Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – Buyer’s Guide

Do you have the issue that I do when looking at a modern game and seeing the mountains of needless and stupid DLC that doesn’t add anything substantial 90% of the time? Well, sadly, Vermintide 2 is one of those games, but fear not! I’ve made this guide to hopefully educate you to make smarter purchases, as well as trigger my deep-seeded buyer’s remorse yet again!

Introduction

Note: Credit goes to Bratagat

Hi. Do you like Vermintide 2? Of course you do. That’s why you clicked on this guide, either because you’re curious about what this is or are considering buying the DLCs. I did, too, but because I’m a fool, I bought ALL of the DLC, including the bad ones! Buyer’s remorse is a ♥♥♥!

So to avoid anyone in the future making the same mistakes I did, I’m writing this guide to each of the DLCs in order to avoid potential buyer’s remorse. I’m going to go through each of the DLC as they appear in the store’s page from bottom to the top, and tell you what MY opinion is on all of them, if you should buy them or not, and what they have included as best as I can.

If you see a mistake or want to ask a question, leave a comment! Just be sure to check others’ comments before you do.

Premium Cosmetics & Keep Paintings

To get this out of the way, my opinion on premium cosmetics for anything is: no. I have premium cosmetics for the DLC careers, but I also hate myself for making such a bad decision. Nobody notices your nice hats in the heat of battle, sadly. Buy them if you want, but if you don’t want to waste money, don’t buy any of the premium cosmetics for any career or character.

The keep paintings are a nice cherry on top. That’s all. I just wish they had proper artist credits. I also wish half of their flavor texts played audio clips, because Lohner always has something to say, except when the game breaks and displays some bit of code instead. Sad.

Shadows Over Bogenhafen

So this DLC, as far as I’m aware, has two main features: one – the two new maps, and two – the new hats and weapon skins. The purple weapon skins, like the blue ones, look ugly to me and I hate them. The new cosmetics you get for each career like hats and skins, are OKAY at best. It depends on how much you like the color purple.

The maps included are the Pit and the Blightreaper. Both of which I dislike because their level gimmicks feel lame and more annoying than intense and fun.

The Pit, at the most, is just okay for me. It has a nice atmosphere to it with the level going from night to day as you progress, going into a really filthy and abandoned shantytown that then leads into a criminal hideout that you set on fire – it really makes you feel like you’re in the worst parts of a large city!

The hideout has windows that you can board up, but Verm2 is a game where you, at a certain point, begin adopting what I dub “The Meat Grinder Mentality.” So instead of boarding up the windows, you go to the second floor via a ladder, jump over to a certain spot, and proceed to watch the enemies hop over to you, taking advantage of their stupidity to turn the game into, as I’ve said, a meat grinder. Which is boring as hell, but it’s kinda funny at the same time to watch them continuously hop and bounce right into your flurry of metal and gunpowder.

And then the Pit continues for a bit afterwards, until you reach a point where you have to open up a gate and make a mad dash towards the finish, as a Skaven ship begins firing Warpstone bullets at you and your team. Oh, and there’s a horde chasing you the entire time. And I always hate walking through this part, because it’s just you running from a horde and ignoring action. Why even have this bit at all? It’s just not that interesting.

The Blightreaper I have much less fond things to say about. The level design in the middle part is good with you slowly making your way UP Bogenhafen, but the beginning part where you have to carry a torch in blinding darkness…sucks. I hate it. Always have. Sienna’s a fire wizard, for god’s sake, she’s a GIGANTIC LIVING TORCH, why can’t she just light up the dark herself?

But then we get to the end of the level, and it’s just waiting and waiting for an icon to appear as waves on waves of Pactsworn try to deter you from hitting the switches. But if you already knew where the switches were, WHY WOULDN’T THE GAME LET YOU SWITCH ON ALL FIVE AT ONCE!? Forget the flavor reasons, this is a game first and foremost! If it was like Righteous Stand where you had to activate the secret switches and then hold off enemies, I’d be fine with it. But no, they have to make you WAIT for the icon to appear, needlessly dragging this part of the game out!

The ending bit with the Blightreaper converting all your HP to Temp HP is interesting. I’d like to see that explored or extended more, but sadly that’s not the case, as the exit isn’t even that far from the Blightreaper’s chamber.

Do I recommend you get Bogenhafen? No. To me, it’s just not that worth it in my opinion. Sure, you get more levels, but those levels aren’t really all that interesting or fun to me. Plus, they all have annoying parts that don’t encourage me or my team to do something new or creative, and most of the time, they just make us lost or separated or both. Skip this DLC.

Collector’s Edition Upgrade

Get this ON SALE. Soundtrack is the majority of the interest here for me. Can’t get enough of that theme. AND I believe the DLC soundtracks are included as well. And this game’s OST slaps when it needs to, believe me.

The wallpapers are okay*, the digital maps are nice flavor additions, and everything else is…meh. But if you’re a dedicated Sigmarite, you do get the ability to have a statue of Sigmar in the Keep. But still, get it on sale. Sigmar wouldn’t want you paying $15 for his statue. He’d want you to be happy, like the true badass he was (and still is).

*Also, I just realized this now, but some of the wallpapers shown in the store page weren’t included in this Upgrade. Not that it’s a big deal, though. Nearly all the wallpapers in this upgrade are lackluster.

Back to Ubersreik

Three new levels that are each given new life with the Verm2 careers, plus Fortunes of War, a level I have never played on Cata because I’m terrified of it. Three new great weapons plus two weapons that just suck. For $5, it’s a good deal and worthwhile purchase. Quick Play will always give me Garden of Morr.

I hate Garden of Morr and Engines of War. Both of those missions have the same issues as Shadows; good levels with parts of it that I absolutely HATE going through. Nobody ever teams up when you get to the poison cauldron in Garden, which means the hordes that spawn after each broken chain pile up and overwhelm the team.

Nobody ever sticks together in Engines of War at that one part where you have to carry explosive barrels when you’re being poked at by Skavenslaves and Plague Monks, and I swear that half of the time, the runs end here because of how spread out the team gets.

Horn of Magnus is a good level, though. Except for the ending bit where at a certain point, the game stops spawning waves of enemies for a while, making it last just THAT much longer.

Fortunes of War is something I’ve never tackled on higher difficulties, but you do need a good team to coordinate on it.

The five new weapons included are, for the most part, pretty good. Here’s a quick rundown of each:

• Sword and Mace: For Kruber, these are a nice pair of weapons to have. From what I’ve used of them, they have some decent cleave and pretty good single target damage. Maybe not the best melee option, but a solid choice. People use this on Grail Knight a lot, for what I assume to be speedruns while making Kruber flail around like an idiot to go faster.
• Dual Hammers: Oh lord, I love these things. Dual Hammers is really good for cleaving through hordes. Especially on Slayer. An essential weapon.
• Elven Axe: It’s a single axe for Kerillian. Just ONE axe. It looks nice, but that’s about it. I haven’t used it that much, but from what I have used of it, it’s just not as good as her other melees. Just don’t use this unless you want to underperform.
• Axe and Falchion: From my experience, this is easily up there with Dual Hammers. It’s a solid alternative to the Rapier, and it is REALLY good for hordes, single target damage, etc. Absolutely amazing weapon for Saltzpyre.
• Crowbill: I remember using this weapon on Sienna because I wanted to get multiple challenges done in one go. It sucked. It’s not useless, but it does NOT feel good to control.

So overall, Back to Ubersreik is a good package on sale. Good weapons, good levels with annoying parts in them, and one really tough map that will stretch your Verm2 skills to their limits.

Winds of Magic

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.

I want you to understand that Winds of Magic absolutely sucks ass. The Beastmen as a faction are boring as hell to fight. The Standard Bearers and Archers are both annoying as hell to fight, and yet they are still boring as all hell. The Minotaur as a monster gave me a nightmare, which is sort of dumb because I now know that the Chaos Spawn is way more dangerous even if you know how it works.

Dark Omens as a map is also bad. It’s ugly as hell, doesn’t flow well, and the ending bit with the warpstone meteor “ritual” is both stupid from a narrative and a gameplay perspective. The warpstone meteor end section is a run-ender and not for a good reason like Convocation of Decay. It’s like Convocation of Decay, except there’s no variety of special units! It’s JUST Beastmen! And they just throw Standard Bearers at you to multiply Beastmen health pools to make them unkillable!

Oh, and Weaves? Weaves suck. Here’s how they work. You have to play Dark Omens first, which is already a bad idea by itself. You then have to collect Essence by playing normal missions and you only get SCRAPS of Essence per mission. You then spend said measly-gained Essence on Weave-only equipment and skills, which must be MANUALLY UPGRADED ONE LEVEL AT A TIME. And it takes so much tedious clicking, that the time it takes upgrading your melee, your second slotted weapon, and your amulet that acts as your Weave-only talents takes about half the time of a normal mission, IF NOT MORE!

And the Weaves themselves have some mutators that just ♥♥♥ suck unless you’re a Zealot. Punishing you for killing enemies by spawning a thorn bush! Turning your health into temp HP because you didn’t avoid the floating ghost bubble! And the Weaves are just regular maps but turned BACKWARDS, finished by an ending arena against one to two monsters. And might I add that the entire Weave has NO ammo, NO health regen items, no potions or bombs, NOTHING. You take damage? ♥♥♥ you. Die. *chaos spawn slaps you off the edge of the arena*

Not even the weapons make up for it.

• Sienna’s flaming flail is the best in this package. It ignores shields, making shielded Stormvermin and Bulwarks (the Norscans with the wooden shields) a total joke. Plus, it applies some burn afterwards, too.
• Kerillian’s Spear and Shield is great for Handmaiden. You can become the tank of the team if there’s no Ironbreaker and control crowds with the charged attacks and good pushes.
• Bardin’s Throwing Axes are fun and satisfying as hell, but they also chunk your teammates with friendly fire damage. Use with EXTREME caution around your teammates.
• Saltzpyre’s Billhook is a bit jank but really good for stunning Elites with the hooking attack. I believe Witch Hunter Captain’s passive of “Crit headshots instakill man-sized foes” also applies to the hooking attack, making it a really nice way to safely dispose of Stormvermin.
• Lastly, Kruber’s Tuskgor Spear isn’t useless, but it’s also not my cup of tea. Its combos feel stiff and the upside of being able to charge while moving faster isn’t enough for me to feel like it’s a good weapon.

If you REALLY want the weapons like I did – just don’t get WoM, you have way better options at your disposal.

Oh, and locking Cataclysm difficulty behind a paywall is dumb. ♥♥♥ this DLC. It’s not even worth it if it was free. Avoid this like the Empire avoids Bretonnia.

Grail Knight

I like Grail Knight. Good tank career with funny dialogue, even if I could never really see Kruber as a Bretonnian. Calling Saltzpyre a peasant is humorous. A melee only career, but he CAN block Warpfire Throwers with any shield. The pack comes with a Bretonnian longsword and a Bretonnian sword and shield, which are good even if they’re a bit wonky for me to use. His career skill is really nice for single target nuking or cleaving burst damage. He still can’t use the Spear and Shield, which upsets me greatly.

Get him if you like Kruber or Bretonnia or both. Or get it if you want two solid weapons that any of the other three careers can use. Avoid it if you don’t play Kruber much. That’s all I have to say. But it’s still funny to give Grail Knight a Sword and Mace and make him flail his little arms around.

Outcast Engineer

People say Engi’s underpowered. I have to say that if you don’t like ranged careers, you shouldn’t really get Outcast Engi for the career. Outcast Engi isn’t a tank career, so giving him a shield isn’t the greatest idea. He’s also not suited to horde clearing, because his minigun gets interrupted when you take a single point of damage.

However, what Engi excels in is BOSS DAMAGE. You shred through bosses like paper, and the Level 30 Talent, “Innovative Ammo Hoppers,” makes your minigun capable of firing even longer provided you kill a special with it. Considering the fact that many specials give you time to react to them, killing one special during a boss encounter makes a big difference in damage. The minigun also pairs really well with any potion. Even speed potions, if you don’t mind blowing through your career skill meter.

Other than that, Outcast Engi’s pack also has a Coghammer and the Masterwork Pistol, two weapons that are ABSOLUTELY amazing on Bardin, and must-haves. I will never get sick of putting down Chaos Warriors with a single charged bonk from the Coghammer. Masterwork pistol is also a pretty good weapon, versatile for everything from boss damage to sniping.

Get this pack for the weapons first, and the Engi career second. Both are at the very least decent, and Coghammer and the pistol can be used on every career (except the pistol on Slayer), making them staples in Bardin’s arsenal of guns and pointy sticks.

Forgotten Relics Pack

Automatic buy in my eyes, even at full price. This pack has five new weapons that are all really powerful or really solid choices for every class. It also comes with free weapon illusions for the five weapons, all of which look very nice.

• Kruber’s Spear and Shield (the same as Kerillian’s but with an extra attack) is super good on Mercenary, but also viable on every other Kruber career too (except Grail Knight, which I am STILL not happy with). The special attack is a jab of the spear that takes a while to cool down, but you can block while poking at enemies.
• Bardin’s Trollhammer Torpedo is the “♥♥♥ you, I don’t feel like dealing with this anymore” weapon. My inner Demoman main is very happy with this thing. It’s a boss deleter and a great emergency button for Ironbreaker mains when they REALLY need to get out of a bad spot.
• Kerillian’s Moonfire Bow was a friendly fire nightmare and the best ranged option aside from the javelin, but they nerfed it in a June 2022 patch and it’s now on par with the other ranged weapons. No longer is it the best option, but it’s also not a weapon that could be responsible for making your entire team suffer, so you win some, you lose some.
• Saltzpyre’s Griffon-foot Pistols are super good on Bounty Hunter, and pretty good options for Saltzpyre’s other careers as well. Horde clearing as Bounty Hunter has NEVER been easier.
• Sienna’s Coruscation Staff is a good weapon for Sienna’s Battle Wizard career, but it’s also a nice option to have for the other careers as well. Burning enemies with this staff doesn’t feel all that impactful, so I never really used it.

Sister of the Thorn

SotT is a very good pack for Kerillian mains everywhere. It’s a strong support class with some solid debuffing and crowd control options, plus it comes with two new weapons that are the best in the game right now.

• Deepwood Staff is really, REALLY good. You can disable one enemy, except bosses, for a long time. Lift up a whole Chaos Warrior and let your team slap him around! Lift a Stormvermin with a shield and watch his life go bye-bye! It’s endlessly useful against mobs, and decent at long-range sniping, too. Not so great against bosses.
• The Javelin is still a really solid option for Kerillian, and Waystalker allows you to hurl two for the price of one. It’s a sharp and pointy middle finger to everything, even bosses, but the reload animation takes a good while. Always run Conservative Shooter on this weapon.

And as for the career itself, it used to be really good because of the chunk of extra healing as well as the busted level 30 skill that made anything lesser than a Minotaur or Chaos Spawn just ♥♥♥ off and die. But now, it’s just a solid overall career. Extra healing, putting DoTs on enemies, strong crowd control options, SotT has that. It’s not a career that makes me go, “WELP, time to watch the Kerillian delete Chaos Warriors without help” anymore, which is a good thing, mind you.

Warrior Priest

Now, as an avid enjoyer of Saltzpyre, you might think I’d go, “THIS CAREER IS A MUST-BUY!” But honestly, I don’t think Warrior Priest is really that necessary. Outcast Engineer and SotT had two weapons that transcended beyond class limitations, but Warrior Priest of Sigmar is a really good idea with a really bad weapon lineup.

His career itself is great. I love the idea of Saltzpyre being more of a team-centric tank. Giving you or your teammate (or both when you get the right talent) invulnerability is a BIG deal. Being a tank-healer-damage dealer with the potential to flex between all three aspects is super interesting. Never will you feel more like a man smiting the unclean than with Warrior Priest. I LOVE this career.

However, his weapons aren’t that amazing. His best ones to me are his Flail and Shield, his Dual Hammers, and his Holy Great Hammer. And that last one is only because you can PUNCH with the special attack. It’s funny. The other options are just either reskins of other weapons, or too slow to be viable in the intense fights you can find yourself in. I’m sorry, Blessed Tome, but I can’t read you if I’m being stabbed by a single Skavenslave.

So do I recommend Warrior Priest? It’s really up to you. If you like being a huge tanky character with some good support options, then this is the career for you! But if you like having more interesting weapons to play around with, then sorry to say, but the weapons Warrior Priest comes with is all he’s getting. No rapier, no single flail, no axe and falchion, just a melee-only career with a focus on blunt force trauma.

Conclusion

So out of all the DLCs, what ones do I think you should buy? Well, in order of importance, here they are:

• Forgotten Weapons Pack, for the great range of new and powerful weapons to play around with.
• Outcast Engineer and Sister of the Thorn for fun careers and weapons that are powerful by themselves.
• Back to Ubersreik for three great weapons, two bad weapons, and three alright levels with bad sections in them, and Fortunes of War, the scariest map in the game aside from Enchanter’s Lair.
• Grail Knight and Warrior Priest for good careers with some good weapons. Nothing amazing, but their arsenals get the job done well enough even with their shortcomings.
• ♥♥♥ everything else.

At the end of the day, if you think you’ll have fun with something like a silly hat that costs $5, I won’t stop you from buying it. Vermintide 2 has something for everybody, and we’re all here to have fun and genocide rats and fictional Viking men that never take a shower or wipe their ass. So if you want to spend $10 JUST for the Flaming Flail, do it! I’m not going to stop you! I’m just saying that it’s a bad idea! Right next to everything else about Winds of Magic!