Character Progression — Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Guide

Optimize your Warhammer: Vermintide 2 character progression, mastering hero levels, item acquisition, and crafting for Cataclysm difficulty.

Mastering Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is a journey of continuous character progression, encompassing hero levels, power levels, and the intricate dance of item acquisition and crafting. This section will guide you through optimizing your character's growth from a fresh recruit to a seasoned Ubersreik Five veteran, ready to tackle Cataclysm difficulty.

Hero Leveling: The Foundation of Power

Each of the five heroes (Kruber, Bardin, Kerillian, Saltzpyre, Sienna) has an individual level, maxing out at Level 35. Reaching this cap for a hero unlocks all their career skills and talent choices, providing a significant boost to their overall effectiveness.

• Experience Gain: Experience is primarily gained by completing missions. Higher difficulties and Quick Play bonuses yield more experience. Focus on completing every mission on at least Veteran difficulty to efficiently level up your first character.
• Tome & Grimoire Bonuses: Collecting Tomes and Grimoires during missions provides substantial experience bonuses at the end of the run. Always prioritize finding these, especially in the early stages of leveling.
  • Tomes: Typically found in less-obvious locations or behind minor puzzles. They occupy your healing slot. Examples include the Tome in the first section of Horn of Magnus, located near the burning cart.
  • Grimoires: Often in more challenging-to-reach spots or guarded by elites. They reduce your party's maximum health by 33% each. An example is the Grimoire in Against the Grain, found in the barn's upper level.
• Daily & Weekly Quests: Check Olesya's Challenges in the Keep for daily and weekly quests. These often reward significant experience and commendation chests, which are excellent for early gear.
• First Hero Focus: Concentrate on leveling one hero to 35 first. This unlocks all their careers and talents, making subsequent hero leveling faster due to the "Veteran Bonus" experience gain.

Power Level: Your Gear's Might

Your character's Power Level is a crucial aggregate stat that determines your damage output and survivability. It's the sum of your hero level's power (up to 300 at level 30) and the power of all your equipped items.

• Item Power Progression:
  1. Early Game (Power 1-100): Focus on opening any chests you acquire. Don't worry about specific stats yet. Equip the highest power level item you get for each slot.
  2. Mid Game (Power 100-300): Continue opening chests. At this stage, you'll start seeing items with two properties. Prioritize increasing your overall item power. When you open a chest, the items inside will have a power level based on your current highest possible item power (equipped or in inventory). To maximize this, always open chests with your highest power items in your inventory.
  3. Late Game (Power 300+): Once all your item slots consistently drop at Power 300, you've hit the cap for item power from chests. Now, the focus shifts to crafting and optimizing properties and traits.
• Chests and Their Tiers:
  • Common Chests: Recruit difficulty, lowest power items.
  • Veteran Chests: Veteran difficulty, better power items.
  • Champion Chests: Champion difficulty, good chance for higher power items and rarer qualities.
  • Emperor's Vaults: Legend difficulty, highest chance for Red (Veteran) items and max power items.
  • Commendation Chests: Awarded for hero level-ups and certain challenges. Their item power scales with your current highest possible item power, making them valuable at any stage.

Crafting & Item Optimization: Fine-Tuning Your Build

Once you're consistently getting Power 300 items, the true customization begins at the Crafting Anvil in the Keep (accessible via Lohner's shop).

• Salvaging: Break down unwanted items for crafting materials. Prioritize salvaging lower-rarity items with poor properties.
  • Scrap: From White (Common) items.
  • Dust: From Green (Uncommon) items.
  • Shards: From Blue (Rare) items.
  • Fragments: From Orange (Exotic) items.
  • Skins: From Red (Veteran) items (only if you already own the illusion).
• Crafting New Items: Use materials to craft specific weapon types or trinkets. This is useful for acquiring a base item with Power 300 if you're struggling to get a specific weapon type from chests.
• Reroll Properties: This is where you fine-tune your gear. Spend materials to reroll the two properties on a weapon, necklace, charm, or trinket. Aim for synergistic properties that complement your career and playstyle (e.g., "Attack Speed" and "Crit Chance" for melee weapons, "Power vs. Skaven" and "Power vs. Chaos" for ranged).
• Reroll Traits: Traits are powerful passive abilities on your items. Spend materials to reroll the trait on a weapon or trinket. Some highly sought-after traits include:
  • Melee Weapons: Swift Slaying, Opportunist, Parry.
  • Ranged Weapons: Scrounger, Hunter, Barrage.
  • Necklaces: Barkskin, Natural Bond, Boon of Shallya.
  • Charms: Decanter, Concoction.
  • Trinkets: Shrapnel, Grenadier, Pouch of Infinite Ammo.
• Upgrading Item Rarity: You can spend materials to upgrade an item's rarity (e.g., Blue to Orange). This is crucial for unlocking the full potential of an item, as Orange items have a trait slot, and Red items have maxed-out properties and a guaranteed best-in-slot trait.
• Red (Veteran) Items: These are the pinnacle of gear. They always drop at Power 300, have maxed-out properties, and come with a pre-selected (but rerollable) trait. They are primarily found in Emperor's Vaults (Legend difficulty) and sometimes from Commendation Chests at higher hero levels. While not strictly necessary for Cataclysm, they offer a slight edge and cosmetic illusions.

Talents & Careers: Defining Your Role

Each hero has three distinct careers, each with its own unique active ability, passive benefits, and a talent tree. Experiment with different careers and talent combinations to find what suits your playstyle and team composition.

• Career Skills: Unlocked at Level 1, 7, and 12 for each career. These define the core mechanics of the career.
• Talent Tree: At levels 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30, you unlock a new row of three talents. Choose one talent per row to customize your hero further.
  • Level 5: Often focuses on resource generation or minor buffs.
  • Level 10: Enhances survivability or utility.
  • Level 15: Modifies your career skill or provides significant passive benefits.
  • Level 20: Further enhances your offensive or defensive capabilities.
  • Level 25: Often provides powerful crowd control or damage boosts.
  • Level 30: The ultimate talent row, offering game-changing abilities or significant power spikes.
• Synergy is Key: Consider how your chosen talents interact with your weapons' properties and traits, as well as the other careers in your party. For example, a Foot Knight Kruber with a shield and talents that boost push strength can be an excellent front-line tank, while a Waystalker Kerillian with ranged damage talents excels at eliminating specials.

By diligently following these steps, you will steadily increase your character's power and effectiveness, allowing you to conquer higher difficulties and truly master the art of slaying Skaven and Chaos hordes.