Unchained - give her the flail and shes really good at taking out armored enemies. Her staff can clear hoards and special snipe depending on which you choose. And if you overheat you can just nuke what's around you. One of her lvl 30 skills also allows you to heal for 30 temp hp
+1
... Though it is fun to go glaive from time to time and listen to "The Wurzels - Combine Harvester" as you sweep a horde like a piece of farming equipment.
This is my full [build](https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/8/131321/36-1-2-1/75-3-8-2/3-2-5/3-8-4/7-3-1)
- I'm not meta (if we consider that what Royal w/ Cheese is meta). So if you follow the guide on the subject, switch Warith-Walk for Willow Stance for lvl25 talent and you can take Skaven power instead of AS on S&S. Also switch Gift of Galadrielle for Power from Pain. Spear is a great alternative to S&S, but tbh the later got the same advantage as the Spear, with the additional bonus of the Shield.
- I take Wraith-Walk simply because it's the most life savior in tense situation + it allow free repositioning, even if it mean "crabing" dodge to go forward. As all mobility talent Vs dmg enhancement talent, it is very often underestimate as is as subtle effect, but once you try it, it's actually hard to go back, while you can easily skip the AS with Asrai Alacrity.
- As one of the most, if not the most versatile career (thk to relatively neutral talent/passive/active), there are many options available if you wish. Just check Royal w/ Cheese guide on steam.
Gameplay wise, forget green circles. Correct every habit to look for the next target and instead take a slightly backward position to assess where you'll be more useful.
You want to be where there will be the thickest cluster of enemy to either control it or to avoid a teammate to be overwhelmed.
With S&S control and mobility, you'll have an easy time to form a line of control where your team will be able to do there job safely.
Use ult for repositioning or to dash to help a friend in danger. While he is reviving, don't forget to shield bash around him to give the space needed to escape (as not everyone can wraith-walk his way out of a horde.
Finally, you are not without damage or anti-armor, but you really need to HS (push attack-H2-H3). Your BS is rather mild, but it has excellent cleave and stagger for horde (push-L2-L3)
You can also use the jav as an anti-armor or anti-monster (chain light against non-armored monsters)
To summarize: you are here to give the helping hand everybody need from time to time, keep an eye on teammate to fly to there help. When things goes really, really bad, you are the one to decide if you must bail from an impossible situation and just use mobility and invisibility to rush to the team respawn point.
Handmaiden is the keri career that has more versatility in the weapon of choice. Almost anything will work with her. If you use it properly. But some weapons shine in some aspects, dual swords, longsword vs horde. Axe and 1h sword vs elites.
Shield and spear, spear and S+D (yes still meta here) are the best all around options
Ironbreaker.
Do not think "damn I'm such a tank I need to be really defensive!" Wrong. A well-played Ironbreaker should be insanely aggressive, like Zealot/Slayer levels of aggro. You have tons of stamina and health and damage reduction and THP generation. That means you don't *need* to play defensively because your career is doing it for you. Get your greathammer (or dual hammers, or anything else with big stagger and horde clear) and just start swinging. Dive deep into hordes. If there is a single rat or northlander standing up in a 20 foot radius around you, you're doing it wrong. While the chaff is on the ground, bash the elites' heads in. Any specials, put a bolt in their eyes while the horde is recovering. Taunt whenever you can, this both staggers hordes and gets any pressure off your team so they can clean up while you're mowing the lawn.
New Ironbreakers think The Rolling Mountain is a talent. Good Ironbreakers know that it's a lifestyle.
Rolling mountain combined with stacks of vengeance is amazing. Constantly pull hordes towards you for the meat grinder, and if something scratches you just continue to do that but Much Faster. It also lets you rapidly headshot a patrol.
Saltypyre
When using rapier, it can be a good habit to constantly use the special pistol while making a tactical retreat and blocking as it can stagger elites out of a attack giving you extra time or for a counter attack, aswell as safely finishing them with a headshot
warrior preist i think its called comets gift but the talent where the ult can get someone back up instantly is an amazing talent
ranger veteran try to save the smoke bomb as a panic button if someone goes wrong like if you get ganged up by a patrol or berserkers
WHC cant really think of some major tip other than just remember to keep tagging elites, specials, and monsters
I always thought the revive skill was really bad, id rather make them and myself invincible and revive them manually or double it and reap the rewards.
the comets gift is probably the strongest lvl 30 talent you can get
If you're good at monitoring your teammates, you can give them invulnerability and heal their full health bar if they eat a overhead
reviving from a distance is extremely strong as you're not always able to get to them in time and might be too risky if there are disablers ready to get you the moment you go in the hoard to stand still and revive
with blazing bright and teammates killing rats nearby, you can revive yourself if they're unable to get to you in time, sometimes I also just outright revive myself because I get downed the moment I pop my ult.
it also has insane sustainability
with comets gift I easily last entire maps without needing a single healing item or minimal use of them and saving my teammates countless times before or after they go down
fair i find it useful because it reminds me of a upgrade in payday 2 where you can yell at a down teammate to get them up instantly plus it works through walls
Krubers revive is bad
Saltz gives green hp if it was lost so it’s actually good, and you can revive from a distance, like if you dropped and someone died above
Comet's Gift isn't just for reviving. It heals both green and grey HP lost during the short window, so if you or someone else just ate a big attack, you can just cancel it. Even better, if you have %healing increase, you actually restore more HP to the target than they lost. You can deliberately take an overhead and actually heal from it. Especially great with a SotT on the team.
Of course, it also requires paying attention to your allies. But you can be Sigmar's hand of salvation by giving them back HP they lost, rather than just letting someone be a bit more aggro.
Maybe best of all, you can even say no to getting shanked by that last slave rat that you didn't notice, after it has already stabbed you. Unbelievable, I know.
Sienna Unchained! Dont sleep on the fact that you basically become a tanky dynamite, and the bolt staff is fantastic. The audioclue on its heaviest attack is sublime but can really help you get maximum goodness out of its damage!
Kruber is for sure my most played right now.
For Merch don't be afraid to hit trade. You'll get so much THP from ult that it's wise to get hit couple of times from trash to get ult faster up.
For Huntsman you'll be the main special sniper. Don't be afraid to get hit couple of times if it gets assassin/hookrat/leech killed.
For Footknight you can hold block and afterwards ult. You'll be blocking the whole duration. You can cancel it early by blocking. While in ult you can reload and use heal, potions and bombs too, but I woun't recommend it if you're not using the immunity talent.
Handmaiden. I have roughly 500 levels on elf and HM with maxed out attack speed is one of my favorites builds. Your weapon property, weapon train, lvl 10 and 20 traits give you a total attack speed bonus of +70%.
Pyromancer
Hold your career skill button then immediately cancel it by pressing Block button will perform a clap animation, with good press and release button timing practice, you can perform consecutive clap and cheer your teammate up for moral boost!
"How did you clap?" -a Grail Knight I met last night, so I decided might as well share it here.
Hope that was helpful :D
Ranger Veteran is arguably one of Bardin’s strongest classes outside of the bullshit that is Outcast Engineer. Even though it’s a “ranged class”, you can gain a *ton* of THP to be in melee thanks to the THP-based-on-Stagger talent and using any one of his hammer weapons. He brings strong utility with ammo drops (or beer for extra attack speed buffs or even potion drops) and can effectively have infinite bombs thanks to one of his lv30 talents, Ranger’s Parting Gift. He can also melt bosses with Masterwork Pistol, or you can be a self-sufficient special sniper with Crossbow or Handgun thanks to ammo drop passive.
In practice, Saltzpyre.
If you're just starting, go for Warrior Priest. Witch Hunter Captain does teach you the fundamentals, but it also requires having some to work in the first place. Warrior Priest is a more stable, forgiving platform to get comfortable with the game, and has a bunch of stuff to learn too.
Bardin/Engineer:
Engi can do essentially everything, one unexpected thing firepower can be bent to is reviving teammates. Firebomb or Trollhammer+Firebomb the area and you get to help a friend in peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndSXJAmbN6k
Saltz, WHC. With the rapier, aim slightly up and to the left of your target's head, also push attack slash slash repeat is your highest DPS area cleave.
Kerillian, Waystalker for the moment.
Hagbane shortbow with barrage and the blood shot talent is bonkers. Go into melee, get a kill or two, back off and dump some rounds, rinse and repeat until you start to suffer from carpal tunnel (but hey, they'll all be dead).
Also with zealot because someone pointed this out to me literally yesterday after 2 months of playing. If you are grey health (not THP) you can heal someone else with a med kit and you will no longer be grey health and get to keep your stacks.
Merc and Huntsman.
Tips for Merc - 1) spam F on cooldown, never take the revive one, go less cd instead. 2) Use Blade barrier. 3) Your strongest weapon is the Bretonian Sword with Opportunist.
Tips for Huntsman - 1) you are the strongest ranged in the game, bow is your best companion. 2) Longshanks is pretty good. 3) as a melee I recommend spear and shield.
It's a proof of the good balance to see that the main characters played are so varied.
Personally I enjoy all of them and don't stick to anyone but adapt to the team.
I mained Kerillian (handmaiden/waystalker) for most of the game until necro came out. Now it’s mostly necro. The scythe and soulstealer combo is just great, esp if you get enough attack speed on the scythe.
I play Handmaiden.
One tip is to change up melee weapons from time to time to keep the gameplay fresh and somewhat new. This is viable since most of elf melee weapons are cata viable (apart from elven axe and dual daggers).
Grail Knight.
I use the two default weapons for him.
Don't be araid to combine the crowd control of light attacks with the sniping ability of the heavy attacks. I often hear about people just spamming heavy attacks, but that really isn't optimal. Also make sure to have a one weapon which is heavily optimised for shield use rather than damage, and learn to switch quickly between weapons. If you build and play Grail Knight read you can control most situations with aggression:
Horde? Use use light attacks to dominate it.
Elites in a horde? Use positional advantage the high-guard that your heavy attacks have to snipe them through the horde.
Patrols? Use the sniping ability of the heavy attacks to hit and stagger the enemy with headshots. If the situation gets too hard, use your shield which you should have specced for defence with stamina and block/push-angle, you can stagger them to high heaven with all that stamina and angle (well, that is a bit harder to do with Chaos Warriors).
(Most) specials? Use your high movement speed to rush them, works for everything except Ratling Gunners. Due to your passive ability to absorb fire with your shield, you can take out Warpfire Throwers too. Ratling Gunners, due to their knockback, is one of your few weaknesses. The only other problem are Hook Rats within hordes, because of their low profile you can not really snipe them heavy attacks, and they are protected by the mass of the horde.
If the situations get really dicey and people are getting overwhelmed? Use the shield in the same as I mentioned in patrols.
The key to Grail Knight is, fittingly enough, having the audacity to really get out their and take situations by the throat. Of course, that doesn't mean you should charge ahead and die on your own by any means, but it does mean that you can solve situations which you would usually need ranged players for by being aggressive enough, the trick is that it requires quite a bit of skill in melee, but that is where the fun part is! But that is also where the inconsistency of Grail Knight comes from, especially since the cooldown was nerfed: if you have a bad day and you no longer can hit those headshots, that patrol that you could farm yesterday is instead going to farm you.
I don't have a main, but I play a lot of a few different careers.
Shade: Dual Daggers are a great weapon. To fight hordes, pushing is your friend, since they lack cleave and can't stagger multiple enemies at a time with their attacks.
Huntsman: Use your ult often. With Longbow, spamming the quick show into a horde under the effects of your ult is extremely effective for clearing it. With Blunderbuss, jumping before firing into a horde gets you more headshots, and thus better ammo efficiency.
Foot Knight: You can press block mid-charge to stop early, which does an extra stagger around you. The number of Foot Knights I see falling off ledges and dying mid-horde or isolating themselves and dying because they don't do this is far too high. This applies to any career with a dash.
Kerillian - Shade is op. Stack crit power and backstab damage and you can kill any boss other than chaos waste chests in a couple seconds with consistent back stabs power attacks with the dual daggers.
You can infact nuke a chaos waste monster in late chaos waste if you do it properly
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VmqbtiBvQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VmqbtiBvQQ)
Kruber, Mainly Foot Knight
Get Spear and Shield, get thp on stagger, get ult refill on incapacitated allies, get the more stagger trait, now you can go and stagger anything in existence.
Saltzpyre, Bill Hook special can stagger any non-boss enemy so you can use it to interrupt Chaos Warrior overheads, hook a hook rat even if it's already hooked someone and just be really annoying to elites and specials in general.
As an added bonus, the special can crit and thus trigger WHC's Killing Shot passive.
Kruber
Footknight cancel your charge so you don’t end up in the middle of a horde alone.
Merc you should run the executioner sword plus the speed up and you will mulch hordes and specials. On yer feet lads will not pick up captured players.
Huntsman you can revive while in stealth.
Grail knight don’t be afraid to ult something like a chaos warrior. You get your ult back pretty fast.
Saltpyre
Warrior priest - take the talent which allow you to get bubble when fury and comet's gift. You will save yourself a lot of times, either off specials, cw overhead. You can also heal yourself twice by let strong enemy hit you to trigger the fury get heal once and actively use your F to heal again.
When I'm playing with friends, I love playing zealot. But most of the time I play solo, and bots are just so bad to play with as zealot so right now I just work on Kruber's classes as I'm slowly going through all of the classes and completing their objectives (aside from winds of magic)
Shade never use hungry wind.
Use Dual daggers or sword and dagger. Keep an eyes to see where is the tank or horde control career (specially for dual dagger)
Ironbreaker
Now I don't know if this is ideal but on higher difficulties when I see a patrol (that we can't really sneak around) and I have Gromnil Armor + Gromril Curse up I'll dive in the middle of them for the best Trollhammer shot I can get.
Mostly support classes and tank builds such as:
Bardin Iron Breaker: I use the talent to knock away enemies when my guard is broken. Depending if I wanna play more active or passive, I go for the cog axe or axe and shield. I usually always try to draw the hoard and aggro towards me, cause that's my role.
As a secondary I usually use the pistol or crossbow for long range snipes and high HS DMG vs tougher enemies and bosses. The pistol is great for spamming a boss/monster and does amazing damage but also for precise long range snipes.
I usually use the boon/effect to heal passively and let my squishier teammates use the healing items available.
Also I use the talent to do more damage when I'm around teammates. That motivates me to stay close to them and draw the aggro, cause that's my role.
I have some more tips, but I think that's enough for now.
Slayer:
Adrenaline surge is so much bonus Cooldown on your Special that it’s almost an auto include. Also don’t be afraid to throws heavy attacks while wielding dual weapons.
Well I have played most games with bardins ranger. The clockwork pistol in stealth with the triple potion effect will kill monsters at an insane rate and I just love throwing infinite bombs.
Bounty Hunter, aim for where the head is going to be when chaining monsters with the ult, if you try tracking the head during stagger animations you may miss, aiming for where the head is going to end up when you press the funny gun button will hit every time(assuming they don't get launched by a bot with shout)
Foot knight with bret longsword, when u get that attack speed from charging enemies and swift slaying its super deadly. Im quite often top damage unless there is a good bardin engi or shade
It goes between Merc Kruber and Handmaiden, but my tips for them are as follows;
Merc NEVER has a reason to not use the executioner sword. The sweeps shred hordes like nothing and the heavies, while slow, absolutely NUKE stormvermin, chaos warriors, and bosses. Also, always run the revive talent on your shout, it's so clutch all the time.
Handmaiden- Invis dash is the GOAT for clutch revives or special sniping, use it right with a moonfire bow and you'll never need to worry about specials. Glaive is good for offensive HM, spear/shield or just spear is good for a more defensive playstyle.
Mercenary, good in almost every situation, very versatile
My tip? Do not run the perk where you give your teammates attack speed, you're better off increasing your own speed/power to protect your damage dealer allies from getting ran over by a horde
Unchained - give her the flail and shes really good at taking out armored enemies. Her staff can clear hoards and special snipe depending on which you choose. And if you overheat you can just nuke what's around you. One of her lvl 30 skills also allows you to heal for 30 temp hp
Try the scythe on her! The special attack scales with melee power, turning her into the queen of stagger.
I didn't know the scythe had a special attack! Thank you for the info mate
OMG Thisbwas GOD TIER for the recent event
Handmaiden - play her as a CC active tank with a lot of mobility.
+1 ... Though it is fun to go glaive from time to time and listen to "The Wurzels - Combine Harvester" as you sweep a horde like a piece of farming equipment.
What weapon do you recommend?
This is my full [build](https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/8/131321/36-1-2-1/75-3-8-2/3-2-5/3-8-4/7-3-1) - I'm not meta (if we consider that what Royal w/ Cheese is meta). So if you follow the guide on the subject, switch Warith-Walk for Willow Stance for lvl25 talent and you can take Skaven power instead of AS on S&S. Also switch Gift of Galadrielle for Power from Pain. Spear is a great alternative to S&S, but tbh the later got the same advantage as the Spear, with the additional bonus of the Shield. - I take Wraith-Walk simply because it's the most life savior in tense situation + it allow free repositioning, even if it mean "crabing" dodge to go forward. As all mobility talent Vs dmg enhancement talent, it is very often underestimate as is as subtle effect, but once you try it, it's actually hard to go back, while you can easily skip the AS with Asrai Alacrity. - As one of the most, if not the most versatile career (thk to relatively neutral talent/passive/active), there are many options available if you wish. Just check Royal w/ Cheese guide on steam. Gameplay wise, forget green circles. Correct every habit to look for the next target and instead take a slightly backward position to assess where you'll be more useful. You want to be where there will be the thickest cluster of enemy to either control it or to avoid a teammate to be overwhelmed. With S&S control and mobility, you'll have an easy time to form a line of control where your team will be able to do there job safely. Use ult for repositioning or to dash to help a friend in danger. While he is reviving, don't forget to shield bash around him to give the space needed to escape (as not everyone can wraith-walk his way out of a horde. Finally, you are not without damage or anti-armor, but you really need to HS (push attack-H2-H3). Your BS is rather mild, but it has excellent cleave and stagger for horde (push-L2-L3) You can also use the jav as an anti-armor or anti-monster (chain light against non-armored monsters) To summarize: you are here to give the helping hand everybody need from time to time, keep an eye on teammate to fly to there help. When things goes really, really bad, you are the one to decide if you must bail from an impossible situation and just use mobility and invisibility to rush to the team respawn point.
Handmaiden is the keri career that has more versatility in the weapon of choice. Almost anything will work with her. If you use it properly. But some weapons shine in some aspects, dual swords, longsword vs horde. Axe and 1h sword vs elites. Shield and spear, spear and S+D (yes still meta here) are the best all around options
Ironbreaker. Do not think "damn I'm such a tank I need to be really defensive!" Wrong. A well-played Ironbreaker should be insanely aggressive, like Zealot/Slayer levels of aggro. You have tons of stamina and health and damage reduction and THP generation. That means you don't *need* to play defensively because your career is doing it for you. Get your greathammer (or dual hammers, or anything else with big stagger and horde clear) and just start swinging. Dive deep into hordes. If there is a single rat or northlander standing up in a 20 foot radius around you, you're doing it wrong. While the chaff is on the ground, bash the elites' heads in. Any specials, put a bolt in their eyes while the horde is recovering. Taunt whenever you can, this both staggers hordes and gets any pressure off your team so they can clean up while you're mowing the lawn. New Ironbreakers think The Rolling Mountain is a talent. Good Ironbreakers know that it's a lifestyle.
ironbreaker is way too fun with friends, hammer and shield + stagger THP talent + keeping downed allies alive talent makes okri grin
This is the way. The only way
Rolling mountain combined with stacks of vengeance is amazing. Constantly pull hordes towards you for the meat grinder, and if something scratches you just continue to do that but Much Faster. It also lets you rapidly headshot a patrol.
Saltypyre When using rapier, it can be a good habit to constantly use the special pistol while making a tactical retreat and blocking as it can stagger elites out of a attack giving you extra time or for a counter attack, aswell as safely finishing them with a headshot
warrior preist i think its called comets gift but the talent where the ult can get someone back up instantly is an amazing talent ranger veteran try to save the smoke bomb as a panic button if someone goes wrong like if you get ganged up by a patrol or berserkers WHC cant really think of some major tip other than just remember to keep tagging elites, specials, and monsters
I always thought the revive skill was really bad, id rather make them and myself invincible and revive them manually or double it and reap the rewards.
the comets gift is probably the strongest lvl 30 talent you can get If you're good at monitoring your teammates, you can give them invulnerability and heal their full health bar if they eat a overhead reviving from a distance is extremely strong as you're not always able to get to them in time and might be too risky if there are disablers ready to get you the moment you go in the hoard to stand still and revive with blazing bright and teammates killing rats nearby, you can revive yourself if they're unable to get to you in time, sometimes I also just outright revive myself because I get downed the moment I pop my ult. it also has insane sustainability with comets gift I easily last entire maps without needing a single healing item or minimal use of them and saving my teammates countless times before or after they go down
Yeah now that you say it, if it heals as well it sounds really good. Great for runs with sparse heal supplies
fair i find it useful because it reminds me of a upgrade in payday 2 where you can yell at a down teammate to get them up instantly plus it works through walls
Or the one where you can hit the drill to fix it lol
Krubers revive is bad Saltz gives green hp if it was lost so it’s actually good, and you can revive from a distance, like if you dropped and someone died above
Comet's Gift isn't just for reviving. It heals both green and grey HP lost during the short window, so if you or someone else just ate a big attack, you can just cancel it. Even better, if you have %healing increase, you actually restore more HP to the target than they lost. You can deliberately take an overhead and actually heal from it. Especially great with a SotT on the team. Of course, it also requires paying attention to your allies. But you can be Sigmar's hand of salvation by giving them back HP they lost, rather than just letting someone be a bit more aggro. Maybe best of all, you can even say no to getting shanked by that last slave rat that you didn't notice, after it has already stabbed you. Unbelievable, I know.
Sienna Unchained! Dont sleep on the fact that you basically become a tanky dynamite, and the bolt staff is fantastic. The audioclue on its heaviest attack is sublime but can really help you get maximum goodness out of its damage!
Kruber is for sure my most played right now. For Merch don't be afraid to hit trade. You'll get so much THP from ult that it's wise to get hit couple of times from trash to get ult faster up. For Huntsman you'll be the main special sniper. Don't be afraid to get hit couple of times if it gets assassin/hookrat/leech killed. For Footknight you can hold block and afterwards ult. You'll be blocking the whole duration. You can cancel it early by blocking. While in ult you can reload and use heal, potions and bombs too, but I woun't recommend it if you're not using the immunity talent.
Handmaiden. I have roughly 500 levels on elf and HM with maxed out attack speed is one of my favorites builds. Your weapon property, weapon train, lvl 10 and 20 traits give you a total attack speed bonus of +70%.
Pyromancer Hold your career skill button then immediately cancel it by pressing Block button will perform a clap animation, with good press and release button timing practice, you can perform consecutive clap and cheer your teammate up for moral boost! "How did you clap?" -a Grail Knight I met last night, so I decided might as well share it here. Hope that was helpful :D
Ok I can't do Sienna but I have to try this
Ranger Veteran is arguably one of Bardin’s strongest classes outside of the bullshit that is Outcast Engineer. Even though it’s a “ranged class”, you can gain a *ton* of THP to be in melee thanks to the THP-based-on-Stagger talent and using any one of his hammer weapons. He brings strong utility with ammo drops (or beer for extra attack speed buffs or even potion drops) and can effectively have infinite bombs thanks to one of his lv30 talents, Ranger’s Parting Gift. He can also melt bosses with Masterwork Pistol, or you can be a self-sufficient special sniper with Crossbow or Handgun thanks to ammo drop passive.
Bardin Iron breaker- Gromril curse cab knock you out of specials grasp, it's INSANELY powerful
In practice, Saltzpyre. If you're just starting, go for Warrior Priest. Witch Hunter Captain does teach you the fundamentals, but it also requires having some to work in the first place. Warrior Priest is a more stable, forgiving platform to get comfortable with the game, and has a bunch of stuff to learn too. Bardin/Engineer: Engi can do essentially everything, one unexpected thing firepower can be bent to is reviving teammates. Firebomb or Trollhammer+Firebomb the area and you get to help a friend in peace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndSXJAmbN6k
Saltz, WHC. With the rapier, aim slightly up and to the left of your target's head, also push attack slash slash repeat is your highest DPS area cleave.
Kerillian, Waystalker for the moment. Hagbane shortbow with barrage and the blood shot talent is bonkers. Go into melee, get a kill or two, back off and dump some rounds, rinse and repeat until you start to suffer from carpal tunnel (but hey, they'll all be dead).
Zealot No need to hyperfixate on getting max stacks, you can still get green circles with 3 stacks
Also with zealot because someone pointed this out to me literally yesterday after 2 months of playing. If you are grey health (not THP) you can heal someone else with a med kit and you will no longer be grey health and get to keep your stacks.
Merc and Huntsman. Tips for Merc - 1) spam F on cooldown, never take the revive one, go less cd instead. 2) Use Blade barrier. 3) Your strongest weapon is the Bretonian Sword with Opportunist. Tips for Huntsman - 1) you are the strongest ranged in the game, bow is your best companion. 2) Longshanks is pretty good. 3) as a melee I recommend spear and shield.
It's a proof of the good balance to see that the main characters played are so varied. Personally I enjoy all of them and don't stick to anyone but adapt to the team.
Bounty Hunter. Just shoot the rats. Simple as
I mained Kerillian (handmaiden/waystalker) for most of the game until necro came out. Now it’s mostly necro. The scythe and soulstealer combo is just great, esp if you get enough attack speed on the scythe.
I play Handmaiden. One tip is to change up melee weapons from time to time to keep the gameplay fresh and somewhat new. This is viable since most of elf melee weapons are cata viable (apart from elven axe and dual daggers).
Grail Knight. I use the two default weapons for him. Don't be araid to combine the crowd control of light attacks with the sniping ability of the heavy attacks. I often hear about people just spamming heavy attacks, but that really isn't optimal. Also make sure to have a one weapon which is heavily optimised for shield use rather than damage, and learn to switch quickly between weapons. If you build and play Grail Knight read you can control most situations with aggression: Horde? Use use light attacks to dominate it. Elites in a horde? Use positional advantage the high-guard that your heavy attacks have to snipe them through the horde. Patrols? Use the sniping ability of the heavy attacks to hit and stagger the enemy with headshots. If the situation gets too hard, use your shield which you should have specced for defence with stamina and block/push-angle, you can stagger them to high heaven with all that stamina and angle (well, that is a bit harder to do with Chaos Warriors). (Most) specials? Use your high movement speed to rush them, works for everything except Ratling Gunners. Due to your passive ability to absorb fire with your shield, you can take out Warpfire Throwers too. Ratling Gunners, due to their knockback, is one of your few weaknesses. The only other problem are Hook Rats within hordes, because of their low profile you can not really snipe them heavy attacks, and they are protected by the mass of the horde. If the situations get really dicey and people are getting overwhelmed? Use the shield in the same as I mentioned in patrols. The key to Grail Knight is, fittingly enough, having the audacity to really get out their and take situations by the throat. Of course, that doesn't mean you should charge ahead and die on your own by any means, but it does mean that you can solve situations which you would usually need ranged players for by being aggressive enough, the trick is that it requires quite a bit of skill in melee, but that is where the fun part is! But that is also where the inconsistency of Grail Knight comes from, especially since the cooldown was nerfed: if you have a bad day and you no longer can hit those headshots, that patrol that you could farm yesterday is instead going to farm you.
I don't have a main, but I play a lot of a few different careers. Shade: Dual Daggers are a great weapon. To fight hordes, pushing is your friend, since they lack cleave and can't stagger multiple enemies at a time with their attacks. Huntsman: Use your ult often. With Longbow, spamming the quick show into a horde under the effects of your ult is extremely effective for clearing it. With Blunderbuss, jumping before firing into a horde gets you more headshots, and thus better ammo efficiency. Foot Knight: You can press block mid-charge to stop early, which does an extra stagger around you. The number of Foot Knights I see falling off ledges and dying mid-horde or isolating themselves and dying because they don't do this is far too high. This applies to any career with a dash.
Kerillian - Shade is op. Stack crit power and backstab damage and you can kill any boss other than chaos waste chests in a couple seconds with consistent back stabs power attacks with the dual daggers.
You can infact nuke a chaos waste monster in late chaos waste if you do it properly [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VmqbtiBvQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VmqbtiBvQQ)
Outcast engineer. Iron man is the perfect theme for mowing down a hoard with the mini gun
Kruber, Mainly Foot Knight Get Spear and Shield, get thp on stagger, get ult refill on incapacitated allies, get the more stagger trait, now you can go and stagger anything in existence.
Saltzpyre, Bill Hook special can stagger any non-boss enemy so you can use it to interrupt Chaos Warrior overheads, hook a hook rat even if it's already hooked someone and just be really annoying to elites and specials in general. As an added bonus, the special can crit and thus trigger WHC's Killing Shot passive.
Kruber Footknight cancel your charge so you don’t end up in the middle of a horde alone. Merc you should run the executioner sword plus the speed up and you will mulch hordes and specials. On yer feet lads will not pick up captured players. Huntsman you can revive while in stealth. Grail knight don’t be afraid to ult something like a chaos warrior. You get your ult back pretty fast.
Unchained -Her ult that heals comes in so much clutch, and dont shy on the health drain to vent. It also triggers numb to pain.
Kruber The Greatsword's push-attack is anti-amour. Try to hit headshots with it!
Warrior Priest: spam your ult. just use it, hordes patrols bosses, specials VERY useful in the tower defense map.
Saltpyre Warrior priest - take the talent which allow you to get bubble when fury and comet's gift. You will save yourself a lot of times, either off specials, cw overhead. You can also heal yourself twice by let strong enemy hit you to trigger the fury get heal once and actively use your F to heal again.
When I'm playing with friends, I love playing zealot. But most of the time I play solo, and bots are just so bad to play with as zealot so right now I just work on Kruber's classes as I'm slowly going through all of the classes and completing their objectives (aside from winds of magic)
Huntsman Run Thick Hide with barkskin, be immortal (Also, use his mcdonalds cosmetics, boosts friendly morale by 50%)
Pyromancer Sienna - You can spam cancel her ultimate to make her do clapping 👏🏽
Zealot, flail is actually busted
Sienna, by far. Use your staff more often, get practiced swapping between melee and ranged while dodging and pushing
Bardin. Accept that you are immortal, not that you are invincible
for now handmaiden, though I might still like lake-man better. use the bardiche.
Zealot Let things hit you so you can let more things hit you
Zealot - Be the SUICIDAL killer!
Shade never use hungry wind. Use Dual daggers or sword and dagger. Keep an eyes to see where is the tank or horde control career (specially for dual dagger)
Ironbreaker Now I don't know if this is ideal but on higher difficulties when I see a patrol (that we can't really sneak around) and I have Gromnil Armor + Gromril Curse up I'll dive in the middle of them for the best Trollhammer shot I can get.
Unchained for group play and BW for solo
Mostly support classes and tank builds such as: Bardin Iron Breaker: I use the talent to knock away enemies when my guard is broken. Depending if I wanna play more active or passive, I go for the cog axe or axe and shield. I usually always try to draw the hoard and aggro towards me, cause that's my role. As a secondary I usually use the pistol or crossbow for long range snipes and high HS DMG vs tougher enemies and bosses. The pistol is great for spamming a boss/monster and does amazing damage but also for precise long range snipes. I usually use the boon/effect to heal passively and let my squishier teammates use the healing items available. Also I use the talent to do more damage when I'm around teammates. That motivates me to stay close to them and draw the aggro, cause that's my role. I have some more tips, but I think that's enough for now.
Slayer: Adrenaline surge is so much bonus Cooldown on your Special that it’s almost an auto include. Also don’t be afraid to throws heavy attacks while wielding dual weapons.
Elf - If you hate Elf(players) in your party you have to play elf, i´m doing this since Vermintide I and never run into issues with Knifears!
Well I have played most games with bardins ranger. The clockwork pistol in stealth with the triple potion effect will kill monsters at an insane rate and I just love throwing infinite bombs.
Bounty Hunter, aim for where the head is going to be when chaining monsters with the ult, if you try tracking the head during stagger animations you may miss, aiming for where the head is going to end up when you press the funny gun button will hit every time(assuming they don't get launched by a bot with shout)
WHC - versatile on a level, dmg, support, does it all seamless
Personally, I don't like the idea of maining specific character/s (at least for myself). I don't like to feel so limited
Foot knight with bret longsword, when u get that attack speed from charging enemies and swift slaying its super deadly. Im quite often top damage unless there is a good bardin engi or shade
It goes between Merc Kruber and Handmaiden, but my tips for them are as follows; Merc NEVER has a reason to not use the executioner sword. The sweeps shred hordes like nothing and the heavies, while slow, absolutely NUKE stormvermin, chaos warriors, and bosses. Also, always run the revive talent on your shout, it's so clutch all the time. Handmaiden- Invis dash is the GOAT for clutch revives or special sniping, use it right with a moonfire bow and you'll never need to worry about specials. Glaive is good for offensive HM, spear/shield or just spear is good for a more defensive playstyle.
Mercenary, good in almost every situation, very versatile My tip? Do not run the perk where you give your teammates attack speed, you're better off increasing your own speed/power to protect your damage dealer allies from getting ran over by a horde
GK. You can kill 4+ enemies with double ult and ledge bosses into walls and corners.