Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – How to Bounty Hunter Guide

Other WV2 Guides:

• All Tomes and Grimoires (Video Guide).
• Advanced Guide for Progression and Leveling.
• Basics of Melee Combat.
• Sienna (Unchained and Pyromancer).
• Tips and Basic Concepts for Newcomers.
• Playing Champion and How to Not Make Common Mistakes.

Weapon Choices

All credit goes to OVALLODA!

I played at least decent amount of time with every weapon with no favorites. And I want to say EVERY BH’s ranged weapon is viable and usable. You just execute them a little bit different from weapon to weapon. For example: most likely you cannot one-shot Chaos Warrior with pistols (pistols does not penetrate armor) but pistols has mentionable sustain potential or you want to hold trash mobs in line in front you while holding volley crossbow in your hands, with repeater pistol you want them to come a little closer.

Side-Arms

• Pistols has an utility. No reload, quick “run and gun” mechanics, good headshot dmg. But in case of pistols I want to mention that you have to change your talent tree. About this scroll a bit (but better keep reading). 
• Volley crossbow. Long reload, in most cases after alt-fire you want to “reload” it by resetting your passive skill (on melee kill) rather than shoot several times and do “fulltime reload”. Has great dmg if you hit all of 3 arrows in alt-fire. Almost no dmg reduction for far distances. 
• Repeater pistol. Quick reload. Great burst fire in alt-fire mode. Normal LMB shots provides you with mobility to react. E.g.: lich behind your back, assassin rat’s jumps, another “jump scares”.
  You can shoot alt-fire with this gun for about 20 meter away with minor damage reduction. So yea, not necessary to come/wait for face-to-face. 
• Crossbow. Great one arrow dmg and penetration. Likely to one-shot specials on far distances. One-shot Chaos Warrior in the head on closer distances.
  Very popular choices are Volley Crossbow and Repeater Pistol.

Melee

Melees pros & cons are more obvious than side-arm’s.
First of all, want to point out cold weapons I don’t like:

• Two-handed long-sword. Someone may argue like “It has much stamina, great cleave etc”. But I really dislike this weapon. You get no additional dmg to compensate it’s slow swings and cleave isn’t good enough to overshadow falchion’s cleave. I won’t recommend to start your BH progress with this weapon. 
• Rapier. Has a special weapon action a.k.a “water pistol”. “Water pistol” provides with good utility (you have no ammo? But you have rapier special), decent close range dmg and some crowd control. I do really like rapier’s attack speed and clear trash mobs potential. But apart from it has nothing. Even overpowered BH sometimes cannot one-shot trash rat. What to say about Chaos specials. You have to prepare heavy headshot attack so your dmg be smh mentionable.
  TL;DR: great trash mobs clear, the worst in everything else.

Important note I want to mention: Axe, Flail and Falchion has an equal usability. I can’t say one of them is super better or super worse. Every one of them excels in different situations.

• Axe. Deal halved dmg to shields, penetrates armor, decent cleave, decent attack speed. Well rounded weapon. 
• Flail. Completely ignore shields (direct body dmg), has no armor penetration, low stamina (2 points), good attack speed, below average cleave compensates with better attack speed. 
• Falchion. Probably the best cleave, good attack speed, penetrates armor, 2 stamina, good headshot dmg. 

How do you choose:

• Want cleave, penetration and good attack speed? Falchion.
• Want be at easy when you face shields, has enough stamina to defend yourself and armor penetration? Axe.
• Want to give 0 f about shields, satisfy yourself with juicy headshots, and have enough ability to clear trash? Flail.

These 3 above are really good well rounded weapons in this game. Along the way I just switched between them when I received more powerful kind.

Talents Tree

In general, it will be like this:

Use with Crossbow and Volley Crossbow.

For Repeater Pistol it looks like this:

In case of Pistols:

Note: pay attention to Leave None Behind Instead of Necessary Means

What Stats and Traits You Want to Prioritise

Melee

Viable traits:

• Melee critical hits reduces the remaining cooldown of your career skill by 2.0%
• Increases push strength by 50% when used against an attacking enemy
• Timed blocks reduce stamina cost by 100%

With level 25 talent we can spam ability every minute (normal ability CD is 90 secs). And with first mentioned trait you can decrees it even further. Since you already can one-shot Chaos Warrior. This trait let you use your ability whenever you in need for it freely. Like clear trash, one-shot any special (or several), more often Crowd Control bosses.

And two later traits just useful in any situation. If you do combo: attack -> block-push -> attack, or attack x2 -> block-push then those traits most likely to proc.

Stats you are looking for:

• Attack Speed
• Crit Chance
• Crit Power
• Stamina

Block Stamina Cost ain’t bad either. But I less often block and more push, so just look what you need.

Ranged

Viable traits:

Honestly, smh BH has no traits that fit his kit and style. During progress I didn’t bother myself about traits on ranged weapon or about orange weapons generally. But we have some gems here.

But you may like:

• Headshots replenish 1.0 ammo
• Ranged critical hits reduces the remaining cooldown of your career skill by 2.0%
• Critical hits restore 2.0 ammo

Of all this list I would like to recommend use 3rd one (Scrounger) for your Volley Crossbow or Repeater Pistol. With this talent you literally can forget about ammo packs. You will restore 2 ammo for every enemy critical hit. So, you shoot alt-fire with these 2 guns with your Blessing Shots ready – you refill 2 ammo into your pocket per enemy hit.

Stats:

• Crit Chance
• Crit Power
• Power vs Armored
• Power vs Infantry

Armored so you can deal even more dmg (just in case) with your alt-fire side-arms and in case you has Axe/Falchion.

Infantry stat for better mass clear trash.

Necklace

Viable traits:

• Healing an ally with a medpack also heals you for 35.0% of your missing health 
• Grants passive health regeneration but can no longer heal yourself

Hand of Shallya in every situation. Natural Bond if solo with randoms and you have enough overconfidence in your skills. I won’t recommend take Natural Bond on higher levels of play.

Stats:

• Block Stamina Cost
• Stamina

Sometimes take a look for Damage Reduction vs AoE attacks.

Charm

Viable traits:

Most interesting traits are here.

• Drinking a potion grants the effect of all other potions. Duration reduced by 50%
• Increased duration of potions by 50%
• Consuming a potion spread the effect to the nearest ally

First of all, you have to pick Strength/Concentration potions. Former gives you damage, second – let you spam 2-3 ults (abilities) with 1 potion.

Stats:

• Attack Speed
• Crit Power
• Power vs Armored
• Power vs Infantry

Trinket

Viable traits:

• Increases grenade explosion radius by 50%
• Increases damage taken by bombed targets by 20% for 10 seconds.

Shrapnel can be useful on higher difficulties (Legend).

Stats:

Also interesting stats placed here.

• Cooldown Reduction
• Crit Chance
• Curse Resistance
• Stamina Recovery Rate

CD reduction – if you get big numbers like 10%.

Curse Resistance – you WANT this. I believe you want handle grims in this game for better loot. Even if you won’t then your teammates will do. In any case, this is the most important stat for trinket.

Stamina Recovery – not that bad if you feel yourself offended by many enemies. Or you just don’t want to reroll 33% Curse Resistance.

How to Progress and Play

Save Commendation chests until you are ready to step into Champion difficulty. Or even further than that. Logic here is: more you save untill the very end game – faster you progress to achieve 600 character power or better your perfomance on Champion/Legend.

At around level 25 or 300-400 character power you may think to open it. But it’s up to you. If you feel like you don’t get good items and stuck for too long at some difficulty/”suc way too much” – go on.

Forget about stats and traits before Champion difficulty. Equip the most powerful items. White, green, blue – doesn’t matter. You want to accumulate power ASAP. Power come by items and level. If you are passionate about this game then you want skip recruit and veteran difficulty. And you will do it really fast.

Don’t craft. Maybe only rare items you are unlucky with. But don’t upgrade for sure at all. Reroll stats if you have some dust to spare. Like 50 green or above. You will need many resources later for end game content.

If you want to walk through this game as If it’s an easy mode then find party and make a group. Groups transform this game into casual one. Honestly I would recommend play in group only of 2 people or go for Legendary difficulty if you are pack of 4.

Most important tip:

Don’t shoot left and right after Champion difficulty. Don’t be like those elf/siennas plebs. You are better than them. You don’t waste ammo on trash. At least do it with passive skill reset in mind. And be aware of your mate’s position most of the time. Why: so you will not be able to friendly fire them smh and sometimes they even can save you.

Often asked question:

When do I go higher difficulty?

1. Difficulties has power caps. 200 for recruit, 400 for veteran and 600 for champion.
2. Watch your item power. If you are at 100 then there’s no reason to play recruit anymore since chests will not give you more powerful items. And you don’t want to stuck on Veteran with 200 item power. Etc etc.
3. Your confidence. If you clear stage easily, then maybe it’s time to change it?

If I remember correctly, I switched from Veteran to Champion at around 300 character power.

On Map

In normal cases, what you do is: Shoot alt-fire with your side-arms (a.k.a repeater pistol / volley crossbow) -> Cut with melee some trash mob or deny your prior target -> Shot another one or go on with bullet hell.

If you are too lazy even for this then just go with this in mind: be prepared to alt-fire Chaos Warrior/Mauler or another special enemy and cut with your melee everything else. Usually with enough power you deny Mauler with just 2-3 hits by your falchion/axe/flail. Blessing Shots gives you an opportunity to one-shot Chaos Warriors or at least leave them with 5% hp.

Bosses

• Your Blessed Shots have to be ready.
• First, you drink your potion if it’s Strenght potion.
• Secondly, shoot your alt-fire with side-arms (ranged).

Next, unload your Locked and Loaded skill. If instead of Strength potion you have Concentration potion then drink it right away.

Effect of Strength potion applies to grenades.

Keep shooting. Boss most of his life time will be agroed on YOU since you most likely deal the biggest damage. Dodge and block. 2/3 of your dodges should be to the sides. Unless you met Spawn of Chaos (Kraken tentacle hentai rival). Kite around your teammates in their line of sight. Don’t stuck in a corner, some maps knowledge may help.

You want to shoot your ranged weapon with Blessing Shots ready before Locked and Loaded because it (ability) was nerfed and Bosses resistance to damage increased. Generally, you deal more dmg with your gun if you have Blessing Shots than with your ability.

Also keep in mind special enemies. Again, you can count on your teammates that they will kill them or react in time to rescue you. BUT, don’t count on that too much, you will be dissapointed.

Tip: if your teammate was caught by Spawn of Chaos you can CC (stun) boss with your skill. So this way you prevent it from healing. Same goes for Bile Troll when he sits.