them.